Gender as a social thing and patriarchal

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Andrew Hackard

I don't think anyone here is roleplaying yeast, so please take the off-topic tangent elsewhere.

But a considerable number might consider roleplaying extraterrestrials.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Yako

...the point being that the total number of births tends to be relatively significant. The total number of births is much more strongly dependent on the number of females than the number of males.

The first sentence is facts very much not in evidence. The second is probably somewhat true depending on societal factors.

Originally Posted by Yako

The point being that outbreeding your enemy is actually a perfectly viable strategy used in many instances. How you ultimately achieve it is honestly of secondary importance.

Outnumbering and outbreeding need not have much relation, which indeed is my point. Whether you achieve outnumbering by high birth rates or by having more food production allowing a higher 'carrying capacity' may be of secondary importance when you're being overrun, but it's of rather primary importance when you are trying to make arguments about the societal importance of high birth rates.

Originally Posted by Yako

But just for a moment, do assume a hypothetical culture that had warriors as predominantly female as most societies had predominantly male warriors.
Do you object to the argument that in such a case, losses would affect the subsequent birthrate more strongly?

Not in the strictest sense, but I do object to the immediately subsequent arguments that the effect on the birthrate should be expected to be significant (most people don't go to war in most of history, and most people who do go to war don't die) and that such a dip should be expected to have a notable detrimental impact on the society.

Originally Posted by Yako

It shows that the strategy of increasing mating opportunities, which we can see in human and animal cultures, actually works with predominantly male warrior groups.

How does it show that? The fact that a thing is done does not mean it's fulfilling any kind of strategic goal. I certainly concede that victorious female warriors would probably produce dramatically fewer rape-babies than male ones, statistically speaking. I do not concede that that indicates any advantage accruing to the society with the male warriors.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Anthony

At a certain point you stop calling those declensions 'masculine' and 'feminine' (the key is probably whether there's a certain declension that is always used for males and another that is always used for females. Or, at least, males and females of breeding age, I think there are languages that treat children as neuter).

As of today in many regions, they already stopped being used exclusively for males and females even as applied to named individuals, yet I haven't seen people so much as advocate for ditching the words 'grammatical gender' and replacing them with 'declension'. (In a way, I think such a replacement of linguistic terms would do wonders for making people aware of the distinction between social and linguistic gender, especially in languages that have relatively static genders and lean towards using neuter for everything except known humans and ships, like English.)

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

But a considerable number might consider roleplaying extraterrestrials.

I love imagining sapient species that have some bizarre facet only seen if at all in very primitive earth life.
Two I've mentioned on this forum were based on unusual sex differences and mode of reproduction.

Culture is generally laid atop biology and inherent psychology, how ever much is there. But like how the best place to build castles is on rock, that doesn't mean it's impossible to build them in less optimal places.
Cultures can and probably have to restrain inherent drives in some fashion.

[gruundehn]

Language genders probably started off because certain nouns were seen to have qualities associated with certain biological genders. Take German as an example, reading and libraries were associated with non-warriors and thus a library is feminine in gender. Girls, before puberty, are non-sexual and thus neuter in gender. And so forth.

Look at most of the species that have distinct males and females. Usually the males are aggressive and protective of the females. Think about it, a species could lose probably 70% of its males and if the remaining are fertile probably survive. Losing 70% of the females would be a death sentence for the species, the reproduction would not be fast enough to ensure against another disaster. The number of Earth's species that don't do this, especially mammals, is comparatively small. It works. The same evolutionary pressures would probably exist elsewhere as well.

Evolution considers survival of the species paramount, everything in evolution is about creating babies and having them survive in enough numbers to maintain the population. So, I would suggest that that aspect of biology be kept in mind when creating an alien species. How would your proposed species create babies and ensure that the children grow up in sufficient numbers to maintain, or grow, the population?

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by gruundehn

Look at most of the species that have distinct males and females. Usually the males are aggressive and protective of the females. Think about it, a species could lose probably 70% of its males and if the remaining are fertile probably survive. Losing 70% of the females would be a death sentence for the species, the reproduction would not be fast enough to ensure against another disaster. The number of Earth's species that don't do this, especially mammals, is comparatively small. It works. The same evolutionary pressures would probably exist elsewhere as well.

Actually, there are huge numbers of species on Earth where males aren't protective of females (let alone of young), or only 'protect' them against other males of the species - their interest is solely in being the only male to mate with the female, and not in protecting the female from predation. Many of these species are highly successful (sharks, rabbits, dragonflies, and domestic cats, for example).

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Rupert

Actually, there are huge numbers of species on Earth where males aren't protective of females (let alone of young), or only 'protect' them against other males of the species - their interest is solely in being the only male to mate with the female, and not in protecting the female from predation. Many of these species are highly successful (sharks, rabbits, dragonflies, and domestic cats, for example).

Even without "protection," though, there is also the pattern where males simply take more risks. For example, males may fight over territory, taking the chance of being injured, but with the winner getting a territory that's more appealing to females.

[Flyndaran]

Then there's that lizard species with three male types color coded even.
The large aggressive harem keeper, the small territory-less type that flits about under the radar, and the moderate sized friendly monogamous type.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Side-blotched_lizard

There appear to even be two types of females I don't remember hearing about.
One territorial type that lays lots of small eggs, and a friendlier type that lays fewer larger eggs.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Then there's that lizard species with three male types color coded even.
The large aggressive harem keeper, the small territory-less type that flits about under the radar, and the moderate sized friendly monogamous type.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Side-blotched_lizard

There appear to even be two types of females I don't remember hearing about.
One territorial type that lays lots of small eggs, and a friendlier type that lays fewer larger eggs.

Humon has a series of posts on similarly interesting arrangements in different species.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by gruundehn

Language genders probably started off because certain nouns were seen to have qualities associated with certain biological genders. Take German as an example, reading and libraries were associated with non-warriors and thus a library is feminine in gender. Girls, before puberty, are non-sexual and thus neuter in gender. And so forth.

I think that's an overgeneralisation, probably with a dose of folk etymology. Consider languages with such feminine words as war, strength, gun, warship, might, explosive [noun], machine, army, escalation, axe, beard, armour, artillery, missile, submarine, maille, strategy, tactics, diversion . . .