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Comment by david-cako | Hacker News Reader

One piece of evidence is that men have a flatter distribution of outcomes and more often than women are falling off either end of the chart, for better and worse.

All it takes is a look at those OkCupid studies for rating distributions to see how much larger the difference is between success and failure for men.

This problem is not exclusive to men, but affects more men.

Women more often have an expectation of mating upwards, and high status women have a similar problem of finding themselves excluded.

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Its hard to feel too much sympathy for such women when the obvious answer would be to lower their standards somewhat. The exclusion seems to be down to their own choices.

You say that as though what they're attracted to is a purely conscious decision.

Certainly, women have unconscious desires. However, the existing situation is a “tragedy of the commons”. It is in any one woman’s individual interest to hold out for the best possible match that they can get. However, if that strategy is shared by the vast majority of women then they will end up in competition over a very small (somewhere between 5-10%) of the most attractive males. In view of this, it would be rational for many women to consider settling for less attractive men who still might be a good father/provider.

The fact that I like cake is not a conscious decision. My decision is whether I will eat it or not. You don't actually have to be with the people you're attracted to. (We all get old and ugly eventually anyway.)

> You don't actually have to be with the people you're attracted to

For that matter, you don't have to be with anybody at all, which may be why you see women rather be alone than follow parent's suggestion!

I read an alternative interpretation somewhere about this. Take it with a grain of salt.

1. High status men have access to a lot of attractive women. With the way men's biology is wired, it wouldn't be surprising that they would choose an attractive, relatively lower status woman over a highly accomplished but not that attractive one.

2. High status men often have stressful work lives. They would probably prefer a partner that makes them feel relaxed at home. High status women usually have careers themselves so it would be difficult to provide this need.

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