Are Women Getting More Beautiful?

FelxH writes "Scientists have found that evolution is driving women to become ever more beautiful, while men remain as aesthetically unappealing as their caveman ancestors. The researchers have found beautiful women have more children than their plainer counterparts and that a higher proportion of those children are female. Those daughters, once adult, also tend to be attractive and so repeat the pattern." I just thought my standards were changing as I got older, but it turns out it's just science!

Comments

Are we guppies

[Nf1nk]

This seems like the guppy phenomenon. Under a lack of predation the guppies self select to breed for beauty. Under heavy predation they breed to survive and quickly become plain. We are the guppies. We have no predators. It just takes longer to show up with us because our life cycle takes longer.

Wrong-o on the male-o

[OrangeCatholic]

>while men remain as aesthetically unappealing as their caveman ancestors.

Really? You mean those 5-foot-1 suits of armor at the museum were worn by the same 6-foot-5 monsters who grace our modern football fields and armed forces?

I guess men from the Renaissance were the same as us, except highly compressible.

Re:Evolution has nothing to do with it

[edmudama]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_v_azJv50KQ

Amazing what 4 hours of makeup and 4 hours of photoshop can do.

Re:Each sex is defined by the needs of the other

[__aarzwb9394]

Women's average earnings will stay lower than men's average earnings until there is no difference in the average amount of time spent as primary caregivers to offspring.

Employers pay for (among other things) experience. Spending less time at work in order to be a primary caregiver reduces the amount of experience you can gain and offer to potential employers.

Re:Evolution has nothing to do with it

[mcgrew]

It's called "getting older". When you're 20, almost all women over 40 are unattractive, when you're pushing sixty most of the 40 year old woman are good looking.

So beauty is measured in pounds?

[Important Remark]

Women aged 20-29 were nearly 29 pounds heavier on average in 2002 compared to 1960.
Women aged 40-49 were about 25.5 pounds heavier on average in 2002 compared to 1960.

Re:DEFINE: Subjectivity

[boojum.cat]

Similarly, before the industrial revolution it was unfashionable to be tan, since being tan meant that you were working out in the fields. After the industrial revolution, it became fashionable to be tan, because that meant that you weren't in a factory all day.