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From: thoma@reed.UUCP (Ann Muir Thomas)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: Diphormism in people.
Message-ID: <2791@reed.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 14-Mar-86 19:35:50 EST
Article-I.D.: reed.2791
Posted: Fri Mar 14 19:35:50 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 16-Mar-86 08:36:36 EST
References: <431@cuuxb.UUCP> <719@rti-sel.UUCP>
Reply-To: thoma@reed.UUCP (Ann Muir Thomas)
Distribution: net
Organization: Reed College, Portland, Oregon
Lines: 38

In article <719@rti-sel.UUCP> wfi@rti-sel.UUCP (William Ingogly) writes:
[   ]
>You're right about the pelvic girdle. Women's hips are wider because 
>women who can't pass the enormous heads our babies are afflicted with 
>die in childbirth. A powerful selective force for wide pelvic bones, no?
>

Or narrow hipped women miscarry (one of my housemates has gotten pregnant
about 5 or 6 times, and miscarried every time; she has extremely narrow
hips...The narrow-hipped mother of another one of my housemates miscarried
9 times...not to say that the fetus in each case was perfect, but I
expect that the narrow hips had something to do with it...)  (I, on the
other hand, would have no such problems, sigh...)

Ann

>>An overlying muscle structure would make
>>quite a bit of difference in outward appearance. A covering of body
>>hair like a lot of animals have would also make a difference. So,
>>maybe the difference is only as large as we humans can perceive it.
>
>Men and women have the same musculature. Their body fat ratios are
>different; this, I think, is due to hormonal differences that are
>ultimately genetic in origin (note that a male transexual is placed on
>a regimen of hormones that changes his/her body fat ratio to something
>approaching a female's). Certainly differences in bone structure are
>ultimately genetic. Given a larger frame, you can support more muscle
>tissue; but the success of female body builders in creating muscle
>mass illustrates that the soft, frail and weak stereotype for females
>has cultural rather than genetic origins.
>
>"...He slowly removed the evening wrap from her
> broad shoulders. At the sight of her firm deltoids
> rippling in the moonlight, he had to suppress a
> gasp of delight: she was the strongest, most 
> alluring woman he'd ever seen!..."
>
>                                   -- Cheers, Bill Ingogly