Girls like jerks for the same reason that guys like bitchy women- it’s all about physical attraction at the beginning. But there are a lot of psychological and social reasons at play that make girls go for jerks.
Daddy issues
A girl that grew up with an absent father, an emotionally abusive father or without a father at all is more likely to go for jerks than girls with healthy relationships with their fathers. Daddy issues (experiences with a father/father figure growing up) make a girl believe that she doesn’t deserve to be loved and appreciated by men so she goes for a guy who is just as big a jerk as her own father was.
They take jerks on as ‘projects’
A lot of good girls tend to enter relationships with jerks hoping that their love would be what changes them for the better. In fact, this notion that there is a really good guy underneath every jerk boyfriend is one of the biggest myths in the dating world. Hence, seemingly normal and well adjusted girls too fail to see when a guy is being a jerk for no apparent reason and convince themselves that if they give these jerks enough love and time, they would come around and begin behaving better.
Good guys don’t date ‘damaged’ girls
When was the last time you saw a genuine good, well settled guy, stay too long with a girl that is genuinely “damaged”? Most guys, even if they go out with a girl that has her own quirks and insecurities, dump such girls the moment their issues came to the fore. A damaged girl is too much work and too much to handle once the fun has worn out and most guys are dissuaded from staying in such a relationship by their friends and family. Thus, after a while, a girl has no other option but to enter a relationship with a jerk who sustains her own psychological need for drama and histrionics.