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I think that natural selection might explain it. What characrerises reproductively successful men? Or, to put it another way, what qualities do women seek in a
by mixmax 18y ago
I think that natural selection might explain it.
What characrerises reproductively successful men? Or, to put it another way, what qualities do women seek in a mate? Women tend to prefer dominant men of high status with lots of money, and there is little reason to believe that their ancestors differed. For much of human history male status came from being a skilled hunter and warrior and from the ability to influence others through muscle or wit. This history has left men more disposed than women to strive for status and engage in the risky, competitive and sometimes aggressive behaviour often required to do a successful startup. Women with a taste for winners would likely be in a position to pass their preference on to more children than would women with a penchant for failures.
Women would not ordinarily enhance their reproductive success through direct competition and risk-taking. Indeed, it would promise little reproductive payoff and could be a very dicey strategy because a bad outcome would imperil a woman's future reproduction and the well-being of existing children. Instead, women, to a far greater extent than men, have enhanced reproductive success by looking after their children as they grow up, resulting in stronger bonds between mother and child than between father and child.
This explanation also hints at the fact that women would make good CEO's of large corporations where security is more important than risk taking.
Note: this isn't in in any way meant as a degradation of women - merely a possible explanation of the cause.
- jkent 18y agoFrom a Darwinian perspective, you are of course right. I think that potential pregnancy is a factor. The hours traditionally worked by startup founders could be detrimental to health, and the inability to take prolonged breaks from work at CEO level is probably a deal-breaker. (Some of the best salespeople I know are female, particularly in consultative selling.) RE-EDIT: Sarcastic thanks for the downvotes. And sincere thanks to whoever upvoted. I feel better!
- jnovek 18y agoI think that most intelligent women are capable of not getting pregnant while developing their startup.
- jkent 18y agoThis may be true. However, I do know some very smart women who have gotten pregnant accidentally. It's claimed (by?) it takes an average of 7 years to exit your startup. That is a large chunk of time for women with a ticking biological clock. I do realise of course that it is possible to have kids in to your 40s, but most women choose not to do so.
- jnovek 18y agoThat implies that women have a greater biological imperative to reproduce than men. I don't know that that's true. Honestly, I see my "grad school clock" as an equally big, if not bigger, problem than anyone's biological clock. When you do a startup, you have to choose your priorities -- the implication is that neither kids nor grad school are amongst them.
- jkent 18y agoHow many people do you know that have quit grad school to do a start-up?
- akd 18y agoWomen certainly do have a greater biological imperative to reproduce than men. It's for the very simple reason that a woman's fertility starts declining in her early 20's and bottoms out around age 40 -- a man's fertility erodes very slightly and is usually in perfectly serviceable condition at age 60.
- anewaccountname 18y agoAll of this would certainly be valid if women and men were separate species. It would also certainly be valid if females of the human race had specialized into something reminiscent of a queen bee or ant. I don't know if that is or is not the case, but I know where I'll put the burden of proof.
- mixmax 18y agoIn a darwinian sense men and women are profoundly different and have seperate tasks to perform in the process of creating offspring. This inevitably leads to natural selection acting differently on men and women, as exemplified in the above post.
- shawndrost 18y agoBesides aggression, the explanation that I've heard that makes the most sense revolves around risk: men can effectively have more than one mate (and do in many cultures, especially non-western), so there's more benefit to genetic risk-taking in men. This isn't a big effect, but is very noticable at the ends of the bell curve: more male serial killers, more male ceos. Anyway, take all evolutionary psych with a grain of salt, but it's interesting to talk about.
- DaniFong 18y agoUnfortunately, your explanation does not go the whole way. Consider the evolution of biological genes: a) Men and women share mostly the same genes (the y chromosome is a desolate wasteland), and there are few (if any) known mechanisms by which gene merging is different for male and female humans. b) Dominant, decisive, intelligent, women are likely to share similar evolutionary advantages to men. Note that I leave high status out of this equation. Compare the mathematics to the evolution of culture: a) There are numerous known cultural differences between what men and women grow up with. There are also many known mechanisms for which cultural meme merging is different for men and for women. Our culture directs different memes towards men and women, to a far greater extent than gene selection does (if it does at all). b) High status women are in fact less likely to have many kids, as is shown by an abundance of demographic data. Therefore, the mechanism by which they can spread what's responsible for 'high-statusness' is limited mostly to memes. But culture strongly moderates this influence of dominant, high status, intelligent women. Consider the treatment Hilary Clinton is getting now. Even in a more ordinary circumstance, male bosses can wield power in a way that would label their female cohorts 'ice queens'. So the influence of powerful women is labeled a bad thing, and the adoption of those values by other women is severely inhibited. --- So, for this case, at first glance, it seems like the evolution of cultural memes completely dominates the influence of the evolution of biological genes. Does anyone see a hole in this argument?
