Male dominance hierarchies and women's intrasexual competition
John Marshall Townsend a1 a1 Department of Anthropology, The Maxwell School, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244-1090
onojmt8@aol.com
Abstract
In their competition for higher-status men, women with higher
socioeconomic status use indirect forms of aggression (ridicule and
gossip) to derogate lower-status female competitors and the men who
date them. Women's greater tendency to excuse their aggression
is arguably a cultural enhancement of an evolutionarily based sex
difference and not solely a cultural construction imposed by
patriarchy.
