Are women more valuable?

[bemused]

I've been thinking about this recently.

From an evolutionary perspective, men are far more disposable. The average male produces enough sperm in his lifetime to impregnate thousands of women, because of this, men are typically impartial and less choosy in finding a mate. On the other hand, women generally are far more fastidious in choosing a mate. Think about: when a woman decides to procreate, she only has a certain window to where she able to conceive; once impregnated, she has to carry and nurture and endure a human being growing inside her for a period of nine months. Biologically, eggs are far more valuable than sperm. Once a woman reaches menopause (this can occur as early in women in their late 30s and early 40s) that is it. However, geriatric men are still able to reproduce.

From a (western) societal perspective, women are not only deemed more valuable but also held to a higher standard. Men are expected to be promiscuous, this is considered normal. We as a society are able to 'forgive' a male politician for cheating on his wife, and we are either indifferent or celebrate the amount of sexual partners a man claims. In fact, monogamous or virginal men are considered losers and outcasts - they are the dregs of society.

Contrast that with the way we (as a society) view women. Promiscuous and unfaithful women are labeled sluts and whores. Monogamous and virginal women are deemed to be 'wife' material. They're viewed as noble and clean and pure. This all goes back to evolution. We (both genders) hold women to a higher standard because they are more valuable in the expansion of the species.

This is why women are attracted to 'powerful' men. This is why they value security. This is why are they more risk averse.

We as a society cringe at the thought of women on a battlefield, we become protective and reactionary when see a man hitting a woman. What about men on a battlefield? We don't bat an eye. What about a woman hitting a man? We don't take it as seriously.

Men are just more disposable in the grand scheme of things.

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

As a resource a woman is more valuable.

We as a society cringe at the thought of women on a battlefield, we become protective and reactionary when see a man hitting a woman. What about men on a battlefield? We don't bat an eye. What about a woman hitting a man? We don't take it as seriously.

Many parts of your post form a biased generalisation.
I find it quite serious when a woman hits a man. I have no problem seeing women as soldiers running on the battlefields, it has this certain appeal.

Men are just more disposable in the grand scheme of things.

In some perspectives men are less valuable, in others more, but not objectively.

 

[Cognisant]

We should have more wars, let young men of all nations go off into the mountains, the deserts, the jungles and the seas to kill each other so there's less men in the world and those that remain are more valuable.

In such a society all men would be physically fit, highly disciplined and ironically less inclined to the wanton violence characteristic of disaffected young men with something to prove, because if you've survived the war you've proven it, and if you haven't gone to war yet you don't want to pick a fight with the veterans, unless of course there's too many of them...

 

[Ex-User (5841)]

Women more valuable? Undoubtedly.

http://www.intpforum.com/showpost.php?p=414955&postcount=16

 

[Minuend]

Inherently, no.

But there are a good bunch of perspectives that could justify either alternative.

Personally I don't really think the continuation of our species is so important that it has a say in what or who is more valuable. Whether the species survive another century or not - meh.

Are males more picky when it comes to choosing a long-time partner?

We as a society cringe at the thought of women on a battlefield, we become protective and reactionary when see a man hitting a woman. What about men on a battlefield? We don't bat an eye. What about a woman hitting a man? We don't take it as seriously.

I don't think value is the only factor, though. In war, women, elderly and children seems to be grouped together as people who are less capable of defending themselves and/ or civilians. Which are both groups you would normally be more reluctant to harm than soldiers.

I think one of the reasons there's still some who will take male violence towards women more seriously than vice versa is that women are still seen as a smaller, maybe insignificant threat. Since the male is physically superior (strength), some don't really think that violence from women can be such a big deal.

Women being held to a higher standard? I think this depends on the topic. More people seem more prone to overlook a woman slapping a man than the other way around. It does seems like these kind of double standards are diminishing, though. I don't think that will be an issue a few decades from now. Same with promiscuity.

