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> why did that happen instead of say making woman fertile for longer Human children takes over a decade to become adults, so it is pretty likely evolution sele
by username90 5y ago
> why did that happen instead of say making woman fertile for longer
Human children takes over a decade to become adults, so it is pretty likely evolution selected for women who stopped getting pregnant once they neared the end of their lifespan. Producing kids is super expensive so better take care of those you already have at that point.
> Why is the sterotype that youth is very attractive in woman, but the same sterotype doesn't apply to the same extent in men
Reasonable theory: Women mostly select men with good genes. Men mostly select women who can get pregnant and survive said pregnancy and bring the kid to adult. The main predictors for a woman being able to get and survive pregnancy is that she has a flat stomach (so not already pregnant) and she is young and healthy. Also existing kids will hurt your kids so better select a woman who doesn't already have kids, which historically meant young women.
Good genes is much more complicated, age is a positive factor here since it means the man could survive for that long but there are all sort of things women could look for here.
- dwighttk 5y ago> pretty likely evolution selected for women who stopped getting pregnant once they neared the end of their lifespan Would love to hear your proposed mechanism
- username90 5y agoA woman will live for 5 more years. She already has three kids at age 2, 5, and 7. In this scenario it is very likely the reduced resources these kids will have from sharing with a new sibling will reduce their chance to survive more than the 5 year old motherless child will add to the expected number of descendants. You could argue that it would be better if the genes considered these scenarios better and adapted. But genes are very crude, they can't encode for all those things, so instead they just do what is best in the typical scneario.
- bawolff 5y agoThen why do humans die in childbirth (esp. Pre-modern medicine) so much more commonly than other animals? Additionally, in pre-industrial societies, i think that children become a net positive much quicker, so im not sure the resource calculation is quite as stark.
- sshumaker 5y agoThey only do so in agricultural societies. Hunter-gatherers (how we spent the vast majority of our history) have fewer children spaced further apart. Being on the move doesn’t lend itself to large families.
- myrandomcomment 5y agoThe child brith death question is a good one. The simple answer is that our brain size (and thus size of our head) evolved much quicker then the needed birthing exit path.
- username90 5y agoJust a question: Why are men's preferences in women so controversial? They don't really matter, women aren't entitled to getting the man she wants. Men prefer young women, why would anyone downvote speculations as to why that is? This isn't like racism where these things generates problems for people.
- bawolff 5y agoWell that depends on how young...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- tomp 5y agoThere’s a lot of hate of men in our society, and it’s hard to notice it because we’ve all been so brainwashed we consider it normal. E.g. compare societal attitudes: more blacks shot by police => definitely racism => massive protests; more men shot by police => well obviously men are biologically wired to be more violent.