If I had to guess, I would say that you would say that you don't believe that women are weak and helpless by default, by virtue of the consequences of their chromosomes.
However, I suspect you do actually believe that. You are probably being sincere when you claim not to, its just that you can't see it, because everyone believes it, everyone takes it as a given, so much so that the assumption is invisible, like the water around a fish.
However, I suspect you do actually believe that. You are probably being sincere when you claim not to, its just that you can't see it, because everyone believes it, everyone takes it as a given, so much so that the assumption is invisible, like the water around a fish.
I feel its important for us all to realize that this universal assumption exists because it has a huge impact on the strategies we use in trying to bring about greater equality and egalitarianism, to give people freedom not to conform to constructed gender roles, to enjoy love and sexuality in whatever way suits them (so long as they aren't doing harm to anyone else).
It has a huge impact on the approach to take if the ultimate goal is having all of society, male and female, look at women as being humans. Not a special subset of humans, just humans, period, just like everyone else (where "everyone else" is assumed to be "men" - even though women make up half of all people).
It has a huge impact on the approach to take if the ultimate goal is having all of society, male and female, look at women as being humans. Not a special subset of humans, just humans, period, just like everyone else (where "everyone else" is assumed to be "men" - even though women make up half of all people).
There is a lot of stuff feminist activists say and do which is counter-productive to that goals - and as a result, to all of the other goals listed before it - because of the unfortunate fact that they, just like everyone else, hold the misogynist view that women are naturally weak, and are therefore inherently victims.
I suspect that some of my arguments are going to come across to some people as sounding like something along the lines of "men's rights" advocacy. But my point here isn't to say "aw, poor discriminated against men". My point isn't that we should change anything to make men's lives any easier. My point is that in each example the way we treat women differently is patronizing to women. We assume they are physically helpless, or lack agency, or are just plain stupid, and need to be protected (including from themselves) in ways that men aren't. And that patronizing itself is problematic. When we make certain assumptions universal and even frequently codify them into law, we are strengthening sexist stereotypes that then go on to influence individual people's opinions and from there their behaviors.
It shows up in literally every aspect of how society views sexuality and gender, and just as strongly among feminists and advocates for women as it does among traditionalists and chauvinists.
Take, for example, countless campaigns against violence against women.
We can agree that any violence done against someone relatively defenseless to the attacker, and not done out of self-defense, is immoral (with the possible exception of punitive reactions to misbehavior under certain circumstances, such as minor violence by parent to a child or the government to a convicted criminal - although of course many would argue that one or both of those is immoral too).
We can agree that any violence done against someone relatively defenseless to the attacker, and not done out of self-defense, is immoral (with the possible exception of punitive reactions to misbehavior under certain circumstances, such as minor violence by parent to a child or the government to a convicted criminal - although of course many would argue that one or both of those is immoral too).
But before taking it as axiomatic, we have to look closer at the assumptions inherent in campaigns directed specifically at females. That so much effort is directed specifically at violence against women, as opposed to simply against all violence, against all humans, implies that there must be something that makes women a special subset of all humans, making them require extra protection.
One might reasonably imagine it must be because women are more frequently the victims of violence. If this were the case, it would certainly justify more attention being paid to that subset of all violence.
It turns out this is dramatically false.
In reality men make up about 80% of all murder victims, both in the US and worldwide.
Men are the victims of aggravated assault roughly twice as often as women, of murder and attempted murder three and a half times as often, and of robbery just under twice as often.
This includes both attacks by strangers and persons known to the victim. When considering only attacks by strangers, the disparity is even higher.
That means it would make a lot more sense, if we took statistics into account over our assumptions, to remind men not to walk alone at night, and gear self defense classes to them.
It turns out this is dramatically false.
In reality men make up about 80% of all murder victims, both in the US and worldwide.
Men are the victims of aggravated assault roughly twice as often as women, of murder and attempted murder three and a half times as often, and of robbery just under twice as often.
This includes both attacks by strangers and persons known to the victim. When considering only attacks by strangers, the disparity is even higher.
