What would a matriarchal intelligent species look like?

I have a species of early primates (lemur-like but not lemurs) developing into an intelligent species like humans (and yes, there is some influence from an intelligent species, it's not 100% natural if you're thinking it's unlikely). Now, since lemur catta (ring-tailed lemurs) are matriarchal I wanted the society to be too, especially since there is a high degree of difference in colour vision with most males colour blind and most female with trichromacy.

My question is: what would a species that evolves like this look like?

From the time they were hunter-gatherers I assumed females could be the band leaders, standing back and ordering a band of males either to trap larger herbivores while looking out for predators with their better vision Or"¦ well indicating to males which fruits to pick while they do the dirty work of actually carrying stuff. This would have led females to evolve to be taller so they'd see better and males to be lean and agile.

This reflection started with beards but it's also about any secondary sexual characteristics I guess. Which is breasts, beard, etc"¦ so would females grow beards? Or is it necessarily tied to testosterone? Could males do without those secondary characteristics, cause I read (https://www.sbs.com.au/topics/science/humans/article/2016/07/25/ask-evolution-why-do-men-have-beards) that it helped males appear more aggressive.

posted about 5 years ago

Nierninwa‭

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