This is how gender equality is changing dating

This is how gender equality is changing datingThis is how gender equality is changing datingOn their first date, Mia and Josh talked as if theyd known each other for years. Josh loved Mias wit Mia delighted in Joshs warmth and ready smile. Their relationship blossomed, but doubts crept up on both of them now and again.Josh was the primary caregiver for a child from a previous marriage, and his financial prospects were dim. That didnt really bother Mia, since Joshs personality mora than made up for it. Still, he wasnt her usual type the type that was much younger than her, plus athletic and handsome to boot. Josh, meanwhile, had been dreaming of a cashed-up woman with high ambitions, position and education, ideally with a PhD (or two). Mias mere MA was a bit of a sticking point. It was the norm, after all, for men to be the ones to marry up.This scenario probably sounds strange, and it should Ive invented an anecdote about how the heterosexual dating scene might look 100 years in the future. Currently, the desire for a young, attractive partner of the opposite sex tends to be mora prevalent in men than in women. Women, meanwhile, are more likely to prioritise money and status over youth and beauty. Why?Many evolutionary psychologists put this trend down to the power of innate biological drives. Their argument is that women have a primeval urge to hang on to wealthy men to provide for their children during the long period of pregnancy and childrearing. Men, meanwhile, are mostly concerned about a womans fertility, for which beauty and youth serve as helpful cues. In the distant past, this behaviour was adaptive, and so evolution selected and encoded it in our genes, forever.Sure, the rituals of modern mating look very different to those of our ancestors. Nevertheless, the same sexual strategies used by our ancestors operate today with unbridled force, as the psychologist David Buss put it in The Evolution of Desire(2003). Our evolved psychology of mating, after all, plays out in the modern world because it is the only mating psychology we mortals possess. (Theres little historical or intercultural research on LGBT mate preferences such questions are clearly important, but sadly there isnt yet sufficient data to examine them properly.)However, there has been a tectonic shift in gender roles over the past 50 years. As recently as the 1980s, female flight attendants in the United States could be fired if they got married, and womens right to vote wasnt universally enforced in Switzerland until 1990. Wouldnt we expect these changing relationship mores to make a dent in the mating preferences of straight men and women? Or are we still at the mercy of our biological destiny, as evolutionary psychologists claim?The results from the researchare clear mating preferences among men and women look increasingly similar. The trend is directly tied to increasing gender equality, as women gain greater access to resources and opportunities in business, pol itics and education.In more gender-unequal nations, such as Turkey, women rate the earning potential of partners as twiceas important compared with women in the most gender-equal nations, such as Finland. As with Josh and Mia, Finnish men are now more likely than Finnish women to select partners based on their high level of education.Of course, sexism varies within each society, and a nations overall level of gender-equality doesnt necessarily translate to gender-equal attitudes among individuals. But if mating preferences are biologically predetermined, individual sexism shouldnt have an impact. However, research carried out in nine nations proves the opposite. The more gender-unequal mens personal attitudes, the more they prefer qualities in women such as youth and attractiveness and the more gender-unequal womens attitudes, the more they prefer qualities in men such as money and status.This evidence points to some serious flaws in the evolutionary psychologists narrative. If gene s determine our mating preferences, how is it that these supposedly hardwired instincts erode in line with societies and individuals gender-egalitarianism?To be fair, evolutionary psychologists acknowledge that cultural factors and local customs can affect how people choose their partners. But gender equality isnt considered to be one of these factors, since even in relatively gender-equal societies, the eu-agrarpolitik between men and womens preferences is only reduced, not eliminated. However, the counter-punch is that evidence of a lingering gap actually supports ourcase the difference is only narrowed to the extent that gender equality is attained. Getting rid of it entirely would require complete gender equality, which doesnt yet exist.Regrettably, traditional gender roles persist even in very egalitarian societies. In one Danish study, husbands whose wives out-earned them were more likely than other husbands to use erectile dysfunction medication. One interpretation is that th e husbands felt under pressure to exhibit their virility, because they couldnt claim the role of provider another view was that the loss of breadwinner status somehow led to impotence. In another study in the US, single women downplayed their career goals and toned down their assertiveness in the hope of making themselves more desirable to men. However, if the importance that men attribute to womens good education and earning prospects continues to grow, these tactics might eventually cease to be effective.What if a society actually did achieve perfect gender equality? Would women and men hold essentially identical partner preferences? My hunch is that womens and mens choices might never completely converge. The key difference is likely to come down to the demands of breastfeeding following the birth of a child an activity thats energy-intensive, time-consuming, and quite difficult to integrate with paid work, at least as work is currently structured. The implication is that women will seek to replace this anticipated loss of income by choosing husbands with good earning prospects. This decision will have little to do to with some primeval urge for a great male protector, however it will be guided by rational calculations about future needs. Moreover, progressive social policy, changes to the workplace, and greater participation of fathers in childcare could all mitigate such career-compromising pressures.My students sometimes ask me whether gender-equal partner preferences would be desirable. They seem concerned that such equality could snuff out the spark from our love lives. Another risk is that levelling out mating preferences could lead to more marriages of equals, which could in turn entrench economic inequality. But according to the latest gender-gap report for 2017, theres little reason for worry. Given the current rate of change, it will be some time before Josh and Mia get together we have at least another 100 years to wait before gender parity is a chieved.Marcel Zentner is a hochschulprofessor of Psychology at University of Innsbruck.This article was originally published at Aeon and has been republished under Creative Commons.