Abstract and Keywords
From conception to the grave, girls and women face competition with others. In this chapter, I focus only on competition with other females: in the womb, the fetus’s needs compete with her mother’s and any sister’s; after birth, she competes throughout her life: with her sisters, other female relatives, and unrelated female competitors for social status or mates. Although seldom as overt as male–male competition, female–female competition is equally serious in terms of lifetime impacts and may occasionally become violent. Here I follow a female lifetime, exploring the kinds, intensity, and impact of female–female competition.
Keywords: female–female competition, behavioral ecology, life history theory, lifespan, sex differences
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