Women are better hunter, science suggests

[Inliytened1]

@Leo Gurayyou're fucked dude. You woke the sleeping giant. Good luck. Im bailing. 

[Xonas Pitfall]

6 hours ago, Alexop said:

One gender was specialized in creating and nurturing life, the other in taking away life. Baby nurturing activity is antithetical to the action of taking away a life. One requires max empathy and feelings, the other requires decoupling from empathy and feelings.

This doesn't really make sense to me. If we're talking about old "primal" times, everyone had to be brutal psychopaths, period. You needed both a mother and a father who were so psychotic that they would brutally murder anything and everything to protect their gene pool and children, no? 

If you had a mother who was naive toward outsiders, her child easily died, and those genes wouldn't have survived in the gene pool. Likewise, if a mother couldn't fight, hunt, or fend for herself, what would happen if the father was murdered? She and her child could've died out as well if she wasn't capable of being psychotically brutal when survival demanded it.

Femininity, at least how we define it today, is a very modern concept when you look at it from an evolutionary perspective. Being fragile, innocent, extremely dolled up and pretty, very thin, no muscle, no bones, no hair, naive, having the luxury to not care about your survival and focus on being extremely empathetic to others, having a perfect, unharmed, clean body, and being able to exist in this passive "feminine" state is an incredibly privileged and polished way of being.

Women in primal evolutionary times weren't living like that, just as men back then weren't sitting around doomscrolling and arguing on internet forums. 

The people who actually survived and passed on their genes had to be capable of being ruthless toward outsiders while simultaneously being almost psychopathically communal and selfless toward their own group, especially their children and offspring. And this applied to both men and women.

I think masculinity is falsely defined a lot of the time. So many traits people label as "masculine" are really just basic human survival instincts. Understanding self-preservation isn't inherently masculine; it's ego. We all do it. It's what any human being would have needed to survive in a primal environment, regardless of sex.

These primal environments selected for ego, self-preservation, and survival in EVERYONE, regardless of sex. There was no room for this modern definition of "femininity" because so much of what we associate with it today revolves around passivity, softness, innocence, beauty, purity, being delicate and undamaged, and existing in this polished, almost sheltered state.

You simply couldn't afford to embody those ideals all the time when your survival and the survival of your offspring were constantly at stake. These are luxuries that become possible when you're sufficiently removed from the immediate pressures of survival, not necessarily some timeless feminine essence rooted in evolution.

These hyper-polarities are mostly false definitions that have been propagated by the media, constantly pushing this idea of being ultra-feminine or ultra-masculine. People end up becoming caricatures of themselves, caricatures of the very ideologies they subscribe to.

I also think a lot of this is the result of men historically occupying more dominant positions within patriarchal systems, which gave them the power and resources to place greater demands on women in terms of beauty, sexuality, purity, obedience, and being nurturing, pleasing, and yielding toward someone else. When you hold most of the power and resources, you can afford to expect the other person to cater to your ego, fulfill your desires, and accommodate your needs rather than having to relate to them as an equal partner in survival.

That's partly how this polarity became so exaggerated over time. These ideals of ultra-masculinity and ultra-femininity were amplified through unequal power dynamics and eventually became so normalized that we've been conditioned to see them as natural, biological truths.

Edited 4 hours ago by Xonas Pitfall

[Leo Gura]

Explain why femininity and masculinity evolved at all.

Don't distract with irrelevant arguments.

Edited 4 hours ago by Leo Gura

[Emerald]

16 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

When your farm ladies were butchering chickens, men were raping and pillaging castles and enslaving men.

Imagine climbing a castle wall and getting an arrow through your eye.

Today's women do not even understand the work men did. It would give you PTSD.

This post is so out in left field.

I wasn't trying to make a comparison or claim that women are just as violent as men.

Of course, men have a much greater capacity for violence than women. The prison statistics bear that out, even in modern day.

I was responding to Alex's claim that, "Men are suited to take life and women are suited to nurture life."... implying that women can't kill animals on a hunt because it's against women's nature to kill.

So, I was reminding him that even agrarian Stage Blue women (who mostly worked on farms) were probably having to kill chickens pretty frequently... and other animals too.

That's why it makes no sense to think that pre-agrarian women wouldn't hunt because "women are suited to nurture life, not take it".

[Inliytened1]

3 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Explain why femininity and masculinity evolved at all.

Don't distract with irrelevant arguments.

That doesn't define us does it? If it should than we are pretty fucking stupid.

Edited 4 hours ago by Inliytened1

[Xonas Pitfall]

4 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Explain why femininity and masculinity evolved at all.

Don't distract with irrelevant arguments.

