The Theory That Men Evolved to Hunt and Women Evolved to Gather Is Wrong

i_have_no_enemies@lemmy.worldbanned from community to News@lemmy.world – 503 points –
The Theory That Men Evolved to Hunt and Women Evolved to Gather Is Wrong
scientificamerican.com
183

You are viewing a single comment

That was a theory? I was under the impression Male/Female size differentiation was from men fighting men.

Apes fighting apes, maybe. AFAIK, size differences between the sexes has not increased since we first evolved. It's part of our pre-human genetic heritage, not an evolutionary pressure on homo sapiens.

I rather doubt that, because you see much larger male/female size differentiation in certain ethnicities than others, almost like there was some sort of pressure or selection geographically.

Size has much more to do with diet and environment than genes. It's not uncommon for societies where food is scarce to feed boys more than girls. In some places fat wives are prized as an external indicator that her husband is wealthy. These relationships change with place and time, and faster than genetic selection could possibly act.

If you look at Polynesians, the women often tend to be bigger as well, maintaining the size disparity seen in other races and cultures. Wouldn't this suggest that evolutionary pressures which will give preference to larger stature bodies are affecting the sexes equally?

If so, then the innate size disparity between sexes was written into our genetic code before we branched off.

I'm not an evolutionary biologist though.

1 more...
8 more...