It is believed that the mirror is a predominantly female attribute. Isn’t it time for us to reconsider our views on this subject?
It seems that this stereotype needs to be revised: men look in the mirror almost one and a half times more often than women 1. And not to check if everything is in order with their clothes, face or hair: they just admire themselves. Such a tendency to “self-observation” is characteristic not only of those men who like to take care of themselves, but also of supporters of pronounced masculinity. According to sociologists, the authors of the survey, the surge of male narcissism and interest in their body was influenced by the culture of selfies and Instagram.
“Men and women are strikingly different in their assessment of their own appearance,” explains anthropologist Marina Butovskaya, author of the book Anthropology of Sex. “These differences are obviously related to the functioning of the male and female brain. In modern Western culture, women tend to see themselves as fuller than they really are. When a woman looks at herself in the mirror, it seems to her that she is about 20% fatter than she really is. Men treat themselves with much more love. The male brain unconsciously corrects its own image in the mirror, making it much more attractive than in real life. In addition, male self-perception significantly depends on the mood, the attitude of others and social success. The higher the social success, the more attractive a man seems to himself.
1 The survey was commissioned by the online menswear store avaj.co.uk