Primate Politics 

It has long been assumed by both researchers and the wider public that sex-based inequalities in humans originate from their primate relatives. 

A new study, however, has revealed that sex-based hierarchies in primates are more flexible than previously thought.  

“Male dominance is not a baseline, as was implicitly thought for a long time in primatology,” study author Élise Huchard told the Washington Post. 

Previous studies had already examined the female dominance spectrum in certain primate species.  

The new research takes it one step further to precisely quantify the degree of one gender’s dominance over the other, according to a statement. 

Scientists collected data from 253 populations representing 121 primate species to research contested interactions between males and females and analyze the context in which they tend to dominate.  

These contested interactions included physical aggression to symbolic gestures signaling submission. 

The team recorded which sex “won” each interaction, then compared the results across various primate species and populations. 

In 70 percent of observed primate populations, neither females nor males were clearly dominant, meaning that they won more than nine in 10 interactions. Meanwhile, males were clearly dominant in 17 percent of primate populations and females in 13 percent. 

“It’s actually a beautiful continuum, and most species lie in the middle and are not strictly male or female dominant,” Huchard said. 

Females usually dominate in species where they have a strong hold on reproduction control, namely monogamous, arboreal species in which males and females are of similar size.  

Female dominance is also more common in societies where there is strong competition among females or where conflict between the sexes poses less risk to smaller individuals. 

Meanwhile, male dominance is particularly present in species where males have a clear physical advantage over females, namely in polygynous, terrestrial species and/or those living in groups. 

“This study is part of a growing body of literature showing that when we think about power in animals as more than just who is biggest or baddest, when we recognize economic forms of power, such as the leverage that females derive from controlling reproduction, we find a wonderfully complex landscape of power,” Rebecca Lewis, a biological anthropologist not involved in the study, told the Post. 

According to the findings, the so-called “alpha male” appears to be relatively rare across the 121 species observed, suggesting that male dominance among primates is not as ubiquitous as once thought.  

However, primate behavioral ecologist Nicholas Newton-Fisher, who was not involved in the research, advised against relying too much on these study results to draw conclusions about humans, noting that, in the study, the primate group that includes humans is one that showed strict male dominance. 

Even so, the study demonstrates that there is no universal model to explain power dynamics in primate societies, thereby opening new paths for understanding the evolution of gender roles in early human societies.