The third in an occasional series dedicated to the study of evolutionary psychology as provided by popular magazines and celebrity academics.

Vegetarianism

Women are more likely than men to be vegetarian.*  Some cynics attribute this to socially constructed gender norms that engage heavily gendered food advertising which says that real men eat steak whilst women eat salad to avoid weight gain.  But it’s more complex than that.

It’s down to the cavemen.

Basically, when our ancestors roamed the earth, hunting and gathering, the men would hunt and the women would gather.  (We don’t actually know that, but it seems likely, right?)

So the men would go hunting and get meat, while the women would gather vegetables and collect eggs, and the most successful in evolutionary terms were those who were most skilled in their respective roles.  This means that women are programmed to like vegetables while men are programmed to like rare meat.

Unsure about the theory?  Look at the stereotype of lesbian vegetarians.  With both women gathering for each other, there’s just no room left for any meat.

And that’s why more women (and particularly lesbians) are vegetarian.

 

*More men than women are vegan but for the purposes of our pseudo-science, we’re ignoring that.