Are male and female gender roles a relic from our evolutionary past?

[Missymoo100]

Ok, so here's a theory;
Sexual dimorphism is an evolutionary trait not found in every species.
In humans, man evolved to be stronger and faster. Natural selection gave him the advantage in hunting, protecting the family and competing with other males for access to resources and to females.
Women evolved to bear and nurture children, they would have been vulnerable at times due to pregnancy and in need of support/protection.
Whilst feminism seeks to redress the differences between men and women in today's world- could ideas about gender role exist because they were once useful and not stem simply from misogyny?

no
harpers.org/archive/2015/06/shooting-down-man-the-hunter/

There is a lot of misogyny, and assumptions that because now then it must have always been ... nature innit ... in evolutionary psychology and in anthro/archaeo studies of the past.

evo psych is by and large a whole load of balls.

Misogyny is not a normal state of affairs. Babies are not born hating anyone. Its an artifact of a competitive, divisive culture.

Feminism doesn't exist to redress the differences between men and women; biological differences are reality. Feminism exists because the class [men] act as a group in their own interests, and other classes have to fight to get basic rights.
Radical feminism acts to liberate women.
Gender roles change over time, they are not fixed. So they cannot be biological, they are cultural. Computer programming used to be considered a job for women because it was intricate, and typing a job for men because typewriters were heavy. In reality many of the jobs that men think of as mens jobs are also done by women, such as sewage & sanitation workers.

Evolutionary psychology does not explain why men work against their own best interests in the long term for a short term profit. For example why Trade Unions have to be set up to get basic rights for workers. Common sense states that if you treat humans like an asset, you will get more from them.
Common sense states its not a good idea to create and dump toxic waste.
Socially, violence is not the best strategy for an individual or group, co-operation is. Thats shown by study after study. In ape studies, male apes that cooperate with females get more sex, even when low ranking. Violent groups raise fewer young and the animals are more stressed. Life is less pleasant for everyone in a violent group.

We dont know how societies evolved. but as women have a long confinement and recovery, and can learn how to raise their children form other women, its possible that we worked out how to store and pass on that and other kinds of knowledge.
Aside from child rearing, the ability to store food, to pass on knowledge and wealth, and to protect ourselves from the weather with fire and shelter are the foundations of a society. Those are not gendered skills.

Also, even if this imaginary, man as the lone hunter tracking down bison, mammoth and sabre tooth tiger, had any merit in it - well there's just not a lot of call for that these days is there?

Faster and stronger doesn't mean better at working for IT support, or working in a call centre or working as a doctor or working any 21st century job. Nor does it make them better at designing, creating and engineering the technologies that have allowed us to live a 21st century lifestyle. If all men ever had to offer was their hunting skill and protection (either from sabre tooth tigers or just other men) then, sperm donation aside, we've evolved right past the need for them.

A certain type of man likes to push this argument because they want women confined to the domestic sphere - they should really be more careful when using it otherwise they might argue themselves out of existence!

Icantreachthepretzels,

Thanks for the article. It draws attention to the fact that women have always been active and useful- but what it doesn't explain is, if there were no difference in gender roles at any time why did sexual dimorphism occur- i.e. Men became more muscular, usually larger, faster etc.
The article states that women would hunt and gather, mentions slower moving animals, plants and seeds etc and sometimes accompany men on longer journeys- but this is still a different role, no less important but different. It states men and women may have been interdependent and I think that was probably true- but due to sexual dimorphism the roles would have been different since evolution of such traits comes from natural selection not randomness.

Sexual dimorphism could have happened because we carry an unusually large fetus for a long time, then look after them for years. It changes our hips. That changes our stride.

But what difference does it make? If women were also gathering and hunting then they were not just nurturing baby makers, so seeking to allow women into the workforce is not going against nature - women have always been the workforce!

And if meat was communal like the article says, then most likely only the best hunters would have hunted big game (though as skill and cunning was a part of that, and homo sapiens developed spears, there is no reason that the best hunters were the biggest and strongest men). Other men would have worked gathering and hunting small game alongside the women - and maybe even caring for the young! (male lions look after the cubs when the lionesses are out hunting because, being bigger and stronger, they are better placed to protect them).

Nobody tries to claim that men aren't bigger and stronger, nobody tries to claim women don't have the babies and this doesn't make them vulnerable, nobody tries to claim the 2 sexes aren't physically different. We're just saying different amounts of muscle mass shouldn't determine your life opportunities or be used to decide your personality.

Gender roles do exist because they are useful. Useful to men, and as such are determined and enforced by men for their benefit.

Evo psych is shite.

Gender roles vary across time and place.

I'm almost 50 and I've seen gender roles change in my lifetime, and not to the benefit of women and girls.

