Men & Women
Different but Equal
What Women Want
Money Talks
What Men Want
Different But Equal
Men and women are different, but equal. That’s a contested notion these days, but each gender does have strengths and weaknesses that were shaped by the differing challenges that both genders encountered throughout human evolution. Bearing and rearing children simply requires other adaptations than hunting and fighting.
We can observe these gender differences today with ease, as they manifest themselves in everything we do. They affect our choices and preferences in mating, friendships, competition, love, hate, what we buy, what we don’t buy, whom we vote for, what business deals we make and even the crimes we commit.
Most of us underestimate just how much of what we consider conscious decisions is based on ancient, gender-specific instincts. Those who believe that we are born as blank slates even contest the notion that we have instincts at all.
Yet all around us we can observe universal themes that, irrespective of time and space, have been woven into various cultural products as expressions of our evolved biological past. These themes can tell us something about our deepest drives and motivations. Successful commercials, movies, television shows, theatre plays, song lyrics, romance novels and countless other cultural products follow patterns that are congruent with primeval adaptive behaviour patterns.
For example, 90% of the songs on international hit lists deal with procreation. Men and women sing about the attributes that they desire in a prospective mate. Men tend to focus single-mindedly on female beauty and showcase their status via luxury products. Women refer to their physical beauty and belittle men of low social status.
Because for women status in men equals resources and resources equals survival, and because for men beauty indicates fertility, these themes correspond with the evolutionary preferences of both sexes. Any song or script writer who would try to reverse these attributes would surely fail.
Another noteworthy example are romance novels, the female equivalent to pornography, as they can serve as a vehicle to understand their readers’ proclivities. Most successful romance novels follow very similar story lines. The male protagonist is always a cross of a tall prince, surgeon and hedge fund manager while he is killing all kinds of evil creatures with his bare hands. He takes risks, wins all his battles and finally falls for the one and only woman. This male archetype corresponds to female fantasies because it satisfies the primeval desires for protection (survival), status (resources) and perfect genes (procreation).
Today these ancient gender-specific preferences and thought patterns have profound implications in our lives as well as in business because all our choices and decisions are related to them. Those who appreciate the differences between men and women instead of denying them are one giant step ahead of the pack.
She's Got The Looks
A 2006 study analysed the personality traits and leadership abilities associated with the facial features of all US Fortune 1000 CEOs. It turns out that the amount of profit a company makes can be directly correlated to its CEO’s facial features of competence and leadership. Conversely, facial features of dominance are valid indicators of the CEO’s own compensation. A CEO’s success is therefore related to facial appearance, regardless of gender.
Beauty, on the other hand, is not correlated with personality traits that are associated with competence in business, especially if you are a woman. Although we all love beautiful people and there are certainly advantages for those with symmetrical faces, when it comes to positions in leadership and power, beauty can be a liability.
Mum Always Liked You Best
Life was never really an equal-opportunity enterprise for men and women, and parental preferences for one gender or the other have fluctuated over time and geographical location. While generally parents tend to prefer same-sex offspring (fathers prefer sons and mothers daughters), recent studies show a rapid change in parental investment patterns in developed countries.
Parents today invest more in their daughters than in their sons. In most developed countries girls by far outperform boys in school and college, which is why the expected return of investment for daughters is increasing. Couples are now 50% more likely to adopt a daughter over a son, and statistics show a marked decrease in childbirth after the birth of a daughter.
Of course parents do not divert resources consciously to one gender over the other to maximise their return of investment. Instead, humans are born with a mind that is already equipped with dormant behaviour patterns that are triggered by their corresponding condition, but girls outperforming boys at school is no such trigger, even if they all were to become CEOs.
The reasons for this trend can be found in our evolutionary past. For countless generations sons had higher reproductive value for rich, high-status families because a man can translate status (i.e. resources) into access to women and hence produce more offspring. But if rich sons had access to multiple women, then sons from poorer families were more challenged to obtain wives.
