At Least Your Ancestors Were Probably Alpha Males: 80% of All Women Reproduced, But Only 40% of All Men

Which probably means that a sizable fraction of your male ancestors were rapists, though this article doesn't exactly say that.

For women throughout history (and prehistory), the odds of reproducing have been pretty good. Later in this talk we will ponder things like, why was it so rare for a hundred women to get together and build a ship and sail off to explore unknown regions, whereas men have fairly regularly done such things? But taking chances like that would be stupid, from the perspective of a biological organism seeking to reproduce. They might drown or be killed by savages or catch a disease. For women, the optimal thing to do is go along with the crowd, be nice, play it safe. The odds are good that men will come along and offer sex and you’ll be able to have babies. All that matters is choosing the best offer. We’re descended from women who played it safe.

I've read a few accounts of men building ships to sail off to "explore" unknown regions who did a bit more than simply "offer" sex. The Vikings, I understand, were particularly aggressive in their offers.

Kind of an interesting piece from John Tierney (quoting some expert), though, really, not to sound like Amanda Marcotte, but it's a bit much to read about sea raiders building ships in order to "offer" sex to the women they discovered. It goes on to discuss the differences in the social networking of the sexes, women building strong relationships within a limited network of intimate/familial contacts, men building lots and lots of shallow relationships with everyone they came across.

The cultural pressures on men have historically been greater than those placed on women. Or at least different:

What seems to have worked best for cultures is to play off the men against each other, competing for respect and other rewards that end up distributed very unequally. Men have to prove themselves by producing things the society values. They have to prevail over rivals and enemies in cultural competitions, which is probably why they aren’t as lovable as women.

The essence of how culture uses men depends on a basic social insecurity. This insecurity is in fact social, existential, and biological. Built into the male role is the danger of not being good enough to be accepted and respected and even the danger of not being able to do well enough to create offspring.

The basic social insecurity of manhood is stressful for the men, and it is hardly surprising that so many men crack up or do evil or heroic things or die younger than women. But that insecurity is useful and productive for the culture, the system.

I'm linking this primarily for the A-Man. He digs this stuff.

Thanks to TimS, who I think is from Newsbusters. (Update: Nope, he's not.)

posted by Ace at 01:04 PM

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