CHANGES IN THE FACIAL PROMINENCE OF WOMEN AND MEN OVER THE LAST DECADE

Two studies measured the facial prominence of women and men in popular images over the last decade. The first study used 1,200 photographs from Time and Newsweek for the years 1970 and 1980. The results indicate that overall, men have received greater facial prominence than women, and facial prominence has increased over the decade. Only for Newsweek did women show a significantly greater increase in facial prominence than men. The second study used 640 photographs from Good Housekeeping and Ms. for the years 1974 and 1984. The results show that overall, men have received greater facial prominence than women, and facial prominence has risen over the decade, although not by much. In Ms., women but not men gained; in Good Housekeeping, women gained slightly, but not as much as men. The results are consistent with earlier reports of an asymmetry in representation of men's and women's faces and suggest that this asymmetry is slowly diminishing.