[spricket]

I think it's deeper than that. Men are more assertive as well as many women preferring it that way. The easiest place to see it is online dating apps, a system that has only existed for a decade or so. Size, strength, and status symbols (like having a nice car in your picture) are big selection factors for profiles of men seeking women. But these factors hardly matter for women seeking men. This clearly influences males to seek positions of status and power moreso than females, even though they're equally capable.

I would argue that eventually this small selection bias causes generic personality bias toward more assertive traits, larger size, and aggressiveness in males. In humans and many ape species this selection runaway has gone so far I doubt we can do anything about it.

It would be interesting if we could find a closely related species where the females are larger and more dominant. Human "dominant male" sexual dimorphism isn't the norm across the animal kingdom but is very common in apes.

Anecdotal, but I've heard MANY women say "I wish I had a male boss", but I've never heard the opposite from either male or female friends. Could this be related to similar selection factors? Who knows, but researching this kind of stuff is nearly radioactive to your career so we may never know.