What if; Women had to be the competitive ones?

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wizzy555

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As said before women are competitive. They just like to pretend they aren't. The system you propose is not unlike a hareem system which has frequently happened in human history.
Human women have the largest breasts of any ape. Which suggests they have been under sexual selective competition for a significant amount of time.
 

Silverbeard

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Paragon Fury said:
What if women instead of men were the ones who, throughout human history, had been the ones to have the pressure to compete and and prove themselves instead men? What would have become of humanity, even today?
You're forgetting that 'woman' and 'man' are primarily used as social terms, not biological ones. Basically you're asking 'What if women were the breadwinners instead of men?'. And the answer to that is simple: We'd be where we are now. It's just that 'women' (i.e, female humans) would be doing everything that 'men' (i.e, human males) are doing now.

In a strictly biological setting, your premise ignores the fact that an impregnated female loses the ability to perform many of the physical functions that an unimpregnated woman can. Watch a heavily pregnant woman do something as simple as walk across a room and you'll see what I mean. Men don't have this problem and in a professional setting, a man can work indefinitely with only minimal time off for paternity leave. A pregnant woman will lose significant time to maternity leave and will thus accomplish less.
That might go some way towards explaining why females are not currently 'men' and why males are not currently 'women'.
 

Redryhno

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Asclepion said:
It sounds like OP's question is 'what if males were the limiting factor in reproduction?' I don't think OP is saying that 'women must do nothing to attract mates', or that 'women are incapable of being driven by a purpose.' At least I hope not.
Yeah, shame everyone jumped on the guy for daring to have something controversial in the title or, more probable, just a simple underthinking of what they wanted to ask.

OT:

Probably honestly much the same if we're talking about everything being the same, but reversed. Maybe a bit more rigid dresscodes for guys? It's sorta hard to see much difference is all. Because it'll either be a complete paradigm shift, or nearly identical.

Hell, women largely despise working under women unless they're buddies, maybe it'll be the same with guys?

Edit: Also what Silverbeard above is saying has to factor in no matter what as well.
 

Lilani

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Asclepion said:
Lilani said:
At this point, we haven't established what it means to be a "limiting factor" in reproduction, or that women are one. Does that mean women are having less sex because they're more scrupulous about their partners, or does that mean women are having more sex because they're more successful at getting partners?

It's all baseless assumptions at this point, no proven facts have yet been presented.
Males can fertilize any female they come across, while females can only give birth once every few months. A male can potentially have thousands of children in the time it takes for a female to have one.
You're assuming that women stop having sex when they're pregnant, and that people have always known that men are the ones to fertilize the eggs within women. The earliest gods of reproduction and fertility were all women, because for a very long time people had no idea that men had anything to do with reproduction. It's a nine month delay from conception to birth, and it takes weeks if not months for it to begin to show. It took people a very long time to figure out that a male and a female mashing their privates together had anything to do with it. They thought it was just a thing that happened to women. Humans existed for thousands of years before societies developed rules regarding partnerships, parenthood, and heredity.
 

Ihateregistering1

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Lilani said:
Asclepion said:
Lilani said:
At this point, we haven't established what it means to be a "limiting factor" in reproduction, or that women are one. Does that mean women are having less sex because they're more scrupulous about their partners, or does that mean women are having more sex because they're more successful at getting partners?

It's all baseless assumptions at this point, no proven facts have yet been presented.
Males can fertilize any female they come across, while females can only give birth once every few months. A male can potentially have thousands of children in the time it takes for a female to have one.
You're assuming that women stop having sex when they're pregnant, and that people have always known that men are the ones to fertilize the eggs within women. The earliest gods of reproduction and fertility were all women, because for a very long time people had no idea that men had anything to do with reproduction. It's a nine month delay from conception to birth, and it takes weeks if not months for it to begin to show. It took people a very long time to figure out that a male and a female mashing their privates together had anything to do with it. They thought it was just a thing that happened to women. Humans existed for thousands of years before societies developed rules regarding partnerships, parenthood, and heredity.
Do you have any evidence to back this claim? It's honestly something I never thought of, but when I googled it I really only found one article about the subject:
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/explainer/2013/01/when_did_humans_realize_sex_makes_babies_evolution_of_reproductive_consciousness.html