That means it would make a lot more sense, if we took statistics into account over our assumptions, to remind men not to walk alone at night, and gear self defense classes to them.
When this is pointed out, most people will default to bringing up sexual assault, because (presumably) even an unsuccessful rape attempt is far worse than, say, aggravated assault that leaves the victim hospitalised, or even being the victim of murder. Unfortunately, because of the very assumptions about human gender and sexuality that I'm addressing here, it is completely impossible to get useful information out of what data there is on violent sexual assault. I'll come back to that issue in greater detail further on, but for now lets just keep all the raw data as is.
Even when including sexual assault, men are still more likely to be victims of violent crime than women are.
Even when including sexual assault, men are still more likely to be victims of violent crime than women are.
In the past the difference was even more dramatic than it is now, but (fortunately) violent crime by strangers (the kind that most disproportionately affects men as victims) has fallen significantly over the past couple decades, and as a result the gender gap in victimization has fallen as well.
Of course, most murders are not committed by strangers in a dark alley, they are committed by people known personally to the victim, and those murders are irrelevant to the question of walking around alone at night.
Breaking those stats down farther, it turns out that a man is at dramatically more risk of being murdered by a stranger: 2.8 in 100,000 versus 0.4, or 7 times more likely.
Why is it, if in reality a man is 30% more likely to be attacked and 700% more likely to be murdered, that people regularly suggest that a man should walk a woman home at night to keep her safe, and not the other way around?
Another common retort used to hold on to the ideology of women as victim when presented with these facts is that men are more frequently victims of crime because they are more likely to put themselves into situations where they are likely to be victimized. Of course, the exact same argument, when used on female victims of crimes, is derided as "blaming the victim".
Given that the vast majority of violence against women is done by the victim's husband or boyfriend, by the same reasoning we might dismiss them as really being victims, since they choose to get involved with a violent person.
You can't have it both ways.
Either people "get what they are asking for" by provoking violence upon themselves, or there is never an excuse for violence, regardless of what the victim may have done to "deserve" it.
OK, so real world data shows clearly and unambiguously that women have a lesser risk of violence done against them than men do, so prevalence can't be the reason so much more attention is paid to violence against women specifically.
The other explanation could be that women are inherently more vulnerable, and therefore need more protection by society. Men (presumably) have the physical strength to take care of themselves, while women, being naturally weak, need to be taken care of.
On the surface this seems potentially reasonable - after all, its true that overall, on average, American women have about 1/2 the upper body strength of men, which is a pretty substantial difference. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
This assumption is so taken for granted in our society that it even goes unquestioned by researchers, whose job it is to be more objective than the average person, and uncover truths that get missed by the uncritical eye. But even they take the 50% number and attribute it differences due to testosterone levels and continue from there.
That number, though, is from studies done on a random cross section of the adult population. In order for it to represent natural, biological differences, one would have to ensure the sample contained men and women who had identical activity levels. If it is a random cross section of the population, however, it is guaranteed that they don't.
22% of men, but only 16% of women, claimed in a survey over 6 years to engage in some form of "strength training" exercise at least twice a week. Unfortunately the published report doesn't go into enough detail to take those numbers at face value. They included "calisthenics" under the category of strength training. That can mean push-ups and pull-ups, but very often refers to activities like yoga and pilates. Especially among women. Not to down play the benefits of those activities, but any strength gains they produce plateau very quickly. Only 7% of women use free weights. But that number is misleading, because even when women do use weight machines or free weights, most use extremely light weights, which will not cause any significant strength gain. Strength gains come from lifting an amount which one is physically unable to do more than 3 to 8 times in a row (reps), generally about 80% of the maximum weight that can be lifted a single time. Lifting a 5lb weight 20-30 times will never develop strength.
