Masculinity

A man’s masculinity is constantly judged and scrutinized in society nowadays. As the notion of masculinity can vary from era to era, there is no specific definition that fits into all cultures and attitudes. One way of understanding masculinity can be looking into women’s preferences to men’s faces. Women may find masculine faces more attractive, especially at the peak of their menstrual cycles (Penton-Voak, 1999). Association between masculine facial features and measures of immuno-competence also determines women’s short-term and long-term partners, as women prefer men with masculine faces as short-term partners rather than in long-term relationships. As an alternative, women also show changing preferences in men’s voices across their menstrual
Women with a partner went through a greater cyclic change preference that they preferred more masculine faces (Penton-Voak, 1999). The type of relationship being looked for was influential to women’s preference for facial masculinity. For instance, Penton-Voak (1999) indicated that women opted for less feminine faces for ‘a short-term sexual relationship,’ and they showed constant preference when judging attractiveness for ‘a long-term relationship.’ It was also put forward that women with a partner might occasionally copulate with men whose high masculine appearance meant for good immuno-competence. Facial symmetry could be considered here, as symmetry might convey how healthy an individual was. The levels of testosterone in particular affected the growth of male secondary sexual facial characteristics like the jaw and brow ridges, and it determined the attractiveness of male faces. It was concluded that ‘masculine’ features included a large jaw and a prominent brow ridge (Penton-Voak & Perrett, 2000), and the more symmetrical the face was, the ‘healthier’ the man was. In this case we could argue that facial masculinity was highly valued under circumstances such as reproduction and passing traits to offspring, and therefore cyclic changes in preferences could favour men with masculine faces. Taking DeBruine’s (2010) study into account for consideration, an inverse
Consequently, these traits have influenced women’s strategies for choosing mates. The studies above have suggested some cyclic effects on women’s attraction to masculinity and manhood. Women generally demonstrated stronger facial masculinity preferences during the most fertile phase of the menstrual cycle, and more masculine face shapes were preferred in short-term relationships to long-term relationships. The shifting preferences for men’s face shapes also manifest women’s context-specific strategies of selecting their primary partners. To women in the countries with high levels of pathogen and health challenges, masculine traits are especially significant to reproduction as to ensure a healthy offspring, that people believe that good genes must have come from masculine faces along with face symmetry, so good genes from men must passed to the next generations. As masculinity is usually associated with dominance but reduced parental care, women have to trade-off between paternal investment and genetic benefits, which can be evident in women’s stronger cyclic shifts when selecting short-term relationship mates. Not only cycle variations exist in women’s preferences for facial masculinity, changes across the