Macho Men, Do Women Want Them or Not?

Recently I read two versions of report on a series of researches on values of masculinity in modern society.

The detailed analysis of the researches by Wall Street Journal Why Women Don't Want Macho Men (March 2010) is a fascinating read.

Sometime within the past year, nearly 4,800 women participated in an experiment at Faceresearch.org, the online psychology laboratory of the Face Research Laboratory at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. They were young women, mostly in their early- to mid-twenties, and all identified their ethnicity as white. Later, researchers at the lab would confirm from IP address data that the participants came from 30 countries including Argentina, Sweden, Russia, Australia and the United States. The women's country of origin was an important part of the experiment.

After crunching the data—including the women's facial preferences, their country of origin and that country's national health index—the Face Lab researchers proved something remarkable. They could predict how masculine a woman likes her men based on her nation's World Health Organization statistics for mortality rates, life expectancy and the impact of communicable disease.

To a person unfamiliar with the field of evolutionary psychology, this may sound a little far-fetched. How is it even possible to link a woman's masculinity preferences to the health of her nation? The answer begins with the theory of sexual selection. It goes that women are the choosier sex because they take on most of the risk and burden of reproduction and child rearing. While a man can sleep around with 100 women in a year's time and have 100 kids, a woman who sleeps with 100 men in a year will only have one baby (barring multiples). She has more at stake in each pregnancy. Therefore, it is in her best interest to at least choose a high-quality mate. And one of the hallmarks of a quality male is good health.

A woman might be attracted subconsciously to a high-testosterone man because he'll give her kids an edge health-wise. But if health comes at the expense of fidelity and good parenting, how much does masculinity really matter? The apparent answer is not so much—if you're a woman living in a country with a decent health-care system and few harmful pathogens.

Meanwhile, women with the strongest masculinity preferences tended to hail from the countries with higher disease and mortality rates and some of the poorest scores on the health-care index: Mexico, Brazil, Bulgaria and Argentina. (The researcher included only white subjects to control the experiment, and Asian and African nations were not included in the study.)

This is not to say that cultural factors other than health care don't play a role in women's mate preferences. The Face Lab researchers acknowledge that there are variables they did not take into consideration. For instance, women's equality and control of resources would likely influence preference for masculinity. The same goes for violent crime. In cultures where physical strength and dominance are a primary means of security and social mobility, a masculine mate seems like a valuable asset. Yet, generally speaking, the researchers found that a nation's health index explained more of the variation in women's masculinity preferences than did many culture-specific female norms identified in previous studies.

The big question that comes of the study is this: Is it possible that modern medicine—and by extension modern life—inadvertently devalues masculinity? Possibly. Is the Marlboro Man, that smoking-hot icon of American manhood, under threat of being extinguished? Given American women's apparently strong masculinity preferences, the answer is no. We are not ready to get rid of our macho men. (Then again, we also have yet to improve our health index ratings.) Yet there are some smoke signals that suggest change is just over the horizon.

Yet, a short article published by Epoch Times and on several Chinese language blog entries, the tables were turned. They all used the title as Research Showed That Women Prefer Muscular Men, and Dislike "Feminine" Men. The lead of the article said:

The latest survey shows that to women, "feminine" men are very despicable people, and they prefer to have masculine men.

However, at the end of the article, it concluded:
Previously the United Kingdom University of Aberdeen (University of Aberdeen) researchers in Europe, the United States, South America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand 30 countries, 4,500 were aged 16 to 40 year-old female survey showed that better medical care countries, more women preferred the local flavor of male cosmetics. Scandinavian Sweden, 68% of women surveyed would prefer a more feminine looks of men. In contrast, the poorest quality of medical care in Brazil, 55% of respondents prefer muscular women.

Study: hi masculine men dislike women "feminine" men
The latest survey shows that of the women, "feminine" man is a very nasty people, they prefer to have a masculine man.

Previously the United Kingdom University of Aberdeen (University of Aberdeen) researchers in Europe, the United States, South America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand 30 countries, 4,500 were aged 16 to 40 year-old female survey showed that better medical care countries, more women preferred the local flavor of male cosmetics. Scandinavian Sweden, 68% of women surveyed would prefer a more feminine looks of men. In contrast, the poorest quality of medical care in Brazil, 55% of respondents prefer muscular women.