Gender roles are socially constructed and they are part of power dynamic which favours men. Nothing to do with how we might imagine our earliest ancestors lived.

Some interesting answers il have to come back to this tomorrow when im feeling more awake! but on a quick note-
Whilst female form largely evolved to carry a pregnancy, what about male attributes? why did these traits evolve.
Djbaggysmalls- I was thinking about the short term gain thing, my guess would be that primitive man would have had to guard and protect his resources in times of hardship, it's probably deeply ingrained to protect what we have, perhaps sometimes without appreciating the bigger picture and foresight. Almost like what was then protecting resources out of necessity, has now become greed.
Looking back at my original post perhaps I should have replaced the word misogyny with sexism around male and female roles.

Why should the roles be different? Why cant men be nurturing & involved with young children? Its in their best interests to be, it makes it more likely they will pass on their genes.
Their physical ability is only an asset if you only ever hunt large game, or have dangerous neighbours.

I'm confused. Specifically which species don't have sexual dimorphism? every type of animal, whether mammal, bird, fish, reptile, amphibian, insects and invertebrates that I can think of are sexually dimorphic. One sex will be bigger than the other, more aggressive, have different markings etc same as with people.

Heck even plants have specifically male and female parts to them.

I imagine the difference on shape/ muscle mass/ markings/ whatever will be down to a mixture of having a y chromosome instead of two xs, the hormones released at puberty and differences linked to reproductive capacity (e.g women having a wider pelvis and therefore a different stride because they are the ones who will give birth.) It's just a side effect of differing reproductive roles but it doesn't mean anything deeper than that.

if there were no difference in gender roles at any time why did sexual dimorphism occur- i.e. Men became more muscular, usually larger, faster etc

I think its far more likely that any gender roles that occurred occurred because sexual dimorphism made it easier for one sex to complete the task, rather than the other way round. Sexual dimorphism is a part of evolution - gender roles are a social construct (going back to my lions from an earlier post, I came across a lioness in South Africa who was a single mother, so was hiding her cubs deep in the long grass before she would hunt, as she couldn't rely on a lion to protect them. Even animals adapt to their social situation)

I don't think the roles should be different, and certainly not now in this age because it doesn't matter if we can hunt or grow our own food. I just wondered if sexism today rooted back to a time when there would have been difference in role, (causing or stemming from sexual dimorphism) Have these ideas been passed down by generations because they once existed and were useful? Is it the root of sexism?

If you want a job in IT, a computer science degree is also not necessarily a great choice.

Well, in animals, it's because the men battle for the privilege of reproducing with a female - could easily be the same for humans. I think that's a lot further back than sexism though.

I've read some compelling arguments that suggest it's when we switched to a more agrarian economy, so women and children became another resource to horde and trade rather than people.

I'm not sure how that squares with the apparent sexism in isolated tribes though, so it might be just compelling rather than correct

Sorry - I have no idea why that was left in my C&P I meant to C&P this:

Whilst female form largely evolved to carry a pregnancy, what about male attributes? why did these traits evolve.

In other mammalian species males are larger and stronger so they can fight each other, nothing at all to do with their role as far as protecting from any other dangers or providing for females and young...

Deer are mostly solitary, horses and cows the males are basically gathering up females and keeping them away from other males.

Lions... the males do chuff all to provide, they pretty much lie about being looked after by females.

Wolves, the only time female wolves don't hunt is when they have very young cubs and mostly that's because they're away hiding in dens from other wolves.

But they all have bigger stronger males than females.

icantreachthepretzels

That article you posted is fabulous. It summarises everything I've learnt whilst exploring the subject myself and everything that enraged me about the way in which many men see themselves as the driving force behind evolution and their Hunter the Hero past as the basis for so much oppression of women today.

I feel like giving you a bag of pretzels to say thank you

I just wondered if sexism today rooted back to a time when there would have been difference in role, (causing or stemming from sexual dimorphism)

In a way yes, because men's superior strength makes it easier for them to establish dominance but there were cultures who believed women were divine for their ability to magically reproduce although I'm not sure how that translated for everyday women.

I have a friend who believes that women's oppression began when humans figured out that women reproduce (and therefore sought to control their sexual behaviour) but I disagree because there are primate societies where the males are just as restrictive.

There are also primate societies where the females are more promiscuous and the males not so bothered.

'Whilst female form largely evolved to carry a pregnancy, what about male attributes? why did these traits evolve.'

There's a trade off between a body that conserves energy for creating life and a body that can acquire food efficiently. Men are bigger and stronger because they don't have the demands of pregnancy.

Human beings are not sexually dimorphic beyond differences required to maximise healthy pregnancies - like women not growing massive shoulders because they use more energy to support.

Human males don't have any of the sexually dimorphic traits seen in animals that guard mates from other males - large canines for example.

