Are Women Attracted To Money? | (A Social Experiment)

Pea designs and conducts her own social experiment to test whether money influences perceived physical attractiveness, then builds a much deeper evolutionary and cultural argument about why both sexes are hypocrites for criticizing each other's mating strategies. The experiment uses photos of random men and women shown to strangers with varying income figures attached, and the results — especially the asymmetry between how men and women respond to wealth signals — give Pea ammunition for a pointed critique of the double standards surrounding attraction.

What's Covered ​

• Experiment design

  • Took photos of four random men and four random women
  • Spent a full day showing them to random people of the opposite sex
  • Question asked: "How good-looking are these people on a scale of 1 to 10?"
  • Three rounds of testing:
    • Round 1 (baseline): Photos with no biographical info — just pictures
    • Round 2: Added a generic name, common hometown, and a fictitious yearly income (in dollars and pesos) — some low, some high
    • Round 3: Swapped the incomes — previously low-income photos got high incomes and vice versa
  • Told subjects to study each photo "for a few seconds" so they'd notice the income info without Pea explicitly calling attention to it
  • No occupation listed — just income — to avoid skewing results
  • Sample: 36 women and 21 men interviewed over 9 hours

• Results for men's photos (rated by women):

  • The best-looking man's score climbed almost a full point with high income, but dropped 1.8 points with low income
  • The least attractive man barely budged with low income (less than half a point drop) but jumped nearly 3 points with high income
  • All men showed the same pattern to varying degrees: higher income raised scores, lower income reduced them
  • Key finding: the less attractive a man was, the more his rating improved with wealth — wealth was a bigger equalizer for less attractive men

• Results for women's photos (rated by men):

  • The most attractive woman's scores barely moved regardless of income
  • All women's scores remained stable across income levels — except one
  • The least attractive woman's score actually dropped by over a full point when given a huge income
  • Pea flags this as a fascinating anomaly and invites viewers to theorize why

• Pea's evolutionary argument for why women care about income:

  • Women evolved to think beyond easy sex — sex is readily available to women ("if you lived on a beach where every grain of sand represented an available sexual encounter, just how valuable would random sex be to you?")
  • Women are selective about mates because children require huge investment in time and resources
  • Women can't produce unlimited children the way men theoretically can, so they became "gatekeepers in the sex department" (though she jokes "a growing number of us seem to fail miserably at keeping the gate closed")
  • Even women using contraceptives or not planning children are still programmed to seek the best possible mate
  • Women don't want to settle down with "a hot guy that can't put food on the table"

• Pea's evolutionary argument for why men care about looks:

  • Men are programmed to reproduce as much as possible
  • Nature gave most men higher sex drives and a different mate-selection method
  • Men are attracted initially to physical appearance and "rarely look at a woman in terms of financial resources"
  • This doesn't mean men are shallow or only want a woman to "keep her mouth shut and keep the bed warm"

• Both sexes consider deeper traits too

  • Attraction encompasses: smell, movement, voice, mannerisms, intelligence, loyalty, humor, overall personality
  • Men just see looks first as their primary filter; women see resource ability first
  • But both factor in the other traits beyond their primary filter

• Pea's hypocrisy argument — her main thesis:

  • She's disturbed by the hostility in her comments section where men say "all women want is my money" and women say "all men want is my body"
  • Her response: "You're both right and you're both wrong"
  • When a man pulls his whole wad of cash to pay for a small Coke so everyone sees his roll of bills — that's a deliberate mating strategy. "So don't complain when a woman notices what you're waving in front of her face"
  • When a woman wears a low-cut top and bends down to pick something up — she can't complain about being treated like a sex object (Pea jokes: "I wouldn't get any attention, but you know what I mean")
  • The double standard: a woman admitting she considers a man's net worth is stigmatized, but men openly preferring hot women is treated as a no-brainer
  • She asks: "What would you think of a woman you overheard saying 'oh, just look at that guy's bulging portfolio'?" — admits even she'd find it off-putting, yet a man saying he only dates physically hot women is unremarkable

• Rebutting the "women only care about money" conclusion:

  • If money were all that mattered, the highest-income man would have always won — which wasn't the case
  • The most attractive man was still the most attractive regardless of income
  • Women DO care about looks; money just adds extra points

• The parallel for men who feel overlooked:

  • A man who says "I'm loving, honest, loyal but get passed over because I'm not wealthy enough" is making the exact same complaint as a woman passed over for having "an unfortunate face, crooked teeth, and a bad case of acne"
  • Both sexes have their primary filters, and both experience rejection because of them

• Her practical takeaway:

  • A man doesn't have to hand over his assets — Pea says if she were a man, she'd keep her assets under her own control and ownership
  • But "if she's a good woman, she'll be perfectly content just knowing that as long as you stay together, she's safe and you can provide for her"
  • Similarly, if a woman tries to stay in shape and remain attractive, is it really terrible that her partner finds pleasure in her appearance?
  • Both can coexist with genuine love

• Theories on the unattractive woman's score dropping with high income:

  • Pea speculates: men may want to be (or be perceived as) the provider to increase mating chances
  • Or men may subconsciously assume a high-income woman will be "bossy or a Karen"
  • Leaves it as an open question for viewers

• End segment: addresses viewer confusion about her identity

  • After her transsexual scene video, viewers asked if she's transsexual herself
  • Points out the absurd logic: "If I do a story on cam show girls, does that mean I'm a cam show girl? Since I did a video about call girls, I guess I'm one of those too"
  • Has Gracey perform a comedic live "examination" to confirm she's "100% female"

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