 

[Cognisant]

Are males more picky when it comes to choosing a long-time partner?

Only the young and naive think long term, the modern sensibility is either you're going to leave her for something better or she'll do the same, there's no longer a perceived obligation to maintain a relationship that isn't optimal other than for superficial pretences.

 

[BigApplePi]

"More" implies a linear scale as in 4 is more than 3. There are lots of scales.

If procreation is the object, a woman is necessary. It's a good idea to have a man around to protect and provide for the family while the woman is busy. If the man doesn't hang around, it's also a good idea if he bonds with other men to protect groups of families. Could all this be why evolution has provided equal numbers?

 

[pernoctator]

If your argument is that women are more valuable because more men could theoretically be disposed of without disrupting the progress of reproduction, then you need to balance that against the disposal of postmenopausal women. The result is a reduction of the amount of both men and women existing concurrently. Are you sure women would still dominate the population? Show your work.

 

[Ex-User (5841)]

Another measure of value: http://www.growinggenerations.com/surrogacy-program/surrogates/surrogate-mother-pay/

Our compensation for a first-time surrogate includes $30,000 in surrogacy compensation for those residing in CA and $25,000 for those residing outside of CA, $5,000 in additional fees and allowances, health and life insurance, and all surrogacy related expenses. Second-time surrogates receive an additional $2,500 plus all of the above benefits. Third-time surrogates receive an additional $5,000 plus all of the above benefits.

If your argument is that women are more valuable because more men could theoretically be disposed of without disrupting the progress of reproduction, then you need to balance that against the disposal of postmenopausal women. The result is a reduction of the amount of both men and women existing concurrently. Are you sure women would still dominate the population? Show your work.

Average age of onset of menopause is 51, world population size 7.5 billion, assumed 50:50 sex ratio, knock out 10% off the bat for reasons of sterility and others that inhibit reproduction, 1tsp of ejaculate produced per male per day starting at age 14 to be safe, massively downscale the effectiveness of that ejaculate to 10 fertilizations per 20,000,000 sperm, extend birth interval to 1 year to be safe, eat the menopausals, infertile, and 9/10 of the men and male offspring (more realistically 99/100), and factor in the existence of freezers. Yeah, I'm pretty sure the math checks out here.

You're not really going to make me pull out a global population pyramid, are you? (Yes, yes you are... )

 

[DeathStroke]

We should have more wars, let young men of all nations go off into the mountains, the deserts, the jungles and the seas to kill each other so there's less men in the world and those that remain are more valuable.

In such a society all men would be physically fit, highly disciplined and ironically less inclined to the wanton violence characteristic of disaffected young men with something to prove, because if you've survived the war you've proven it, and if you haven't gone to war yet you don't want to pick a fight with the veterans, unless of course there's too many of them...

Given that this hypothetical society has no other initial biases in the men's favor besides physical dominance such as women having less rights or lower social status than men then the women would probably dominate the intellectual based niches. This society might backfire and begin to change if the more empathetic women begin to realize that physical excellence and tactical wisdom are not the only traits that should determine their worth. You might have to add some other factor to keep such a society in equilibrium with itself.

 

[tvrgvryen]

We should have more wars, let young men of all nations go off into the mountains, the deserts, the jungles and the seas to kill each other so there's less men in the world and those that remain are more valuable.

In such a society all men would be physically fit, highly disciplined and ironically less inclined to the wanton violence characteristic of disaffected young men with something to prove, because if you've survived the war you've proven it, and if you haven't gone to war yet you don't want to pick a fight with the veterans, unless of course there's too many of them...

do you mean you consider solely those who are physically competent as valuable? or if you're taking the evolutionary perspective here, shouldn't women who aren't fit to bear children be eliminated as well? how so, then... through war? or should the process take a more feminine approach?

 

[pernoctator]

10 fertilizations per 20,000,000 sperm

Where does this figure come from?

