OPINION: Have men's tastes changed? Who cares?

GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES?: Women have been told men prefer various things in a future mate - such as a body like Marilyn Monroe.

The last thing I needed to see on a Monday morning while queuing for a coffee was this headline in the Dominion Post: The Female Form: Have Men's Tastes Changed?

My drowsy, poorly-caffeinated, but still resolutely feminist self wasn't impressed. More of the male gaze. More oggling of women's bodies under the societal microscope.

I read the article eventually: two French biologists ran a study to find out how men's tastes in the fairer sex evolved over the centuries.

They asked 1473 men to calculate the waist-to-hip ratios of women in sculptures from 500BC to 400AD, paintings from 1600 to 1900, Miss America pageants from the 1920s onwards and Playboy centrefolds from 1962.

Ratios were consistent in antiquity, dwindled dramatically in the 1970s, and widened again by the 2000s.

My question -- who cares?

Throughout the years, women have been torpedoed with advice on catching a fellow. Everything from 1950s advertisements on "feminine hygiene" to Cosmopolitan have offered their two cents on what the discerning gentleman prefers. Men like blondes. Men like brunettes. Men like red lipstick. Men like a natural face. Men like a slim figure. Men, as songstress Meghan Trainor so eloquently put it, "like a little more booty to hold".

The French scientists' experiment revealed tastes do change over time -- and what turns a dude's head is largely influenced by fashion.

The desired feminine waistlines were larger in centuries gone by as the plumper figure represented wealth. Post World War II, men liked a willowy waistline -- hardly surprising, when thin physiques following years of food rationing were the norm. Recently, surveys in Britain revealed a preference for the athletic silhouette. A follow-on from the ubiquitous "fitspiraton" craze?

Personally, after all that, I think it's time we stopped discussing men and what supposedly tickles their fancy.

Because, actually, men are not a monolith. There are some generalisations -- but in my experience, gentlemen are attracted to all possibilities: skinny, voluptuous, muscular, the works. Regardless of what the glossies tell us, men are different. As a friend of mine said, heterosexual men like women, full stop.

And for women? For too long, we've been told how to nab a bloke. Mainly, so we'll buy stuff -- there are industries who make a pretty penny by convincing us desirability is only an eyeshadow or diet away. But what if we stopped fretting about what men like, and focussed on what we like?

My advice is to forget the Venus sculptures, forget the magazines, and forget Meghan Trainor. We're all more than the sum of our waists.