Are neotenic traits perserved longer in women? Does that have anything to do with the reason why they live longer than men? Some researchers have wondered about neotenic traits as a form of sexual competition for men, but couldn’t it also be a strategy for adapting to the diversity of children that a woman might produce, and of whose upbringing women have historically done more of the work? I’m always a little amazed at these essays that look primarily at women as sexual competitors for men, while ignoring how the same traits might play a role in child rearing.

Is Homo Sapiens a neotenic great ape? Did our ancestors (and still we) select for infantile traits in their choice of a mating partner? David Brin, in his essay Neoteny and Two-Way Sexual Selection in Human Evolution tries to explain this:

Our starting point is a perceived dichotomy between adult men and women — and thus potentially hazardous ground. Although evolutionary biology has lately been defended from a feminist perspective by Patricia Adair Gowaty (1992) and others, caution remains essential when stepping into this arena, hence I will at times seem to belabor the obvious. Let me also emphasize that Homo sapiens appears less riven by sexual dimorphism than most species, and exceptions exist to nearly every generalization. Nevertheless, it seems clear that past and present human dimorphisms are legitimate topics for careful discussion. While certain neotenous traits seem to be shared equally among the sexes (e.g., curiosity and plasticity of behavior), human females certainly do appear more paedomorphic in outward physical appearance than males. Although they mature at an earlier age, women do not go on to acquire the toughened skin, coarse body hair, thyroid cartilage, bony eye ridges, or deepened voices which are the common inheritance of most adult hominoids and other primates. Jones and Hill (1993) have shown that this generalization remains valid across racial, ethnic and cultural boundaries. Difference in degree of paedomorphism is one of the few truly decisive human sexual-dichotomies, used by most of us in visually distinguishing women from men.