Women do rate the majority of men as less PHYSICALLY attractive, this is true.
However, you need to keep an eye on how you think about things, because absurdities easily slip in.
For instance... if most men have to date down... and most women date up...
who the hell are all the left over people dating? Are they just completely celibate?
If we want to get "most" men dating down and women dating up, then we need the chunk of celibate women to be near the top (or else it won't be "most"). The celibate men can all be clustered at the bottom, which is where we'd expect them.
Let's assume the following: at the highest levels, 10s get 10s and 9s get 9s:
- Female 10s --> Male 10s
- Female 9s --> Male 9s
All right, so 9s and 10s are off the market. They're all dating each other.
From here on out, men date down and women date up. So we have:
- Female 8s --> forced into celibacy (will only date up, but Male 9s unavailable)
- Female 7s --> Male 8s
- Female 6s --> Male 7s
- Female 5s --> Male 6s
- Female 4s --> Male 5s
- Female 3s --> Male 4s
- Female 2s --> Male 3s
- Female 1s --> Male 2s
- forced into celibacy (can only date down, but Female 1s unavailable) --> Male 1s
But that clearly is not what we're seeing. Female 8s are most definitely NOT celibate. If you think that's the case, go do some day game and see how many hot girls you can find who are single and dateless. They're out there, but it takes work to find them!
Yet the only way you can make the "most women date up and most men date down" chunk work is if you have a chunk of ABOVE AVERAGE ATTRACTIVE women who are completely celibate. For instance, all the female 8s -- they're just celibate.
This is so because you need a cascading effect that begins with women
en masse at some point in the ladder opting out of dating.
If it's just some here and there, you don't get "most". e.g., if it's the Female 4s who are celibate, the women above 4s can't be dating up because all the men at higher slots are taken by higher slotted women:
- Female 10s --> Male 10s (there are no "Male 11s" for Female 10s to date up to, and vice versa, so they must date at their level)
- Female 9s --> Male 9s (all the Male 10s are taken by Female 10s, and vice versa, so again, dating at their level)
- Female 8s --> Male 8s (etc.)
- Female 7s --> Male 7s
- Female 6s --> Male 6s
- Female 5s --> Male 5s
- Female 4s --> forced into celibacy (Females at this level decide they will only date up, yet all the Male 5s are unavailable)
- Female 3s --> Male 4s (Male 4s are available, since Female 4s are celibate, so Female 3s can now take Male 4s)
- Female 2s --> Male 3s
- Female 1s --> Male 2s
- forced into celibacy (can only date down, but Female 1s unavailable) --> Male 1s
Assuming '5' is average, and half the male and female distribution is above 5 and half is below 5, it is not "most" men dating down or "most" women dating up.
The whole situation quickly becomes absurd, unless you assume that that the male distribution is inverted, with an overabundance of male 9s and 10s -- like way more male 9s and 10s than female 9s and 10s -- sweeping up a bunch of female 8s and 7s to enable this "women date up" trend.
That's the only way it works -- if there are far more very attractive men than there are very attractive women.
Now... it might be possible there is a chunk of unattractive women who want to date up and, when they can't, go celibate, enabling a cascade of other unattractive women lower in attractiveness than them dating up to slightly more attractive (but still unattractive) men.
I think this actually might be possible, and might be the cause of the incel problem -- women of middling attractiveness (career women with mediocre looks; professional feminists; etc.) fail to pair up and thus remove themselves from the mating pool. Men of middling attractiveness, unable to date up because the hotter girls are taken by hotter men, are then forced to date down due to the unavailability of middling attractiveness women. Then you end up with a cascading effect down the attractiveness ladder -- if a female 3 can get a male 4, she's going to take that, and not the male 3, forcing the male 3s to settle for female 2s, etc.
Based on what I have seen, there are these celibate unattractive career women / feminists... if there is a MUCH GREATER NUMBER of celibate middle-attractiveness women than there is celibate middle-attractiveness men, you could end up with a situation where men below middle-attractiveness have to date down, and the least attractive men are involuntarily celibate, because of an overabundance of celibate women at the middle-attractiveness level.
That's the only way the "women dating up / men dating down" bit works though... if there are a bunch of missing women at some point in the attractiveness ladder.
In my experience, women who are 7+ are not going celibate in any large numbers. Probably not even women who are 6+. But around the 4-5 range you can start having women who lack looks but have careers or educations that they think SHOULD make them more attractive, and they are unsatisfied with men in their attractiveness range but don't have access to more attractive men.
It's
possible these average women are opting out of mating en masse and messing things up for all men of their attractiveness level and below.
This might be the cause of average and unattractive men complaining about "women always dating up."
But it also might just be confirmation bias... because average and unattractive women ALSO complain about MEN "always going for younger/hotter girls."
Anyway...
You'd need a study with a LARGE, broad sample population that attempts to objectively rate the attractiveness of men and women across all relevant dimensions (looks, personality, status, socioeconomic class, etc.) and figures out how many people are pairing up with those of their same rating versus who is dating down and who is dating up.
Would be interesting to see that.
Regardless, if you busy yourself making yourself a more attractive man, this isn't a thing you need to worry about.
Even if there is a problem with female 4s being largely celibate and male 4s having to settle for female 3s, the solution there is "Don't be a 4."
A guy who's a 3 can make himself a 6 or a 7 with a little work, and go higher with a lot of work. Just imagine the 3 guy after he loses his beer belly, puts on a little muscle, starts dressing cool, corrects his posture, gets a cool hairstyle, rocks cool facial hair, gets some voice training, learns to make eye contact, and becomes interesting and self-assured. That guy is not a 3 anymore. Now he's a 7 or an 8.
So, this really is not even a problem for a self-improvement oriented man.
If it is a real problem (and not just confirmation bias), it is only actually a problem for unattractive men, which, if you're here, you should not be (or should be pulling yourself out from being).
There simply aren't all the celibate attractive women you'd need to create a cascading effect where even desirable men are dating down.
Highly desirable men are RARER than highly desirable women. If anything, the most desirable women are forced to "date down" because there aren't as many male 10s as there are female 10s and not as many male 9s as female 9s.
Anyway, if you want things to go your way, make yourself a more attractive, more compelling, more desirable man. That's how you get über hotties "dating down" to be with you, instead of you being a mediocre man dating down to an even more mediocre woman.
Chase
