What’s the Appeal of Deep Voices in Men?

Low-pitched male voices are frequently seen as signs of dominance, strength, and sex appeal. Now anthropologists are sussing out whether there’s truth behind the stereotypes.

Stop Erasing Transgender Stories From History

Remembering that human sex and gender lie across a spectrum in the past is vital to curbing violence toward gender-nonconforming people today.

Does Love Always Come Before Marriage?

Arranged marriages and love marriages are sometimes seen as cultural opposites, but it’s far more complicated. Anthropology shows how love and marriage are entwined in many different ways.

Is Love a Biological Reality?

Helen Fisher, a biological anthropologist at the Kinsey Institute and an adviser to the dating site Match.com, studies human mating to explain the mysteries of romance, partnership, and lust.

Women at the Hearth and on the Hunt

New archaeological findings about hunting challenge entrenched beliefs about gender roles in ancient hunter-gatherer societies.

Is the Pandemic Slowing Down Love?

Helen Fisher, a biological anthropologist and the chief scientific adviser for Match.com, sheds light on how COVID-19 has been affecting the search for love online.

What Scars Say About Sex and Stereotypes

People’s perceptions of scars—from ritual scarification to mastectomy marks—reveal biases about gender, character, and more.

What Milk-Sharing Communities Reveal

As women in the United States create networks to give or receive breast milk, anthropologists are illuminating the complex social and cultural forces that shape mothers’ choices.

Were Women the True Artisans Behind Ancient Greek Ceramics?

A new paper makes the case that scholars have ignored the role of female ceramicists in Greece going back some 3,000 years—and that this failing could speak to a more consequential blind spot involving gender.

The Life and Meaning of Margaret Mead

The famous anthropologist argued that non-Western cultures offered alternative, often better, ways to be human. Why was she so vilified for it?