CopyRight @ 1996
A PART OF CHAPTER 9
monogram on the equality of men and women.
There is no usefully accurate way to describe men and women
as equel. Simply consider it from the physical view. Humans are
a sexually dimorphic specie. This is largely due to the demands
of aggressive competition between men. That competition in men
and its lack in women is a consequence of our reproductive
nature. Generally, men can beat women in a fight. They are
designed that way.
If you want to argue with this, you are missing the point.
Humans are adaptive enough that they compete at all
available levels. That women have a disadvantage at the level of
physical confrontation, is a real everyday thing. Sure, women are
capable of being physically aggressive, but it is the exception
to the rule.
At other levels.. Women effectively use one of the two X
chromosomes at any given time. Men use the X and the Y. Does the
Y chromosome confer psychological competitive advantages as well
as physical advantages? What is the nature of the genetic
advantages that men have over women? Are men capable of being
more psychologically aggressive than women, as they are designed
to be more physically agressive?
How should the differences between men and women be viewed.
Is it differences that can be exploited fairly to mutual
advantage or should we have as a goal a real equality between the
sexes. We tend to promote monogamy, which restricts the mans
reproductive potential to the same as his mate. In general we
legislate against situations where physical aggressiveness
determines the outcome of encounters. Still, this often leaves
the women short of ability to compete equally. Natural law
promotes that men win.
Humans are tool users. Much of our strategy is based on
technology. Does the X chromosome confer any advantages in
technological ability? It seems unlikely. This may suggest that
in a promiscuous technological envirnment, it would not be hard
to promote a situation where women could compete on fairly equel
footing. That could produce a real social equality. Still, it is
likely that men will retain an advantage at many levels. That is
fine in a promiscuous envirnment, but the more harsh and
competitive the envirnment, the more disadvantage to the women
and the more the reasons to want the women to be the equels of
their male counterparts. Technically, a decision could be made to
promote an envirnment where the form of competition gives women
an equel footing or an effort could be made to to increace womens
potentials and subsequently there ability to more equally compete
with men. If humans widely move into space, it is more likely
that the latter situation would be common. Humans will have to
adapt in many ways. Aggression is a strategy for limited
resources and so would be expected to be more common to a static
ecology such as a planet bound one.
Theoretically, it should eventually be possible for women to
remain quite a women and still have any potentials on the Y
chromosome that are not on the X chromosome. This will not give
men the ability to have babies. The difference may be necessary
or just tolerable.Who knows? Some humans may end up opting to
become hermaphrodytic. Solutions may be very different depending
on the created ecology. Again, that is a situation that will be
dictated by future technology, including transport.
Determination of this may have a lot to do with how
promiscuous we envision the next ecologies to be and what
strategies we want to use. This is a question of basic long term
significance.
It seems an unsupportable arguement that humans cannot
develop social and family systems that are not traditional role
dependancy relationships where the male must be the competitor
in the society, to support a domestic wife. The issues will be
about strategies for parents that will adaquatly provide for care
of the children. Issues of sexual equality and gender
characteristics must be based on reproduction and child care
first, social convenience and personal desire secondarily.
Back