Should be... 'use more energy to support new life.'

rita

I've actually been wondering about animal groupings where you get one male and a herd of females and we deem them to be "his".

We can't actually ask animals what they're up to and what they're motivations are, all we can do is observe - but these observations, same as everything else, are done through the prism of our own preconceptions which includes sexism.

We see these males like they're some kind of eastern potentate with his harem, but what if its not that at all? If you think about it a small herd of female human could live together in a harmonious commune doing everything for themselves and only require one male that they would use for reproduction. They could keep him in a shed so they didn't even have to talk to him.
When their daughters grew up they could leave the commune to join another one to prevent inbreeding and the women could trade their sons with other communes to replace herd males who were getting a bit past it.
The kept man would get pretty aggressive when a new, younger alpha stud turned up, because once he's replaced he's left alone in the wilderness to fend for himself - something he's never had to do. But the new man would want to fight for his place in the herd because its the best means for his own survival. Damn right the males would fight over the females, but its their place as 'kept man' they're protecting, not the females as their property.

What if, in the animal kingdom, it isn't the females that belong to the males at all, but the other way round? In every species you need more females than males to keep the species going, its more important that more females survive - what if, instead of alpha males keeping themselves a herd of females, its a herd of females keeping themselves a sperm donor?

It doesn't actually change anything for gender roles in human society, but it would be funny if it turned out that the assumption of male supremacy in nature turned out to be just more male bullshit - like all those centuries they believed that women were just mutated men ... oh dear ..

Pretzels. I like your way of thinking. So basically we've been seeing it through the patriarchal "dominant male" viewpoint.

I think a lot of it is also do with who moves out of the security of their birth clan to be their spouse's clan, where they are at the bottom of the ladder.

Take the classic patriarchal system where the young bride loses the comfort of her birth family to become a total stranger in her husband's family, bottom of the pecking order, made to sleep on the floor and at the mercy of the MIL who protects her own hard-earned position by treating her DIL like shit. That's polygamy under patriarchy and is pretty shit for women because they're forced to compete against each other for resources doled out by the man.

In the scenario you're talking about where the females choose to allow the male in, it sounds like a situation where the sisters and female cousins have the security of staying together whilst swapping in and out whoever is the current alpha male.

Which is interesting. But I'm not sure how it fits in with the practice of infanticide where the new alpha male kills the existing babies as he enters.

Which incidentally provides one explanation for female primate infidelity. To provide obscurity over paternity.

But then I could be mixing up primate societies and am really just musing.

Missymoo

From what I've read, men's greater upper body strength, in particular, probably isn't a reflection of different roles, eg hunting. One explanation is sexual selection - for humans this would mean evolution being driven by the preferences of women. It would make sense for early hominid women to prefer (on average) larger, stronger males who would be more capable of protecting them and their children. Which would also mean the children were more likely to survive and pass on their genes for greater male upper body strength.

Hominid males didn't develop greater upper body strength. We all started out with more upper body strength because we were walking around on all fours, and then it was not selected for among women as we evolved as hominids because of the competing demands of pregnancy.

So some females developed less upper body strength because such women were more likely to survive pregnancy. The evolutionary pressure of pregnancy isn't there for men so there was no reason for their upper body strength to decrease when they became hominids.

I think SylviaPoe has the right idea.

In a world of limited calories will you store any excess in the good times as body fat or muscle mass?

Muscle mass is really useful for doing stuff but fat is the best way of storing energy. And muscle mass increases metabolic rate. Women need the stores of energy in fat to take them through Pregnancy and Breast feeding.

Puberty doesn't start in girls until they have acquired enough body fat. If illness or an eating disorder make their body fat drop too low then periods will stop.

Likewise size. It's very handy to be big until there's a famine and you need more calories to survive than small people.

The advantage of being big is less for women because of the extra calories big women need when pregnant and breast feeding.

I remember reading a book by Primo Levi about his experiences in Auschwitz. He said that all the big, strong men were dead in a few weeks. He attributed one of the factors in his survival to being small.

So I don't think we need any hypothetical speculation about gender roles in our prehistoric ancestors to explain why men are on average bigger and stronger than women.

It's more than adequately explained by how we reproduce.

All this stuff about men having better spatial skills because they used to chuck spears or something is just a load of pseudo scientific sexist crap.

We pass on our attributes to our children of both sexes. Only if it's a positive hindrance to one sex will the trait become sex selected.

In many other species with marked sexual dimorphic and larger more aggressive males, most males don't get to reproduce. They get cast out to live solitary lives, only coming into a group by beating the dominant males.
Maybe we should exile all but the most attractive men into the wilderness to live alone, then treat about 1 in 20 like kings, and just use them for their sperm. Evolution says that's the best way.
Looks like MGTOW are onto something.