Tuesday 1 September 2009

Quick hit: Girls who like boys who like girls to be boys

From the Beeb:
Girls who attend single-sex schools are more attracted to feminine looking boys, researchers have claimed.

The St Andrews University-led study suggested a girls-only education could have a "significant impact" on what the youngsters found attractive.

Boys at all-male schools proved less susceptible to the effect, although the study found they did prefer the company of boys with more masculine faces.

The effect was weakened if children had siblings of the opposite sex at home.

The research team said the results suggested a person's "visual diet" influenced what they thought was attractive.
Click through for the rest.

What happens to freaks like me who went to both co-ed and single sex schools? Argh!

6 comments:

Country Lane said...

There's absolutley no surprises here is there? We already know that "attractiveness" is a cultural phenomenon based on what a person is araised to think of as attractive combined with their personal experience. Just as with their taste in food. Any Pakeha, whitebait like me who's tried to eat a Japanese breakfast knows that!

Violet said...

And there I was thinking that our preferences were heavily influenced by our closest relative of the opposite sex (i.e. father, brother or whatever, for women).

DPF:TLDR said...

I think we need to do a bit of unpacking when we talk about women being attracted to feminine men. It may seem an awesome way out of all that nasty gender dichotomy stuff, but there are a lot of assumptions packed into the concept of a 'feminine man'.

For starters, it's very hard for a man who's of above average weight to appear feminine, for some reason.

spikybombshell said...

nah...my whole group fo friends from my girls high school are attracted to a mixture of boys. Boys are just expected to put more effort into their looks these days (and good job too!!!) the metro fashion thing is just in at the mo, tons of boys just dress like that because its cool, so of course more women would go out with girly looking men!

Lyn said...

I'm now wondering what happens to people who watch a lot of TV and movies and the attendant quotient of gorgeous American people???? Expectations that will never be met? Is it now proven that TV rots your brain?

Libertyscott said...

I've tended to find I liked girls who were absolutely totally unlike any women in my life (relatives), presumably because it meant genetic diversity. So I wanted certain looks, brains and less grumpiness and authoritarianism (Protestant Glaswegian family as I had). I also wanted "bad girls" because I was raised to be very good and do what i was told .... hmmmmm.