Abstrakt
Stewart-Williams and Thomas argue that we are not an "MCFC species", suggesting that humans lie somewhere on a continuum between peacocks and gibbons, and considerably closer to the latter, in terms of sexual dimorphism, paternal investment and mating strategy. One problem with their argument is that they seek to categorise humans according to one strategy or the other.
Another is that both examples are of species in which there is little variability in mating strategy, either due to phylogenetic or socio-ecological constraints. In contrast, humans exhibit plasticity in mating strategy in ways that (if one were compelled to choose one species with which to compare humans) are more akin to a species like the dunnock.
Thus their argument that interests of men and women are comparable and mutually compatible, simply because pair-bonding is the commonest strategy in human societies, belies both the inherent conflicts of interest between the sexes and the flexibility observed in actual human reproductive behavior, past and present. Only minimal differences in interest between the sexes are needed to exert differential selection pressures on males and females that lead to different outcomes in terms of mating psychology.
We agree that more research on male choice and female competition will be illuminating, but only if it is done within a framework that recognises the full range and variability of human mating psychology.