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.