I'm wondering if there is some other variable in here. Is it clothing or hair length? Would men with long hair be more intimidating than women with short hair for example? How about certain types of clothing or footwear. Very odd.

The seagulls near me can recognise school children. They know they are more likely to pick up dropped food.

They did control for obvious appearance differences (e.g. color & type of clothing, hair length) and morphology (e.g. height/body size), even people's approach. But not more subtle traits such as gait, waist-hip ratio, odor...

One hypothesis suggested that in early history, women may have more commonly caught smaller prey (birds) than men did, and this fear could be evolutionarily ingrained.

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