What women want

The AustraliaSCAN survey on what men and women find most attractive about each other has just been released.

Men want women to be:

1. Caring
2. Loving
3. Friendly
4. Fun-loving
5. Feminine
6. Humourous
7. Gentle
8. Polite
9. Sexy
10. Intelligent

Women want men to be:

1. Caring
2. Loving
3. Friendly
4. Humourous
5. Fun-loving
6. Self confident
7. Intelligent
8. Polite
9. Gentle
10. Sensitive

There are several things conservatives can take heart from in these survey results. First, notice that men rate women being feminine very highly, even more highly than sexiness. This shouldn't really be a surprise since it's basic to heterosexuality for men to feel this way. But because liberals want to overthrow the influence of inherited gender on our self-identity, this fact isn't very often represented in mainstream culture. Women on TV are usually presented as being independent and sexy, and this is what men are supposed to go for. The reality remains, though, that men stubbornly find the femininity of women highly appealing.

Second, notice that both men and women very much want each other to be polite. Again, you probably wouldn't guess this from much popular culture, but deep down we still find manners attractive.

Finally, although gentleness and sensitivity just make it into the top 10 qualities that women like in men, they were beaten by qualities like self-confidence and intelligence. In other words, women most want men to be caring and strong, and only after that do snaggier qualities get a look in.

(Nor are Australian men very interested in being "metrosexual". The same survey found that only 15% of Australian men are fashion conscious, and the use of beauty products by Australian men has hardly risen over the last 5 years.)