Racial Preferences of Women on Dating Sites
When you look at a woman’s dating profile, do you look at her racial preferences? You can see below the options women are presented on Match.com.
Several apps like Match.com have racial filters.
Do women who indicate they are open to dating other races on their dating profile do so? The answer is NO.
Not all sites have the option where women indicate the racial preferences of men. Plentyoffish and OkCupid, for example, don’t display the racial preferences of women on their profiles.
Even though sites like this don’t indicate the preferences of their members, you can still get an idea of how women will behave based on various studies. The reality is race is a factor in online dating, whether the site you’re a member of shows the racial preferences of women or not.
Some women state their preferences in their bio.
Some women have specific preferences for partners including race.
Racial Preferences Study by AYI.com
The dating site AYI.com analyzed over 2.4 million "interactions" among its members to discover the likelihood of users to respond to other users based on race.
Here are some of their findings:
- "Asian, Hispanic, and Caucasian women prefer Caucasian men."
- "Caucasian women are twice as likely to respond to Caucasian men than African-American men."
- "African-American women prefer all races over Caucasian men but are the least likely to get a response from all men."
OkCupid Racial Preferences Study
The dating site OkCupid analyzed racial preferences among its users in 2009. The site analyzed millions of interactions between its members and discovered the following:
- “White women and Asian women preferred white men.”
- “Latina women preferred Latino men the most but Asian men the least.”
- “Black women preferred black men the most. White men came in a distant second.”
- “Asian women preferred white men the most but were closely followed by Asian men at second.”
Below is a table of their findings in 2009. The values in the table are "preference vs. average." It’s how people weigh race in deciding attraction.
For example, look at the top left corner, and you will see that Asian women find Asian men 10% more attractive than the average guy. Move to the right one square, and you see Asian women found black men 14% less attractive than the average guy.
OkCupid revisited this study in 2014 and found the racial preferences of users hadn’t changed but had also intensified (see below).
Stated Racial Preferences vs. Actual Preferences
As I mentioned earlier, women can indicate their preference in the ethnicity of their potential partner on some dating sites like this one I found on Match.com.
While others like the one below, also from Match.com, indicate the woman has no racial preferences, meaning she’s open to dating all other races.
If a woman indicates she has "no preference," like the one above, you would think that she’s open to dating a man of any race, right? Not exactly.
The study "What Makes You Click? – Mate Preferences in Online Dating" found that women have same-race preferences. The study revealed that when women indicate that the ethnic background of men "didn’t matter," it actually did.
54.7 percent of the female profiles in the study stated that the ethnicity of their partner "doesn't matter." The study found it did matter. Women do have strong "same-race preferences" when messaging men, which contradicts their dating profile.
Why Women Say They’re Open To All Races When The Reality Is Different
Another study, Whom we (say we) want: Stated and actual preferences in online dating, found similar results. Women claim they're open to dating different races but, gravitate towards their own race on dating apps (see below).
This study also showed that women gravitate towards their own race on dating sites.
Why is there a discrepancy between a woman’s stated racial preferences and actual choices? The study found two reasons:
1. The study suspects there are "stronger social prohibitions against stating openly that you prefer to date someone of the same race…" In other words, some women don’t want to be perceived as being racist for indicating they only want to date men of their same race. The study stated that most people are "concerned about being perceived as racist…"
2. Women might not be aware that they’re excluding other races. It could be some subconscious thing where they are unaware of how ethnicity affects their choices in men.
Final Thoughts
It’s clear to see that studies support that women do have racial preferences on dating sites. People to want to date someone similar to themselves.
My advice is to message women you're interested in. I'm white and would have no problem emailing women who indicated they wanted to date "Asian" men, for example. It didn't stop me.
Did I get a low response rate from these women? Absolutely. But I would get some responses, and that's a win for me.
I'm never frustrated in these cases because I know my odds are low. You got nothing to lose, so message whom you want.
So when you email women who want to date a race different from you understand that you won’t do as good as emailing women who want to date someone who is the same race as you.
If you go by the studies, you can conclude you’ll achieve a higher response rate by messaging women who are looking for your ethnicity pure and simple. Keep this in the back of your mind when emailing women.
Resources: Rudder, Christian. “Race and Attraction, 2009 – 2014“. OkCupid.com. Sept 10, 2014.
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