Maggie's Farm

Yes, in the short term, it should not be surprising that males would forego food for sex, after all, from an evolutionary standpoint, spreading your genes is job 1. (Males who did not do a good job of spreading their genes were quickly eliminated from future generations)

In mammals in general, females are only fertile at limited times, and the fertility is advertised by pheremones, behavior or display. When encountering a fertile female, it's only the males who respond quickly and enthusiastically (both to impress the female and chase off other males) that succeed, This is why males are tuned (by natural selection) to respond promptly to suitable females (that's what your ancestors did).

There is also the issue of scarcity. In reproduction a fertile uterus is scarce compare to sperm so the competition is primarily males competing for females. Humans, however have a second competition because the long, intensive, slow development of human young works much better when their are two parents contributing (unlike most mammals where the female handles virtually 100% of the job).

It initially puzzed Darwin, because human females also seem to compete over attracting males (hence beauty shops, fashion etc) unlike their mammal cousins. But this is also a scarcity issue: finding a male willing to mate is easy; finding one willing to be a reliable partner (as in marriage) is much harder, when it comes to reliability, it is the qualified males that are the scarce resource.