Sexual strategies for men and women
For centuries, women have wished to find a mate who could provide and take care of them as well as the children. Dating from the early man times where daily activities for men included hunting, taking care of family and mating, women appreciated having a stable, physically attractive mate that had no disease and thus could take care of them and their children. A study that showed different men, one standing, another playing happily with a child and another just sitting not doing anything with the child gave different results in terms of attractiveness. The man who seemed to be freely playing with the child was more attractive than the rest, while the one who was not paying attention to a child in distress the least attractive. (Buss, 2016). The study, therefore, showed that men who showed parenting skill or want of were more attractive to women than those who never showed any parental care or concern to children. Finally, most women preferred mates who were older than them by a few years. Such qualities were essential to ensure that the woman and her offspring were protected.
Men on the other hand preferred women who showed no signs of diseases such as lesions on the skin and showed signs of fertility as well those who were younger than them. The age difference was to ensure that the woman could be controlled and more so respect the man. The main reason was to ensure that women could produce healthy offspring for a long time. In a study conducted in different countries, most men preferred women who were younger than them. As confirmed by Buss, “men from the thirty-seven cultures expressed a desire for wives approximately two and a half years younger than themselves” (2016). The main reason was that women in their youth are more likely to be fertile than those who are older. Thus to ensure paternity, men preferred to have younger women.
Short term sexual strategies are different when comparing men and women. Women will mostly have longer short term sex intervals than men. Also, men will have less standards and do not mind what type of woman they have short term sex with. The main reason is that short term sex to women is most likely to bring a nine-month gestation period and a child, something that men will not have to deal with. However, women can still use short term sex as a way of securing better genes while ovulating or even as a way of finding long term mates. A study on selected males showed they would have more sexual partners shortly than females. Schmitt et al. confirm that “men will expect in the future to have more sexual pleasure from sex with strangers” (2012). The findings are supported by the fact that men have less to worry about after a sexual encounter compared to women.
Childcare has mostly been a female’s job. The reason behind it is that the female is usually already connected to the child, unlike the male who has paternity uncertainty. Due to such ideas, the female is, therefore, more involved and thus takes more time in child care than the male. Males, on the other hand, analyze the use of their resources to raise the child that they are not sure or if the resources should be redirected to other activities. In addition to this, a study showed that babies did not resemble their fathers at ages of one to three years and that mothers showed bias when telling the fathers how they mirrored the newborn children. The whole idea was essential as most males will not provide care for a child they feel is not theirs. As Buss confirms “fathers who perceive that their children resemble them report investing more heavily in their children” (2016). Such gave challenges to parental care, especially to the male side and forces females to be better caregivers than males.