Comment by trabant00
3 years ago
I can't imagine our species being able to survive and thrive like we did with risk seeking women. It takes about 15 years for a human infant to become independent and there are a lot bad things that can happen in 15 years even if you play it as safe as possible. One can argue that the roles can be shared or swapped, but that would be against specialization, hugely complicate mate selection, and it would break evolution by natural selection so no sex would excel at anything.
Now all of the above is really pretty conservative thinking, bound to ruffle some feathers and all that. So circling back to my first sentence, can anybody imagine things being different but with the same outcome?
> there are a lot bad things that can happen in 15 year
IMO, Our species has thrived because of our ability to communicate and work together, not because our gender roles somehow make us specially equipped for survival. The atomic family is a relatively recent development, and for much of history children were raised by a community. If your natural parents died or became unable to raise you, you weren't left out to starve. you were taken in by relatives or neighbors.
If our gender roles were different (and there are many cultures and places in history where humans had unique social structures) it would not "break evolution by natural selection". Plenty of species have gender roles that don't fit traditional western models and they continue to be subject to evolution.
Yeah, but human females can have more kids during that 15 year window, so that reduces the risk somewhat.
I was talking more about the risks for the mother, not the children. As opposed to risk being taken by the father who has to go hunting, war, etc, for resources to raise the children. But even for the children, she can have multiple, of course. But each one comes with a cost of resources. Investing years into something to then just risk it... Not to mention things like women bleeding to death on birth that where very common.
Men on the other hand can die and another one can be found to take his place. And a man who plays it safe at the expense of resource gathering is useless (for perpetuating the species). So I think humans selected over time for safe women and risky men.
And the kids can help which becomes a virtuous cycle. A 13 year old can be a fair amount of help with a toddler.