4 ms·

This is basically what the book Sapiens is about. One thing that has constantly been on my mind since reading Sapiens is that no one has been able to definitiv

This is basically what the book Sapiens is about. One thing that has constantly been on my mind since reading Sapiens is that no one has been able to definitively explain why men have dominated all of the positions of power in societies (up until a just a few years ago, at least). Civilizations that emerged completely independently from each other (whether in the fertile crescent, China, Mesoamerica or elsewhere), universally became patriarchies. Before the Neolithic era, and in some surviving hunter gatherer cultures today, matriarchy was not uncommon. Women still tend to report being happier than men in survey data, and just going by the men and women I know, I think the men would prefer to abandon civilization before women. But I think if we want advance more women into positions of power in all tiers of society, then we need stop just trying to wrack it up to discrimination and sexism, stop trying to have the government regulate men and women's paycheck, and actually try to figure out why women have universally faired worse in societies. For example (this is just a theory, I have no evidence whatsoever here), the men who tend to advance politically and in their careers are usually the ones with the best social skills. They're the ones who are the best at making advantageous alliances and forming strong relationships with those outside their family. Perhaps women are not as good at that? If that is the case, then it might be wise to try to encourage women to improve that subset of social skills. I may be way off here, but I think we need to start asking questions, coming up with theories, and testing those theories rather than settle on the one that's easiest but doesn't really get us anywhere.

projektir 9y ago
I think you're overcomplicating things. Men are stronger and don't have to bear children.
- baron816 9y ago
  > Men are stronger and don't have to bear children. Those are two of the three common explanations that are debunked in Sapiens.
goatlover 9y ago
Alternatively, psychopathic and narcissistic men are more likely to seek power, affluence and glory, and are good at fooling people.
ddxxdd 9y ago
>For example (this is just a theory, I have no evidence whatsoever here), the men who tend to advance politically and in their careers are usually the ones with the best social skills. They're the ones who are the best at making advantageous alliances and forming strong relationships with those outside their family. Perhaps women are not as good at that? If that is the case, then it might be wise to try to encourage women to improve that subset of social skills. Since we're on the topic of biological determinism, it's worth pointing out that women generally have higher levels of emotional intelligence than men. Estrogen is a hormone for emotional bonding. And for that matter, a disproportionate amount of clinical psychopaths are in positions of leadership. That probably entails a better explanation for why men are disproportionately in higher levels of management.
- baron816 9y ago
  > women generally have higher levels of emotional intelligence than men. Estrogen is a hormone for emotional bonding. I'm not saying women have poor social skills, just that they perhaps have a different set of social skills. Bonding emotionally with someone is important in a family setting. Less so for platonic relationships.
- djanatan 9y ago
  It's silly to say that something is "biological determinism" just because it points out differences between men and women. Almost all traits have a strong overlap between men and women, including mental/personality traits, but occupational choice tends to be driven by extremes at a personal level. In general, men and women are about equally good at math, but at the far right end of the bell curve, men outnumber women significantly. Steven Pinker cites in "Human Nature" that at 6'0, men outnumber women almost 2000 to 1. Height is one of the more substantial examples of sexual dimorphism, but study after study has found sexual dimorphism in mental traits as well. This doesn't mean people should be judged based on their group's characteristics (which would be biological determinism) but that group differences can be quite severe at the extremes. It's worth pointing out that men also tend to outnumber women significantly at the far left end of most bell curves. Data appears to show that for many traits, men have higher variability of traits, possibly caused by the differing sexual selection strategies of men and women. (There is much more diversity among mitochondrial DNA than Y-chromosomal DNA, which is just one piece of evidence among many that a smaller number of males produce a disproportionate amount of the offspring.)
flukus 9y ago