 

[DeathStroke]

do you mean you consider solely those who are physically competent as valuable? or if you're taking the evolutionary perspective here, shouldn't women who aren't fit to bear children be eliminated as well? how so, then... through war? or should the process take a more feminine approach?

Selection for better childbearing women already happens indirectly through the men. The strongest men will pass on their genes more often, and there is a correlation between increased physical fitness and successful childbearing.

 

[Ex-User (5841)]

Where does this figure come from?

20 million is the low end of the average number of sperm per mL (20-40 million) to be coupled with excellent timing x judicious use of long pipettes.

 

[pernoctator]

20 million is the low end of the average number of sperm per mL (20-40 million) to be coupled with excellent timing x judicious use of long pipettes.

The 20 million figure is irrelevant; I'm asking about the ratio: 1 in 2 million. What is this based on?

 

[Latte]

Culture much enhances some impulses and tendencies for view-development and discourages others. What culture will boost or restrain will depend largely on perceptions of what is correct and what is practical.
These are influenced by real physical circumstance but aren't direct implications of them, for culture is a behemoth and has resistance towards adapting to implications of new physical circumstance, including technological development.
They are also influenced by inclinations stemming from the manner in which people are inclined to perform cognition. This due to certain ideas seeming more clear or aesthetically pleasing depending on the format in which it is presented to a conscious mind. This again is influenced by several factors, some of which are the factors mentioned above, which are also influenced by this factor.

The perception of what is correct in culture has tended to lag behind the idea of what is practical, and is usually in a sense a negotiated product of the newer and older ideas of what is practical. For the achievement of goals that aesthetically please the majority, of course.

We have for a great while and are stilling the process of shedding some of the physical circumstances that yield practical arguments for the attitude that men should by default be left behind to die on the titanic while women and children should go on.

From a community survival view and the ideals of community survival thousands or even just hundreds of years ago (which are/were congruent with higher chance of resistance to extinction of gene variants one has), it would make sense to enforce and instill this kind of morality, because as much propagation as possible was ideal for community survival and every individual member of the group had a larger long-term chance of the continuity of either their own offspring or the offspring of relatives. Both ideas that seem to be aesthetically pleasing to a lot of people and is possibly a very prevalent neurophysiologically emergent phenomena among people, possible increased or aided in development through experiences of parenthood, family and community in general.

In the days of the titanic even, this morality/view of what behavior is correct has less compelling practical arguments at its disposal, even from a community or continuity point of view. Children or pregnant women who one is related to or who bears one's child could be regarded as arguments for wanting and enforcing a general morality of continuity-sacrifice by all males on the ship. But it's less than if one were on a village fishing ship where most people on board felt more related.

The people aboard are mostly strangers and the community survival / continuity would have to be seen from the point of view of humanity as a community or a more broad idea of ethnic group continuity/propagation (something is also being eroded).

There is also the erosion of the ideal and the idea of family, community and ethnicity in the context of biological continuity, something which erodes one of the incentives for having inherent female worth based morality even within traditionally composed communities where people are highly socially bonded and biologically related with each other.

There is also something to say for cultural evolution. Culture is also subject to group-selection and cultural aspects that provided relative propagation and survival success in the past will have survived until they are diluted/replaced due to a lack of previously existing competitive or environmental pressure, or until they are disadvantageous.

To cut myself short before I write another mountain, I cautiously propose that the idea of female inherent worth is becoming less strongly held and is becoming less popular. This due to the technical and economic realities of the societies we currently live in. Assuming some things about future technologies and how they will be implemented, the societal implications of them being applied will yield further erosion of the idea of the inherent worth of femaleness. Though of course, laggingly as always.

Whether it will completely disappear without physical alteration of human brains is hard to say, but we'll likely come to whatever barrier there possibly is for some people at some point and then we'll see. Unless we first develop the technology to investigate the neurological underpinnings to see if, how much and in what way there is an inherent inflexibility on this issue in some human brains.


