What do we look first in a woman?

What do we look first in a woman?

What do we look first in a woman?: An eye-tracking technology (a technique that tracks and records eye movements to see what they are watching) has confirmed what women have known for a long time: people look more at their sexual parts and less at their faces when they Evaluate their appearance. The study, published in Sex Roles [1], found that women who had an "hourglass" shape, such as a big chest, a fine waist, and wider hips, frequently provoked such looks.

The study used this technology, which captured the gaze of men who glanced furtively at women to assess them quickly. Because of these glances, women can develop some social physical anxiety, and display a cognitive performance down or silent. This comes from the fact that this type of attention reduces them to the status of instruments in which their bodies are considered to be representative of their whole being.

Previous research has mainly used the experiences of this phenomenon reported by women themselves. But here researchers have used Eyelink II which is an eye-tracking system to examine how 29 women and 36 men responded to computer-manipulated photographs of the same group of mannequins but with different body shapes.

Researchers found that participants focused more on women's breasts and sizes, and less on faces when asked to "objectify" (relating to sexual objectification) by assessing their appearance rather than personality. This effect was more pronounced for women who had an "hourglass" body, idealized in western culture, and to a lesser extent by women with smaller breasts and wider hips that stem from the cultural ideals of the beauty.

Unlike their female counterparts, male participants made a distinction between women who had bodies of different shapes regardless of whether they focused on appearance or personality. Women with bodies close to their ideal ("hourglass" type or 90-60-90) were generally viewed more positively than women who had moderately or weakly ideal bodies.

Researchers believe that when a woman's appearance, rather than her personality, attracts a man, all women will experience this objective look (reducing to the status of sexual object) whatever shape their body. This is logical with an earlier proposition that a reproductive mature female body creates a shared cultural experience in which the bodies of all women (whatever their sex appeal) are constantly observed, evaluated and potentially objectified.

It is interesting to note that women also often see other women as objects. This corresponds to the idea that women could internalize the male gaze and self-objectify, and in turn use it to evaluate other women.

"To put it generally, people are more positive about a more attractive woman than one who is less attractive," says Gervais, author of the study. "However, attraction may also have its share of responsibility, because while evaluating them positively, those who re-examine focus less on individual characteristics and personality, such as faces, and more on parts of the Body of a seductive woman "

References :
[1] Sarah Gervais, Arianne Holland, Michael Dodd. My Eyes Are Up Here: The Nature of the Objectiveizing Gaze Toward Women. Sex Roles, 2013; DOI: 10.1007 / s11199-013-0316-x