How is it irrelevant? I'm pointing out that we don't actually know, and that there's insufficient evidence to make such definitive claims. For all we know, this interpretation could be true as well.

"These hyper-polarities are mostly false definitions that have been propagated by the media, constantly pushing this idea of being ultra-feminine or ultra-masculine. People end up becoming caricatures of themselves, caricatures of the very ideologies they subscribe to.

I also think a lot of this is the result of men historically occupying more dominant positions within patriarchal systems, which gave them the power and resources to place greater demands on women in terms of beauty, sexuality, purity, obedience, and being nurturing, pleasing, and yielding toward someone else. When you hold most of the power and resources, you can afford to expect the other person to cater to your ego, fulfill your desires, and accommodate your needs rather than having to relate to them as an equal partner in survival.

That's partly how this polarity became so exaggerated over time. These ideals of ultra-masculinity and ultra-femininity were amplified through unequal power dynamics and eventually became so normalized that we've been conditioned to see them as natural, biological truths."

Femininity, as we define it in modern times, is often an incredibly cushy and privileged way of being, while so many traits we label as "masculine" are really just basic human ego, self-preservation, and survival instincts. I think this reflects a flaw in how we've culturally and ideologically defined these concepts, largely shaped by historical inequalities in power.

My whole point is that there are other ways to interpret how these dynamics could have evolved, rather than just accepting our modern definitions of masculinity and femininity as some timeless evolutionary truth.

I'm questioning the assumptions behind these definitions and pointing out alternative explanations. Do you actually know for sure yourself?

I don't think it's meaningless to bring up in a conversation about masculinity and femininity that we all essentially evolved from extremely brutal, survival-oriented humans (egos) who had to embody many of the traits we'd now define as "masculine" just to stay alive.

How these traits eventually became divided, categorized, biased, and associated with one sex or the other can be interpreted in so many different ways, especially when you consider the influence of culture, power dynamics, bargaining power, and changing survival conditions. For example, you don't assume that black people are genetically inferior. You understand the historical, social, and systemic context that contributed to inequalities. Otherwise, we'd end up interpreting every disparity as some inherent biological difference, which is exactly how racist ideologies get reinforced.

Yet we take these modern definitions of masculinity and femininity and treat them as some inherent, timeless "ground truth" about human nature, when the reality of how these distinctions evolved could be far more complicated.

Edited 4 hours ago by Xonas Pitfall

[aurum]

2 minutes ago, Xonas Pitfall said:

You needed both a mother and a father who were so psychotic that they would brutally murder anything and everything to protect their gene pool and children, no? 

But not to the same degree.

Men have always been responsible for the vast majority of killing and brutal survival activities. Why else have men always done the war?

Women needed to be shielded from that, precisely because their role was to raise children. And war is too dangerous.

Degree is what matters here.

[Inliytened1]

@Leo Gura your lack of bias is so evident everywhere else. But here. Here it falls short. I may be a dick with girls but I realize they are equal.

[Alexop]

53 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

You have a comfortable job made possible by men crawling through sewers.

Yes! All these post-modern spoiled people. Just go a work a few months in construction. Lay bricks from dawn till dusk in freezing temperatures, work with uneducated gross people who bully you at every possible occasion. Maybe afterwards you`ll appreciate men more. 

 

[Emerald]

23 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Explain why femininity and masculinity evolved at all.

Don't distract with irrelevant arguments.

You just won't actually stick to a claim. That's why you're not responding to my arguments... because you don't want to actually defend your real claim, as you know it's a weak claim.

But sexual dimorphism likely evolved because one of the main evolutionary strengths of human beings is specialization within a community.

And specialization requires a ton of differences and divergences in people's interests, personalities, temperaments, skills, strengths, and weaknesses. 

So, having men and women be quite a bit different ensures a degree of specialization and divergence... even before the discovery of agriculture.

When agriculture was discovered and humans had a surplus of food... we settled into tribes and civilizations. And this enabled us to have more social roles that people can play... like lawyers, interior decorators, secretaries, etc.

But in nomadic times, we didn't have surpluses of food. Instead, everyone in the group had to work to eat and survive that day.

And to the degree that division of labor and specialization was possible within those roles, it made sense for women to mostly fulfill certain roles and for men to mostly fulfill other roles.

So, women mostly played the roles of mother and forager. And men mostly played the role of father and hunter.

Both had a parenthood role. And both had a provision role. 

So, the divergences between men and women enabled them to specialize into those roles to some degree.

But specialization in a pre-agrarian group is very risky as there isn't a lot of people. So, it makes sense that there also needed to be a high degree of competence playing every role in the group... as survival depends on it.