I'm not sure I believe in what I just argued for and the supporting and necessary assumptionswwwwwwwwwww

I'd ask for people to take a shot at it but that would be like asking a falling rock to hit the ground.

 

[Ex-User (5841)]

The 20 million figure is irrelevant; I'm asking about the ratio: 1 in 2 million. What is this based on?

Pipette contents. If you screw it up 10-12 days in a row out of every month, you've got problems. It's pretty arbitrary and not exact, but the overarching point being that there's plenty of semen to go around.

(We haven't even reached the point in the discussion involving external fertilization and implantation. After that come the surrogates. )

 

[pernoctator]

I get the point, but I'm not convinced it's true. Your figure is nowhere near actual probability, and I don't see how you think distributing the supply will help.

 

[bemused]

Personally I don't really think the continuation of our species is so important that it has a say in what or who is more valuable. Whether the species survive another century or not - meh.

Philosophically, I agree with you. But for what other reason do humans exist other than to drag this species onward? Unless humanity is thoroughly eradicated, humans will continue to breed and breed and breed...

If your argument is that women are more valuable because more men could theoretically be disposed of without disrupting the progress of reproduction, then you need to balance that against the disposal of postmenopausal women. The result is a reduction of the amount of both men and women existing concurrently. Are you sure women would still dominate the population? Show your work.

Not interested in data-collecting and hyperlinking to bunch of stats over a discussion like this atm. I'll leave the math to that other dude. I'll just say this: A shogun impregnates 79 of his 110 concubines. What does evolution care about the plebeian hordes out in the field picking corn, and all the soldiers sent out to battle?

To cut myself short before I write another mountain, I cautiously propose the idea of female inherent worth is becoming less strong and less popular due the realities of the societies we currently live in, and if one can extrapolate for the implications of what realities future technologies will yield, the erosion of the idea of the inherent worth of femaleness is only going to increase, in the usual lagging fashion.

Maybe I am just severely tired, or frankly just intellectually incapable of comprehending you, but I read your wall of text TWICE and I still have no clue as to what you were trying to say, or why it is relevant to this particular discussion. I'm probably just an idiot though, so no offense intended.

 

[EyeSeeCold]

I've been thinking about this recently.

From an evolutionary perspective, men are far more disposable.

Spoiler

The average male produces enough sperm in his lifetime to impregnate thousands of women, because of this, men are typically impartial and less choosy in finding a mate. On the other hand, women generally are far more fastidious in choosing a mate. Think about: when a woman decides to procreate, she only has a certain window to where she able to conceive; once impregnated, she has to carry and nurture and endure a human being growing inside her for a period of nine months. Biologically, eggs are far more valuable than sperm. Once a woman reaches menopause (this can occur as early in women in their late 30s and early 40s) that is it. However, geriatric men are still able to reproduce.

From a (western) societal perspective, women are not only deemed more valuable but also held to a higher standard. Men are expected to be promiscuous, this is considered normal. We as a society are able to 'forgive' a male politician for cheating on his wife, and we are either indifferent or celebrate the amount of sexual partners a man claims. In fact, monogamous or virginal men are considered losers and outcasts - they are the dregs of society.

Contrast that with the way we (as a society) view women. Promiscuous and unfaithful women are labeled sluts and whores. Monogamous and virginal women are deemed to be 'wife' material. They're viewed as noble and clean and pure. This all goes back to evolution. We (both genders) hold women to a higher standard because they are more valuable in the expansion of the species.

This is why women are attracted to 'powerful' men. This is why they value security. This is why are they more risk averse.

We as a society cringe at the thought of women on a battlefield, we become protective and reactionary when see a man hitting a woman. What about men on a battlefield? We don't bat an eye. What about a woman hitting a man? We don't take it as seriously.

Men are just more disposable in the grand scheme of things.

Of course you are speaking of society as a whole, but these generalizations make it so that you're neither right nor wrong...

