A new study has confirmed the existence of a 'gender attractiveness gap', with women's faces consistently rated as more attractive than men's, even by other women. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Germany analysed over 1.5 million ratings of 17,000 faces from nearly 30,000 raters across 76 countries.
The study, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, found that the average female face is rated more attractive than about 60% of male faces. The effect was strongest in Western countries but persisted across different sexual orientations, including heterosexual, gay, bisexual and lesbian raters. However, when people rated their own faces, the gap disappeared.
Dr Eugen Wassiliwizky, lead author of the study, said: 'This is a super robust effect and we see it across cultures. Female faces are evaluated as more attractive than male faces regardless of all the other factors. What is most surprising is that women give other women the highest ratings and give the lowest ratings to men.'
The gap appears to be linked to facial structure, with rounder faces generally rated as more attractive. Men tend to have more rectangular faces, while women have more rounded faces. The preference for female faces declined with age and vanished by the time people reached their 80s, as male and female faces become more similar structurally.
The study does not explain the reason for the general preference, but Wassiliwizky noted that a purely cultural explanation seems unlikely given the global nature of the effect. He suggested that evolutionary factors may play a role, but cautioned that further research is needed.
