This is not just modern age, this is how it has been for as long as our knowledge reach back. Women are less prone to violence than men.
Some say testosterone makes men more aggressive, but the problem is that the difference in aggressive behavior can be observed before sexual hormones kick in.
One being male competition for reproduction, and the other social.
Problem is IMO, that it doesn’t swing with behavioral studies of children, that to me seem to exclude both as the fundamental course for higher male aggression and tendency towards violence.
Seems to me it goes deeper, yes we do have competition for reproduction, but so do women, and women can be quite competitive and aggressive about it too, but generally in a less violent way.
A third more likely possibility IMO, is that in a society where mankind consisted of small nomadic groups, the men had a role of protecting the group, while women protected the children.
This role for the male, needs the male to be less prone to fear of consequences of violence, giving the ability to confront danger, where women protecting the children were probably more prone to evade danger.
So yes you could say it’s based on a social role, but that role is not just learned, it’s a genetically encoded social role, that is then reinforced by social structure and hormones. Obviously women have the ability to take the role if needed, because we are sentient beings with ability to learn traits.
Now there is a curiosity in that women have actually become relatively MORE prone to violence for the past 50 years. And the above hypothesis does not explain that.
As I see it, there must be new factors playing a role that did not exist previously. I suspect it could be an increase of man made hormone like chemicals in the environment, that influence our behavior.
Not refuting this at all, or claiming to be schooled on the topic, but also consider success rate. It could also be that women are less successful at physically destroying another human
Being that several statistics show higher rates of assaults in all women’s prisons then men’s, it would fit. Men are physically able to kill each other easier, but women do start physical altercations more than we like to admit.
Pregnancy, giving birth, breastfeeding. The bonds formed during these times would mean mothers to be more likely to safeguard the child than assault an aggressor with reckless abandon.
I don’t really buy any of the hunter gatherer stuff, but in this idea a man can’t breatfeed a child, so given a threat the man should go out, and the mother stay with the child. Either could do the defending, but only one can do the mothering.
Good question.
It’s a thing that evolved among humans over millions of years. Men evolved bigger stronger muscles, because women are more vulnerable during pregnancy, and infants need their mother to survive.
Making men more available for the more dangerous task of protection and hunting.
So by the numbers, we evolved those roles, because it improved chances of survival for the group.
Males are more aggressive, because it actually help the group to survive short term attacks and hunting for food, and women are on average more cautious because that helps infants and the group survive long term.
It all boils down to survival of our ancestors.
If they are vulnerable during pregnancy, why wouldn’t the woman evolve stronger muscles? Then they could also make the men care for infants. I guess suckling would still be a woman thing but that doesn’t take the whole day right.
Being pregnant takes lots of caloric energy, and is an inherently vulnerable time.
Not saying women are less, just saying calories are being spent, energy is being focused. Many pregnant women have accomplished insane thing and overcome incredible hardship during their term.
Women were functionally disabled by having children, spending a significant amount of time either pregnant, or breastfeeding. This makes them the natural parent to focus on raising children. Also, in nature, losing 1 parent has a relatively minor drop in survival chances compared to losing 2.
This ends up with men being more “disposable” than women. If 1 group needs to flee with the children, while the other holds off an attack, it’s most sensible for the men to defend. The women would provide a final line of defence.
I would like to add that it is beneficial for us as a species to lose men over women. Losing all but a few woman can mean the death of that society, whereas that’s not true for men, as men have a much higher capacity to generate multiple offspring. I.E. If you have 50 men and 2 women the capacity to bulk the population is greatly limited, if it were 50 women and 2 men, you could effectively double the population within a year. This means it makes way more sense to let men die off over women from a species survival standpoint.
This also massively effects the risk/reward balance. Ultimately, a woman’s ability to have children is limited by her biology. The limit on men is FAR higher.
For women, once they hit the resource requirements to support 2 dozen children, there was relatively little real gain. A successful man could (in theory) have hundreds of children. Genghis khan being the most egregious example. Taking large risks for large gains makes sense for men, in a way that just doesn’t for women.
Yes obviously there are women serial killers too, I never claimed there isn’t, I just claimed women are less prone to violence, which is a damned hard statistical fact.
This is not just modern age, this is how it has been for as long as our knowledge reach back. Women are less prone to violence than men.
Some say testosterone makes men more aggressive, but the problem is that the difference in aggressive behavior can be observed before sexual hormones kick in.
