A new study from University of Kent and Iowa State University scientists reveals that women, even those who have deem themselves feminists, are attracted to men who espouse “benevolent sexism” (BS) and engage in chivalrous behaviors.
The Daily Mail reports the research was collected from five study groups, the largest of which contained 233 women and the smallest with 104. The participants were asked to evaluate scenarios of interactions from men, ranging from men who engaged in kind behaviors perceived as sexist to men who treated women as complete equals and offered no special treatment. The female participants were then asked to rate the men’s “warmth and attractiveness.”
In the study, published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, scientists learned that women preferred the chivalrous men who viewed women as individuals who need protection. According to researchers Pelin Gul and Tom Kupfer, that mentality would be deemed as “patronizing” and classified as “benevolent sexism” by feminists, but the research suggests that women are programmed to overlook those “harmful consequences.” Benevolent sexism is different from what is considered hostile sexism, the Daily Mail notes, such as the perception that “a woman’s place is in the kitchen.”
The research shows women are hard-wired to look past the downfalls of benevolent sexism because men guilty of it are “willing to invest (protect, provide, and commit),” the abstract explains.
“Women find benevolent sexist [BS] men attractive, not because they are ignorant of the harmful effects, but despite being aware of them,” the scientists found. “This suggests that the desirable aspects of BS attitudes and behaviors are sufficient to overcome the perceived negative effects.”
“Our proposal is that women approve of BS attitudes and behaviors because they are taken as cues that a man is willing to invest by being protective, providing, and committed,” the researchers added.
The researchers found that even feminists who advocate for sameness amongst the sexes desire the BS male.
“Evidence shows that many women — even those who desire [equal] relationships — want a man to be chivalrous, by, for example, paying for dates and opening doors for them,” wrote the researchers. “Furthermore, the finding that high feminist women, and not only low feminist women, rated a [sexist] potential romantic partner as more attractive despite being more aware of the detrimental effects, suggests that the attraction may be a mate preference for women in general, and not just for women who endorse traditional gender roles.”
This is just the latest study to underscore once again that there not only exists biological traits that differentiate the sexes, but that women are attracted to traits that are innately masculine.
Researchers at the U.K.’s Coventry and Aberystwyth Universities found, in a 2017 study, that women prefer males with perceived wealth and muscles. The study analyzed women’s responses to “guy candy” photos published on Tube Crush, a site featuring secretly snapped photos of men on the London Underground. The researchers found that the women seemed to focus on traits that conveyed wealth and manliness.
In that study, the women gravitated towards the men’s masculine traits like biceps and chest muscles, and commented on perceived sexual ability. The women also responded well to displays of wealth.
Adrienne Evans, lead author of the study, noted that the results reveal that women’s desires have not moved away from “masculinity in the form of money and muscle.”
In other words, while the Left has attempted to label these sort of traits as “toxic masculinity,” the Tube Crush study seems to be corroborated by the findings in Gul’s and Kupfer’s research: Women generally seem to prefer men that can protect and support them.
Another study published in Evolutionary Behavior Science found that women whose husbands rated themselves as behaviorally masculine based on notions of dominance, power, and assertiveness were found to be more satisfied during the ovulation portion of their cycle. By contrast, women whose husbands reported less masculine behavior experienced no change in satisfaction during their more fertile phases of their cycles.
PsyPost notes that this is not particularly groundbreaking, as previous research has also shown that women tend to be more attracted to men with masculine physical traits, especially women at peak fertility.
The feminist Left has aggressively attempted to force males to move away from what is innate to them and embrace qualities that are deemed to be feminine. But study after study seems to reveal that if men were to embrace more gender-fluid behaviors or move away from toxic masculinity or benevolent sexism, they would have a harder time attracting women.
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