It all comes down to statistical distribution, and men having a wider range of attribute distribution, so they are more likely to have the best* leadership traits. If you take the top 10 leaders in a tribal society with 150 members then quite a few will be women and they will be the leaders. The leadership positions don't scale linearly though, in a city of 10,000 people you might only need the same 10 best leaders but now most/all of them will be men. *Best: the best traits to become and remain leaders, a selection quality not a value based one. Being narcissistic might make someone the best in this sense.
jacalata 9y ago
My theory is that you are never even going to ask an interesting question if you are going to remain determinedly ignorant of all the questions that have previously been asked and studied.
losvedir 9y ago
Maybe it's the case that societies where the women stay home have more kids. That would make them more successful from an evolutionary perspective. Those societies would be more likely to propagate and spread.
hedonistbot 9y ago
> the men who tend to advance politically and in their careers are usually the ones with the best social skills. They're the ones who are the best at making advantageous alliances and forming strong relationships with those outside their family. I don't think this is the case at all. From my experience with politicians the most important traits are total lack of morals, unconstrained egoism and ability to sound authoritative even when lying or lacking any grasp of the topic at hand. Those also help in a corporate environment. I can't speculate whether those "skills" are more common among men.
toasterlovin 9y ago
This is simple. All you need to know is that men stand to gain more, genetically, by accumulating prestige and power. This is because there is no upper limit on how many children a given male can sire, whereas women are fundamentally limited in how many children they can bear. This wikipedia page starkly illustrates this difference (it is a list of the most prolific men and women, by number of offspring): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_with_the_most_children https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_with_the_most_c... The most prolific woman is at 69 children. The most prolific men are in the hundreds to thousands. Also, most of the women on the list are not notable aside from having given birth to many children. But the men are almost all notable primarily for things other than having sired many children (the exception being a handful of sperm donors and fertility doctors). > women have universally faired worse in societies Have they? While they may not inhabit positions of power, women generally survive conflicts between clans, tribes, and nation states. Look to the genocide of the Yazidi at the hands of ISIS: the women are taken as sex slaves, which is terrible, but the men are all dead. This is the fundamental tradeoff between male and female (in humans): women have a narrower normal distribution and men have a wider one. So, women rarely do great, but they also die less often. A few men do incredibly well, but many more men than women die trying to climb the dominance hierarchy.
- baron816 9y ago
  > All you need to know is that men stand to gain more, genetically, by accumulating prestige and power. I've thought about this too (well, not the genetic part) and I think it's a viable theory. Women's romantic ambitions are not tied anywhere near as tightly to their career success as men's are. I think this is a major contributor to a lower life satisfaction in men, at least. I had some trouble phrasing the thing about women faring worse in societies. I didn't mean that their wellbeing is worse. I mean that they're disenfranchised and restricted from achieving positions of power.
  - toasterlovin 9y ago
    > I think it's a viable theory I'm not a working evolutionary psychologist, but my understanding is that this is the most widely accepted theory for understanding this discrepancy in outcomes for men and women. If you're not already familiar with evolutionary psychology, I highly recommend taking a look. IMO, it is the best lens through which to understand human behavior. > they're disenfranchised and restricted from achieving positions of power I think causation runs along two paths. The first is, as you mention, that women are restricted and disenfranchised. But I wouldn't underestimate the degree to which women are evolved to simply not seek power and prestige. Seeking power is costly. It takes a lot of time and effort and, when things don't go well, you often end up dead (assassinations, coups, etc.). Whenever something is costly, it needs to have a marked offsetting benefit for it to be evolved for. Since women stand to gain less than men do by accumulating power, evolutionary theory predicts that they should be proportionately less motivated to do so.

