What Women Want--What Men Want: Why the Sexes Still See Love and Commitment So Differently (Paperback)

~ (Author) "JOAN LIVES IN A LARGE CITY in the western United States..." (more)
Key Phrases: functional polygyny, basic sex differences, more readily aroused, United States, New York, Western Europe (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

In this book, Townsend makes years of scholarly research accessible to the general public. The research, including 2000 questionnaires, 200 interviews, and an extensive bibliography, indicates that men and women across many cultures have evolved a psychobiological response to sexual relationships. Men want young, beautiful women and casual sexual relationships; women look for committed relationships with men of wealth and status. Even among "liberated" individuals, these statements hold true. Townsend, a professor of anthropology who has published many scholarly articles, explores why this hasn't changed despite the changing sex roles and economies of modern American society. A well-written, well-researched, and fascinating read; recommended.?Elizabeth Caulfield Felt, Holland Lib., Washington State Univ., Pullman
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Kirkus Reviews

Forget the sexual and feminist revolutions, says Townsend; men and women want what they have always wanted over the decadesand centuries and millennia, for that matter. In a nutshell, posits Townsend (Anthropology/Syracuse Univ.), men who engage in dating and mating are looking primarily for physical attractiveness in women; women seek men who have status and earnings power and who will emotionally and materially invest in them. Such proclivities, he argues, are largely hard-wired into us by evolutionary psychology. Thus, for example, studies show that men are far more easily aroused by visual stimuli, while womens fantasies deal more with men who will provide security and caring (thus, pornography is overwhelmingly purchased by males, romance novels by females). Such proclivities are little affected by some womens newfound economic status; even economically self-sufficient or otherwise high- achieving women, such as medical students, often resist dating lower-status men, even if theyre perceived as handsome. Nor does marital status or gender orientation play much of a role (Townsend cites studies that reveal that the differences between what gays and lesbians seek in lovers are even more pronounced than between male and female heterosexuals). But his book suffers from methodological (not to mention stylistic) problems. Townsends sample of interviewees is somewhat skewed (a quarter of these 200 were medical students, while another quarter were Mexican-Americans); some of his statistics are meaningless (Blumstein and Schwartz found that women in their twenties with three children have a 72 percent chance of remarrying, while women in their thirties with no children have a 60 percent chance); and he also is too focused on the macro picture; there is almost nothing here about how individual psychology or cultural conditioning affects the search for, and selection of a partner. An interesting but flawed sociobiological analysis what men and women want from each other. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (April 22, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195131037
• ISBN-13: 978-0195131031
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #880,714 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars women want status; men want beauty --, January 19, 2002

By	Carol C. "ccjello" (Kansas City, MO USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This review is from: What Women Want--What Men Want: Why the Sexes Still See Love and Commitment So Differently (Hardcover)

If you're a woman over 30, less than a perfect ten, and wondering whether you'll ever find a good man, look no further. This book will confirm that you're doomed to spinsterhood. All men are looking for that beautiful twenty-year old blonde with the perfect body. Seriously, the basic premise of the book is that men prize a woman's youth & physical attractiveness first and foremost (and almost to the exclusion of any other traits -- a woman's economic status, occupation, and to some extent, personality, are largely irrelevant to men). In choosing sexual partners and mates, men focus on physical attractiveness. Period. Women, on the other hand, look for economic and professional status and investment. A woman of any socioeconomic level wants to "marry up" and will often prefer to have a primary relationship with a higher status man who is married or involved with multiple women than to have a primary monogomous relationship with a lower status man. Men want to minimize their investment; women want to maximize a man's investment. Townsend explains why musicians and athletes have often had hundreds of sex partners, and typically have ten to twenty women whom they can call at any given time for commitment free, investment-free sex. Townsend creates serious doubt that men in high status positions will be faithful in relationships.

It seems that the vast majority of the individuals interviewed & quoted are twenty-something medical students, becoming aware of their status for the first time. They will have nothing to do with the "unattractive, overweight" women in their med school class, particularly when the universe of "chirpies" (nurses, therapists, etc.) are available & interested. The other group of men interviewed are, on the whole, high status men, many of whom engage in polygyny (multiple relationships during the same time frame with a variety of women).

This book was interesting, and filled with quotations from the interviewees, although it went on & on & on --reinforcing the conclusion that draws in the first few chapters, quoting one med student who sounds very similar to the next med student. Men want youth & beauty. Women want investment & status.

My guess is that some readers would bristle at the generalizations in this book -- though they undoubtedly ring true. The text doesn't contain a significant amount of commentary & editorialization; it just presents the interview results in a readable fashion.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good study of sex differences in attractiveness., September 21, 1998

By	Allan Mazur "amazur" (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: What Women Want--What Men Want: Why the Sexes Still See Love and Commitment So Differently (Hardcover)

Townsend first describes gender differences in attractiveness, that men seek physical beauty in a sex partner while women seek a man with high status. Then he gives a cogent argument that these tendencies are built into our species. While not the last work on this subject, here is an intelligent and provocative presentation of facts and theory.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It clarifies male/female issues greatly, August 25, 1998

By	[e-mail] (Houston, TX USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: What Women Want--What Men Want: Why the Sexes Still See Love and Commitment So Differently (Hardcover)

Dr. Townsend's book provides a useful review of what Evolutionary Psychologists (as well as every intellectually honest lay observer) already know about the forces that account for the way men and women relate. To this he adds some useful and evocative interview-based research. I am sending copies to all my educated single female friends, and am keeping a copy for my hoped-for future daughter.

Criticisms: Dr. Townsend focuses almost exclusively on the educated top of society, while the mechanisms he describes are causing the most rapid destruction of traditional family values at the uneducated bottom. Also, he ignores the impact of demographics, especially the change in gender ratios that ending death in childbirth has caused in the last few hundred years in the advanced (and not-so-advanced) nations.