Across 50 countries, female faces consistently rank higher in attractiveness than male faces

[erronis]

https://phys.org/news/2025-06-countries-female-higher-male.html

I'm just excerpting from the article. This is not necessarily my opinion but I do find the female face (and form) to be quite attractive....

Research led by the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics has confirmed that female faces are rated as more attractive than male faces across diverse cultures, ethnicities, and regardless of the rater's gender—a pattern that had been widely theorized but never empirically confirmed.

Darwin noted more than 150 years ago that, unlike in most species where males evolve ornate traits to attract females with bright plumage, complex courtship rituals, and bold coloration, humans seem to reverse that pattern. Women are typically regarded as the "beautiful sex."

Darwin's observation spurred generations of evolutionary theorists to ask why sexual selection in humans would favor female visual traits. Biologists and psychologists have long debated whether this phenomenon reflects evolved aesthetic preferences, cultural norms, or biased assumptions. For all the theoretical attention it has gotten, the gender asymmetry in perceived attractiveness had never been systematically quantified on a global scale.

In the study, "The Gender Attractiveness Gap," published on the pre-print server bioRxiv, researchers conducted a cross-cultural meta-analysis to determine whether facial attractiveness ratings differ by gender and whether those differences hold across rater sex, cultural background, and facial ethnicity.

. . .

[stopdiggin]

1. here's another thought. in a high proportion of cases the 'first love' and attention

(and a behaviorist might name it 'imprinting'?) - involves the female face (or faces).

But, whatever the biological basis (reasons) - science has now confirmed what has long been common knowledge. To no surprise ...