22% of men, but only 16% of women, claimed in a survey over 6 years to engage in some form of "strength training" exercise at least twice a week. Unfortunately the published report doesn't go into enough detail to take those numbers at face value. They included "calisthenics" under the category of strength training. That can mean push-ups and pull-ups, but very often refers to activities like yoga and pilates. Especially among women. Not to down play the benefits of those activities, but any strength gains they produce plateau very quickly. Only 7% of women use free weights. But that number is misleading, because even when women do use weight machines or free weights, most use extremely light weights, which will not cause any significant strength gain. Strength gains come from lifting an amount which one is physically unable to do more than 3 to 8 times in a row (reps), generally about 80% of the maximum weight that can be lifted a single time. Lifting a 5lb weight 20-30 times will never develop strength.
No such survey exists to give us exact numbers, (as far as I'm aware), but we all know that if the question was whether one engages in full-range-of-motion compound-movement progressive-load resistance training (i.e. using barbells and dumbbells, and using heavier ones each successive workout than the one before), it would still be roughly 20% of men, but drop to somewhere in the range of 0.01% to maybe 0.1% of women. The only question that survey would answer is just how few women would it be.
Even though its only 22% of men who lift weights (I am making the assumption that a negligible amount of men do only yoga for exercise and call it strength training), that's still plenty enough to skew a sample of random average Americans to make men look stronger by virtue of being male, when the real reason is because vastly more men deliberately engage in activity with the goal of getting stronger. After all, the difference in strength by gender is only an average: there are lots of women who are much stronger than lots of men. There are women who are stronger than the average man, and men who are weaker than the average woman, but when you average the entire population, 20% is more than enough to skew the entire sample.
The lines in the following graphs represent the average by gender - but look more closely at the dots. The thing to notice is not just the average, but how much overlap there is between the solid dots and the circle dots.
The lines represent the averages in muscle mass and strength by gender, but the dots represent individual people. The important thing to note is how many circle dots (women) are above the solid line (average man) and how many solid dots (men) and below the dotted line (average woman).
Removing the age factor, you would get a distribution something like this:
Removing the age factor, you would get a distribution something like this:
The difference narrows further when you consider strength distribution throughout the body. Among the American population women on average have 1/2 the upper body strength of men - yet they have 75% of the lower body strength.
But there is no difference between a muscle cell in your leg versus a muscle cell in your arm. All muscle cells respond to being used, partially moderated by local testosterone levels. Why then are women specifically weaker in arm strength compared to men, but with less difference in leg strength? Culture. Men lift weights, while women do various forms of cardio. Whether its step aerobics, biking, or running, most cardio exercises primarily uses the legs. Go to any gym in America and take a peek inside, you will find 80% of the men either using weight machines or free weights, and 80% of the women on treadmills, elliptical machines, or in group cardio classes. Outside of the gym, where there are no weight machines to use, things become a little more equal - much more similar numbers of men and women try to stay in shape by running (close to 50/50) As a consequence, the athletic difference between average runners is extremely small, with the majority of the range of men and women overlapping:
But there is no difference between a muscle cell in your leg versus a muscle cell in your arm. All muscle cells respond to being used, partially moderated by local testosterone levels. Why then are women specifically weaker in arm strength compared to men, but with less difference in leg strength? Culture. Men lift weights, while women do various forms of cardio. Whether its step aerobics, biking, or running, most cardio exercises primarily uses the legs. Go to any gym in America and take a peek inside, you will find 80% of the men either using weight machines or free weights, and 80% of the women on treadmills, elliptical machines, or in group cardio classes. Outside of the gym, where there are no weight machines to use, things become a little more equal - much more similar numbers of men and women try to stay in shape by running (close to 50/50) As a consequence, the athletic difference between average runners is extremely small, with the majority of the range of men and women overlapping:
(http://www.warandgender.com/wggendif.htm)
Outside of any attempts at deliberate fitness (i.e. even among people who don't exercise), the same differences in physical activity is present between males and females. From at least the age where we learn how to walk, boys are encouraged to be active and physical, to run around, while girls are cautioned against getting hurt or getting dirty. For a lifetime we grow up in a culture that takes it as a given that men are stronger than women - and so when a woman or girl comes across a physically challenging task - say, carrying something heavy up some stairs, or opening a stuck jar lid - she learns early on that the proper solution is to find a man to do it for her. Every time she does this, she gives up an opportunity to challenge her own muscles, which would have made her stronger in the long run (whether or not she succeeded in the moment). Meanwhile a male grows up with the expectation of being strong, and so when he has to carry something heavy or open a stuck jar lid, if he can't get it at first his next step is to try harder. The result is that he gets stronger. Men are by far disproportionately represented in occupations that require strength. We assume that the cause and effect is one way, but its really circular. The more men do the heavy lifting, the more strong they become relative to women who remain sedentary.
