Jokodo
Veteran Member
Interestingly, the human pattern of sexual dimorphism its really the odd one out among apes. It's ridiculously exaggerated in traits that are (presumably) mostly the product of sexual selection, like our patterns of body and facial hair, our females' permanently enlarged breasts, or the ridiculously prolonged penis (almost to the point of being impractical) in our males. At the very same time, it is extremely reduced in other traits that tend to be more the product of natural selection, such as body size and dentition. The male-female average body size ratio varies somewhat by population, but it tends to be around 1.1 with s good overlap - the gorilla's and orangutan's are well above 1.5 and no overlap to speak of -, and a trained dentist with years of experience looking at thousands of human jaws will almost certainly have an easier time quickly assigning an adult chimpanzee jaw to one sex or the other with high accuracy after being shown one typical example of each, than for the human jaws she is so familiar with.
This might suggest that "gender roles", or if you will sex-biased behavioral poles of attraction, have been less divergent throughout much of our history than in other apes. Alternatively or concomittantly, it could be a side effect of human males being under strong selection pressure for lowered testosterone levels or sensitivity in order not to jeopardize our cooperative social structure through (even more) unpredictable bouts of aggression.
The exaggerated penis and breast and the beards could well have evolved in response to the lower overall body dimorphism as signals other apes don't need half a much.
This might suggest that "gender roles", or if you will sex-biased behavioral poles of attraction, have been less divergent throughout much of our history than in other apes. Alternatively or concomittantly, it could be a side effect of human males being under strong selection pressure for lowered testosterone levels or sensitivity in order not to jeopardize our cooperative social structure through (even more) unpredictable bouts of aggression.
The exaggerated penis and breast and the beards could well have evolved in response to the lower overall body dimorphism as signals other apes don't need half a much.