506
The Theory That Men Evolved to Hunt and Women Evolved to Gather Is Wrong
(www.scientificamerican.com)
this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2023
506 points (82.9% liked)
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"Powers of Estrogen" infographic.
This is quite the charged language and I'm not even halfway through. Throw in a bunch of other stuff about the Boston marathon and gender presentation in movies, yeah this isn't that good of an article.
Before I'm downvoted into oblivion, we probably all took part in hunting. They've found the speed differences in running between ages and gender are not extreme, so we likely all went out running and hunting together. But men probably took on the more dangerous and physical aspects, but everyone with a spear is a more capable unit.
I read most of it, not bothering with full paragraphs when I could see the idea at the beginning, and from what I saw it doesn't get any better.
It points out that the only physical sport activity they women excel at is ultra marathons. it then goes on to day that flexibility when it comes to family roles was important for survival. And this I absolutely agree with and it is certainly the case that women can hunt too.
But the author just seemingly completely ignores the argument that women can still fill the role, even if there is some kind of specialization that makes one sex generally better at one task then the other. The fact that we are different almost certainly means this is the case.
And men still have much better record times at every ultra-marathon distance. Testosterone is a hell of a drug.
The author's argument isn't that women are faster but that they can sustain physical exertion for longer. I have no idea if that's true, but citing marathon times really misses the point.
If men can keep up a faster pace for over 100 kms, then they can sustain exertion for more than long enough.
The paper someone else posted showed that women start to lose pace in a marathon later than men, but men start out so much faster, and over the course of an ultra-marathon men still keep up a faster pace the whole distance.
Worth pointing out that there is lots of existing races that would compare "sustain exertion for longer".
One called "backyard ultra". Basically you do a lap of 6.7km each hour until everyone else drops out. World records are all men by a long shot - https://backyardultra.com/world-rankings/
Fastpacking, a slower event than the backyard ultras, involve hiking/jogging through hiking trails while carrying what you need. Definitely slower pace, and I'd argue closer to what I'd imagine with a long, days-long hunt would be like for ancient tribes. FKT, or fastest known times, are often found at this website. Looking at all the times, men carry a significant lead in both supported (ie someone else carries your food/water/sleeping gear), and unsupported. As an example, look at the Appalachian Trail -- https://fastestknowntime.com/route/appalachian-trail
EDIT: The thing the article failed to mention (and the thing I think is key) is that women excel at doing these things, typically, with less energy burnt both during and after the races. Women on the whole are smaller, and tend to have better insulin responses (as mentioned in the article) which means their blood sugar stays consistent during exercise and after. Consistent blood sugar means less wasted energy. Larger heart and lungs, combined with higher type 2 muscle fibres compared to women’s type 1 means, again, less wasted energy and more efficiencies. Less muscle damage, as mentioned in the diagram, means less to repair, which means more saved energy. In a hunter/gather society, this saved energy can be significant.
With modern access to food, that evolutionary advantage seems to vanish, and the article doesn’t even touch on it.
How can you comment and criticise an article that you haven’t read thoroughly?
I admitted to the amount of effort I put in, then made an actual argument against what they said. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe not.
What did you do? Nothing but an empty criticism. Bet ya felt real smart doing so too.
And speed and strength aren't even the only attributes needed for effective hunting in the first place. Seems to me that a variety of skills would be beneficial