from Hacker News

The Theory That Men Evolved to Hunt and Women Evolved to Gather Is Wrong

by pmoriarty on 10/18/23, 12:40 AM with 20 comments

• by mgamache on 10/18/23, 2:00 AM

  Sure women probably hunted, but claiming there is no evidence for a "sex-based division of labor" is hogwash. Some hunted the same game as men, some probably other prey. Some probably gathered food depending on their child status and physical capabilities. The article focuses much on the advantages women are provided due to estrogen. Sure for some activities (like child rearing) and general health the female hormones make sense. But, I have yet to see any athlete in any sport (including ultra marathon) taking estrogen for an advantage. Willing to be proven wrong.

• by meany on 10/18/23, 5:33 AM

  From the article: “The inequity between male and female athletes is a result not of inherent biological differences between the sexes but of biases in how they are treated in sports”

  I don’t see how this claim can be made based on the available evidence. It could be proposed as hypothesis, but stating this as a fact shows that the author is pushing an end independent of the evidence.

• by JohnMakin on 10/18/23, 1:54 AM

  I can see merits to this. A pet topic of study of mine is of the Donner Party expedition. A thing scholars of this interesting historical episode have noted is this is a very good example of the human body being stretched to its absolute limit of endurance with a decent sample size exposed to relatively similar conditions. Interestingly, a decent majority of the survivors were young women. It’s been theorized that they were better able to metabolize and make use of their fat stores than the men, due to their lower metabolic rate, and many firsthand accounts demonstrated that they exhausted less quickly.

• by refurb on 10/18/23, 4:15 AM

  Wow, the headline is a pretty terrible summary of the article.

  To counter the claim that men were predominantly hunters and women gatherers is a scientific exploration of physiology, showing women are capable of hunting and have some attributes that are better than men.

  Then it talks about edge cases where societies where women were predominantly hunters (though still the exception) or cases where societies where men were predominantly hunters there were rare examples of women also hunting.

  Is it just me or does that argument fall pretty flat?

  It’s like saying men don’t have more muscle mass because of the few examples of weak men and strong women.

  The exceptions don’t disprove the rule.

• by Georgelemental on 10/18/23, 2:00 AM

  https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aax9070

• by bell-cot on 10/18/23, 2:09 AM

  Yes, yes - it looks like the Giant Evil Patriarchy is yet again telling lies about women's abilities and participation in higher-status, male-dominated activities.

  OTOH - notice the longer-term advantages, for most historical agrarian societies, of pushing a "heroic male hunter" stereotype. If warfare is all-too-common, losing wars is generally disasterous, and you can convince your males (especially the younger and more aggressive ones, who tend to cause a lot of trouble at home) to zealously fight for your society - that may be your best-case use of human resources. The wiser heads know that, if push comes to shove, the women can and will do whatever is needed. So if ~~30% of the society's males get killed off in some big war every few decades, that's actually quite survivable. Vs. a similar fraction of the females getting killed off would be a real disaster.

• by lucia-wermer on 10/18/23, 5:02 PM

  Taking into account the Scientific American article, the next question was given to some AI: Analytically evaluate the following text and answer the contained question with justification for each assertion. """An indigenous woman living one thousand years ago is walking through the forest when she begins to menstruate and experiences a sharp pain. She is unaware that an extremely hungry leopard is lurking nearby. Not far away, a man is also walking through the forest. Both the woman and the man have just bathed with a natural soap substitute containing saponins. Suddenly, the wind shifts, carrying the scents of the woman and the man to the leopard. The leopard can only choose one target. Which one will it be?""" Answer: Analysis of the hypothetical scenario: 1) The woman and the man have just showered with natural soap substitute containing saponins, so their scents are similar. 2) The leopard is extremely hungry, so it is more likely to attack the first target it smells. 3) The leopard is more likely to smell the woman first because she is menstruating and experiencing a sharp pain. This is because menstruation can cause changes in body odor, and pain can also cause changes in body chemistry. Therefore, the leopard is more likely to attack the woman.

• by khaki54 on 10/18/23, 2:21 AM

  Is this the new standard boilerplate / disclaimer?

  > Before getting into the evidence, we need to first talk about sex and gender. “Sex” typically refers to biological sex, which can be defined by myriad characteristics such as chromosomes, hormone levels, gonads, external genitalia and secondary sex characteristics. The terms “female” and “male” are often used in relation to biological sex. “Gender” refers to how an individual identifies—woman, man, nonbinary, and so forth. Much of the scientific literature confuses and conflates female/male and woman/man terminology without providing definitions to clarify what it is referring to and why those terms were chosen. For the purpose of describing anatomical and physiological evidence, most of the literature uses “female” and “male,” so we use those words here when discussing the results of such studies. For ethnographic and archaeological evidence, we are attempting to reconstruct social roles, for which the terms “woman” and “man” are usually used. Unfortunately, both these word sets assume a binary, which does not exist biologically, psychologically or socially. Sex and gender both exist as a spectrum, but when citing the work of others, it is difficult to add that nuance.