Insights · How it is measured here · refuted
not reported

Facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR)
what a photo can give, and how we take it.

Width against height, with your hairline placed for you or taken from your hair-back photo, and scored. Alongside it, a masculinity axis built from the traits that genuinely separate the sexes.

Also searched as facial width to height ratio, high fWHR and fWHR meaning.

Why the textbook version needs more than a photo
refuted
Canthion reports
Photographic equivalent

What we report

Width against height, with your hairline placed for you or taken from your hair-back photo, and scored. Alongside it, a masculinity axis built from the traits that genuinely separate the sexes.

widthheightbrow raisewidth / height
The textbook ratio: cheekbone width over the height from brow to upper lip. A brow raise changes the number on its own.

Why not the clinical number itself

As an individual-level trait indicator, discredited. Kramer (2015) found no sexual dimorphism in fWHR across photographs, 3D scans and direct anthropometry. Kordsmeyer et al. (2022) showed that bizygomatic width alone is dimorphic once size is adjusted for: the ratio's denominator destroys the signal. Deaner et al. (2012): body weight, not fWHR, predicts aggression in hockey players. And a brow raise changes the number on its own.

Sources
What we measure instead

Ratios of near-coplanar frontal distances, angles relative to the interpupillary line, and skin appearance. Each comes with an error bar, and each is placed against a population you choose. Start an analysis or read the methodology.

Face width-to-height on the masculinity scale →

fWHR is one of the fourteen traits with a published sex difference; that page lists its direction and effect size alongside the other thirteen.

What the report gives you insteadFace width to height ratio

Same question, different measurement: what the clinical version needs, and what a photograph can give instead.

Golden ratio / Marquardt Phi mask fitrefuted · what a photo can giveGonial anglebony · what a photo can giveRamus : mandibular body ratiobony · what a photo can giveNasofacial angle, and any profile angle taken against a planelateral · what a photo can giveRicketts E-line, Steiner S-line, Holdaway H-linelateral · what a photo can giveOrbital vector / infraorbital rim positionbony · what a photo can give

What is measured instead

Intercanthal distance : palpebral fissure lengthEyes · tier AAlar base width : intercanthal distanceNose · tier AMouth width : alar base widthLips · tier AUpper : lower vermilion heightLips · tier APhiltrum length : chin heightLower face · tier APalpebral fissure height : lengthEyes · tier A
← Golden ratio / Marquardt Phi mask fitChin projection vs a bony reference plane (zero meridian, etc.) →

How every bone-level measurement is taken here · methodology · glossary · all 35 insight pages