This isn't to say that differences is sex hormone levels play no part at all in strength differences. They do. The testosterone to estrogen and progesterone levels in the body are one factor in regulating the proportion of fat to muscle in the body. Even if a male and female twins were to have the same activity levels for a lifetime, and then engage in identical stregth training programs, the male would most likely gain strength faster, and peak higher.
One way to separate out how much of the difference is biological and how much is cultural, is to look at a subset of the population which is likely to have similar activity levels and training styles. About the only place to ensure that is at the highest levels of competition.
The current world records by weight class are as follows:
| men | women | % women / men | ||
| Event | Record | Event | Record | |
| 123lb | lbs | 127lb | lbs | |
| Snatch | 303.6 | Snatch | 244.2 | 80% |
| Clean & Jerk | 371.8 | Clean & Jerk | 310.2 | 83% |
| Total | 671 | Total | 552.2 | 82% |
| 152lb | 152lb | |||
| Snatch | 363 | Snatch | 281.6 | 78% |
| Clean & Jerk | 435.6 | Clean & Jerk | 347.6 | 80% |
| Total | 787.6 | Total | 629.2 | 80% |
| 169lb | 165+ | |||
| Snatch | 387.2 | Snatch | 332.2 | 86% |
| Clean & Jerk | 462 | Clean & Jerk | 418 | 90% |
| Total | 836 | Total | 734.8 | 88% |
There is still a difference, but comparing apples to apples, instead of women being 50% as strong as men, it turns out they are 80-90% as strong.
That is a HUGE difference in differences.
That is a HUGE difference in differences.
What it means is the majority of strength differences by gender is in fact due to culture - due to choices that men and women make - not due to biology.
The range of strength between someone who does regular progressive strength training and someone sedentary is many times larger than the average difference between a male and female who both do the same activities.
What all of this means is, since 80% of men don't strength train, the majority of individual women could become stronger than the average man, if she choose to.
The range of strength between someone who does regular progressive strength training and someone sedentary is many times larger than the average difference between a male and female who both do the same activities.
What all of this means is, since 80% of men don't strength train, the majority of individual women could become stronger than the average man, if she choose to.
Even a small woman has the potential to develop strength.
Here Kacy Catanzaro - 5 feet tall and 100lbs - completes an obstacle course which literally 1000s of the fittest and most athletic men in the world have attempted and failed:
Here Kacy Catanzaro - 5 feet tall and 100lbs - completes an obstacle course which literally 1000s of the fittest and most athletic men in the world have attempted and failed:
In fact one of the most common reasons women don't do real strength training is because they want to avoid appearing strong, because our culture has identified strength as a masculine trait - and therefore by default, weakness as a feminine one. Women believe that if they attempt to get stronger, they will look like men, and therefore be unattractive to actual (heterosexual) men.
Of course, unless they also take steroids, this is simply false. Women who are strong don't look like men, they look like strong women.