Chinese Translation:

最近，我读到关于对现代社会男性的价值观一系列研究报告的两个版本。

华尔街日报的详细分析为什么女性不要阳刚男性 (Why Women Don't Want Macho Men)（2010年3月）是一个引人入胜的文章。

去年某时，近4800名妇女参加了苏格兰阿伯丁大学面部研究实验室的在线心理实验室Faceresearch.org的实验。她们是年轻妇女，大多在其20多岁的早期至中期，并均为白色种族。然后，在实验室的研究人员将来自IP地址的数据证实，参与者来自包括阿根廷，瑞典，俄罗斯，澳大利亚和美国的30个国家。这些妇女的原籍国是该实验的重要组成部分。

经过细致的数据，包括妇女的面部喜好，她们的原籍国和该国的国民健康指数，脸部实验室的研究人员证明了一些值得关注的现象。他们能根据世界卫生组织统计的她的国家的死亡率，预期寿命和传染病的影响，预测一个女人喜欢的男子。

一个对进化心理学领域不熟悉人的，可能觉得这些有点牵强。一个女人对阳刚之气的偏好如何与她的民族的健康连接？答案始于性选择理论。研究说明，妇女是更挑剔的性别，因为她们绝大部分繁殖和养育子女的风险和负担。一个男人可以在一年的时间与100名妇女做爱，有100个孩子，而一个女人在一年的时间与100人睡觉，只会有一个婴儿（多胞胎除外）。在每个怀孕期，她参与得更多。因此，是她的最佳利益，至少选择一个高品质的性对象。一个优秀男性的标志之一就是良好的健康。

一个女人可能会潜意识地被高睾丸酮的人吸引，因为在健康上，他会给她的孩子们優勢。但是，如果健康是以忠诚和好父亲换来的，有多阳刚真的重要吗？明显的答案是对一个在有良好卫生保健系统并少有有害病原体的国家居住的女人，它没有什么重要性。

同时，硬汉子偏好最强的妇女往往是住在疾病率及死亡率较高，健康保健指数得分最低的是一些国家：墨西哥，巴西，保加利亚和阿根廷。 （研究者只用白人对象以控制实验课题，所以及亚洲和非洲国家没有被包括在这项研究中。）

这并不是说，卫生保健外的文化因素对妇女的喜好不发挥作用。脸部实验室的研究人员承认，对一些变量他们没有考虑。例如，妇女和资源的的平等和控制可能会影响她们对阳刚的偏爱。暴力犯罪也是如此。在身体能力和優勢是安全和社会流动的主要手段的社会，阳刚似乎像一个宝贵的资产。然而，一般而言，研究人员发现，以前的研究表明一个国家的健康指数可以更好解释在很多特定文化妇女比阳刚男性偏好的变化。

该研究提出的最大的问题是：现代医疗，延伸及现代社会，有没有无意中贬低阳刚之气？有可能。万宝路人，美国成年吸烟热的偶像，有被消灭的威胁吗？鉴于 美国妇女对阳刚之气的显然喜好，答案是否定的。我们没有准备摆脱阳刚男子。（但是，我们也还没有改善我们的健康指数评分。）然而也有一些烟雾信号，建议变化已在地平线上露头。

然而，大纪元时报和几个中文博客发表关于此研究的表明短文，结论改变了。他们的标题为，女性更喜欢肌肉男人的，不喜欢“女性”男人。

文章的导语为：

最新的一项调查显示，对女性而言，“阴柔”男子是让人非常讨厌的，她们更喜欢拥有阳刚之气的男子。

然而，在文章的，它以次总结：

而此前英国阿伯丁大学(University of Aberdeen)研究人员对包括欧洲、美国、南美、加拿大、澳洲、新西兰等30个国家、4500名年龄在16岁到40岁女性进行调查显示，医疗照护愈好 的国家，当地的女性愈偏爱脂粉味的男性。例如北欧的瑞典，68%受访女性就偏爱长相较阴柔的男性。相对之下，医疗照护质量最差的巴西，55%的受访女性偏 好肌肉男。
　　
负责这项调查的心理学家狄布因博士(Dr LisaDeBruine)指出，研究结果显示，医疗质量愈佳的国家，身强力壮的男性就愈不吃香。

Adam & Eve © Matthew Felix Sun