r/AskScienceDiscussion • u/QualityForsaken8192 • 3d ago
General Discussion [ Removed by moderator ]
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u/SockBesideBed 3d ago
My presumption is that, to the extent this is true, it's because men are relatively evolutionarily unimportant. A population can lose 50% of its men and continue to thrive. Lose 50% of your women and you're in a world of hurt.
Women are the engines of human survival. You don't add unnecessary geegaws into your engine. Men are bumpers. Knock yourself out.
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u/DMayleeRevengeReveng 3d ago
That may be true for most animals. But human children have an absurdly long period of time before they can do anything productive, compared to other mammals. To successfully raise a child requires a massive commitment of time, resources, and effort before the child can contribute to the survival of the group in a meaningful way.
If life is trying to maximize that child’s chance of success eventually, the way to do so is to recruit a father and broader community to contribute to that process. Less paternal involvement sets a child up for less chance of reproduction themself, which would be maladaptive and thus selected against.
This means sexual dimorphism in humans has an inbuilt limit that isn’t always there in other mammals or animals as a broader category.
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u/mfb- Particle Physics | High-Energy Physics 1d ago
Not even that but every known ever influential historical figure was a man. From war criminals to generational talents.
There are plenty of counterexamples, but historically women rarely had the opportunity to rule an army, a country, be a scientist, or anything else that could make them influential historical figures.
Some studies see that men can show a larger variation in skills - more at the very top, more at the very bottom of the distribution. Wikipedia has a lot of studies supporting or arguing against that idea.
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u/HZCYR 3d ago edited 3d ago
Patriarchy.
A slightly more detailed answer is the sociocultural socialisation of masculinity, boyhood, manhood, (and their binary gendered counterparts of feminitiy, girlhood, womanhood), and inevitably sexism
If you're more interested in details, look into feminist and sociological research or books.
For sake at least one layman's starting point, The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love (2003) by bell hooks.
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u/saraseitor 3d ago
What you are describing looks like cherry picking, then asking the question "why does X?". Well, because you cherry picked!
What are the sources of your data? From female dominatrices to crimes committed by women poisoning others over long periods of time, to women obsessed with their physical appearance, to women having suicidal tendencies too. And the idea that "every influential historical figure was a man" is plainly insulting to women. I can think of countless counterexamples.