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Sex is an expensive business, biologically speaking. Finding a suitable mate takes time and energy. Offspring are also a huge investment of resources. But sex does offer a rewarding possibility: children who are fitter than their parents thanks to new and “better” combinations of genes. Darwin realised that many animal species therefore carefully select their mates.
There is an innate biological inequality, however. Eggs are relatively few in number – a large and costly investment – while sperm are small and vastly more abundant. And embryos often need further investment in the body or outside. Since the greater investment tends to fall on females, they are often the more selective sex (while males compete to be chosen).
But according to a new paper, published in Science, Charles Darwin’s patriarchal world view led him to dismiss female agency and mate choice in humans.
He also downplayed the role of female variation in other animal species, assuming they were rather uniform, and always made similar decisions. And he thought there was enormous variation among the males who battled for female attention by showing off stunning ranges of skills and beauty. This maintained the focus on the dynamics of male dominance hierarchies, sexual ornamentation and variation as drivers of sexual selection, even if females sometimes did the choosing.
But do Darwin’s ideas on sexual selection hold up today?
Read full story at The Conversation: https://theconversation.com/evolution-how-victorian-sexism-influenced-darwins-theories-new-research-175261
Imagery: https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/peacock-tail-elegant-colourful-portrait-1776577028