How do female and male characteristics evolve when each has a parent of each gender?

The first pre-requisite is there must be meiosis, i.e. sexual reproduction. Some animals such as some aphids and ants reproduce asexually by mitosis and they are all female - defined by the fact that they are egg producing.





Mammalian sex is controlled by the Y chromosome which carries the sex-determining gene sry. This is passed on entirely through the male line, sons inherit Y and become male and daughters inherit X and are female. The sex determining gene causes male development, in its absence development continues along the female route. The platypus seems to be the odd one out when it comes to sex determination, as well as in lots of other ways, as it has no sry gene, the sex determination mechanism in this species is still unknown.





In birds and butterflies the situation is reversed and females carry the sex determination gene on the W chromosome and males are ZZ.





There are also all sorts of other chromosomal systems, the insects are particularly variable, especially social insects.





Finally, there are non-genetically based sex determination systems - for example in some alligators and turtles, the sex depends on the temperature inside the nest.How do female and male characteristics evolve when each has a parent of each gender?
Female and male characteristics, well that's all genetic and on the whole the strongest dominant gene wins regardless of which parent it came from. But sometimes there is also a throwback from an aunt, uncle or grandparent etc.


Evolution takes many years and may not be noticeable in any one persons life time. So each generation down a family tree evolves slowly as a new blood line is added through marriage bringing in more dominant genes.How do female and male characteristics evolve when each has a parent of each gender?
The situation is not completely symmetrical. Men have a Y chromosome, which women do not have, and this chromosome can only come from the father. Specifically male characteristics are determined by the Y chromosome. Without that you get female characteristics. So - if you like - female characteristics are the norm, and male characteristics are what you get if the Y chromosome gets into the act.





The Y chromosome evolved to give us sexual reproduction, which was a key step in speeding up the evolutionary process, as sexual reproduction is a good way of mixing genes up.





Another interesting point is that a man's X chromosome can only come from his mother (as the other of the pair, the Y chromosome, came from his father). This means that characteristics affected by the X chromosome can only be inherited from a man's mother. Also, the mitochondrial DNA comes only from a person's mother. Everything else is symmetrical.





These differences are quite convenient, allowing the male line to be traced through the Y chromosome and the female line to be traced through the mitochondrial DNA.
Socialisation, the media, following the behavoiur of your same sex parent or siblings.
? ? ? ?what
It's 'either' gender. There are only two.
what are you talking about???