If you are a man wanting to post here, please read this first

Should add that insofar as I can make sense of the paper, the genomics tells you the crash has happened - it does not allow you to attribute an unambiguous cause to the crash in diversity. That becomes much more speculative (and - my gloss - open to people telling after-the-fact evo psych type "just so" stories). But "rich and powerful men use strength and money to control access to women's reproductive labour" does seem like a plausible one. Even so, there's room for a note of caution - it's the powerful men choosing who the women get to have kids with, not the women. It's still a million miles from the MGTOW whingers saying "but women won't look at meeeee." Diversity doesn't crash because women only want to shag Christian Grey, diversity crashes because Christian Grey enslaves the women.

Actually, the reproductive success (or otherwise) of men isn't a fixed constant through history and across cultures. I have a friend who's an anthropologist, and (garbled version because filtered through my confusion) genomics has revolutionised anthropology and archaeology because you can track y chromosomes and their diversity - and certain cultural changes (for instance the move from predominantly hunter gatherer societies to agrarian societies) are associated with crashes in y-chromosome diversity, as a small subset of rich land-owning men get to monopolise the available women. In contrast, the diversity of mitochondrial DNA (travels unambigiously down the female line - obviously the X chromosome itself could have been inherited from mother or father) is much more diverse - there are no periods or cultures where a small subset of women have been able to reproduce while the majority have remained childless.

A quick internet search threw up papers like this one:
genome.cshlp.org/content/early/2015/03/13/gr.186684.114.full.pdf+html - it's the "bottleneck" in the Y chromosome distribution of figure 2 that's the feature of interest, where (about 5000 years ago - difficult to read because log scale), Y chromosome diversity suddenly crashes. MtDNA diversity, in contrast, just grows steadily.

It also fails to take into account that, until relatively recently, families simply didn't feed their girls as much as they fed the boys.

Girls would cost them money when it came to marriage, either through dowry or merchet. This was especially the case pre-industrialisation for most and post for the poor during the lean months of May to August when the price of food went up. Women "passing on their genes" became moot when they were so malnourished that their menses were stopped.

Even if women were of a weight to be able to bear children, the constant round of underfed pregnancy and dangerous birth meant that few women lived out their fertile years. Those that did often lived to a ripe old age, which meant they were a burden on their families. So, rich ones were packed off to convents and poor ones accused of witchcraft and strangled at various points in history.

However, it's quite difficult to generalise about these things, because there have been different pressures on women's mortality rates over the ages. I'd be quite interested to know when women outnumbered men 2:1 though, because I've never seen anything to suggest that's correct.

"However, men believe that they ought to be included everywhere, listened to everywhere and centred everywhere."

So true, Vestal.

Hence passing on their genes, in case that wasn't obvious.

I'd've thought a fair chunk of those fighting in the Battle of Towton, say (1461, bloodiest battle on English soil, c28k dead) would've been old enough to have impregnated someone at least once, given younger age of marriage etc.

I'm not sure those figures or % are correct, given the osteo-archeological record.

Gosh. Even with so many women dying in childbirth, ASIP?

One thing that lower testosterone for some men, and funnels them into being responsible contributors into society is fatherhood. What has always led to problems historically is large numbers of men on their own forming all male groups. That's where a lot of these anti-social behaviours like cat-calling and violence find a lot of expression.

Historically although gender ratios are nearly 1:1 at birth, in the past more women than men reached adulthood, only something like 40% of men lived to pass on their genes compared to 80% of women, so higher levels of infant mortality coupled with general violence/warfare have led to estimates around 67% to 33% at some stages in the past (obvs a very general figure, human civilization has been varied).

A solution presents itself as obvious, which is more men in nurturing roles. I would theorize it is the presence of children and the nurturing of them that causes the dialling back of testorone production. So things like big brother programs, and a more equitable division of childcare responsibilities. This also has the additional benefit that a recent study at a US university found that the greatest predictor of the development of empathy in children was early and frequent hands on quality involvement of fathers with their children.

Love Basil's post and M0stly's flow chart

I really don't get going onto forums just to be annoyed at the people posting on a specific subject.

There is no group of people who believe that everything must be all about / involve: cars, thermomixes, gardening, computers, et cetera.

However, men believe that they ought to be included everywhere, listened to everywhere and centred everywhere. Women talking to each other without them offends them.
Doubly so if it is political. Women among each other are only allowed mindless babbling about children and make-up. Perhaps knitting and sewing, too. But politics? Never.

I don't understand why the blokes hang out on the feminism section at all for the most part.

We are entering a crucial period. Darkness is everywhere. Capitalism is speeding now towards its cruel conclusion.

There are islands of light. Pockets of rational thought. Feminism is one. I can't picture a happy ending without complete involvement of women at all levels.

I would hope to be allowed to make one suggestion, that this thing we fight is of dual nature...a social patriarchy and an economic capitalism.

"Going on forums just to be annoyed is something that puzzles me too."

Me three!

Going on forums just to be annoyed is something that puzzles me too. I don't waste my time - or theirs - by involving myself in discussions in groups that I don't understand or have any interest in, and yet men tip up here fairly frequently who know zero about the subject and yet with the intention of telling feminists that we're doing it wrong or even that we don't understand our own experience.

I guess it's a manifestation of arrogance, that these men genuinely think they have something to teach us fluffy headed girlies, and that we will be enlightened when they explain how we should think. They definitely don't appreciate that feminism is a movement based on ideas that are coherent and considered.

I don't think any of the time wasting men who derail threads here will bother to read this thread but we can at least refuse to engage with them until they've done so. A deterrent effect then, if nothing else.

Even if I had more time, I have no urge to pop over to PistonHeads and start injecting hurt 'not all women' into their conversations and getting miffed because they made a generalisation when talking about a social problem.

I mean, I've been on there to find help with a couple of car issues, which is fair enough, but I really don't get going onto forums just to be annoyed at the people posting on a specific subject. Like going onto a Thermomix forum and only wanting to talk about Kenwoods - it's just wierd.

Bossy

I don't understand why the blokes hang out on the feminism section at all for the most part.

Obviously they can.
But I don't understand why they want to hang out in a chat room which is for feminists.

Datun's point about the basic tenets of feminism is a good one. Perhaps we could add a link to a short informative piece that outlines the basic tenets? I don't have such a link about my person but I bet someone else does.

I am now imagining Indiana Jones and the Temple of Feminism.

It would have HF in his prime in his mid thirties, and a bevvy of beautiful feminists only waiting for him to show them the error of his ways (think Pussy Galore's flying circus, only hopefully we could leave out the rape scene this time round ...) It would be deeply unfeminist. It would do for feminism what Temple of Doom did for challenging racial and cultural stereotypes.

Bossy

Goodness.

Do you think we could also manage abrasive, shrill and and hysterical before the 1000?

And Indiana Jones and the Temple of Feminism is a film that needs to be made.

saskia

datun oh thank goodness you said, i will go back to brownnosing

Hey devi ...how you doing

*police.

Devi is the thread please. It's her thread. She can do what she likes with it.

The reason why I, personally like the idea of this thread is that when men do come on and dispute the most basic tenets of feminism (that even I am aware of), it instantly derails - like that chap who was banned who kept wanting to talk about himself.

I'm more than happy to chat to any chap, as long as he's got past the basics.

Is Temple of Feminism an upcoming Indiana Jones film?

Wait a minute

I thought devi WAS the thread police

Is viking saying she's not