- whacked_new 18y agoYes. The reference to cultural memes is a chicken an egg argument; by claiming "complete domination" you essentially overlook the origin of said memes. I'm not armed with sources, but I daresay that nature has given everything specialization, so much so that applying the same ideas to the sexes is not the slightest bit strange. More strongly said, there is nothing surprising when one sex exhibits traits much more ostensibly than another. While I am not referring to the superiority of a specific sex, specie, or trait, it actually seems more unnatural to claim equality on things like attitudes towards risk and attribute difference to culture. Back to your arguments specifically. These come from a fuzzy memory, but they provide a complementary view. a. Even a single genetic difference can lead to drastically different results. We are close enough to chimps. Men and women have different brains; different areas activate up when shown the same picture. It's not a stretch to say that risk evaluation is done differently as well. b. I recall at least two matriarchial societies in which women called the shots. Nevertheless, the men were still the fighters, which is perhaps the most competitive, aggressive, and risky behavior possible. Women can be dominant, intelligent, and decisive, and still partake in less adrenaline-laden activities. There may be something else in the motivation. a. I think this is a good and important point, and am not trying to underplay it, but this argument is usually the convenient one, and the hardest to make any systematic observation. Thought experiment: try comparing startup founder numbers of Japanese men to those of American women. b. Again, true enough, but also: the sperm of a high-status males, whom are shown to produce more offspring, still hold good chance to yield daughters. Does this poke a hole in your argument?
- smanek 18y agothat's close - but not quite what I was taught. Basically, men aren't as important as women. If 99.99% of men died today, the human race could be back to it's normal population within a generation (a man could easily father a child a day for 30 years ~10,000 children). On the other hand, we'd have much more trouble if 99.9% of women died, since a women can only realistically have about 10 children in a lifetime. This encourages men to be bigger risk takers - women were the limiting reagent to population growth. Similarly, the potential gain for a ridiculously successful man (genetically speaking) is that he can have several thousand children. A women, on the other hand, can likely have 10 children whether or not she is successful; so there is little (evolutionary) benefit for her to be hugely successful (or take risks necessary to do so).
- DaniFong 18y agoA women, on the other hand, can likely have 10 children whether or not she is successful Surely you are joking... Miscarriages, even a century ago, claimed so many women. You would be lucky to live past your third, much less your tenth! Without some network to provided for her (either by her family, or the village, or her mate, all of which are strongly effected by status), the likelihood of surviving a pregnancy becomes much lower. Women couldn't just flip a switch and get pregnant to satisfy a biological urge. Pregnancy represents both an enormous investment in time, effort, and energy, and a gamble on life. Status structure reflects this.
- smanek 18y agofair enough. Let me rephrase to say that a moderately successful women (on the par of a low level aristocrat) could easily support 10 children. It still supports my contention that men had more to gain from being hugely successful (king level) than a women.
- smanek 18y agoOh, and the 10 was an upper bound. If it's 3 that's even better - women are even more of a limiting reagent and they have less of a evolutionary need for massive amounts of wealth.
- aasarava 18y agoWhile that makes for a neatly packaged Darwinian theory, it's important to remember that genetic selection is not the only force that affects our decisions. Medicine, culture, technology, and many other factors affect, and even override, what our genes may steer us toward if they could "act in a vacuum." Not convinced? By the same theory, one would think that men in today's society would be highly encouraged to have children with multiple partners -- at roughly age 18. Yet, we discourage both for no apparent genetic benefit. Rather, it's for a societal benefit. Unfortunately, Darwinian theories about "women being wired for different work than men" are perpetuated at all levels. (Anyone remember Lawrence Summers at Harvard?) And because people actually begin to believe the theories, they become in themselves a form of subtle discrimination that both discourages women from attempting certain activities and prevents them from being offered certain opportunities. It's really important not to belive it yourself and to consider all the many factors at play here.
- DaniFong 18y agoLawrence Summers, if you read or watch the talk, did not, in fact, assert that the dearth of women in science was explained by biological factors. He brought up the question. Even considering the insufficiently delicate way he put it, there's an exceptionally important distinction. Unfortunately, people heard what they wanted to hear. --- Not convinced? By the same theory, one would think that men in today's society would be highly encouraged to have children with multiple partners -- at roughly age 18. Yet, we discourage both for no apparent genetic benefit. Rather, it's for a societal benefit. As I note below, often societal benefit trumps genetic benefit, which remains true as long as there is a high genetic correlation between the people in that society.
- whacked_new 18y agoThere is a difference between acknowledging a difference exists, and acting on that difference in a discriminatory manner. Women and men are wired differently. That much is a fact. The obvious, those of reproductive organs, are visible and nobody would deny them. Those in the head, are invisible and so somehow made into a sensitive issue, but significant differences exist. Women have a larger corpus callosum than men; one could suppose then, that their hemispheres talk faster with each other: efficient multitasking. There is nothing wrong with this step: it is the same kind of reasoning that you apply to saying that giraffes have long necks to eat food in trees. The problem about discrimination is what happens after this step: a man is unable to multitask. A giraffe is unable to eat food that is not in trees. But these are two things. And most knee-jerk antidiscriminationist rhetoric lumps them into one. Also, I am not calling you one :)