Overview

• Published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the five-year meta-analysis compiled aggression, threat and ritualized dominance data from 253 populations representing 121 primate species to assess sex-based power dynamics.
• Researchers found males dominated females in just 17% of interactions and females dominated males in 13%, refuting a universal hierarchy.
• Over half of recorded agonistic encounters involve cross-sex confrontations, indicating widespread inter-sex competition across species.
• Female primates use reproductive strategies—such as concealed ovulation in bonobos and competition for caregiving males—to tip power towards themselves.
• The findings challenge long-held gender hierarchy theories and suggest human sex-based relations may also be more flexible than traditionally assumed.