Why do men have more body hair than women?

Answer

The difference in body hair and facial hair that we generally know is not equally pronounced everywhere. In areas of Asia, Africa and North America (e.g. indigenous Indian population) there are ethnic groups where men have little hair. In Europe, Mediterranean men are also more hairy than Northern European men. More body hair does not seem to give men a survival advantage nor an advantage to be able to hunt better or to escape predators, for example. So there is no question of natural selection here.

Male hairiness is probably the result of what is called “sexual selection” in evolutionary biology. At least in certain areas and ethnic groups, our ancestral mothers may have had a sexual preference for hairy men. The body hair in men will then automatically increase because naked men would then not have been able to find a partner or less easily, and would therefore have had fewer offspring. Hairy men therefore had more children and spread their genes better, including those that ensure more hair.

Other examples of sexual selection are the deer’s antlers and the peacock’s tail. Only the male deer has large antlers and only the peacock cock has a large tail. The female deer have a preference for a male with large antlers, and the peacock hen for a male with a large tail. Conversely, the man does not find these qualities attractive in the opposite sex (or he would not recognize them as such).

So you can answer your daughter that men (with us) have more body hair than women (probably) because our ancestors thought this was beautiful (sexy?).