Put basically, the latest and greatest info from Anthropolgists is that homo sapiens figured out the connection between babies and sex pretty much as soon as we became a species (though for obvious reasons we won't be able to narrow it down incredibly precisely).
 

renegade7

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Paragon Fury said:
Because of this limit, males, in order to fulfill the basic biological urge to reproduce, have to compete with every other male at basically times to secure a suitable mate.

How does humanity change? Does it change?

So what if we reversed that? What if females instead had to be the ones competing; for a basic reference, let's say that there are simply not enough males to go around (IE: Population skewed say that humanity becomes 65% female, 35% male etc.) or that a plurality of males cannot breed for some reason - thus making the remaining males or the ones that can breed something women have to compete over.

Is everything the same, just more pink?

EDIT: TO clarify, I'm talking about if had been this way since "humans" could reasonably be defined as a species, not if it just started today.
[/quote]

Before I start, I refer to "males" and "females" rather than "men" and "women" because I'm talking about humans as animals in a biological perspective. Just pointing that out in case anyone finds the choice of words odd.

I think humans are a bit unique, even among the great apes, in that humans form much more complex social structures than any other animal. Here's the big catch: humans don't compete directly for reproductive rights, rather, they form social groups ("cliques") and seek to optimize their own social standing (since better standing means you can gain access to better groups) and the position of their group within society (since a higher-status group attracts better individuals). Within groups, hierarchies are basically flat. Since the partners that an individual potentially has access to are determined by the group of which that individual is a part, social status effectively becomes a proxy for reproductive fitness.

Becoming one's mating partner involves you with them socially, thereby causing you to inherit the social status of your partner's group. However, the converse is also true, the group will also inherit the social status of this new member. This means that both males and females therefore have a reason to be selective, since taking a low-status partner means involving that person socially with your group, thereby reducing the overall social standing of the group, and thereby jeopardizing your membership within the group. The opposite is also true, if you take a higher-status partner, then you gain social status and membership in a higher-status group.

While females pay a higher physiological cost than males to reproduce, they compensate for that cost with the support of their social group (they'd have to, because pregnant female humans are extremely vulnerable), and the quality of support provided will depend on the quality of the group, so they have an incentive to pair with a high-status male. Males, on the other hand, could lose access to their pool of potential female partners if they take a lower-status female partner and gain access to better potential partners by taking a higher-status partner, so females have to compete with each other for social status in order to be appealing to high-status males.

So it's not the case that only males have to compete for females. Women have more of a reason to be competitive if we're appealing solely to human evolution. In humanity's natural state, males have more bargaining power than females, not less. Human males need to be competitive because they like having sex with the most attractive females. Females, on the other hand, need to be competitive not only because they like having sex with the most attractive males, but also because their odds of surviving pregnancy ultimately depend on the social status of their partner.

Your question is basically answered by history. What men being the high-demand resource during our evolutionary prehistory resulted in was several thousand years of misogyny which we only started recovering from in earnest within the last 300 years.

That's why the women's rights movements have hinged so heavily on things like reproductive freedom and ability to work: they remove the dependency of women on men, thus reducing the high-demand position of men, with the result being that women don't have to tolerate misogyny to enjoy their desired quality of life.
 

Dirty Hipsters

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1981 said:
What if white people had to like fried chicken?
Fried chicken is absolutely delicious, as is watermelon. Grape soda on the other hand is disgusting.
 

Lil devils x_v1legacy

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Silverbeard said:
Paragon Fury said:
What if women instead of men were the ones who, throughout human history, had been the ones to have the pressure to compete and and prove themselves instead men? What would have become of humanity, even today?
You're forgetting that 'woman' and 'man' are primarily used as social terms, not biological ones. Basically you're asking 'What if women were the breadwinners instead of men?'. And the answer to that is simple: We'd be where we are now. It's just that 'women' (i.e, female humans) would be doing everything that 'men' (i.e, human males) are doing now.

