From Salon: http://www.salon.com/2013/09/18/sex_shocker_men_and_women_arent_that_different/
Think human males and females are so distinct? Look at lions, cardinals, anglerfish and elephant seals!
By Lisa Wade
Wednesday, Sep 18, 2013
Somewhere in the deep, dark depths of the ocean a male anglerfish is hungry. He lacks the artificial, bioluminescent lure that females use to attract prey. This is a rather insignificant problem compared to the fact that he is incapable of digesting food. The only bite he’ll ever take will be a love bite. He’ll latch on to a female anglerfish with his teeth, triggering a chemical reaction that will dissolve his face, fusing it permanently. Eventually he’ll lose every organ in his body to this process, except his testicles. Those will stick around, literally. A happy female anglerfish will be dotted with pairs of balls. They are safe deposit boxes of sperm that she draws on at will.
This is sexual dimorphism. The phrase refers to the degree to which males and females of a species differ. Anglerfish are obviously strongly dimorphic. Other animals are less so. Males and females of some species, like the ring-necked dove, are almost impossible to tell apart. In the big scheme of things, humans are more like the ring-necked dove than the anglerfish, and that is a really important fact that we seem hell-bent on ignoring.
Instead, we obsess over gender differences. We search for them in scientific studies, scour religious texts for hints from a higher power, and extrapolate from the behavior of our friends and loved ones. We write and read a seemingly endless stream of books counting and discounting the evidence. We argue over whether the differences we think we see are caused by nature or nurture.
When it all comes down to it, though, how much difference are we talking about? Let’s put it in perspective.
If we were as sexually dimorphic as the elephant seal, the average human male would tower six feet above the average woman and weigh 550 pounds. If we were like gorillas, men and women would be about the same height as they are now, but the average man would outweigh the average woman by over 166 pounds.
If we were as sexually dimorphic as the blanket octopus, men would be 0.8% the size of a female, or about the size of a walnut. If we were green spoonworms, the average human male would be less than an inch tall. He would live his entire life on his five-foot three-inch human mate – unless she accidentally ate him. Luckily, he could then live out a full life inside her digestive tract.
Continue reading at: http://www.salon.com/2013/09/18/sex_shocker_men_and_women_arent_that_different/