Again, Kacy Catanzaro:
http://hotolympicgirls.com/2014/07/16/meet-kacy-catanzaro-the-hottest-ninja-ever/ http://freebeacon.com/blog/who-needs-lady-thor-when-we-have-kacy-catanzaro/
Again, Kacy Catanzaro:
http://hotolympicgirls.com/2014/07/16/meet-kacy-catanzaro-the-hottest-ninja-ever/ http://freebeacon.com/blog/who-needs-lady-thor-when-we-have-kacy-catanzaro/
But then, on some level this is probably just an excuse, since most people know that even males don't look like hulking body builders without working out 20 hours a week, counting every calorie, and using massive amounts of powerful illegal steroids.
http://www.naturallyintense.net/blog/bodybuilding/female-bodybuilders-what-do-they-look-like-when-they-dont-use-drugs/
http://xgym.com/women-and-the-myth-of-bulking-up/
http://gubernatrix.co.uk/2010/07/femininity-and-muscle/
http://msurecsports.wordpress.com/2012/10/08/resistance-training-myths-of-female-athletes/
http://www.theraddish.com/category/exercise/strength-training/
http://crossfitfms.wordpress.com/2012/07/20/the-fear-of-bulkiness-and-crossfit/
http://breakingmuscle.com/womens-fitness/the-female-guide-to-getting-lean
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/oct/06/women-weight-training-heavy-duty
http://xgym.com/women-and-the-myth-of-bulking-up/
http://gubernatrix.co.uk/2010/07/femininity-and-muscle/
http://msurecsports.wordpress.com/2012/10/08/resistance-training-myths-of-female-athletes/
http://www.theraddish.com/category/exercise/strength-training/
http://crossfitfms.wordpress.com/2012/07/20/the-fear-of-bulkiness-and-crossfit/
http://breakingmuscle.com/womens-fitness/the-female-guide-to-getting-lean
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/oct/06/women-weight-training-heavy-duty
So then the next question is why?
Why shouldn't muscle definition be as attractive in women as it is considered to be in men?
Why do women consciously prefer to be weak?
Why do we equate weakness with femininity?
Given that a (very small) biological difference really does exist, perhaps the reason the cultural bias developed was to accentuate the relatively small natural difference?
Before we take that explanation as a given, lets consider some of the other cultural gender differences.
The term for differences between the sexes is sexual dimorphism. In science that term is normally used to imply biological differences, but here I'm going to introduce a new use of the same term, and call it cultural dimorphism.
Human biological dimorphisms include things like breasts and the amount and distribution of body fat and body hair.
The flip side of men having a naturally higher muscle to fat ratio is that women have a higher fat to muscle ratio. If the goal were emphasizing natural differences, and therefore we feel men should be extra muscular, it should also follow that the most feminine of women should be extra fat, and since men try to gain muscle to emphasize their masculine sexiness, women should try to gain extra fat to emphasize their feminine sexiness.
Women on average are shorter - although, just like with strength, the range within genders is far greater than the difference between them, so there is a huge amount of overlap. The area where both curves overlap is about as large as the area under the curves that don't - meaning just under half of men are shorter than just under half of women. Which means if we didn't consciously choose to reinforce the height differential bias, in at least 1 out of 20 of couples either the two would be the same height or the female being taller than the male (as opposed to about 1 in 750 observed in reality). 1 in 750 is a pretty enormous bias, compared to 1 in 20 if height weren't a factor in female mate selection.
The flip side of men having a naturally higher muscle to fat ratio is that women have a higher fat to muscle ratio. If the goal were emphasizing natural differences, and therefore we feel men should be extra muscular, it should also follow that the most feminine of women should be extra fat, and since men try to gain muscle to emphasize their masculine sexiness, women should try to gain extra fat to emphasize their feminine sexiness.
Women on average are shorter - although, just like with strength, the range within genders is far greater than the difference between them, so there is a huge amount of overlap. The area where both curves overlap is about as large as the area under the curves that don't - meaning just under half of men are shorter than just under half of women. Which means if we didn't consciously choose to reinforce the height differential bias, in at least 1 out of 20 of couples either the two would be the same height or the female being taller than the male (as opposed to about 1 in 750 observed in reality). 1 in 750 is a pretty enormous bias, compared to 1 in 20 if height weren't a factor in female mate selection.