In a strictly biological setting, your premise ignores the fact that an impregnated female loses the ability to perform many of the physical functions that an unimpregnated woman can. Watch a heavily pregnant woman do something as simple as walk across a room and you'll see what I mean. Men don't have this problem and in a professional setting, a man can work indefinitely with only minimal time off for paternity leave. A pregnant woman will lose significant time to maternity leave and will thus accomplish less.
That might go some way towards explaining why females are not currently 'men' and why males are not currently 'women'.
There are societies where the women have been doing exactly that for thousands of years, where men take the woman's clan name upon marriage, women traditionally are the ones to own property, conduct business and control the economy, I come from one. ( http://www.legendsofamerica.com/na-hopi.html ) The primary difference I see between those and patriarchal society is that in the matriarchal society I come from, men and women were considered more equal, no one could own another human being.. hell people could not even own animals, everyone including animals owned themselves. Even though women were the primary "breadwinners", men were never seen or treated as beneath women. ALSO children were a normal part of the work environment. Women looked after their children while they worked, it was never a situation where children were to be excluded or considered to be in the way, instead all of the women working looked after everyone's children while working, everyone just helped one another instead. IF the work was too dangerous for children, they also had two spirits ( Trans or gay can be, but not necessarily both) who were considered the best educators and child care providers and were exalted in the community rather than shunned as they are in patriarchal society. The highest social status was among educators and health care providers, as well as what was considered to be the most important jobs. The warrior was not elevated in Matriarchal society, instead was thought of to be a job that was necessary but no one wanted like being a sanitation worker or garbage man as far as social status. I am not sure what you mean by not being " men".. like what exactly is that supposed to be composed of.

One of the roles that do not change between Matriarchal and Patriarchal society is men had to do the "asking" when they found a woman they were interested in. When the man decides they are interested in a woman, they had to formally ask her, then give her time to think about whether or not she wished to date the man. That was the same in both the matriarchal society I come from and the Patriarchal western society as far as" courtship" is concerned. It was still the role of the man to be the first to ask a woman, though many other aspects in society greatly vary ( such as Boys playing with dolls), that remained the same.
 

Story

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Dude it's 2016 and your question/OP is even more outdated and, I'll say it, sexist then it should be.
I winced so hard it hurted.
 

Trunkage

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Firstly, chill guys. Lashing someone who doesn't see the mistake they made is probably not going to tell him what he did wrong.

Telling people how they should act (i.e. not aggressive or competitive or for that matter sexist) just riles them up and stops them from listening.

OT: You're also assuming aggressive has something to do with competitive. It can happen but is not a necessary emotion.
 

Tsun Tzu

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So many knee-jerk reactions in here.

Probably a poor choice of thread title, man.

But, yeah, to address the actual topic: It'd be kind of neat to see. Cultures would, in all likelihood, be markedly different and...honestly there are too many factors involved here to even make a guess. Hell, we might have even evolved differently as a result of it.

Sexual dimorphism might be flipped. Entire societies might not have existed or been replaced with others. Our level of technology might be greater or worse. There's far too much to consider.
Story said:
Dude it's 2016
No. Bad. Stop.
Lilani said:
Asclepion said:
Lilani said:
At this point, we haven't established what it means to be a "limiting factor" in reproduction, or that women are one. Does that mean women are having less sex because they're more scrupulous about their partners, or does that mean women are having more sex because they're more successful at getting partners?

