May 17
Skin Tone Hierarchy of Mate Preferences
Mate selection on skin pigmentation occurred in the last 5,000 years, & women have lighter skin tones than men.
Cross culturally, women tend to have a lighter skin tone than men
(Anita Sitek et al., 2018; Banerjee, 1984; Firooz et al., 2012; Jablonski & Chaplin, 2000; Kalla & Tiwari, 1970; Kalla, 1973; Madrigal & Kelly, 2007; van den Berghe & Frost, 1986; Viren Swami et al., 2008).
Rodriguez-Garcia et al., 2016
— Lighter skinned in-laws are more likely to reject a darker skinned son/daughter-in-law than darker skinned in-laws are to reject a lighter skinned daughter/son-in-law.
Colorism is 5000 Years Old — Sandra Wilde et al., 2014
Selection on skin pigmentation occurred in the last 5,000 years. (Wilde et al., 2014 — Pigmentation; Mathieson & Mathieson, 2018).
Our results provide direct evidence that strong selection favoring lighter skin, hair, and eye pigmentation has been operating in European populations over the last 5,000 years.
Assortative mating based on coloration is common in vertebrates (Hofreiter & Schöneberg, 2010), and skin pigmentation has been observed as a criterion for endogamy in modern human populations (Banerjee, 1985; Roberts & Kahlon, 1972).
In addition, there is some evidence that lighter iris colors, because of their recessive mode of inheritance, may be preferred by males in assortative mating regimes to improve paternity confidence (Laeng et al., 2007).
Geographic variation in many functional skin pigmentation gene polymorphisms (Norton et al., 2007), & lighter skin pigmentation more generally, correlate strongly with distance from the equator in long-established populations, suggesting that selective pressure also occurred along a latitudinal gradient. Once lighter hair and eye pigmentation phenotypes reached appreciable frequencies in European populations, these novel traits may have continued to be preferred as indicators of group membership, facilitating assortative mating.
Blonde Hair
Johnston, 2010: About 33% of women dye their hair to look blond as women with blonde hair or paid about 7% more than women with brown/black or red hair.
Elif Filiz, 2021: Individuals With blonde/ red hair who reside in a country where ethnicities with brown/black hair or eyes constitute the majority earn around 9% more compared to individuals with brown/black hair residing in the same country.
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Skin Tone — Aneta Sitek et al., 2018
“In most of the ethnic groups, women tend to have lighter skin and hair than men (Banerjee, 1984; Firooz et al., 2012; Jablonski & Chaplin, 2000; Kalla &Tiwari, 1970; Kalla, 1973; Madrigal & Kelly, 2007; van den Berghe & Frost, 1986).
¨According to another hypothesis, lighter skin in women is related to the increased demand for vitamin D3 during pregnancy and lactation (Brunvand, Quigstad, Urdal, & Haug, 1996; Jablonski & Chaplin, 2000). It has also been suggested that lighter skin and hair color in women may be the effect of sexual selection as men exhibit a preference for lighter-skinned females, who are often perceived as younger and more fertile (van den Berghe & Frost, 1986; Frost, 1988; Sorokowski, 2008). This may result from the fact that female skin becomes slightly lighter during ovulation and darker when the woman is infertile (during pregnancy and the use of hormonal contraception; Frost, 1988).” [In addition,] “skin tone can darken during pregnancy, during the infertile phases of the menstrual cycle, & while one is taking contraceptives (van den Berghe & Frost, 1986)” (Garza et al, 2016).
Skin Tone — Garza et al., 2016
Skin tone is a sexually dimorphic trait associated with sexual selection. Women are lighter skinned than men in a wide range of human populations (Frost, 1988, 2007, 2008; van den Berghe & Frost, 1986), even when one controls for degree of sun exposure.
Hair color darkens in adolescence for boys more than girls (Leguebe & Twiesselmann, 1976; Steggerda, 1941; van den Berghe & Frost, 1986).
