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My theoretical explanation for the gap is that women are sensitive to much more than physical appearances when selecting a mate. When men select a mate, they o
by loudmax 1y ago
My theoretical explanation for the gap is that women are sensitive to much more than physical appearances when selecting a mate. When men select a mate, they over-index on physical characteristics, relative to women.
So, women will take into account a man's physical appearance, but also his social standing is also very important, plus perceived intelligence and dependability and so on.
When men look at women, physical beauty is paramount. Intelligence and so on is a plus, but not nearly to the extent that it is for women looking at men.
The other part of the explanation is menopause. Humans live long past the age of sexual fertility, which is somewhat unusual in the animal kingdom. Presumably, ancient human social structures made it beneficial to have grandparents around, in a way that does not exist for most other animals. Relative to other species, this puts more evolutionary pressure on human males to seek out females that are of reproductive age, and ignore older women.
The combination of these factors means that female physical appearance comes out as a prime selector in humans, in a way that it doesn't for other animal species. Male physical appearance is also significant, but relatively less important because of other factors, especially a male's status in the social hierarchy.
Anyway, that's my explanation, but I wouldn't hold any of this as a firm belief. Coming up with evolutionary psychological explanations for sex differences is easy. Actually testing them is much harder.
- beAbU 1y ago> Humans live long past the age of sexual fertility, which is somewhat unusual in the animal kingdom Interesting take. Do you reckon this happened for long enough in human history that it's had an impact on the evolution on the male psyche? I'm under the impression that it's only in the last 1000 years or so where life beyond 30-40 years started to become the norm.
- jappgar 1y agoHN is not a good place to ask questions on Anthropology, so I'd encourage you to read primary source materials. You have a common misconception about human longevity. The "average" lifespan of humans was only 30 -40 years because very young humans would frequently die from disease or accidents. Humans have been capable of living to 70+ years for many millenia, it was just rare. 50 yearold humans were not rare though. The average is low because of infant and childhood mortality.
- beAbU 1y agoThanks, I failed to realise that I'm looking at average age, not upper limit. Things like infant mortality drove that number right down.
- pmontra 1y agoCounter example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_Roman_Empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_Roman_Empire What's important is the life expectancy at a given age. There used to be a huge infant mortality but the half of newborn that made it to 10 would live on average 50 years. That means that some of them would live 70 or more. There is a table with life expectancy given the age. At 70 was 6.5 more years. That is from a mix of the sparse available data and models.