So, there are divergences in men and women's temperament and physiology because it enabled a degree specialization before specialization was possible. But men and women's skills in a variety of domains are always an overlapping bell curve even if some provisionary specializations are things women are generally better at... and other provisionary specializations men are generally better at.

There's also another angle that we can look at sexual dimorphism from... which is the fact that humans are a very social species. And the differences between people's physical appearances are very important relative to our capacity to socialize. 

Then, there's also the fact that appearance plays a big role in attraction for human beings. And seeing someone who appears different from you signifies the sex difference... where maybe raccoons just sniff each other for that information.

Edited 3 hours ago by Emerald

[Inliytened1]

4 minutes ago, Emerald said:

You just won't actually stick to a claim. That's why you're not responding to my arguments... because you don't want to actually defend your real claim, as you know it's a weak claim.

But sexual dimorphism likely evolved because one of the main evolutionary strengths of human beings is specialization within a community.

And specialization requires a ton of differences and divergences in people's interests, personalities, temperaments, skills, strengths, and weaknesses. 

So, having men and women be quite a bit different ensures a degree of specialization and divergence... even before the discovery of agriculture.

When agriculture was discovered and humans had a surplus of food... we settled into tribes and civilizations. And this enabled us to have more social roles that people can play... like lawyers, interior decorators, secretaries, etc.

But in nomadic times, we didn't have surpluses of food. Instead, everyone in the group had to work to eat and survive that day.

And to the degree that division of labor and specialization was possible within those roles, it made sense for women to mostly fulfill certain roles and for men to mostly fulfill other roles.

So, women mostly played the roles of mother and forager. And men mostly played the role of father and hunter.

Both had a parenthood role. And both had a provision role. 

So, the divergences between men and women enabled them to specialize into those roles to some degree.

But specialization in a pre-agrarian group is very risky as there isn't a lot of people. So, it makes sense that there also needed to be a high degree of competence playing every role in the group... as survival depends on it.

So, there are divergences in men and women's temperament and physiology because it enabled a degree specialization before specialization was possible. But men and women's skills in a variety of domains are always an overlapping bell curve even if some previsionary specializations are things women are generally better at... and other provisionary specializations men are generally better at.

There's also another angle that we can look at sexual dimorphism from... which is the fact that humans are a very social species. And the differences between people's physical appearances are very important relative to our capacity to socialize. 

Then, there's also the fact that appearance plays a bit role in attraction for human beings. And seeing someone who appears different from you signifies the sex difference... where maybe raccoons just sniff each other for that information.

This is a nice effort but he was fucked as soon as he hinted inequality. It was over. We can pounce on him but I'm not sure if it will do any good.  It will in the end.

Edited 3 hours ago by Inliytened1

[Basman]

Bad post-modernism in action. The hubris is like a biblical tale. Such a spoiled attitude.

You'd think having a near-rape experience would make you reconsider one's lack of common sense. 

 

Edited 3 hours ago by Basman

[Xonas Pitfall]

18 minutes ago, aurum said:

But not to the same degree.

Men have always been responsible for the vast majority of killing and brutal survival activities. Why else have men always done the war?

Women needed to be shielded from that, precisely because their role was to raise children. And war is too dangerous.

Degree is what matters here.

I'm pointing out just how strongly we take all of these things for granted. The power of not knowing. I have absolutely zero clue why these dynamics developed the way they did, and that's my point. The problem is that people take these relatively loose definitions of masculinity and femininity, treat them as some inherent biological truth, and then build an entire ego game around how superior or inferior their gender is or isn't.

"When your farm ladies were butchering chickens, men were raping and pillaging castles and enslaving men. Today's women do not even understand the work men did. It would give you PTSD."

And who was being raped in this example? Whose children were being enslaved? Who was then forced into servitude under these same men? Women were on the receiving end of all this brutality. Today's men do not even understand the trauma/work women endured/did. It would give you PTSD.

Women also had to endure all of this brutality while still finding ways to fend for themselves, survive, and protect their children. Again, there's very little room for "femininity" as we define it in modern times when you're living under such brutal survival conditions. You couldn't afford to be passive, fragile, naive, or dependent on someone else for your survival. The reality was far more brutal. The brutal women and their children are the ones who survived. It makes no sense why today's idealized image of a feminine woman, some fragile, thin, pretty, empathetically selfless girl, would be treated as the inherent definition of femininity. Those aren't necessarily the traits that would've helped women survive. Their genes just wouldn't exist. Biologically, you'd think that should be the number one point of attraction. Someone who's capable of keeping your children alive, protecting them, and ensuring their survival. That should be one of the most attractive qualities in a potential partner from an evolutionary perspective. Women had to be resilient, aggressive, protective, and capable of fending for themselves and their children. That's why I'm pointing out the relativity of these masculine and feminine distinctions in the first place. We take these modern, culturally shaped definitions and project them backward as though they were some timeless biological truth, without really questioning how or why these divisions emerged.