It's all baseless assumptions at this point, no proven facts have yet been presented.
Males can fertilize any female they come across, while females can only give birth once every few months. A male can potentially have thousands of children in the time it takes for a female to have one.
You're assuming that women stop having sex when they're pregnant, and that people have always known that men are the ones to fertilize the eggs within women. The earliest gods of reproduction and fertility were all women, because for a very long time people had no idea that men had anything to do with reproduction. It's a nine month delay from conception to birth, and it takes weeks if not months for it to begin to show. It took people a very long time to figure out that a male and a female mashing their privates together had anything to do with it. They thought it was just a thing that happened to women. Humans existed for thousands of years before societies developed rules regarding partnerships, parenthood, and heredity.
First of all, reproductive capacity and the ability to have sex are not the same thing, ie. of course a woman can have sex while pregnant, but doing so doesn't result in the creation of more children, while a man can, in the time in takes for said woman to carry a child to term, potentially reproduce thousands of times with thousands of partners.

Therefore, during the course of human history, females have been the limiting factor on reproduction.

Second of all,

Whaaaat?
 

Story

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LostGryphon said:
So many knee-jerk reactions in here.

Probably a poor choice of thread title, man.

But, yeah, to address the actual topic: It'd be kind of neat to see. Cultures would, in all likelihood, be markedly different and...honestly there are too many factors involved here to even make a guess. Hell, we might have even evolved differently as a result of it.

Sexual dimorphism might be flipped. Entire societies might not have existed or been replaced with others. Our level of technology might be greater or worse. There's far too much to consider.
Story said:
Dude it's 2016
No. Bad. Stop.
Lilani said:
Asclepion said:
Lilani said:
At this point, we haven't established what it means to be a "limiting factor" in reproduction, or that women are one. Does that mean women are having less sex because they're more scrupulous about their partners, or does that mean women are having more sex because they're more successful at getting partners?

It's all baseless assumptions at this point, no proven facts have yet been presented.
Males can fertilize any female they come across, while females can only give birth once every few months. A male can potentially have thousands of children in the time it takes for a female to have one.
You're assuming that women stop having sex when they're pregnant, and that people have always known that men are the ones to fertilize the eggs within women. The earliest gods of reproduction and fertility were all women, because for a very long time people had no idea that men had anything to do with reproduction. It's a nine month delay from conception to birth, and it takes weeks if not months for it to begin to show. It took people a very long time to figure out that a male and a female mashing their privates together had anything to do with it. They thought it was just a thing that happened to women. Humans existed for thousands of years before societies developed rules regarding partnerships, parenthood, and heredity.
First of all, reproductive capacity and the ability to have sex are not the same thing, ie. of course a woman can have sex while pregnant, but doing so doesn't result in the creation of more children, while a man can, in the time in takes for said woman to carry a child to term, potentially reproduce thousands of times with thousands of partners.

Therefore, during the course of human history, females have been the limiting factor on reproduction.

Second of all,

Whaaaat?
Eh fair enough. That was probably too snarky and very predictable of me to say. But I mean the OP wanted to start the new year with a question that gives what I at least consider to be outdated false assumptions about both women and men. Or farther renew a debate that itself is very old and I believe, hope at least, we are well past. Personally when I think of the new year, I hope to think of something new...this not so much.
Or perhaps just find it ironic? No...Or personally unsettling maybe? Yeah That's it. I've always been competitive in my own interests not just with other women, but other men too and was raised to be so by my family. I can't speak for relationships because I'm very unromantic myself but as far as education and the workplace? Absolutely.
 

Timeless Lavender

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I am very confuse about your assertion. Are you saying that women are not as competitive as men when it comes to sex partners and reproduction? If so, then I disagree. From my experience women are very competitive with one another either doing harmless actions like being more fashionable and wearing more cosmetics or insidious actions like blackmailing and gossiping.

Furthermore, what about modern and ancient technologies such as birth control, sterilization and abortion where women and control their reproduction, hence being as competitive as men .


Lastly, I do not think in modern times people find aggressiveness as an attractive. There are other important factors like education, intelligence, social class,personality etc. to be considered.
 

Mister K

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Timeless Lavender said:
I am very confuse about your assertion. Are you saying that women are not as competitive as men when it comes to sex partners and reproduction? If so, then I disagree. From my experience women are very competitive with one another either doing harmless actions like being more fashionable and wearing more cosmetics or insidious actions like blackmailing and gossiping.

