Female Competition: Causes, Constraints, Content, and Contexts Author(s): Anne Campbell Source: The Journal of Sex Research, Vol. 41, No. 1, Evolutionary and Neurohormonal Perspectives on Human Sexuality (Feb., 2004), pp. 16-26 Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3813400 . Accessed: 29/03/2011 17:53 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=taylorfrancis. 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However, women show greater restraint in theiruse of directintrasexual aggression, which, I argue,is a resultof theirhigher parental investment and the consequentlygreater reproductivecost of injuryor death.Women usually compete for matesby advertisingqualities valued by men(beauty and sexualexclusiveness) and by usingindirect means of denigratingrivals (through gossip and stigmatisation). However, where well-resourcedmen are in shortsupply, women mustfind alternative sources of supportor escalatetheir competition for malepartners to physicallevels. Data from criminology,psychology, evolutionary biology, and anthropologyare used to supportthese proposals. In this articleI offeran interpretationof femalecompe- "ragingmisogyny." As Tanenbaum(2002, p. 47) puts it, titionfrom an evolutionary perspective. First, it is usefulto "Manywomen compete over things they think men value, brieflyreview prior social scienceresearch (not informed suchas lookingsexy .... Themost dangerous outcome of by sucha perspective)to indicatethe richnessof the qual- this is self hatred;girls andwomen disparage themselves itativeobservations and the alternativepositions taken to anddissociate from other females." theirinterpretation. Thepresent article sees competitionas an inherentpart Despitea recentsurge of popularjournalistic books (e.g., of ourbiological status and women's lesser willingness to Fillion,1997; Simmons, 2002; Tanenbaum, 2002), academ- escalatecompetition to directaggression as arisingout of ic interestin competitionamong women was almostnonex- theirparticular biology rather than from conformity to cul- istent until the 1980s. Initial research(Gilligan, 1982; turalexpectations of femininity.Because the vastmajority Goodwin,1980; Lever, 1976) foundthat girls tendedto of researchhas beendone on youngwomen in the United avoidcompetition in favourof tacticsthat diffuse conflict Statesand Europe, we lackthe datato examinethe cultur- andpreserve intelpersonal harmony. When competition is al specificity or generality of female competition. madeinevitable, girls used apologiesand excuses to miti- Certainlysex differencesin aggressionare universal (Daly gatetheir behaviour (Hughes, 1.988) or "doublevoicing" to & Wilson, 1988), but competitioncan take otherforms. promotetheir own cases while simultaneouslytaking into Some worksuggests that competition is moredirect and accountthe positions of theirrivals, thereby preserving their physicalamong poor and minoritywomen than among relationships(Sheldon, 1992). This attenuation of competi- theirmiddle-class White counterparts (Brown, 1998; Eder, tionin favourof sustainingpositive relationships is thought 1990).However, this couldbe dueto culture-specificgen- to reflectsocialisation into cultural norms against the overt der expectationsor greatercompetition resulting from expressionof conflictamong females (Miner & Longino, higher levels of resourcescarcity (as I discuss later). 1987;Tracy, 1991) and the greatercentrality of intimate Althoughthere is academicagreement on the foci of friendshipsto girlsthan to boys (Brown,1998). femalecompetition, women's concern with relative attrac- Researchthat has examinedthe focusof femalecompe- tivenessmight result from the internalisation of patriarchal tition identifiesappearance, popularity, and preservation values or from mate competition.Again, cross-cultural of a "good"sexual reputationas central(Brown, 1998; dataare needed.Problematically, men (andwomen) uni- Eder, 1985; Merten,1997; Simmons,2002; Tanenbaum, versallyseem to agreeon standardsof femalefacial beau- 2002). These are intimatelyconnected since popularity ty, makingit hardto choose betweenthe two accounts (whichconsists of "visibility"rather than liking; see Eder, (Langloiset al., 2000).Research certainly suggests that the 1985;Merten, 1997) is associatedwith physical attractive- currentfashion for slimnessis not imposedon womenby ness to the oppositesex (often reflected,in the United men becausemen preferplumper figures than do women States,in achievingcheerleader status) but highly selective (Anderson,Crawford, Nadeau, & Lindberg,1992; Cohn et sexualavailability. Girls, it is argued,come to "ventrilo- al., 1987; Fallon & Rozin, 1985; Furnham& Radley, quise"patriarchal male attitudes about appropriate female 1989).Women also caremore about other women's opin- appearanceand behaviour(Brown, 1998), resultingin ions of attractivenessthan those of men(Graziano, Jensen- Campbell,Shebilske, & Lundgren,1993), suggesting that within-sexcompetition can takeon a dynamicof its own. Address correspondence to Anne Campbell, Psychology Department, DurhamUniversity, South Road, Durham,DH1 3LE, England;e-mail: a.c.camp- Similarly,with regardto sexualconduct and reputation, a bell @durham.ac.uk. recent review concluded that women are stronger The Journal of Sex Research Volume 41, Number 1, February 2004: pp. 16-26 16 Campbell 17 enforcersof thedouble standard than are men (Baumeister familyand where male investmentis necessaryto ensure & Twenge,2002), castingdoubt on the proposalof inter- child survival.Such conditionsare common;in societies nalisationof malevalues. where polygynyis legal more than 80% of men marry I turnnow to an evolutionaryapproach to the under- monogamously (Murdock, 1981). Socially imposed standingof female-femalecompetition. Conflict can and monogamyis characteristicof large stratifiedsocieties does occur betweenthe sexes; indeedwomen's rates of (Draper& Harpending,1988). Because it equalisesrepro- aggression(excluding homicide) toward partners equal ductiveopportunities among men, it reducesmale compe- thoseof men (Archer,2000). Becausethe theoreticalpre- tition(Betzig, 1995; Ridley, 1993; Smuts, 1995). dictionsand the foci of conflictare quite different, I do not Humancultures and individuals show markedvariabil- considerthem in the presentarticle. ity in their marriage patterns (Alexander, 1979). Monogamytends to benefit the majorityof men while CAUSESOF FEMALE COMPETITION imposing costs on the minority who through wealth Sex differencesin parentalinvestment form the backbone (Betzig, 1986) or geneticquality (Gangestad & Simpson, of evolutionaryaccounts of sexual selection(Williams, 2000) could feasiblyimprove their reproductive success 1966).Parental investment is anyinvestment by theparent by polygyny.Effective polygyny exists where male fitness in an offspringthat increases the chanceof its survivalat varianceexceeds that of femalesand it canbe achievedvia the cost of the parent'sability to investin otheroffspring serial monogamy.Serially monogamousmen produce (Trivers,1972). The higher investing sex becomes the morechildren then men who remainin a single partner- resourcefor which the other sex competes.In 95Woof ship, but the same is not true for women (Forsberg& mammals,females provide all the parentalcare (Clutton- Tullberg,1995). Men who marrytwice aremore likely to Brock, 1991). Consequently,males competevigorously havechildren by bothwives thanare women to havechil- for statusand resources attractive to females. dren by both their husbands(Alexander, 1979). At the Humansexual dimorphism suggests selection for male- marginsof monogamy,then, successfulmen leave more male competitioncongruent with a historyof mild polyg- childrenthan women. As Archer and Mehdikahni(in yny. In commonwith other polygynousprimates, men press)summarise the situation, comparedto women have broadercanines (Frayer& Wolpoff,1985) and are heavier(McHenry, 1994). Boys ...the sex differencein size in humansis relativelysmall compared reachphysical maturity later than girls and afterpuberty with thatfound in primateswith a clearlypolygynous mating strat- egy. Paternal investment is relatively high in humarls (Geary, have largerhearts, skeletal muscles, lung capacity,lower