The male taller norm is reinforced by deliberate mate selection - mostly by women. While both sexes tend to prefer to reinforce the male-taller bias, women's influence on it is consistently much higher, because women care much more than men do about the height differential in their relationships. Female selection for taller men is significantly stronger than male selection for shorter females (Pierce, 1996), and women prefer that the difference be much larger (10 inches vs 3). Far more men are willing to violate the norm than women, (23% vs 4% ), and half of men would accept equal height, but only 11% of women.
The normal explanation for why women prefer taller men has do with the male's supposed role as protector and provider - his height implies greater strength and/or status.
However, if that was really the reason women's height preference should be for a man's absolute height, or height relative to other men. That isn't the pattern observed - women's preference for their mate's height is relative to themselves. In fact there is an upper limit in relative height preferences as well - women tend to not want a partner too much taller than themselves. If the reason were heights implications to strength or dominance relative to other men then the relative height between man and woman shouldn't be a factor, but it is in actuality the only factor. This implies that it isn't so much that women want their man to be able to dominate other men, but that on some level they want their partner to be able to dominate them.
The normal explanation for why women prefer taller men has do with the male's supposed role as protector and provider - his height implies greater strength and/or status.
However, if that was really the reason women's height preference should be for a man's absolute height, or height relative to other men. That isn't the pattern observed - women's preference for their mate's height is relative to themselves. In fact there is an upper limit in relative height preferences as well - women tend to not want a partner too much taller than themselves. If the reason were heights implications to strength or dominance relative to other men then the relative height between man and woman shouldn't be a factor, but it is in actuality the only factor. This implies that it isn't so much that women want their man to be able to dominate other men, but that on some level they want their partner to be able to dominate them.
In the big picture, its actually likely that biology is following culture, not the other way around: a part of why men are taller than women may be because women keep deliberately choose partners that are taller than themselves, and over enough time, this increases the difference throughout the population.
However, there is evidence that this preference is not genetic, nor is it universal across all cultures.
What that implies is that, like with physical strength, our apparent biological dimorphism may be more due to cultural choices we make than the other way around. Expecting the man to be taller in any given couple, despite the huge areas of overlap in the range of normal heights may be another manifestation of the cultural bias that strength is attractive in men - and by extension, that weakness is attractive in women.
Just a few examples of apparently hideous and repulsive women,
demonstrating what the female body looks like when its owner engages in activities that build strength
demonstrating what the female body looks like when its owner engages in activities that build strength
If the reasoning behind cultural dimorphism were an enhancement of natural dimorphisms, we might expect all the other forms in which we deliberately distinguish masculine from feminine to similarly be enhancements of naturally occurring differences.
But that isn't what we do at all.
But that isn't what we do at all.
http://www.hairstylesguide.org/women-short-hairstyles/women-short-hairstyles-30/ http://nypost.com/2014/01/10/fabio-saved-my-life/
There is absolutely nothing biological behind the expectation that males wear clothing on the lower body which wraps around each individual leg (pants) and females wear clothing which wraps around both legs together (skirts).
Women don't actually have triangle shaped pointy hips! Anatomical restroom symbols from http://luminurture.com/?p=3321
Even though men are naturally taller on average than women, its women who traditionally wear high heeled shoes, making them appear taller.
A notable sexual dimorphism that really does occur naturally is that most men grow thick hair on their faces, while women generally do not.
If cultural dimorphisms were enhancements of biological dimorphisms, we should expect beards to be universally closely tied to masculinity.
https://www.pinterest.com/OnefaithandoneG/awesome-beards/
In actuality we do quite the opposite - some of what are considered the most manly jobs - from soldiers, police and firefighters, to business executives and political leaders - are expected to keep their faces clean shaven - making them more similar to women and children. Male models, presumably the most (culturally) attractive of men, either keep their facial hair trim or (more often) shave it completely.
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90782/8177537.html
While being clean shaven isn't universally considered more attractive by women, there is certainly no clear correlation of beard length or thickness with masculinity.
Having so many examples where our cultural dimorphisms are unrelated to, or even oppose, natural dimorphisms undermines the idea that our cultural expectation of weakness in women is based on any naturally occurring baseline difference.
