Broke women prefer more feminine facial features over manly men: study

If dude looks like a lady he might be Mr. Right.

Previous research has shown that women tend to seek masculine faces in sexual partners due to a primal instinct toward a healthy genetic match to provide the best odds for offspring — even though these men are perceived as less faithful and more likely to desert the nest.

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However, a new study published in Evolutionary Psychology found that women experiencing economic hard times are attracted to men with more feminine features, suggesting that such men are presumed to be more loyal and likely to invest in long-term parental care.

Researchers recruited 802 heterosexual women from social media whose average age was 25 — with 35.08% being single and 62.30% in committed relationships — to complete a survey that explores three domains of scarcity: material, time, and psychological. Questions were designed to detect in what areas of life women were feeling the squeeze, whether they were struggling to pay bills and make time for parenting or felt satisfied with their level of support.

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Participants separately took part in a face rating experiment in which 42 male faces were rated based on attractiveness. Researchers used various facial metrics to analyze their preferences, noting perceived masculinity across photographs.

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Material scarcity — AKA being broke — was strongly associated with an increased preference for feminine male faces, rating them as more attractive overall.

Meanwhile, having too little time and psychological support had no notable effect on the women’s preferences for facial masculinity.

Researchers wrote that they hope to expand their study to include more diverse populations as the requisite access to the internet would preclude participants from even lower economic rungs.

“These findings provide insight into the selection pressures [of women],” they wrote.

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