Science and the failure of sisterhood

This may help explain why the best wingman is a pretty girl:

A new study provides evidence for what many have long suspected: that single women are much keener on pursuing a man who’s already taken than a singleton…. The most striking result was in the responses of single women. Offered a single man, 59 per cent were interested in pursuing a relationship. But when he was attached, 90 per cent said they were up for the chase.

I’ve long been aware that many women appear to pay absolutely no attention to the fact that a man deemed of interest is taken. Even being informed of the man’s marital status doesn’t seem to slow them down a bit, no doubt in part due to past experience of men who didn’t allow their marital status to get in the way of anything. But there is at least one extremely effective means of dealing with it. Women rapidly lose all interest in a man who is married to a woman they recognize as being out of their league. Smartphones with pictures are very helpful in this regard.

Hierarchy takes a different form in women than it does in men, but women are definitely hierarchical creatures too. It is really amusing the way a picture of a beautiful wife will often cause women to visibly reassess a man, in some cases inspiring them to literally step back and frown as they try to figure out how a man they rate at a certain level is with a woman they rank a few levels higher. The reason this is effective is because if there’s one thing more powerful than a woman’s attraction to a taken man, it’s her desire to avoid the humiliation of rejection.

I’d be interested to see a follow-up study with the women who expressed interest in the taken man being divided into three groups. One group would be shown a picture of a less-attractive woman, the second group would see a picture of a woman of about the same level of attractiveness as the woman in the study, and the third would be shown a picture of a much hotter woman. My hypothesis is that the third group would be far less interested in attempting a pursuit than the other two groups. In general, Angelinas steal from Jennifers, Jennifers don’t steal from Angelinas.