Does catty gossip help women snare a mate?

Women who are ovulating find other women less attractive, says Canadian research. But not everyone is convinced this means women put down other women's attractiveness as part of a competition for men.

Psychologist Dr Maryanne Fisher of York University in Toronto reported her research in the Royal Society's journal Biology Letters.

Fisher investigated an evolutionary-based theory that hormones influence competition between women for potential mates.

She looked at the relationship between women's oestrogen levels and how attractive they thought other women's faces were.

The study assumed one potential strategy of women competing for males was to make rivals appear inferior, a phenomenon Fisher called derogation.

"It is probable that women compete in terms of attractiveness since this is one of the primary criteria used by men when selecting mates," she wrote. "Furthermore, because hormones influence the mate-selection process, they may also mediate competition."

The experiment involved asking 57 female and 47 male university students to say how attractive a set of females and male faces were, shown as random photographs on a laptop computer. Fisher also asked the women which part of their ovulatory cycle they were in.

Fisher excluded homosexual and pregnant students from the study, as well as those who had recently used oral or intravenous contraceptives, antidepressants, or had missed ovulatory cycles.

"During periods of high oestrogen, competition, and hence derogation, increased, as evidence by lower ratings of female facial attractiveness. By contrast, oestrogen levels did not significantly affect ratings of male faces," reported Fisher.

She argued that while the theory of female competition was "controversial", her findings suggested a potential competitive process.

Do women really compete this way? But Australian researcher Professor Gisela Kaplan of the University of New England disagreed.

Kaplan has recently co-authored a book Gene worship: moving beyond the nature/nurture debate over genes, brain, and gender that analyses the scientific research on choosing a mate.

"[The Canadian study] looks like a good experiment, but it isn't. It really is very poor science," she told ABC Science Online.

"The methodology is fine and people get beguiled by methodology but the fallacies are in the basic assumptions."

Kaplan argued the experiment assumed that hormone levels in the body determine sexual desire and activity. She said this ran counter to "well established scientific fact".

While hormones such as oestrogen and progesterone are linked strongly to sexual activity in rats, behavioural endocrinology research had shown this was not the case in humans, she said.

"Humans and apes mate and have sexual activity throughout the year and independent of the cycle and it doesn't even necessarily increase during ovulation."

Kaplan also argued that Fisher also wrongly assumed that women are concerned with attractiveness of potential mates.

"There are countless studies to show that women choose males for a whole host of qualities, particularly honesty, income levels, interest in long-term partnerships and so forth and the attractiveness issue in all studies had played a minor role," she said.

"The main problem with that study is that it mixes up social and scientific facts and comes to conclusions that are meant to have biological relevance for the human species, when in fact the biological basis of the paper is the most questionable."

Dear Twinkie (love you but you're so bad for my girlish figure!),

You are correct to assume he is the EX and yes does treat his wife worse than he treated me. But that's only because she's stayed with him until this very day.

I'm not quite sure how his mother treated him but his dad did give him an education in how to abuse your wife. And as our daughter witnessed, he learned very well from his father.

Our daughter (his and mine) was to stay with him for two weeks at a time during summer vacation (with an occasional weekend when it was convenient) but like clockwork, less than a week into the visit she'd call me wanting to come home. Once home she'd tell me about the awful knock down drag out fights her father and stepmom would have. After the second time this happened I put my foot down - no long stays. He threatened to take me to court to get custody so finally she told him herself that she didn't want to stay with him anymore.

Then he threatened her! He'd have the sheriff drag her out of here, no more Christmas or birthday presents for her! She, at the ripe old age of 10 told him she didn't care, that he could keep his crappy presents. And I begged him to take me to court. I really begged! I couldn't wait to tell a judge what had been going on. One thing is always true, bullies are chicken. We never did see a judge darnit. I guess he figured it'd be difficult to explain to the judge why he was two years in arrears with child support.

Here's the funniest part... he was ordered to pay $50 a week at my request. The divorce judge wanted to make it more but I knew he'd take his anger out on our daughter. $50 a week for 15 years... yeah, never raised it once, perplexing the Child Support Enforcement folks. And to this day, according to the EX, I'm a money grubbing whore.

Not to worry though, I've been happily married to a wonderful man for 20 years and though living well is the best revenge, living happily with a man who loves and honors you is the ultimate revenge. :-)

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