They name some examples of how the discrepancy in these numbers are likely to come about. I agree it is a bit anecdotal, but it is also not more anecdotal than Xoic's claims. Yes, that is likely. I was mostly arguing against Xoic's idea of men being biologically wired to protect women and children at their own expenses. I agree with you there, just based on your argument earlier; men are less likely to look after people outside the family unit. So when you put a large group of people together who don't know each other and there's a disaster, your best bet is not to expect the man next to you sacrifice himself for you. Such behaviour can happen occasionally, but it can also be that women are expected to protect the children or it can be that nobody cares for any other being. Or all of the above combined, according to everybody's individual personality. How this plays out depends on a couple of factors like culture or (in the shipwreck study) the decisions of the captain. I think I disagree with this one. I think the expectation is that family would protect their own. It's a primal instinct and something you witness in animal documentaries all the time, mothers and fathers protecting their young offsprings. So it's not a stretch fo imagine a dad protecting a son or daughter. It happens all the time. Not saying its always the case, kids are abused as well, but more often than not people do look after their kids and they do protect them. I totally agree. Since we're human and self-aware we're living in a world of our own making anyway and that means it's up to us to shape our society in the way we want to. Which again means that equality or inequality is mostly up to our political will and decisions (apart from a few remaining biological differences that we could also easily accommodate for if we wanted to). I agree. But there are some biological pressures that influence or decision making at different parts of your life. As a teenager, I was a wild child, I did all the risk taking behaviours that could last a life time. Lucky to be alive honestly. But that's the experience that a teenager goes through, so bad decision making is not something to avoid per se, but a reality of a mind pushing the boundary. As a woman, there is a combination of societal pressures and biological pressures to have a baby before you can't. Men can always have a kid even in their 50s. Women start to see the clock at 30. It's a biological fact as much as aging. You can adopt and you can in vitro, but after a certain point, pregnancy is more and more unlikely. The reality of this cannot be avoided, it can be mitigated and it can be ignored, but it's still true. But Xoic was arguing that there was a male expendability that came from biological factors and would strongly influence human societies. My argument was that there is no such male expendability in most societies and definitely not due to some biological factors. But rather, that expectations towards and treatment of men and women come mostly from culture and not biology. I think biology plays a factor. Most mammals or even animals have a parent who child rears and another who gathers or hunts food. It makes sense as a distribution of labour and specialisation tends to win out as a form of hierarchal society or family unit. It's easier to specialise 1 job than do 2. It's not a stretch to think that the cultural significance of men being sent to war was due to the specialisation of their brain and body so that they were more likely to win a fight. Modern technology reduces the requirements for who wins- anyone can pull a trigger, but even then, can females have the physicality to be in special ops? Unlikely. So I think biology does play a factor in why men get sent to war. Which, to come back to the original topic of the post, does not mean that there could not be a much stronger biological influence on behaviour in other, fictional species. True. There can be definitely stronger biological indicators. But I think you are discounting the influence of genetics and evolution slightly by saying it doesn't influence your decision making. I agree that you can definitely change if you put your mind to it and societal pressure is the largest factor in why gender behaves the way they do, but genetics definitely factor in.
Actually, many species only have 1 parent (the mother in most cases) or they are living in female-and-children groups where everybody does the same things. There are species where one male and one female care for the young, like many birds do, for example, but it's by far not "most mammals or even animals". Parenting strategies in the animal world vary a lot. We shouldn't draw conclusions for human gender roles from other species. Before the modern times, yes. But again, this was not because of some "male expendability" or because societies are usually convinced that women are precious and need to be protected, as Xoic claimed; it was because men are statistically larger and stronger than women. I've never said it does not influence decision making at all, just that I believe it has only a minor influence when it comes to gender roles. And the more technologically developed we become, the smaller the influence will get. Unless you artificially inflate it to preserve the status quo.
I made one post, which actually ties in with the idea of the thread, albeit a bit loosely, and then I corrected some misapprehensions about it in a second post.
Ok, I gotta duck back in real quick. Let's see, what would you call it when stronger people do the fighting so weaker ones can remain safe? Oh yeah, that would be protecting. And if the people doing the fighting know there's a good chance they could die, then it's also called sacrifice. And when a group of people are willing to sacrifice themselves to protect the children and the women who raise them, that technically means they're disposable. At that point their greatest value is in their ability to fight and willingness to sacrifice themselves if need be to protect the future—the women and children. Biologically the value of men is first to procreate, then to protect so the tribe or country or species can live on.
