In a revolutionary new study, spearheaded by Dieter Lukas at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, researchers found just the opposite. Surprisingly, female dominance is much more widespread than expected across primate populations. The new work, which tested 253 populations of 121 species, contrary to expectations, shook the foundation long held in primate societies to believe that male dominance was the norm. More importantly, it brings to light the complexity of social structures within these groups, illustrating that distinct dominance by males or females is typically lacking.
These results suggest that the majority (70%) of the populations studied displayed moderate or no sex biases in power dynamics. This would point to a less clear-cut view of primate social hierarchies than formerly believed. Our research team included Elise Huchard from the University of Montpellier. Jointly, they physically tested five hypotheses to discover what factors may be driving sex biases in dominance relations.
Shift in Understanding Female Dominance
Dieter Lukas and his research group reached another thrilling conclusion. They discovered that female-biased dominance is related to key characteristics such as reproductive tactics and social organization within their troops. This sobering observation has resulted in a major paradigm shift into how we conceptualize dominance relationships among animal kingdom members.
“Recent research started to challenge the traditional views of male dominance being the default status, and our study now provides a more comprehensive exploration of variation in intersexual dominance relationships,” noted Peter Kappeler from the German Primate Center.
One of the most unexpected things to emerge from the study was… It’s evidence that male dominance is not the default condition for primates, as is often suggested. Of the 151 populations with quantitative sex ratio data, only 25 showed evidence of male dominance. In these groups, it was the males who won more than 90% of the head-to-head matchups with the females. Most importantly, this calls into question how we conceptualize power and control across primate societies.
Male-Female Power Asymmetries
This work helps to understand the variation in male over female power asymmetries seen between primate societies. Peter Kappeler emphasized the importance of recognizing these differences: “Male-female power asymmetries vary across primate societies.”
Furthermore, the only comprehensive study of aggressive interactions within social groups found that nearly half of these aggressive interactions involved both males and females. This only perpetuates the notion that battles are indeed waged between squares and circles. It points to a deeper “battle of the sexes” zeitgeist.
“The observation that in most populations any given individual is more likely to be involved in a fight against another individual of the opposite rather than the same sex highlights that the battle of the sexes is common in other animals,” Lukas explained.
Alternative Pathways to Power
These results further indicate that in a male primate society power is typically gained and maintained with brute force and intimidation. Female empowerment can develop in much more opportunistic ways. Elise Huchard articulated this distinction: “Critically, while primate males gain power via physical force and coercion, female empowerment relies on alternative pathways, such as reproductive strategies to gain control over matings.”
This finding demonstrates that female dominance extends beyond aggression. In addition to coming from smart reproductive health choices and good social media networking, strategies like these can enable females to exercise agency and authority in their communities while promoting alternatives to armed violence and conflict, in general.
The study emphasizes that ring-tailed lemurs and bonobos—two of the most famous female-dominant species across the animal kingdom—aren’t exceptions requiring special explanations. Rather, they are a much richer suite of social behaviors observed across the primate order.