projektir 9y ago

I think you're overcomplicating things. Men are stronger and don't have to bear children.

baron816 9y ago
> Men are stronger and don't have to bear children. Those are two of the three common explanations that are debunked in Sapiens.

goatlover 9y ago

Alternatively, psychopathic and narcissistic men are more likely to seek power, affluence and glory, and are good at fooling people.

ddxxdd 9y ago

>For example (this is just a theory, I have no evidence whatsoever here), the men who tend to advance politically and in their careers are usually the ones with the best social skills. They're the ones who are the best at making advantageous alliances and forming strong relationships with those outside their family. Perhaps women are not as good at that? If that is the case, then it might be wise to try to encourage women to improve that subset of social skills. Since we're on the topic of biological determinism, it's worth pointing out that women generally have higher levels of emotional intelligence than men. Estrogen is a hormone for emotional bonding. And for that matter, a disproportionate amount of clinical psychopaths are in positions of leadership. That probably entails a better explanation for why men are disproportionately in higher levels of management.

baron816 9y ago
> women generally have higher levels of emotional intelligence than men. Estrogen is a hormone for emotional bonding. I'm not saying women have poor social skills, just that they perhaps have a different set of social skills. Bonding emotionally with someone is important in a family setting. Less so for platonic relationships.
djanatan 9y ago
It's silly to say that something is "biological determinism" just because it points out differences between men and women. Almost all traits have a strong overlap between men and women, including mental/personality traits, but occupational choice tends to be driven by extremes at a personal level. In general, men and women are about equally good at math, but at the far right end of the bell curve, men outnumber women significantly. Steven Pinker cites in "Human Nature" that at 6'0, men outnumber women almost 2000 to 1. Height is one of the more substantial examples of sexual dimorphism, but study after study has found sexual dimorphism in mental traits as well. This doesn't mean people should be judged based on their group's characteristics (which would be biological determinism) but that group differences can be quite severe at the extremes. It's worth pointing out that men also tend to outnumber women significantly at the far left end of most bell curves. Data appears to show that for many traits, men have higher variability of traits, possibly caused by the differing sexual selection strategies of men and women. (There is much more diversity among mitochondrial DNA than Y-chromosomal DNA, which is just one piece of evidence among many that a smaller number of males produce a disproportionate amount of the offspring.)

flukus 9y ago

It all comes down to statistical distribution, and men having a wider range of attribute distribution, so they are more likely to have the best* leadership traits. If you take the top 10 leaders in a tribal society with 150 members then quite a few will be women and they will be the leaders. The leadership positions don't scale linearly though, in a city of 10,000 people you might only need the same 10 best leaders but now most/all of them will be men. *Best: the best traits to become and remain leaders, a selection quality not a value based one. Being narcissistic might make someone the best in this sense.

jacalata 9y ago

My theory is that you are never even going to ask an interesting question if you are going to remain determinedly ignorant of all the questions that have previously been asked and studied.

losvedir 9y ago

Maybe it's the case that societies where the women stay home have more kids. That would make them more successful from an evolutionary perspective. Those societies would be more likely to propagate and spread.

hedonistbot 9y ago

> the men who tend to advance politically and in their careers are usually the ones with the best social skills. They're the ones who are the best at making advantageous alliances and forming strong relationships with those outside their family. I don't think this is the case at all. From my experience with politicians the most important traits are total lack of morals, unconstrained egoism and ability to sound authoritative even when lying or lacking any grasp of the topic at hand. Those also help in a corporate environment. I can't speculate whether those "skills" are more common among men.

toasterlovin 9y ago

This is simple. All you need to know is that men stand to gain more, genetically, by accumulating prestige and power. This is because there is no upper limit on how many children a given male can sire, whereas women are fundamentally limited in how many children they can bear. This wikipedia page starkly illustrates this difference (it is a list of the most prolific men and women, by number of offspring): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_with_the_most_children https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_with_the_most_c... The most prolific woman is at 69 children. The most prolific men are in the hundreds to thousands. Also, most of the women on the list are not notable aside from having given birth to many children. But the men are almost all notable primarily for things other than having sired many children (the exception being a handful of sperm donors and fertility doctors). > women have universally faired worse in societies Have they? While they may not inhabit positions of power, women generally survive conflicts between clans, tribes, and nation states. Look to the genocide of the Yazidi at the hands of ISIS: the women are taken as sex slaves, which is terrible, but the men are all dead. This is the fundamental tradeoff between male and female (in humans): women have a narrower normal distribution and men have a wider one. So, women rarely do great, but they also die less often. A few men do incredibly well, but many more men than women die trying to climb the dominance hierarchy.

baron816 9y ago
> All you need to know is that men stand to gain more, genetically, by accumulating prestige and power. I've thought about this too (well, not the genetic part) and I think it's a viable theory. Women's romantic ambitions are not tied anywhere near as tightly to their career success as men's are. I think this is a major contributor to a lower life satisfaction in men, at least. I had some trouble phrasing the thing about women faring worse in societies. I didn't mean that their wellbeing is worse. I mean that they're disenfranchised and restricted from achieving positions of power.
- toasterlovin 9y ago
  > I think it's a viable theory I'm not a working evolutionary psychologist, but my understanding is that this is the most widely accepted theory for understanding this discrepancy in outcomes for men and women. If you're not already familiar with evolutionary psychology, I highly recommend taking a look. IMO, it is the best lens through which to understand human behavior. > they're disenfranchised and restricted from achieving positions of power I think causation runs along two paths. The first is, as you mention, that women are restricted and disenfranchised. But I wouldn't underestimate the degree to which women are evolved to simply not seek power and prestige. Seeking power is costly. It takes a lot of time and effort and, when things don't go well, you often end up dead (assassinations, coups, etc.). Whenever something is costly, it needs to have a marked offsetting benefit for it to be evolved for. Since women stand to gain less than men do by accumulating power, evolutionary theory predicts that they should be proportionately less motivated to do so.