Gender agenda confirmed: men chase looks, women want brains

Women look for a range of traits in a sexual partner while men focus on looks and physical build, a new study finds.

Men place greater emphasis on looks and physical build, while women prioritise intelligence, trust and emotional connection. Picture: iStock

Who would have guessed? When it comes to sexual attraction, men place greater emphasis on looks and physical build, while women prioritise intelligence, trust and emotional connection, a new study has confirmed.

But there is a key genetic reason behind why women are choosier than men, the research notes — which is that women have a smaller reproductive window in which they are under pressure to make their best choice for a procreation partner.

The study, Sex Differences in Sexual Attraction for Aesthetics, Resources and Personality Across Age, uses data from 7000 people aged 18 to 65, noting that as the two genders aged the reasons for their attraction merged as they sought the personality traits of openness and trust.

There is a greater male priority for attractiveness and physical build, compared to females, relative to all other traits. Picture: iStock

“On average, females rate age, education, intelligence, income, trust, and emotional connection around nine to 14 points higher than males on our 0–100 scale range,” the study, which was published in the international journal PLOS One, finds.

“(There is) greater male priority for attractiveness and physical build, compared to females, relative to all other traits, it says.

The study looked at nine traits that affect sexual attraction: age, attractiveness, physical build and features, intelligence, education, income, trust, openness and emotional connection.

QUT behavioural economist Stephen Whyte, the report’s co-author, said the findings confirmed the heavier reproductive burden women face.

 

“Females are more selective about other characteristics because their time for reproduction is more limited so they can’t risk choosing poorly,” Dr Whyte said.

“They will be gestating for a considerable period of time, and there’s a further time period of lactation, so if they get it wrong they pay a much higher reproductive price.

“The traits women prioritise in men, like personality or intelligence, are not because men have more of them, but because those traits are proxies or indicators for what their potential offspring might have. Choosing male sexual partners this way is part of the evolutionary game we play as a species,” Dr Whyte said.

The study also found younger men rated physical build higher than older men, but attractiveness remained a constant throughout the life of all males. And it revealed other gender traits.

“Both sexes regard income as the least important factor, but females do place a higher importance than men on education and intelligence, although men regard openness as slightly more important than the females surveyed,” Dr Whyte said.

“As men and women age, their preferences come closer together, with both sexes placing greater importance on openness and trust, while the relative importance of emotional connection is as important for males and females across all age groups.”

The report found differences within the same gender depending on the person’s age, with women aged 40 to 55 caring more about intelligence than other female age groups.