Skin Tone Findings
“The images with the light skin tone were viewed longer than the images with the dark skin tone & light skin tone images that were rated as attractive were looked at longer, corroborating Frost’s (1988, 2007, 2008, 2011; van den Berghe & Frost, 1986) extensive work on skin tone and attractiveness. [In addition], darker-skinned women were more attractive to men than to women.”
Sidenotes = will likely be relocated to future article
LG individuals are more likely to have friendships with other individuals who are lesbian/gay whereas bisexuals are more likely to have friends with heterosexuals (Galupo, 2007).
🌈 Born This Way
Most offspring of LGB individuals will be heterosexual, but the reproductive offspring of LGB individuals are disproportionately more likely to be non-heterosexual just like their parents (Schumm, 2016; Gattrell et al., 2019).
Sexuality is partially influenced by genetic factors in both men & women (Alanko et al. 2010; Bailey et al. 1993, 2000; Burri et al. 2011; Camperio Ciani et al., 2018; Ganna et al., 2019; Gartrell et al., 2019; Kendler et al. 2000; Kirk et al., 2000; Långström et al. 2010; Sanders et al., 2015; Sarah Nila et al., 2018; Schumm, 2010),
and has been found cross-culturally since prehistoric times (Barthes et al. 2013; Boellstorf, 2004 [Indonesia]; Cáceres et al., 2006 [South & East Asia]; Crompton, 2006 [Gay males in antiquity]; Diamond 1993; Herdt 1997; Mondimore 1996; Nash 2001; VanderLaan et al. 2014).
Patriarchal Tax Law — Karin Yefet, 2020
“Many laws and policies encourage gendered division of labor (Linda McClain, 2006; Jennifer Johnson, 2004).
‘The minority position of American tax law favors single-earner married couples over dual-earner ones (Kornhauser, 2010).”
Stephen Claxton-Oldfield & Bonnie Butler, 1998
“Stepmother–child relationships face more difficulty than all other step-relations, including stepfather–child relationships” (DeLongis & Zwicker, 2017).
This is partially because noncustodial bio-moms are more involved than noncustodial bio-dads (Ihinger-Tallman & Pasley, 1997).
Stepfathers = 38.24% of plot summaries portray stepfathers in a negative light.
Stepmothers = 61.9% of plot summaries portray stepmothers in a negative light.
“Across the United States and most European countries, the prevalence of educational hypogamy (women ‘partnering down’) now exceeds that of educational hypergamy (men ‘partnering down’) (Esteve et al., 2016; De Hauw, Grow and Van Bavel, 2017).
China: Han & Zhao, 2021 — One Child Policy & Leftover Men/Women
Even if China’s sex ratio is imbalanced and there are a large number of marriageable men, these highly educated women cannot choose men whose overall level is far below their own.
Studies that found a lesbian wage premium include Klawitter and Flatt (1998), Blandford (2003), Clain and Leppel (2001), Berg and Lien (2002), Black et al. (2003), Cushing-Daniels and Yeung (2009), La Nauze (2015), Laurent and Mihoubi (2012), and Sayers et al. (2017).
Tian & Cramon-Taubadel, 2020
In 1979, the central government announced the “One-Child Policy” (OCP), which began to be strictly enforced across the entire country one year later (Banister, 1987).
Son Preference — Shangao Wang et al., 2021
The OCP reduced the fertility rate, but it also led to soaring female infanticide, particularly in rural areas (Feng et al., 1999; Qian, 2009). Thus, in 1982, local governments began issuing rural couples permits for a second child if their first child was a girl.
Queens & Chess
— The Queen in Chess is based on powerful European Queens, though the piece was originally referred to as the ferz/vizier in association with India, Chess’ country of origin (Stephanie Coontz, 2006).
— The total number of active Chess players in 2020 was 803,485 (15.7% female players) originating from 160 countries (Allon Vishkin, 2022) https://ratings.fide.com/download.phtml
