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

Rating:
Summary: It clarifies male/female issues greatly
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: A Fine Work from the Anthropologic Point of View
Review: I like the way Townsend makes the case for anthropologic givens for the differences between men and women, and I like the way he challenges some of the past work of Margaret Mead for her unwillingness to use data that did not fit her model, but at the same time admiring her for admiting her mistake years later.

Rating:
Summary: rubbish
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: women want status; men want beauty --
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: rubbish
Review: This book is simplistic and reductionistic, and based on very stereotypical thinking (and not backed up with any credible science) the truth is ... there is so much variation in the genders .... some men are not so focused on a woman's appearance ... and there are some women out there who love young, sexy men and are not impressed by status (most of my college friends certainly fit this) ... do not waste your money on this simple, badly written trash ...

Rating:
Summary: info on what men want but not enough on what women want
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Clear explanation of the evolution of sexual attraction.
Review: Townsend makes a plausible case for the evolution of sex differences in mate selection. Women seek high status partners, he says, while men seek physically attractive partners. There will always be doubts about the correctness of such explanations, but here there is fun in the telling.