I propose an alternate explanation:
I propose an alternate explanation:
Thousands of years of misogyny has created an internalized narrative of women as inherent victims that we all on some level want to continue to believe, and keeping women weak on purpose helps to keep the illusion alive.
I propose this is the same reason that we consistently act as though women were at greater risk of attack by stranger despite the fact that this is the opposite of actual reality. There is some subconscious emotional benefit we get from supporting the narrative we have accepted.
It appears that the potential for physical dominance of men over women has only very small roots in biology, that instead the vast majority of it comes from culture. In dramatic contrast to what is generally taken as a given that the cultural differences are ones that a patriarchal society forces on women, on closer inspection it appears to be caused by individual choices - mostly by female choices. Many women deliberately choose to not get stronger, and most prefer their male partner to be substantially larger than them, 60% larger than the average natural height difference by gender, and 300% larger than the difference prefered by most men. At least in terms of physical differences, male dominance is not something men are forcing onto women, its something women are seeking out.
The common explanation for this relies on the assumption that our nomadic hunter-gatherer ancestors lived in nuclear families with male "bread-winners" (mastodon-hunters?) and female home-makers. There is no reason to believe this has ever been true. The one place anthropologist don't see female selection for height and strength in mates is primitive nomadic societies:
http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2009/06/25/rsbl.2009.0342.full
Across all species, sexual dimorphism in size and strength is inversely proportional to paternal investment. I have gone into much more detail on that subject before:
http://biodieselhauling.blogspot.com/2012/06/sexual-dimorphism-and-caveman-love.html
So for now I'll just summarize with, no, that theory is wrong. Male dominance is not a natural extension of men as protector and provider. Those roles are cultural ones that developed much more recently than the times of our caveman ancestors.
It would seem biology is just a convenient excuse, and that female preferences for a partner who is able to physically overpower them may be more an extension of the cultural dynamic of male dominance.
Just as women enforce the physical differences within couples, there is increasing evidence that it is actually largely women, not men, that enforce male dominance in interpersonal relationships as well.
That suggestion is, of course, the polar opposite of most normal thinking on patriarchal society, and I'm sure plenty of people will find it highly objectionable.
I'll make an attempt to justify the claim in my next post.
It appears that the potential for physical dominance of men over women has only very small roots in biology, that instead the vast majority of it comes from culture. In dramatic contrast to what is generally taken as a given that the cultural differences are ones that a patriarchal society forces on women, on closer inspection it appears to be caused by individual choices - mostly by female choices. Many women deliberately choose to not get stronger, and most prefer their male partner to be substantially larger than them, 60% larger than the average natural height difference by gender, and 300% larger than the difference prefered by most men. At least in terms of physical differences, male dominance is not something men are forcing onto women, its something women are seeking out.
The common explanation for this relies on the assumption that our nomadic hunter-gatherer ancestors lived in nuclear families with male "bread-winners" (mastodon-hunters?) and female home-makers. There is no reason to believe this has ever been true. The one place anthropologist don't see female selection for height and strength in mates is primitive nomadic societies:
http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2009/06/25/rsbl.2009.0342.full
Across all species, sexual dimorphism in size and strength is inversely proportional to paternal investment. I have gone into much more detail on that subject before:
http://biodieselhauling.blogspot.com/2012/06/sexual-dimorphism-and-caveman-love.html
So for now I'll just summarize with, no, that theory is wrong. Male dominance is not a natural extension of men as protector and provider. Those roles are cultural ones that developed much more recently than the times of our caveman ancestors.
It would seem biology is just a convenient excuse, and that female preferences for a partner who is able to physically overpower them may be more an extension of the cultural dynamic of male dominance.
Just as women enforce the physical differences within couples, there is increasing evidence that it is actually largely women, not men, that enforce male dominance in interpersonal relationships as well.
That suggestion is, of course, the polar opposite of most normal thinking on patriarchal society, and I'm sure plenty of people will find it highly objectionable.
I'll make an attempt to justify the claim in my next post.
