Sheril,
@Sheril@mastodon.social avatar

“Man the Hunter has dominated the study of human evolution for nearly half a century & pervaded popular culture. [But] it was the arrival of agriculture that led to rigid gendered roles & economic inequality. Hunting belonged to everyone.”

The Theory That Men Evolved to Hunt & Women Evolved to Gather Is Wrong https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-theory-that-men-evolved-to-hunt-and-women-evolved-to-gather-is-wrong1/

morecowbell,
@morecowbell@mastodon.social avatar

@Sheril Evolution created women’s bodies to birth and nurse children. As long as women weren’t in the process of being pregnant, nursing and caring for infants there is no reason to believe some of them hunted.

I think it’s right that agriculture created stricter gender roles because agricultural settlements were targets for raids and you needed a collective defense that wasn’t dependent on the age of any given child.

Also evolution created men stronger and faster on average.

morecowbell,
@morecowbell@mastodon.social avatar

@Sheril

Men are also inherently more violent than women on average.

These biological facts make men expendable and women more valuable from a species/tribal survival perspective.

You need berserkers or cannon fodder, you get men not women.

You lose a couple dude-bros on the hunt it’s a tragedy, but it’s not an existential threat.

just_a_frog,
@just_a_frog@c.im avatar

@morecowbell

Cool. Now go and actually read the article.

morecowbell,
@morecowbell@mastodon.social avatar

@just_a_frog @morecowbell

Okay:

“Hunting was the major driver of evolution”

That’s not the claim and it is a straw man of the actual claim.

The major driver of evolution is reproduction, which is why sexual dimorphism exists and is manifest in 100% of mammals.

morecowbell,
@morecowbell@mastodon.social avatar

@just_a_frog

The “division of labor” is birthing vs non-birthing.

“A prominent hypothesis contends” - a hypothesis isn’t a theory and doesn’t need any evidence. Greater “endurance” doesn’t imply anything about hunting, it could just imply that nomadic women who could walk great distances carrying things like babies or other heavy objects helped their offspring survive long enough to reproduce.

morecowbell,
@morecowbell@mastodon.social avatar

@just_a_frog

“Sex and gender both exist as a spectrum, but when citing the work of others, it is difficult to add that nuance.”

This is a ridiculous claim and shows the entire article has a political motive rather than a scientific/explanatory motive.

I literally feel dumber for reading that sentence.

Evolution does not select for bespoke sexes because that is an impossible evolutionary strategy.

Sex👏Is👏Not👏A👏Spectrum👏

LiberalEd,
@LiberalEd@mastodon.social avatar

@Sheril

There is much more evidence for my theory that men evolved to brag and women evolved to eye-roll.

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