Research: What makes a Woman Beautiful or a Man Handsome?
To answer this, we need to remind ourselves that ‘true beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder‘, a phrase originally attributed to the Greek Philosopher, Plato, and, later, to Irish Novelist, Margaret Wolfe Hungerford still stands. Basically, this phrase means that ‘beauty is relative‘, and what is beautiful to me may not necessarily be beautiful to you! In this case, when we talk of a woman or man’s physical beauty, we are referring to what BEAUTY means to you and you alone!
That said, we can’t run away from the fact that modern day interpretation of beauty, sexy, attraction, and all things physical beauty influences our own perceptions and or decisions regarding what is beautiful or attractive and what isn’t.
As Tim Challies argues, when we say ‘someone is or isn’t attractive’, we are unconsciously or unknowingly factoring in all that the society, media, and modern day culture has prescribed for us as ‘beauty’ or ‘sexy’ or ‘attractive’, pushing us towards an almost similar way of understanding sexy or attractiveness.
Additionally, in science and psychology, the aim is for us to have one consensus, one objective truth that we can all scream as ‘beautiful’ or not. If we left everything, particularly beauty, to subjectivity, argues The School of Life, we cannot have the motivation to pursue that which is exceedingly good. Subjectivity kills the arguments and pursuit; each one of us screams, ‘it depends’, and off we disperse, with no more thirst for what is beyond our own perceptions or capabilities or mind’s grasp!
Therefore, in line with the above observations, we are inclined to generally define what we mean by physical beauty even though, in practice, it may not be true for everyone.
READ THIS TOO: Should I Pursue or Chase after a Guy?
To men and women alike, being young, a little tall, and of considerate weight are attractive physical qualities. In particular, men like young and a little thin ladies (Kurzban and Weeden, 2005). Surprisingly and evolutionary, men are designed to quickly scan the fertility and reproduction features whenever they see a woman; the breasts, hips, waist and, yeah, the bums! Face is the exception to this rule!
Talking about face or the broader physiognomy, the practice of judging a person’s character or personality based on outer appearance, especially of the face, a lot is out! However, narrowing ourselves down to beauty and attractiveness, research has showed that there are indeed faces that are attractive and those that aren’t. For example, writes Alison Pearce Stevens, symmetrical faces (both face sides resemble each other), and faces with averageness (average sizes of face features and their arrangement) are generally regarded as beautiful and attractive. Indeed, a 2011 study by Little and colleagues highlighted these features as well (Little et al., 2010)!
Also, youthfulness or looking young and sexually dimorphic face (looking womanly for a woman and looking manly for a man) are attractiveness as well (Munos-Reyes et al., 2015). Of course, you must have heard a boys’ commentary, ‘she looks like a man’, referring to a lady who probably, according to these boys, isn’t attractive enough! The same can be said of a man who, to ladies, looks like a woman! This is sexual morphism at play!
Adornment or the use of accessories, for example, jewelry, make-up or artificial hair, nails, teeth or what, to enhance beauty is generally regarded as attractive to most men and women alike. The difference could be in the type, the quantity and quality, and the body parts involved in this beauty enhancement exercise, but the general take is that ‘men love a certain level or type of adornment’ on women. And, mind you, adornment is as old as humans themselves!
About other body parts, a 2016 study revealed that ladies with fairly big breasts, ‘enough’ hips and small waist (waist to hips ratio between 0.65 and 0.75), long hair, good smile, and ‘nice voice’ are physically attractive (Garza et al., 2016), and make men’s head turn around. In 2017, Jessica Leigh explored 6 studies and 6 physical qualities that make women irresistible: Fairly big hips, high voice, healthy hair, good smile, less make-up, and wearing red are sexy features! As we will see, the Bible has these descriptions as well.
On the other hand, according to Belot and Francescon (2006), for women, man’s physical beauty is young, a little tall, and with some muscular body (especially towards the upper part of the body, also called waist to chest ratio). Additionally, women like a man whose abdomen is flat (not protruding), hairlessness on abdomen and chest, broad shoulders, and of course, good posture and ‘manly’ (a little bit deep) voice. A detailed Wikipedia article on physical attractiveness deeply explores these issues (including genitalia preferences).
Well, back to how we started, true beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. While the above are general ways that people are described as being beautiful or attractive, there is surely no clear way to pinpoint features X or Y as the ones that make one beautiful or attractive. What we all agree on is physical beauty and its relevance or influence, but the physical features or qualities that make one beautiful or attractive is a long debate!