Social influence is distributed unequally between males and females in many mammalian societies. In human societies, gender inequality is particularly evident in access to leadership positions. Understanding why women historically and cross-culturally have tended to be under-represented as leaders within human groups and organizations represents a paradox because we lack evidence that women leaders consistently perform worse than men. We also know that women exercise overt influence in collective group-decisions within small-scale human societies, and that female leadership is pervasive in particular contexts across non-human mammalian societies. Here we offer a transdisciplinary perspective on this female leadership paradox. Synthesis of social science and biological literatures suggests that females and males, on average, differ in why and how they compete for access to political leadership in mixed-gender groups. These differences are influenced by sexual selection and are moderated by socioecological variation across development and, particularly in human societies, by culturally transmitted norms and institutions. The interplay of these forces determines within and across species the emergence of female leaders. Furthermore, females may regularly exercise influence on group decisions in less conspicuous ways and different domains than males, and these underappreciated forms of leadership require more study. We offer a comprehensive framework for studying inequality between females and males in access to leadership positions, and we discuss the implications of this approach for understanding the female leadership paradox and for redressing gender inequality in leadership in humans.

中文翻译：

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女性领导悖论的进化解释

在许多哺乳动物社会中，社会影响在男性和女性之间分布不均。在人类社会中，性别不平等在获得领导职位方面尤为明显。理解为什么历史上和跨文化中女性在人类团体和组织中作为领导者的代表性往往不足，这是一个悖论，因为我们缺乏证据表明女性领导者的表现一直比男性差。我们还知道，女性在小规模人类社会的集体决策中发挥明显的影响力，并且女性领导力在非人类哺乳动物社会的特定环境中普遍存在。在这里，我们对这一女性领导悖论提供了一个跨学科的视角。社会科学和生物学文献的综合表明，女性和男性平均而言，他们在为什么以及如何在混合性别群体中争夺政治领导权方面存在差异。这些差异受到性选择的影响，并受到整个发展过程中的社会生态变化的调节，特别是在人类社会中，受到文化传播规范和制度的影响。这些力量的相互作用决定了物种内部和物种之间女性领导者的出现。此外，与男性相比，女性可能经常以不那么显眼的方式和不同的领域对群体决策施加影响，而这些被低估的领导形式需要更多的研究。我们提供了一个全面的框架来研究女性和男性在获得领导职位方面的不平等，