Female vs Male Neck Sizes

[GarlicLitre]

Every so often, I have yet another random thought about sex dimorphism in humans. As we know, the differences are all-pervasive but they can still surprise me. Welcome to today's unexpected fact.

The female neck circumference ranges from 28.4cm to 35.6cm.
Male neck circumferences range from 37.9cm to 42.9cm.

Those are for athletes. There is no crossover here; the smallest, slimmest sportsman's neck is thicker than the biggest, strongest sportswoman's.

In the general (American) populace, the biggest and fattest woman's neck can measure 41.3cm. This is matched by a larger overweight man. The largest obese man measures his neck at 47.9cm.

At the skinny end of normal, the tiniest guy's neck is 34.7cm. This is average for an overweight woman.

For what it's worth, mine's 35cm at a BMI of 24 - so I've either measured it poorly or I'm right in thinking I am of sturdy build! (I'm also quite tall ... for a woman.) Tiny guy's shirt might just fit me in the collar, but it sure as hell wouldn't go around me anywhere else.

There's also a difference in shoulder attachment size, but I didn't find data on that - just fairly vague sketch illustrations.

https://www.bodybuildingmealplan.com/average-neck-size/

My fella's parents brought round a bunch of lilies as a gift when we told them I was pregnant. I had to give them back. I had to leave shops if they had cut flowers although I don't remember it being a problem outside.

Wow! Plants do give off pheromones when their stems are cut: I wonder if you were smelling those? The cops could use you if their sniffer dogs were unavailable 😂

Funny how the 'lady brain' genderists never claim to have a female olfactory system, isn't it? It couldn't possibly have anything to do with the fact that this can be seen on an MRI.

Never been pregnant, but I definitely notice a cycle of smells through the month.

You know what she means: musculoskeletal.

So wait, don’t hunting animals see in black and white like dogs? is there a hunting advantage seeing less colour?

colour blindness is also more common in males

Not all hunting animals see in black and white (even dogs have a little colour vision, it's not pure black and white).

There are advantages and disadvantages both ways - colour blindness can make it easier to 'see through' some types of camoflage, but better colour vision can make it easier to see through other types.

Yes, indeed.

If I remember right, B&W vision is associated with nocturnal mammals (since there's little use for fine colour distinctions at that time). Dogs aren't particularly nocturnal now, but some of their close evolutionary relatives are.

Also, there's only room for so many cells on a retina - animals with fewer colour receptors than humans often have more of other types of cell that give them, for example, better night vision. So the lack of colour vision doesn't cause a hunting advantage; rather the poor colour vision is a secondary result of the factor that creates the hunting advantage.

Crosspost.

Yes, many hunters are nocturnal or crepuscular.

My favourite word is Crepuscular.

Only learnt it in the last decade - no idea how to pronounce it but what a cracking word x

My ds has always had a similar physique to me, if a little skinny and much less active/ sportythan me. But he's usually buried under clothes, so i haven't seen him begin to turn into a man.

He's just about to turn 16 and I've really noticed this summer holiday how he's changing, without even doing anything and without yet hitting my height (although I am tall).

His neck is thicker.
His legs are now hairy.
His legs are thicker at the ankle.

It was the legs that got me, I'd just assumed your legs were your legs, and he's always had spindly ones.

I'm not sure if he's stronger than me though, or just lazy. He certainly has more stamina in the heat, but that could be youth.

How lovely! I remember being on a bus. It stopped at a bus stop for a few minutes with the doors open and I could smell lavender. I could see it in someone's garden but couldn't believe how strong the scent was for me.

Cre - short e as in egg
Second bit like muscular
Accent on the second syllable

There was a piece of research that assessed male and female athletes - I think it was rugby players - using a standard strength measure. I forget what exactly. There was ZERO overlap between the men and women- the weakest man was stronger than the strongest women.

I think people generally don't realise this. There is of course overlap between men and women in terms of strength and, in particular, the strongest, well-trained women against weak, untrained men, but it is much, much smaller than people realise.

The genderists didn't know about this. I predict we'll start seeing claims about sensitive lady noses.

Neck sizes are definitely give aways in my experience. Especially from a distance.

Fun fact from the Really Wildlife Show if your a certain age and remember it. Thats why Zebras are black n white very difficult for lions to see them.

Tetrachromacy is a rare genetic phenomenon that is believed to only affect females. Up to 12% of women worldwide may be tetrachromatic. Tetrachromacy allows some people to see colours that are not visible to most others. It is a condition that results when an additional type of colour receptor cell is present in the eye.

That is fascinating @JennyShaw.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/may/22/infrared-contact-lenses-super-vision

How cool is that, SJ?!

I seem to recall reading somewhere <citation needed> that women developed better colour vision for inspecting food — eg ripeness of berries. You’d also need reasonable colour vision and recall of colour so you didn’t eat something poisonous, especially if you didn’t pick them yourself and / or were feeding them to a small child.

One in eight(ish) women is a lot of women. It would certainly make it possible that the half dozen or so women at craft group who are particularly sensitive to colour combinations and clashes are actually seeing a wider range of the spectrum. Such a shame there's no online test because our screens only use three colours in their display.

The same evolutionary drive also gave us sensitive, delicate fingers. Which means you can inspect a tree much faster, and so load up on food with less wastage - including the risk of over/under ripe fruit.

It all makes sense when you think about it.

It's a common theory.

But until very recently, in evolutionary terms, there would have been little or no sex difference in food gathering. Look at all other primate species and virtually all food is self-gathered and eaten on the spot.

There's a very small difference in chimps, where the males are more likely to hunt, but that makes up a tiny proportion of their diet. They are still mainly living on leaves and fruit they gather themselves.

And in most modern hunter-gatherer societies both sexes hunt and gather. There may be differences - for example in several societies men hunt birds and mammals while women and children (of both sexes) hunt fish and frogs - but both will pick leaves and berries and dig for tubers. Complete separation of plant/animal food collection is rare.

This is absolutely fascinating. My artist husband is now grumping about the colour one. My Dad, who claims not to know what mauve or teal are would feel entirely vindicated