The Queen - Matt Ridley

PERSONALITIES

So much for what in women attracts men: What draws women to certain men? ,Male handsomeness is affected by the same trinity as female beauty—face, youth, and figure: But in study after study, women consistently agree that these factors matter less than personality and status. Men consistently place physical features above personality and status when considering women; women do not when considering men. 28

The single exception is height: Tall men are universally considered more attractive by women than short men: In the world of dating agencies, the principle that a man must be taller than his date is so universal that it has been called "the cardinal principle of date selection: " Out of 720 applications by couples for bank accounts, only one was from a couple in which the woman was

::: 298 :::

The Red Queen

taller than the man, and yet couples chosen at random from the population would show scores of such cases. People mate "assorta-tively " for height. Men seek shorter wives, and women seek taller husbands. This cannot be due only to the men. When shown drawings of men and women together and asked to write stories to go with them, even women who stated adamantly that the size of a man made no difference to them wrote stories about anxious or weak men more often when the man depicted was shorter than the woman: The laudatory metaphor " he's a big man " is found in many cultures. It has been calculated that every inch is worth $6,000 a year in salary in modern America."

Bruce Ellis has summarized the evidence that personality is critical in men. In a monogamous society a woman often chooses a mate long before he has had a chance to become a "chief, " and she must look for clues to his future potential rather than rely only on his past achievements. Poise, self assurance, optimism, efficiency, perseverance, courage, decisiveness, intelligence, ambition—these are the things that cause men to rise to the top of their professions. And not coincidentally, these are the things women find attractive. They are clues to future status: In one test of this truism, three scientists told their subjects stories about two different people of undefined gender taking part in a tennis match and doing equally well: One was portrayed as strong, competitive, dominant, and determined, the other as consistent, playing for fun rather than to win, easily intimidated by a stronger opponent, and uncompetitive. When asked to summarize the characters of these two people, women and men came up with similar descriptions. But whereas women said that the dominant one was more sexually attractive (if male), men did not find the dominant one more attractive (if female)."

Likewise, the same scientists videotaped an actor in two simulated interviews; in one he sat meekly in a chair near the door, with his head bowed, nodding at the interviewer, while in the other he was relaxed, leaning back and gesturing confidently: When shown the videos, women found the more dominant actor more desirable as a date and more sexually attractive, whereas men did THE USES OF BEAUTY

:::299 :::

not when the actor was female. Body language matters for male sexiness:"

If women select mates on the basis of personality more than men do, this correlates with the fact noted in chapter 8, and well known to many couples, that women are better judges of character. Good female judges of character left more descendants than bad. Good male judges did no better than bad male judges.

The importance of character may explain why Hollywood directors believe that the perfect box-office draw is a familiar, popular male star and a little-known female beauty (and pay them accordingly). Male stars, such as Sean Connery and Mel Gibson, build their reputations gradually: Female stars, such as Julia Roberts and Sharon Stone, rocket to fame in a single movie. The recipe of the James Bond films was perfect: a new girl every time but the same old Bond. (Man, though less than some male mammals, exhibits the "Coolidge effect ": a new female refreshes his libido: The effect is named after the famous story about President Calvin Coolidge and his wife being shown around a farm. Learning that a cockerel could have sex dozens of times a day, Mrs: Coolidge said: " Please tell that to the president. " On being told, Mr.

Coolidge asked, "Same hen every time? " "Oh, no, Mr. President. A different one each time. " The president continued: " Tell that to Mrs. Coolidge.") '2

The evidence that women do use direct clues of male status is overwhelming: American men who marry in a given year earn about one and a half times as much as men of the same age who do not. In a survey of two hundred tribal societies, two scientists confirmed that the handsomeness of a man depends on his skills and prowess rather than on his appearance. Dominance in a man is universally considered attractive by women. In Buss 's study of thirty-seven societies, women put more value on men's financial prospects than vice versa. All in all, as Bruce Ellis put it in a recent review,

" status and economic achievement are highly relevant barometers of male attractiveness, more so than physical attributes."

What are the clues to status? Ellis suggests that clothes and ornaments provide one set of clues: an Armani suit, a Rolex

::: 300:::

The Red Quern

watch, and a BMW are as blatantly revealing of rank as any admiral 's sleeve stripes or Sioux chief 's headdress. In a book that chronicled how fashion has always been, until recently, a matter of class emulation, Quentin Bell wrote: " The history of fashionable dress is tied to the competition between classes, in the first place the emulation of the aristocracy by the bourgeoisie and then the more extended competition which results from the ability of the prole-tariat to compete with the middle classes: . : . Implicit in the whole is a system of sartorial morality dependent upon pecuniary standards of value.'

Bobbi Low has surveyed hundreds of societies and come to the conclusion that male ornaments almost always relate to rank and status—maturity, seniority, physical prowess, ferocity, or ability to indulge in conspicuous consumption—whereas female ornaments tend to signal marital or pubertal status and sometimes husband's wealth. Certainly a Victorian duchess was emphasizing not her own wealth but her husband 's in the class distinctions of her clothes: This applies as plainly in modern urban societies as it did in ancient tribal ones: Tom Wolfe was the first to comment on how the circular ornaments on the hoods of Mercedes-Benzes had become status symbols among Harlem drug dealers.

At this point some evolutionists seem dangerously close to arguing that women have evolved the ability to be impressed by BMWs: Yet BMWs have existed for only about one human generation: Either evolution is working absurdly fast, or there is something wrong: There are two ways to avoid this difficulty, one of which is popular at the University of Michigan, the other at Santa Barbara. The Michigan scientists say something like this: Women do not have an evolved ability to be impressed by BMWs, but they have an evolved ability to be flexible and to adapt to the social pressures of the society in which they grew up. The Santa Barbara scientists say: Behavior itself is rarely what has evolved; it is the underlying psychological attitude that evolves, and modern women possess a mental mechanism, evolved during the Pleistocene period, that enables them to read what correlates to status among men and find such clues desirable.

THE USES OF BEAUTY

::: 301 :::

In a sense, both are saying the same thing: Women are impressed by signals of status, whatever those specific symbols are: Presumably at some point they learn the association between BMWs and wealth; it is not a difficult equation to solve. i5