Women’s Faces Are Rated More Attractive than Men’s Worldwide
Why are women considered the “fairer sex” in humans, when in most animal species it is males that display the more elaborate and visually striking traits? This question has intrigued researchers since Charles Darwin. A new large-scale study led by the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics (MPIEA) in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, now provides clear empirical evidence for the first time. The findings have just been published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Published: 27.05.2026
The international research team analyzed data from more than 28,500 participants, comprising over 1.5 million ratings of faces from a wide range of countries and cultures. The results show a clear pattern: on average, women’s faces are rated as more attractive than men’s. The authors refer to this effect as the “Gender Attractiveness Gap” (GAP), which emerges consistently across age groups, cultural backgrounds, and regions.
“Particularly striking is that women rate other women as significantly more attractive than men, while male faces are rated similarly—and overall lower—by both sexes,” says lead author Eugen Wassiliwizky of the MPIEA. “This means the difference arises not only between men and women, but also within the same group.”
The team also found that this effect disappears in self-ratings: men and women do not differ in how they evaluate their own attractiveness. In addition, the analyses suggest that men tend to judge more strictly than women, although this effect is considerably smaller than the GAP and varies across cultural contexts.
To better understand the origins of the GAP, the researchers also examined objective facial features. Using morphometric analyses—quantitative methods for capturing facial structure—they assessed how feminine or masculine a face is. The results indicate that differences in these gender-typical facial features explain a substantial part of the GAP.
“The gap is not a statistical artifact, but a robust and widely observed phenomenon,” says Wassiliwizky. “It can be partly explained by differences in facial structure, but not entirely.”
Overall, the findings show that judgments of attractiveness are not simply a matter of individual Taste. Rather, they reflect a combination of biological features, individual evaluation patterns, and social influences. The GAP points to systematic differences in how men and women are perceived—a phenomenon that has long been discussed but not previously empirically demonstrated.
The study is based on the largest dataset to date on facial attractiveness worldwide. To ensure transparency, reproducibility, and to support future research, the researchers have made all data and analysis code publicly available.
Taste
The sensory impression we refer to as "taste" results from the interaction between our senses of smell and taste. In terms of sensory physiology, however, "taste" is limited to the impression conveyed to us by the taste receptors on the tongue and in the surrounding mucous membranes. It is currently assumed that there are five different types of taste receptors that specialize in the taste qualities sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami. In 2005, scientists also identified possible taste receptors for fat, whose role as a distinct taste quality is still being investigated.
Original publication
Wassiliwizky, E., Zietsch, B. P., Kleisner, K., & Ullén, F. (2026). The Gender Attractiveness Gap. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 293(2071), Article 20260362. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2026.0362