Society is dynamic and practices & attitudes can change, meaning whatever gender "value" is being appreciated here is only external and artificial. I think it would be interesting to address why males and females treat each other and themselves the way they do, on an individual and societal level(politics, business, relationships, military etc).

 

[Latte]

Maybe I am just severely tired, or frankly just intellectually incapable of comprehending you, but I read your wall of text TWICE and I still have no clue as to what you were trying to say, or why it is relevant to this particular discussion. I'm probably just an idiot though, so no offense intended.

I'm sorry, I'm probably the tiredest one ,_, There was a lack of a word there, some interpretation ambiguities and too long sentences. I cleaned up the quoted paragraph.

The post as a whole was meant to argue that the idea that women have inherent worth merely from being women is an idea that is decreasing in popularity and strength and that this development will continue. This because factors that are important for how strong and prevalent this idea is in a society are disappearing due to other changes in society.

 

[Amagi82]

The mentality that women are more valuable than men stems from the idea that women are property and men are competition, which is harmful to everyone. I wouldn't say sex or gender have any relevance to a person's potential contribution to human society, and unless we're talking about repopulating from a small group, the fact that a high female to male ratio group can breed much more rapidly is largely irrelevant.

Concerning the faithfulness and promiscuity discussion earlier, the very idea that anyone would be monogamous with another person is frankly bizarre throughout most of human evolution. Monogamy and the treatment of women as property is a leftover remnant from the agricultural age that needs to go away.

 

[DeathStroke]

The mentality that women are more valuable than men stems from the idea that women are property and men are competition, which is harmful to everyone. I wouldn't say sex or gender have any relevance to a person's potential contribution to human society, and unless we're talking about repopulating from a small group, the fact that a high female to male ratio group can breed much more rapidly is largely irrelevant.

Concerning the faithfulness and promiscuity discussion earlier, the very idea that anyone would be monogamous with another person is frankly bizarre throughout most of human evolution. Monogamy and the treatment of women as property is a leftover remnant from the agricultural age that needs to go away.

A modern society that has designated child raisers working with a standardized system would be quite an interesting notion regarding equality and education, if it works, that is. If children were raised communally then many of the biases and conflict between individuals would be much easier to resolve and everyone would have relatively equal footing as far as child development goes. Of course, in a realistic situation a system like this would be quite vulnerable to standardized ideology for everyone, the implications possibly being that otherwise reprehensible things become accepted, and the society might begin to collapse in on itself if the ideas are damaging enough. That being said, if this could be pulled off with a sustainable society the result would be a Marxist's wet dream.

 

[Rook]

If an apocolypse where to come, and only a man was left, humanity would be doomed. If only a woman was left, she could artificially inseminate herself from a sperm bank.

So on a basic level, women are more valuable when it comes to the survival of humanity.

 

[Cognisant]

do you mean you consider solely those who are physically competent as valuable?

No, fitness is just a benefit of paranoia, I guess we're not so much talking about war here as some sort of regulated battle royal scenario in which merely being a survivor would be sufficient, fitness would help in this regard but cunning and ruthlessness would probably be most important.

As for women who can't reproduce and whatnot it dosen't really matter, the point of this is to create equality in the value of men and women, y'know I can't help but wonder what Ayn Rand would think of this.

 

[Architect]

Historically women are more important, given examples of "women and children first". However there's another side to this which is that men get the priority in day-to-day activities, particularly around food. Men sit at the head of the table, get served first and are the ones calling the shots around the household generally. So the rules seem to be that during an emergency women are more important to preserve their biology, i.e. the men are expendable, but during normal times men are the titular heads, perhaps in reward for this.

 

[Reluctantly]

Only the young and naive think long term, the modern sensibility is either you're going to leave her for something better or she'll do the same, there's no longer a perceived obligation to maintain a relationship that isn't optimal other than for superficial pretences.

Is that to say that the problems that come with maintaining a relationship are no longer worthwhile to deal with anymore? If so, why would you say that is?