Women have evolved to be 'indirectly aggressive', say scientists

Study explores the ways women compete with each other without resorting to violence

Tina Fey's Mean Girl produced many pieces of immortal wisdom - none better than the girls assessment of Halloween

An authoritative study has explored the scientific basis for "competition and aggression" between women, and found that they have most likely evolved to be mean to one another.

Dedicating a whole journal issue to the theme and inviting international evidence from across disciplines, the research found that the "constraints of offspring production and care" meant that it favoured the female of the species to resort to low-risk forms of aggression.

Scientists said that since Darwin first put forward his theories on reproductive competition, extensive research has been done on how more expendable men developed larger body size, use of weaponry and ritualised displays of aggression. Little work has gone into the equivalent for women, however, with studies more likely to focus on more direct reproductive traits such as mate selection.

"Despite a history of being largely overlooked, evidence is now accumulating for the widespread evolutionary significance of female competition," the report's authors Paula Stockley and Anne Campbell said.

Writing in the introduction to Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, they described their work as a first step in "a new expansion of interest in female competition".

"Females compete for resources needed to survive and reproduce, and for preferred mates," Dr Stockley said.

-The Independent