But again, I think these gender wars are silly to begin with.

When we start labeling much more abstract things like "roles," "traits," "personality," or certain behaviors as inherently masculine or feminine, I feel like we're entering incredibly complicated territory. It's extremely difficult to evaluate why these things developed the way they did, how much of them is biological versus cultural, and how much was shaped by historical circumstances, power dynamics, and survival conditions.

And I'd especially expect Leo, of all people, to understand the relativity of these things and how easily we can mistake our own culturally conditioned interpretations for some objective, inherent truth about human nature.

That's really all I'm questioning here. Not claiming to know the actual answer, but questioning why we're so confident in these definitions in the first place when there are so many possible ways to interpret how they emerged.

I suppose it also depends on what exactly we're arguing about here.

Edited 3 hours ago by Xonas Pitfall

[Alexop]

25 minutes ago, Emerald said:

This post is so out in left field.

I wasn't trying to make a comparison or claim that women are just as violent as men.

Of course, men have a much greater capacity for violence than women. The prison statistics bear that out, even in modern day.

I was responding to Alex's claim that, "Men are suited to take life and women are suited to nurture life."... implying that women can't kill animals on a hunt because it's against women's nature to kill.

So, I was reminding him that even agrarian Stage Blue women (who mostly worked on farms) were probably having to kill chickens pretty frequently... and other animals too.

That's why it makes no sense to think that pre-agrarian women wouldn't hunt because "women are suited to nurture life, not take it".

Of course a woman can kill a chicken, what kind of argument is this? You know very well that women can be masculine and men can be feminine. In fact nowadays that should be the goal. To integrate both energies and based on the context, switch to a more feminine or more masculine energy. But that doesn't mean we are the same. Men on average get energized and happy, mature and evolve when they are in their masculine, women thrive in their feminine. Can I shower with cold water every day? Yes, but I'd be happier to have warm water.

Edited 3 hours ago by Alexop

[Emerald]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

You have a comfortable job made possible by men crawling through sewers.

Don't take credit for the work of men who crawl through sewers just because you're the same gender as they are.

You work an even cushier job than my job is.

[Alexop]

17 minutes ago, Basman said:

Bad post-modernism in action. The hubris is like a biblical tale. 

You'd think having a near-rape experience would make you reconsider one's lack of common sense. 

 

The children meet reality.

OH, now I understand why I need a man. Now I understand why police exists and police is composed of well trained men with guns. OOHHH Maybe we don't need to defund the police. hahahahah

NRE: near-rape experience. This is what wakes you back to reality.

Edited 3 hours ago by Alexop

[Emerald]

2 minutes ago, Alexop said:

Of course a woman can kill a chicken, what kind of argument is this? You know very well that women can be masculine and men can be feminine. In fact nowadays that should be the goal. To integrate both energies and based on the context, switch to a more feminine or more masculine energy. But that doesn't mean we are the same. Men on average get energized and happy, mature and evolve when they are in their masculine, women thrive in their feminine. Can I shower with cold water every day? Yes, but I'd be happier to have warm water.

You're moving the goalposts.

This was your claim: "One gender was specialized in creating and nurturing life, the other in taking away life. Baby nurturing activity is antithetical to the action of taking away a life. One requires max empathy and feelings, the other requires decoupling from empathy and feelings."

And now you're softening it... and acting like it's weird that I brought up examples of agrarian Stage Blue farmer ladies with 10 children who were frequently slaughtering animals on the farm... and teaching her kids the art of slaughter as well.

[Emerald]

3 minutes ago, Alexop said:

The children meet reality.

OH, now I understand why I need a man. Now I understand why police exists and police is composed of well trained men with guns. OOHHH Maybe we don't need to defund the police hahahaha

This is lame.

[aurum]

5 minutes ago, Xonas Pitfall said:

Women had to be resilient, aggressive, protective, and capable of fending for themselves and their children

This is still flattening the differences.

[Xonas Pitfall]

It's really sad that interesting conversations like these so often turn into gender wars. There's so much fascinating nuance to explore here, especially when it comes to our biases, the trickiness of insight, and how our minds take these loose definitions and construct entire mental frameworks around our preferred ego and gender identities. There's so much to question about how we interpret these things and how easily we mistake our own mental constructs for some objective truth. But unfortunately, all of that gets overshadowed by absolutist gender blaming and immature arguments about which gender is better or worse, who needs one more than the "other"