Aha! It’s not that women prefer jerks to nice guys, but they prefer confident, ambitious men to pushovers.
This doesn’t suggest a gender disparity, merely that I now understood something about how the ‘women love jerks’ meme had been started, and what was actually going on.
But, as it turns out, there is a gender disparity here. Women place a higher premium on status and ambition than men do (see the studies cited in my comment above). Women also place a higher premium than men do on confidence. See here.
Next, I said:
Aha! Body language and fashion matter because they communicate large packets of information about me at light speed, and are harder to fake than words.
This suggests no gender disparity. It merely says that body language and fashion are powerful signaling tools, which they are.
Aha! Women are attracted to men with whom they have positive subjective experiences. That’s why they like funny guys, for example!
You’re right, this does imply a gender disparity that isn’t clearly supported by any studies I know about. Correction accepted. Oops. Perhaps a better example would have been the importance of touching during relationship initiation—for both men and women.
In my post I said:
This doesn’t suggest a gender disparity, merely that I now understood something about how the ‘women love jerks’ meme had been started, and what was actually going on.
But, as it turns out, there is a gender disparity here. Women place a higher premium on status and ambition than men do (see the studies cited in my comment above). Women also place a higher premium than men do on confidence. See here.
Next, I said:
This suggests no gender disparity. It merely says that body language and fashion are powerful signaling tools, which they are.
You’re right, this does imply a gender disparity that isn’t clearly supported by any studies I know about. Correction accepted. Oops. Perhaps a better example would have been the importance of touching during relationship initiation—for both men and women.