Another possibility could be social structures.
This article says there are 2 theories:
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/science-blog/roots-aggression
One being male competition for reproduction, and the other social.
Problem is IMO, that it doesn’t swing with behavioral studies of children, that to me seem to exclude both as the fundamental course for higher male aggression and tendency towards violence.
Seems to me it goes deeper, yes we do have competition for reproduction, but so do women, and women can be quite competitive and aggressive about it too, but generally in a less violent way.
A third more likely possibility IMO, is that in a society where mankind consisted of small nomadic groups, the men had a role of protecting the group, while women protected the children.
This role for the male, needs the male to be less prone to fear of consequences of violence, giving the ability to confront danger, where women protecting the children were probably more prone to evade danger.
So yes you could say it’s based on a social role, but that role is not just learned, it’s a genetically encoded social role, that is then reinforced by social structure and hormones. Obviously women have the ability to take the role if needed, because we are sentient beings with ability to learn traits.
Now there is a curiosity in that women have actually become relatively MORE prone to violence for the past 50 years. And the above hypothesis does not explain that.
As I see it, there must be new factors playing a role that did not exist previously. I suspect it could be an increase of man made hormone like chemicals in the environment, that influence our behavior.
Not refuting this at all, or claiming to be schooled on the topic, but also consider success rate. It could also be that women are less successful at physically destroying another human
Being that several statistics show higher rates of assaults in all women’s prisons then men’s, it would fit. Men are physically able to kill each other easier, but women do start physical altercations more than we like to admit.
In your third option, why would the men protect the group and the woman protect the children?
Pregnancy, giving birth, breastfeeding. The bonds formed during these times would mean mothers to be more likely to safeguard the child than assault an aggressor with reckless abandon.
Wouldn’t safeguarding mean they still need to attack an aggressor?
I don’t really buy any of the hunter gatherer stuff, but in this idea a man can’t breatfeed a child, so given a threat the man should go out, and the mother stay with the child. Either could do the defending, but only one can do the mothering.
You are 100% right, the downvote must be some creationist.
Good question.
It’s a thing that evolved among humans over millions of years. Men evolved bigger stronger muscles, because women are more vulnerable during pregnancy, and infants need their mother to survive.
Making men more available for the more dangerous task of protection and hunting.
So by the numbers, we evolved those roles, because it improved chances of survival for the group.
Males are more aggressive, because it actually help the group to survive short term attacks and hunting for food, and women are on average more cautious because that helps infants and the group survive long term.
It all boils down to survival of our ancestors.
If they are vulnerable during pregnancy, why wouldn’t the woman evolve stronger muscles? Then they could also make the men care for infants. I guess suckling would still be a woman thing but that doesn’t take the whole day right.
Being pregnant takes lots of caloric energy, and is an inherently vulnerable time.
Not saying women are less, just saying calories are being spent, energy is being focused. Many pregnant women have accomplished insane thing and overcome incredible hardship during their term.
Women were functionally disabled by having children, spending a significant amount of time either pregnant, or breastfeeding. This makes them the natural parent to focus on raising children. Also, in nature, losing 1 parent has a relatively minor drop in survival chances compared to losing 2.
This ends up with men being more “disposable” than women. If 1 group needs to flee with the children, while the other holds off an attack, it’s most sensible for the men to defend. The women would provide a final line of defence.
I would like to add that it is beneficial for us as a species to lose men over women. Losing all but a few woman can mean the death of that society, whereas that’s not true for men, as men have a much higher capacity to generate multiple offspring. I.E. If you have 50 men and 2 women the capacity to bulk the population is greatly limited, if it were 50 women and 2 men, you could effectively double the population within a year. This means it makes way more sense to let men die off over women from a species survival standpoint.
This also massively effects the risk/reward balance. Ultimately, a woman’s ability to have children is limited by her biology. The limit on men is FAR higher.
For women, once they hit the resource requirements to support 2 dozen children, there was relatively little real gain. A successful man could (in theory) have hundreds of children. Genghis khan being the most egregious example. Taking large risks for large gains makes sense for men, in a way that just doesn’t for women.
Eileen Wuornos:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aileen_Wuornos
Even turned into a movie:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_(2003_film)
Yes obviously there are women serial killers too, I never claimed there isn’t, I just claimed women are less prone to violence, which is a damned hard statistical fact.