In the animal world, the strongest, most aggressive males win the evolutionary battle. The more females that a male impregnates, the more successful he is at passing on his genes. Thus, evolution favors males within a species (including primates) that drive away other males through violence, and who mate with as many females as possible. Unlike their male counterparts, females must worry about protecting their offspring beyond conception. For mammals in particular, the burden of carrying and raising a child is immense. Many primates, including humans, have evolved such that males, females, and offspring (or groups of them) comprise a family unit, where the male plays a role in child rearing. Thus, what women should "evolutionarily" be attracted to is two-fold: masculinity and stability. Masculine features such as deep voices, muscularity, athleticism, defined jaws, a tall stature, and aggressiveness or passion, are all signs of high testosterone levels. High levels of this hormone suggest that a man is more equipped to conceive a child. Women also tend to be attracted to older men who have achieved financial and personal success, and who are willing to commit.
Full lips, wide eyes, and soft features. Angelina Jolie possesses all the features that men have evolved to be attracted to.
Defined jaws, tall statures, and suits. In this scene from Ocean's Eleven (2001), Brad Pitt and George Clooney give off an air of success and masculinity.
Fertility, The Strongest Aphrodisiac
According to evolution, all men should care about is how fertile a woman is. Not many modern men consciously think about this (at least not at a young age), but they are nonetheless attracted to signs of fertility. Unsurprisingly, "attractive features" of women relate to child birthing and rearing. Large breasts draw attention to a woman's ability to breast feed, and wide hips demonstrate a woman's ability to pass a child through the pelvis during child birth. Although body standards have changed over time, there has been a constant preference for a degree of curviness. The Waist-to-Hip Ratio (measurement around waist divided by measurement around hip) that is perceived as most attractive is 0.7 in the United States, and ranges from 0.6 to 0.8 throughout the world.
Some other signs of femininity that tend to attract men are as follows: high pitched voices, plump lips, big eyes, and small noses. All of these features are signs of high levels of estrogen. Unlike men, women have a time limit to their reproductivity. By 50, most women can no longer reproduce, and the younger they are, the more fertile they are. It should come as no surprise then that men tend to be more attracted to younger women. In fact, all signs of aging tend to reduce perceived "femininity." Voices gets deeper, noses get larger, lips lose collagen, skin around the eyes droop (making them look smaller), and slowed metabolism results in a less feminine figure. While wrinkles on a man's face suggest wisdom, success, and stability, wrinkles on a women inherently seem unattractive.
Channing Tatum, GQ Magazine (2009)
Halle Berry, Die Another Day (2002)
The Natural Fallacy
Are evolution's signs of attraction really so heavily engrained, or are they the product of the culture we live in? As our familiarity = liking discussion demonstrated, preferences are most often learned. Undoubtedly, an evolutionary basis for attraction exists. However, films often take cliched perceptions of beauty, magnify them, and shoot them back to audiences. Films could have a more positive impact on young people's forming conceptions of beauty by casting individuals with more unconventional features. If we are presented with a new idea of beauty often enough, our conception of beauty has the potential to expand and transform.
Some people might argue that since evolution has constructed an innate set of rules regarding beauty, this set of rules is "good." This is something that psychologists refer to as the natural fallacy, the mistaken belief that because something occurs in nature it is right and good. This mistaken belief is sometimes used to defend some double standards (for example, men who sleep with multiple partners are often referred to as "players," while women who do the same are often referred to as "sluts"). Humans, unlike any other animal, have the ability to go beyond the point that biology has stopped and evolve socially. Practices that were thought to be okay at one time are constantly found to be unethical later on in history. Films can help evolve standards of beauty in such a way that all individuals can feel confident in their appearances. Moreover, these evolutionary rules of attraction do not always hold true. Sometimes, movies manage to bring these exceptions to light. In the teen comedy American Pie (1999), Jennifer Coolage plays Stifler's Mom, a women whose sexual appeal is not hindered by her age.