Because for men the social status of women was generally not a factor in mate choice, it is the girls who benefited more often from social upward mobility. While it was difficult for poor men to reproduce at all, poor girls almost always found a mate. This is why it made more sense for socially and materially disadvantaged parents to invest in their daughters.
Although this train of thought can seem coldhearted, there is ample scientific evidence supporting these observations. In developed countries today high-status parents spend more time with their sons and low-status parents with their daughters. Only 60% of girls in affluent families are breast-fed, but 90% of the sons are. Low-income women have, on average, another child within 3.5 years after the birth of a son but wait for 4.5 years after the birth of a daughter to avoid sibling competition for resources, while for affluent families this trend is reversed.
So it is the steep economic decline in the US and other developed countries that explains the shifting preferences of parents in favour of daughters. The economic decline is the condition that triggered the dormant behaviour pattern that we can observe today. This is just another reminder that there are ancient forces working underground in our minds, not by making us conscious of their existence but by shaping our emotions, drives and preferences.
There just might be an evolutionary reason for the complaint “Mom always liked you best!”
Colours as sexual signalling, we do it too.
Some Differences With A Grain Of Salt
Lipsticks & Recession
Lipstick serves a very primeval function and can dramatically change a woman’s cues of attractiveness and desirability. Estee Lauder and L’Oréal reported a significant increase in lipstick sales following the 9/11 attacks from 2001 and the financial crisis in 2008. With the scare of an economic downturn came the diminishing consumer interest in most products, with the exception of things like perfume, high heels—and lipstick. It was not the first time this phenomenon was observed. In 1929 when the Great Depression hit, sales of women’s beauty products boomed.
Throughout human evolution, cycles of abundance and famine were a perpetual occurrence. Women have become acutely attuned to cues indicative of a recession because a woman’s reproductive success has always depended on her ability to attract a mate able to invest in her and her offspring. Because environmental downturns pose a twin challenge—less financially secure men and more ferocious completion—it makes evolutionary sense for women to enhance their physical attractiveness to find or retain men when the mating pool contracts.
Several studies have assessed the relationship between female fashion trends and environmental factors, the first one going back to 1971. Fifty years of data show that short skirts, revealing and tight-fitting clothing, narrow waists and low necklines, all of which signal sexual accessibility and the reproductive value of women, become more prevalent when economic prospects are poor.
These mechanisms are well understood by PR professionals. This is why many of today’s campaigns for female beautification products prey on these ancient instincts by fusing the mate attraction function of tight jeans, perfume and high-heeled boots with economic recession cues (scarcity) to increase women’s desire for these products.
The Drives That Govern Everything
Men like young, beautiful women, and women prefer men with status and resources. This oversimplification is a universal truth irrespective of culture, time and geographical location. But behaviour related to mating transcends pure mate choice, sex and procreation and instead influences most human interactions. Drives and emotions related to mating are the ground zero for those seeking to understand human behaviour, because most of what we do is related to them.
Events like public speaking or simply attending a party can be a frightening affair for some. Being judged by others on such occasions means one’s ranking in the social hierarchy is re-evaluated because this is what a negative judgement is. Our ancestors’ survival was in large part dependent on social standing and support, as was their access to mates. This explains why we can feel strong and seemingly irrational emotions if anything interferes with our position on the societal dominance pyramid, emotions that at first glance are unrelated to reproduction or survival.
Car manufacturers design the fronts and rears of their cars to appeal to certain emotive preferences of their clients which they exploit in the corresponding commercials. Business decisions are often shaped by emotions related to dominance, which is a key trait in women’s preference for a mate. Gossip is the female equivalent of a fist fight and is aimed at eliminating intrasexual (female–female) competition.
Much of this behaviour is governed by ancient forces working underground in our minds; they steer what we do by shaping our emotions and desires. What may sound like a reference to myth is instead a well-established scientific fact. We all have inherited neuro-circuits in our brains that trigger behaviour patterns dating back to ancient times but which are still as potent as they were eons ago.
