Recent evidence challenges long-standing views of male–female power relationships by showing that power ranges along a continuum from strictly male- to strictly female-dominated animal societies

The eco-evolutionary landscape of power relationships between males and females. Eve Davidian et al. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, Volume 37, Issue 8, August 2022, Pages 706-718. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2022.04.004

Highlights

Inequality in the degree of control (or ‘power’) that members of one sex exert over members of the other sex is a pervasive characteristic of mammalian societies, including our own.

The study of the drivers of male–female power relationships has been impeded by methodological limitations and a lack of conceptual embedding in theories of sexual conflict, sexual selection and social evolution.

Recent evidence challenges long-standing views by showing that (i) power ranges along a continuum from strictly male- to strictly female-dominated animal societies and (ii) intersexual power relationships are not fixed attributes of species.

Here we break with dichotomist and static approaches to adopt a dynamic, theory-driven framework that provides a better understanding of the power struggles between the sexes, and how these relate to the social and mating system of a species.

Abstract: In animal societies, control over resources and reproduction is often biased towards one sex. Yet, the ecological and evolutionary underpinnings of male–female power asymmetries remain poorly understood. We outline a comprehensive framework to quantify and predict the dynamics of male–female power relationships within and across mammalian species. We show that male–female power relationships are more nuanced and flexible than previously acknowledged. We then propose that enhanced reproductive control over when and with whom to mate predicts social empowerment across ecological and evolutionary contexts. The framework explains distinct pathways to sex-biased power: coercion and male-biased dimorphism constitute a co-evolutionary highway to male power, whereas female power emerges through multiple physiological, morphological, behavioural, and socioecological pathways.

Keywords: intersexual power inequalitysexual conflictsocial dominancesexual size dimorphismreproductive controlsocial evolution