They know...

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.

I wonder if this is due to relative vigilance of men and women. This study observed that women tend to scan their environment much more than men: https://news.byu.edu/intellect/study-visually-captures-hard-...

I’ve observed that animals are pretty good at reading body language and can tell when they’re actually being seen by, rather than just sharing space with, a human.