The Gaming Den

well, actually, if you look at primates, the females are basically always pregnant or nursing, leading the female body to be used to this state, so there's a hypothesis in scientific communities right now that the human difference from this state of affairs is why humans go through menopause, but other animals typically don't.

DSMatticus wrote: That naturally leads to the sexes adopting certain social roles in society, and once those social roles are adopted it's hard to break out of them, even when they stop being socially relevant.

You really don't need to appeal to biology to explain this sort of behavior. It can arise naturally and propagate itself alongside (and because of) the biological differences without being biologically encoded into people itself.

Anyone got full-text access?

Because my understanding from the summaries is that having gender-segregated roles is likely an evolutionary advantage when competing against other cultures - and that such advantage can be realized with little or no matter what those segregated roles actually are nor dividing the roles into "superior" or "inferior" import.

Basically, it seems to be an early anthropological adaption which allowed enough economic specialization to realize comparative advantage.

I'm trying to access it now through my school's site. If it doesn't work, I'll have to try and grab it next time I'm actually on site.

Yeah, I'll give it a shot on Tuesday.

I've got access, and am skimming through it now.

Most important, by ensuring even slightly more regular food supplies and thereby buffering the reproductive core of populations from excessive risk, this socioeconomic configuration would have given modern humans a demographic edge over indigenous hominins in Eurasia, allowing the invading populations to spread at the expense of local groups.

They seem to be arguing that developing gender and age segregated roles is a form of risk management. You can shift risk from women and children to men, thereby maximizing population growth.

A Man In Black wrote:

Count Arioch the 28th wrote:I haven't really looked into what makes someone attractive to men because I don't go out of my way to attract them (other than gay swedes find me attractive for some reason.)

You go out of your way to attract gay Swedes?

Are you bisexual, or just cruel?

Lol, the wording was really awkward there, my apologies. I meant that I don't go out of my way to attract men; it was odd that gay swedes seem to be attracted to me.

The researchers say the men tested in the same way are not impressed by whatever car a woman drives because they judge purely on her face and figure.

Bah humbug, a silver Bentley Continental is crap. Now if she was in a classic Morgan +4 I would be exceptionally impressed, no matter what she looked like.

(If only I had a photo of Ruth in Arthur's Morgan, I could prove this to you.)