Why are men generally taller than women? Is it because of sexual selection? Did men evolve to be taller because women usually chose mates who were taller than them? Or are there some other reasons?

Why is a very hard to answer about such questions.

Or rather, an answer to a why question like this is not a very interesting response; worse, no one can ever factually state the why with any certainty or specificity, and if they do they're blagging.

However, we can see sexual dimorphism in our hominin lineage dating way back. There's little evidence of dimorphism in Ardepthicus ramidus from about 4.5 million years ago, but basically every species after that shows increasing dimorphism up until Homo erectus, which on average shows about the same degree of dimorphism as us.

I would assume that the why has changed over those millions of years. Perhaps early on, males tended to be solitary while females remained in groups. Larger, stronger, more impressive looking males may simply have survived slightly better on average. Perhaps at a later time, with larger cohabiting groups, there was intense competition among males for access to females, and this lent some selection pressure to male size. Perhaps then later, sexual selection played a role with females preferentially selecting larger males.

Or it could all have been entirely accidental but preserved for us to wonder about.

But as we do see sexual dimorphism throughout the animal kingdom, it does seem to indicate that adaptation is playing a role here.

One can come up with all sorts of adaptationist just-so stories for why some trait might exist in the human species, and they're frequently hard to test and remain rather speculative. In the end it is possible some traits are just accidental byproducts of something else (spandrels), or simply the result of genetic drift.

Nevertheless, the fact that sexual dimorphism has persisted in so much of the animal kingdom for so long, and is close to universal and even more exaggerated in most other primates besides humans, indicates it really is some sort of adaptation.

Afaik males are generally larger among all primates, in many cases the differences are even more extreme than in humans. In some cases with this sort of sexual dimorphism it's because the males have been either directly physically competing for females, or they have exaggerated features to "impress" females. Not necessarily because the exaggerated features helps anyone survive (in fact having a larger body mass can be a disadvantage as it requires exponentially more energy to sustain), but they might be indirect signals of other forms of health.

Looking at more distantly related species with other forms of sexual dimorphism, we often find that male birds are brightly colored with all sorts of exaggerated ornamentations. One theory applied to the peacock's tail for example, which is clearly not an advantage in survival to male peacocks as it's a big drawback while flying and can be grabbed by predators-is that a male that nevertheless manages to survive and stay healthy with such a huge disadvantage must be very evolutionarily "fit" in other ways(immune system, intelligence, athletic performance etc.)-and so the tail is indirectly signaling other forms of genetic health. The females are of course not conscious of the future when picking pretty male peacocks, but the female peacocks that had this preference had offspring that then outcompeted the offspring of females with other preferences.

Taller and/or more muscular males might over primate history have been indirectly signaling something about the underlying genetic health in a similar way to primate females.

Why are men generally taller than women?

To spot the pub from further away.

The_Metatron wrote:189 cm. Read ‘em and weep. What a specimen!

The primate female that chose me seems to like her choice. On the other hand, the two previous primate females I’ve married left me for shorter men. On the other other hand, both of those other men left the women who left me for other women.

Not a big enough sample size.

Three hands, though. Pretty reasonable sample size.

Just waiting for the fourth shoe to drop.

murshid wrote:Why are men generally taller than women? Is it because of sexual selection? Did men evolve to be taller because women usually chose mates who were taller than them? Or are there some other reasons?

Well, you're not only taller, are you? you're also stronger, and harder, more aggressive, more single-minded (we call that "not seeing the big picture", "not being able to multi-task", and "disregarding the consequences of your actions until it's too late").

Also significantly more annoying. But I'll admit that that last one is a subjective take.

Evolving wrote:
Also significantly more annoying.

Excuse me, I resemble that remark!

Evolving wrote:Well, you're not only taller, are you? you're also stronger, and harder, more aggressive, more single-minded (we call that "not seeing the big picture", "not being able to multi-task", and "disregarding the consequences of your actions until it's too late").

Also significantly more annoying. But I'll admit that that last one is a subjective take.

You left out more intelligent, better looking and more humble.

Men are definitionally taller. Men are individuals 5' 7" and taller, whereas women are individuals 5' 6" and shorter.

Pretty sure that's how it works, anyway. Might be wrong.

murshid wrote:

Evolving wrote:Well, you're not only taller, are you? you're also stronger, and harder, more aggressive, more single-minded (we call that "not seeing the big picture", "not being able to multi-task", and "disregarding the consequences of your actions until it's too late").

Also significantly more annoying. But I'll admit that that last one is a subjective take.

You left out more intelligent, better looking and more humble.

"Oh Lord, it's hard to be humble when you're perfect in every way..."

THWOTH wrote:

murshid wrote:

Evolving wrote:Well, you're not only taller, are you? you're also stronger, and harder, more aggressive, more single-minded (we call that "not seeing the big picture", "not being able to multi-task", and "disregarding the consequences of your actions until it's too late").

Also significantly more annoying. But I'll admit that that last one is a subjective take.

You left out more intelligent, better looking and more humble.

"Oh Lord, it's hard to be humble when you're perfect in every way..."

"I can't wait to look in the mirror cause I get better looking each day."

Is taller better than shorter?

Depends how far away the pub is and how many people are around you.

Spearthrower wrote:Depends how far away the pub is and how many people are around you.

And if the people around you are women?

romansh wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:Depends how far away the pub is and how many people are around you.

And if the people around you are women?

Only if they're taller than gods and nature intended.

lol