Women's aggression

Although men and women both have incentives to aggress, women's use of aggression is consistently lower than men's except within intimate partnerships. We propose that women's aggression is best understood by considering the role of fear as an adaptive mechanism which reduces exposure to physical danger. We review evidence that men and women faced qualitatively different adaptive challenges over evolutionary time and that this resulted in a sex difference in direct aggression mediated by greater female fear. We suggest that the absence of a sex difference in intimate partner aggression results partly from a reduction in female fear mediated by oxytocin, which reduces stress responses to biologically necessary encroachments on women's bodies. We suggest that a more complete understanding of women's aggression requires: acknowledging that women's relative restraint with regard to aggression is itself an adaptation; researching in more depth the fear-reducing effects of oxytocin and how these might operate in intimate partnerships; and considering more fully how cultural and biological factors might interact.

Research highlights
► Men and women both compete intrasexually but women tend to use low-risk strategies.
► Sex-specific selection pressures lower women's aggression with fear as a mechanism.
► Women's aggression is higher towards intimate partners than towards other targets.
► Oxytocin has a possible role in women's intimate partner aggression.