An Evolutionary Perspective On Physical Attractiveness By Doug Jones

Throughout history women have been denied the same social status as men and have been repeatedly excluded from things such as education, politics, and science. This has allowed men to have control over gender roles by controlling the laws, ability to obtain knowledge, and history. Until now, women have been historically excluded women from participating in science which has created a male-dominated and gender biased perspective of science. In the evolutionary sciences such as Sociobiology and Evolutionary Psychology, this male-dominated perspective continues to prevail in its biased reductive portrayal of gender roles which brand females with false stereotypes.
In the article “An Evolutionary Perspective on Physical Attractiveness”, Doug Jones
According to the data evidence, males have a higher preference for youthful partners than females do and that an increase in age causes a decrease in physical attractiveness, especially for females. Jones argues that humans have a universal adaptive response to age; we associate growing older as being an unattractive quality which reduces fecundity. Furthermore, Jones argues that in addition to being a universal trait of female attractiveness, a major correlate of female fecundity is waist-to-hip ratio, which is the ratio of the circumference of the narrowest part of the waist and the widest point in the hips. Jones makes the claim that because fat distribution is sensitive to ratios of estrogen to androgen, a high estrogen/androgen ratio causing a low waist-to-hip ratio is therefore associated with high levels of ovarian function and fecundity. Therefore Jones’ makes the critical argument that the “strong negative association between waist-to-hip ratio and female fecundity makes low waist-to-hip ratio a good candidate for a universal criterion of female attractiveness” (Jones 1996:97). Even though Jones discusses the potential extent to which culture influences the standards of female attractiveness, it seems however that he profusely supports the theory that the universal criterion of female attractiveness and fecundity such as waist-to-hip ratio are
Despite its popularity in Western culture, there are many cultures around the world such as the Matsigenka people of southeastern Peru whose standards of physical attractiveness and fecundity favor a tubular shaped body which has a much higher waist-to-hip ratio than that of Western culture. Another important example is of the Hadza who live in Tanzania and are particularly relevant because they presumably live in an area with conditions similar to that of the Pleistocene era, which is the time period that the waist-to-hip ratio theory is supposed to evolve from. So arguably if the waist-to-hip ratio theory were to maintain its validity then the Hadza would prefer a low waist-to-hip ratio. Sure enough the Hadza preferred a waist-to-hip ratio much higher than that of Western culture. This is evidence to disprove the waist-to-hip ratio theory and instead promote the idea that Western standards of physical attractiveness might be found in other cultures due to the pervasiveness of Western media; take for example the fact that American shows such as Baywatch are aired on television across the