Furthermore, what about modern and ancient technologies such as birth control, sterilization and abortion where women and control their reproduction, hence being as competitive as men .


Lastly, I do not think in modern times people find aggressiveness as an attractive. There are other important factors like education, intelligence, social class,personality etc. to be considered.
OK, quick note: I am staying away from the general discussion and am just replying to Timeless Lavender.

Anyhow, about aggression: you can be kind, smart, athletic and have a great personality, but what kind of a future can you provide for yourself and your family if you are passive, timid and unwilling to compete? When people are saying that aggression is still needed they don't mean "I big has club smash enemy" type of aggression, but rather its more modern, civilized cousin: being competitive. In any society, at any given time and place, a person that is not willing to fight for their future and is quietly waiting for future to come to them is considered less desirable than the one who will bite the future in the rump and won't let go untill it submits and gives what they want. Granted, in the olden days, when life was not as expensive, there COULD be a place for a spouse (most of the time wife) who stayed at home and took care of home and family, but it is a wee bit impossible today. Unless one of the pair earnes so much money it's enough for both. Or is just lucky with the lottery tickets.

To conclude: yes, physical aggression, the desire to get what you want by hitting enemy with a heavy stick is not desirable today, true, but being competitive (wnich is largely the same, if more polite) is still a must have.
 

Timeless Lavender

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Mister K said:
Then you and I are using the term 'aggressiveness' differently . I am psychology major student so I used the psychological definition of aggressiveness which is a 'behaviour whose purpose is to harm others' (Schater, Gilber,& Wegner, 2011, pg. 507)

Aggressiveness should not be confused with assertiveness, competitiveness or confidence due to being very inaccurate.
 

Paradoxrifts

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I absolutely love it when someone responds with the date as if that alone was sufficient grounds to suggest that something shouldn't be discussed or talked about. I like to imagine that there is a politically-correct almanac [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almanac] that details when certain topics of conversation are to be phased out of conversation and debate.
 

Mister K

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Timeless Lavender said:
Mister K said:
Then you and I are using the term 'aggressiveness' differently . I am psychology major student so I used the psychological definition of aggressiveness which is a 'behaviour whose purpose is to harm others' (Schater, Gilber,& Wegner, 2011, pg. 507)

Aggressiveness should not be confused with assertiveness, competitiveness or confidence due to being very inaccurate.
Well, you ARE major in this field, so I won't argue with you. However, question: if every (for lack of better word) action can be considered as either passive or aggressive, can't we come to a conclusion that aggressiveness is, in some way, a root of the traits you've mentioned? I mean, you can't be successful in your life if your actions won't deny success to other person (unless it's a field only you and a few others work in). Which means that, in some way, you ARE harming others when you are acting assertively and competitively, i.e. you are denying them place you want for yourself and harming their well-being.
 

Eddie the head

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I imagine it would just be the inverse of our history for the most part. Men would just be the ones asking themselves the Fable question; you can, but why would you want to? I also love how most of the reply's to this have been just disingenuous. I'm not even a sociologist and I understand the basics of what you're talking about. Throughout history to pass on your genes a woman has a good chance if she doesn't take risks, and guy has a much better chance if he did. What if it was the opposite of that? Instead people are getting hung up on semantics.
 

Xeorm

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Gonna jump on the dogpile and also point out that women are very competitive as well. Also of note, there's generally more males that are born then females (a few percentage points higher) but by the time they get to breeding age and a bit beyond, there are usually more women.

AFAIK, men tend towards being competitive in different ways than women. Effectively, men are the guinea pigs of genetics, and so have riskier competition. Fights to the death, as an extreme example, but also risky athletic challenges. Comparably, women will compete in tamer ways to improve her perceived social ranking and/or net higher ranked men.

Easier for a population in general to have too few men than to have too few women. But these are of course vast generalizations, and not exactly accurate for any given society.