It makes sense that men and women have different reproductive giblets. It makes sense about different bone density and muscles. But why do men have Adam’s apples?
In: Biology
because hormones.
Testosterone has many effects on the body. Among them is changing the shape of the vocal chords, producing a lower voice & vocal register. With how the human neck, vocal chords, and esophagus are arranged, that ends up poking out a bit of the Adam’s Apple.
If a woman took testosterone hormone therapy, she would most likely develop a similar Adam’s Apple, along with deepening of her voice, as the rest of her body (including her neck & vocal chords) responds to the hormone.
Women *DO* have *SOME* testosterone – just as Men do have *SOME* estrogen. Just that neither gender (on a strictly binary scale here) has enough of the opposing hormone to so differently change their body.
In other, more layman’s terms: an adam’s apple is a secondary sex characteristic. About as much as women developing boobs, vs men growing hair on their chest.
Adam’s apple is the thyroid cartilage located at the front of the larynx, which covers the vocal cords inside, develops with a sharper angle in men during puberty due to higher levels of testosterone. This results in men having a deeper voice and the thyroid cartilage becoming more noticeable from the outside. Women have a larynx and a thyroid cartilage too, it’s just wider so less noticeable from the outside. [Here’s a comparison image.](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSjoopR6E_RkGuCUKL6rZRBApMT_bFZMjNUWBUlTCeovy-t2aBQI8Uc-jA&s=10)
Women have the same anatomy, it’s just often not pronounced enough to see. It’s part of the vocal anatomy, and it being larger creates a more “masculine” voice.
Adam’s apples are a secondary sex characteristic. Secondary sex characteristics are traits that aren’t essential for reproduction but increase the chances of an individual to reproduce. The Adam’s apple gives man a deeper voice than they normally would have.
The pitch of our voice is usually roughly correlated to our body size as the size of the larynx and the vocal chords is proportional to the rest of the body. For this reason a person with a deeper voice is perceived as bigger and stronger. At some point in human evolution this could have been an advantage for males with deeper voices while looking for mating partners. Those individuals had more children and spread the genes for deeper male voices. Leading to men with bigger and bigger larynxes. In modern human males the larynx is close to the size where it would start to create problems with eating.
Because the deepening of the voice is linked to the male puberty it is also an indicator for maturity and health.
Other responses are wrong. It’s because God made Adam choke on an apple in the garden of Eden to remind him of his sin (stealing the apple).
YSK-Women have adam’s apples too.
Not an answer to the question per se, bit I feel that it is important to bring up, given the topic, and since it is a common misconception that it is a gender-specific body part.
I have always assumed it was extra muscle to stabilize the vocal cords so they can yell without the voice cracking in low pitch tones.
Women have it too.
It’s just that the hormone spike at puberty makes it more visible for men.
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