Sex, Power, and Partisanship: How Evolutionary Science Makes Sense of Our Political Divide - Hector A. Garcia 2019

Egalitarianism versus Competitiveness between Females and Males
Is Conservatism an Extreme form of The Male Brain?

A large volume of research shows that females are generally more concerned with fairness, and males more concerned with dominance hierarchies. These tendencies are observable early. Young girls, for example, tend to share and take turns far more than boys, whereas boys tend to be more competitive. One study found that girls exhibited turn-taking twenty times more than boys, and boys exhibited competitive behaviors fifty times more than girls.⁴⁸ Further, when put together, boys often quickly form dominance hierarchies, and this pre-primed social dynamic is measurable in early childhood.⁴⁹ Summarizing this dynamic captured by studies on language use between boys and girls,⁵⁰ Joyce Benenson writes, “When speaking to one another, young boys issue directives, command others, insult them, tell jokes at others’ expense, ignore what someone else just said, disagree with another's point, call one another names, brag, tell stories highlighting their own accomplishments, curse, threaten others, use direct statements, and generally behave in a domineering fashion toward one another.”⁵¹ Researchers find that young girls, on the other hand, generally spend more energy trying to solve differences with using politeness, tact, and diplomacy.⁵²

Boys are also more inclined toward intergroup dominance. Research finds, for example, that young boys playing in sports teams tend to never let the losing team forget the outcome of the game, whereas girls more often try to make the players feel equal and deemphasize who won or lost.⁵³ Intergroup dominance among males continues into adulthood and is seen everywhere from professional sports teams to street gangs to militaries.