nospam{at}nospam.com (Paul Ciszek) wrote in
news:ce7a0v$2j27$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org: 

> For a male, being found attractive is everything.  Getting laid is
> the first measure of reproductive fitness, taking care of your
> children is nice but secondary.

Not true - see below.
 
> That isn't true for females, however.  For females the selection
> almost entirely works in terms of staying alive, having viable
> children, and choosing males with desirable traits.  Women can always
> get laid; there simply is no issue of her not having children because
> she is unatractive. There will *always* be some male horny and
> desparate enough to loan her some sperm.  (This can easily be
> confirmed through casual observation, anywhere teenagers hang out.)
> Males will screw the attractive women if they can, and then also go
> and screw the unattractive women too.  This is why ridiculous
> "display" features are always found on male birds, deer, etc.  and the
> females are rather plain.  Are there any other examples, ouside of
> humans, of females having an unnecessary and possibly detrimental
> display feature to attract males? 
 
You need to read about parental investment as developed by Trivers and
others. In species with approximately equal parental investment in
offspring, both males and females tend to pair bond to insure that they
successfully raise children. Obviously the details vary among species,
and some of your observations are correct with respect to humans, but it
is still important for males to take care of his (or in some cases his 
sibling's)  children and it is still important for a woman to attract a
mate that will help her take care of her children. So women still need
to "display" to attract the best possible mate. 

There are several species of birds and insects and numerous species of
fish in which the males provide most of the care for the young. In many
of these species the females do the displaying while the males do not,
as predicted by Trivers. 

 
Yours,

Bill Morse
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