8 ms·

Why are beautiful women more likely to have daughters? Women only have X chromosomes to contribute to the kid, Men have X and Y, so the gender is more or less

Why are beautiful women more likely to have daughters? Women only have X chromosomes to contribute to the kid, Men have X and Y, so the gender is more or less chosen by the male. Are they suggesting that the most successful men are both more likely to get the most attractive women and more likely to have daughters? Strikes me more as correlation rather than causation, but maybe I'm missing something.

helveticaman 17y ago
Maybe their ovules are more receptive to heavier sperm or can detect whether a sperm is XX. Or fertilized eggs that are girls attach more easily. There are a lot of ways this can be the case.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
nostrademons 17y ago
The effect's been observed with a lot of traits that benefit one sex more than the other. For example, taller parents are disproportionately likely to have sons, because height reproductively benefits a male much more than a female. The mechanism proposed is sex-selective abortion. Apparently, women's bodies have the ability to spontaneously abort fetuses of "the wrong" sex early in the pregnancy, either by preventing implantation or by cutting off blood supply to the placenta. Many other mammals have similar mechanisms, eg. mice will abort pregnancy if they undergo a sustained lack of food. For that matter, human sex ratios change in a famine or ice age, with many more daughters than sons being born. Women have significantly less reproductive variability than men, since their ability to bear children is largely limited by their uterus and not their socioeconomic standing. When everybody is poor, then, it makes sense for more women to be born because daughters will not be as unfavorably impacted by poverty as sons.
- endtime 17y ago
  Are you saying that, according to this mechanism, the womb tends to abort males that will be beautiful and females that will be tall?
  - nostrademons 17y ago
    More that the wombs of beautiful women tend to abort males, and the wombs of tall women tend to abort females. I'm kinda curious whether this can account for male genes at all; it seems possible but pretty unlikely. And of course, the effect is incredibly tiny, but averaged over millions of human beings can create noticeable differences in sex ratios.
    - Ardit20 17y ago
      does that mean therefore that there are NOT 3 billion females and 3 billion males in the world, since, if it is not just about the sperm race and our bodies have mechanisms to determine the chances of survival of the foetus, then it is no longer 50/50?
      - jeroen 17y ago
        The sperm race isn't 50/50 either. The y-sperm is slightly lighter than the x-sperm and thus slightly faster. On the other hand, women tend to live longer.
      - gojomo 17y ago
        It's never exactly 50/50; generally more males are born but die sooner every step from there.
      - tybris 17y ago
        World-wide there are 107 men born for every 100 women. As women tend to get older the overall difference is 101/100. It also differs per country, and possibly other groupings. Some numbers are in: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/xx.html https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...
      - req2 17y ago
        It's worth noting that a single beautiful mother does not birth the whole population, nor does a tall mother.
    - endtime 17y ago
- alexgartrell 17y ago
  That's interesting. Maybe King Henry VIII was on to something after all. Plus one
- jlees 17y ago
  For that matter, human sex ratios change in a famine or ice age, with many more daughters than sons being born. Aha! So beautiful women who are constantly on diets trick their bodies into thinking it's a famine - thus more girls are born?
yungchin 17y ago
Well, if you believe some of the stuff behind the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shettles_Method http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shettles_Method for choosing the gender of your children, you could come to all kinds of theories as to the causation... E.g., maybe men with beautiful wives don't wait for ovulation, rather they're at it all the time? I'll leave further possibilities to your imagination ;)

helveticaman 17y ago

Maybe their ovules are more receptive to heavier sperm or can detect whether a sperm is XX. Or fertilized eggs that are girls attach more easily. There are a lot of ways this can be the case.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

nostrademons 17y ago

The effect's been observed with a lot of traits that benefit one sex more than the other. For example, taller parents are disproportionately likely to have sons, because height reproductively benefits a male much more than a female. The mechanism proposed is sex-selective abortion. Apparently, women's bodies have the ability to spontaneously abort fetuses of "the wrong" sex early in the pregnancy, either by preventing implantation or by cutting off blood supply to the placenta. Many other mammals have similar mechanisms, eg. mice will abort pregnancy if they undergo a sustained lack of food. For that matter, human sex ratios change in a famine or ice age, with many more daughters than sons being born. Women have significantly less reproductive variability than men, since their ability to bear children is largely limited by their uterus and not their socioeconomic standing. When everybody is poor, then, it makes sense for more women to be born because daughters will not be as unfavorably impacted by poverty as sons.

endtime 17y ago
Are you saying that, according to this mechanism, the womb tends to abort males that will be beautiful and females that will be tall?
- nostrademons 17y ago
  More that the wombs of beautiful women tend to abort males, and the wombs of tall women tend to abort females. I'm kinda curious whether this can account for male genes at all; it seems possible but pretty unlikely. And of course, the effect is incredibly tiny, but averaged over millions of human beings can create noticeable differences in sex ratios.
  - Ardit20 17y ago
    does that mean therefore that there are NOT 3 billion females and 3 billion males in the world, since, if it is not just about the sperm race and our bodies have mechanisms to determine the chances of survival of the foetus, then it is no longer 50/50?
    - jeroen 17y ago
      The sperm race isn't 50/50 either. The y-sperm is slightly lighter than the x-sperm and thus slightly faster. On the other hand, women tend to live longer.
    - gojomo 17y ago
      It's never exactly 50/50; generally more males are born but die sooner every step from there.
    - tybris 17y ago
      World-wide there are 107 men born for every 100 women. As women tend to get older the overall difference is 101/100. It also differs per country, and possibly other groupings. Some numbers are in: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/xx.html https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...
    - req2 17y ago
      It's worth noting that a single beautiful mother does not birth the whole population, nor does a tall mother.
  - endtime 17y ago
alexgartrell 17y ago
That's interesting. Maybe King Henry VIII was on to something after all. Plus one
jlees 17y ago
For that matter, human sex ratios change in a famine or ice age, with many more daughters than sons being born. Aha! So beautiful women who are constantly on diets trick their bodies into thinking it's a famine - thus more girls are born?

yungchin 17y ago

Well, if you believe some of the stuff behind the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shettles_Method http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shettles_Method for choosing the gender of your children, you could come to all kinds of theories as to the causation... E.g., maybe men with beautiful wives don't wait for ovulation, rather they're at it all the time? I'll leave further possibilities to your imagination ;)