Female gorillas can overpower males double their size, study reveals

They’re one of our closest relatives in the animal kingdom.

Now, a study reveals that in gorilla communities, girls have the power. 

Scientists analysed four social groups of wild gorillas in Uganda over three decades, and found females can overpower males, despite extreme differences in size and strength.

Even though they weigh half as much as males, and have smaller teeth, females won one in four conflicts and overpowered a quarter of non–alpha males.

‘Our results showed that females were more likely to outrank younger and older adult males, which are still so much larger than adult females,’ senior author Martha Robbins, director of the Bwindi mountain gorilla research project, said.

‘This suggests that other mechanisms influence female–male power relationships besides basic size and strength.’

The team was led by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

The team pointed out that female gorillas can choose which males to reproduce with – which could give them leverage and boost the amount of power they yield in a group.

Another possible explanation for their findings is that non–alpha males are willing to yield to females in competitive interactions as a way to remain in the group.

The findings could pour cold water on the idea that the patriarchy was inherited from our ancestors. 

The term refers to the idea that men have more power, dominance and privilege in society than women.

It’s long been believed that gender imbalances have existed throughout our evolutionary history.

But the team said their findings indicate human patriarchy could be a cultural construct rather than a legacy from our primate ancestors.

‘This work…may assist in disrupting historically normalised narratives presenting human patriarchy as an apparent and immediate consequence of evolution,’ the study reads. 

The notion of a universal patriarchy was first challenged around 50 years ago, when experts discovered that females had power over males in spotted hyenas and some species of lemur.

The researchers said their findings add to this work, showing that power relationships are not as strictly male–biased as previously thought.

They published their discovery in the journal Current Biology.

In recent years songs about the patriarchy have made it into the charts, including ‘Respect’ by Aretha Franklin and ‘The Man’ by Taylor Swift, which were written to address gender imbalances in society.

At feminist marches, placards with the words ‘f*** the patriarchy’ can also commonly be seen.

However, earlier this year it emerged that some young men now believe they are the oppressed sex.

A survey of 1,000 UK men aged 16 and over revealed that nearly a third said feminism has negatively affected men, while nearly half agreed with the statement ‘we have gone so far in the promotion of equality for women that we now discriminate against men’.