Slate comment on gender and kin v group selection
I decided to copy and paste this to here, because I liked the way I articulated it.
It also dovetails with plenty of other data showing that, among the upper echelons of society, men seem to have more power than women, but the opposite is true among the poor.
What I left out in this comment was how, when rich men are pushed to the top of "the hierarchy," they are actually ending up at the top of complex society/economy based on division of labors, social insurance, and trade that creates efficient production enabling many to subsist on the labor of a few, and the higher up you are, the bigger a claim you have on the labor of others. The hierarchy is one where, in case of famine or food shortages, those at the top are the last to starve, those at the bottom are first to starve.
However, in absence of a food shortage, the end result is that the men on the top can impregnate many more women and have many more children than they -- alone and by themselves -- have the physical capability of providing for, yet it all works out in ways so that their WEALTH (labor of others they draw on) results in OTHERS providing for their children. Other men, for the most part, assuming that men are the most productive class compared to women -- which was true before technology made muscles less important.
What you end up with, or could end up with, are situations where the best men have harems, while other men provide the resources for the children of other men. But, women who are genetically superior and more beautiful will tend to find themselves isolated from other (jealous) women, and tend to marry high ranked men anyway since men do not listen to the concerns of the female peer group when picking their mate, but isolation from other women WILL prevent a genetically superior woman from having the clout to STOP her husband from breeding with other women as well. Among the poor, however, wives CAN enforce monogamy among men and prevent cheating. This is something, by the way, a huffington post article bears out:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marrie-lobel/shedding-light-on-the-myt_b_5001326.html
Fact: Research suggests men and women equally seek the loving arms of a committed partner. Studies indicate when a low sex-ratio is present (more marriage-aged men to marriage-aged women), infidelity in committed relationships decreases because women are in demand and set the rules in which sex and relationships occur. When contrasting with instances of high-sex ratio (higher number of marriage-aged women to marriage-aged men) where men are in demand and have more options, the rate of cheating increases. Still having doubts? Consider sexual satisfaction and why women cheat. When measuring the BIG O (orgasm) women report a much higher level of gratification when sex occurs in a committed relationship rather than casual hook-ups. As for why women cheat, if having a lot of sex were the defining factor then you would assume that most women would be unfaithful for the novelty, thrill or pure opportunity. However, that is not what the data shows and you would be wrong! The majority of women betray their spouses to fill an emotional void or to feel a deep connection with another.
Furthermore, women who are promiscuous always tend to be promiscuous with higher ranked men. Promiscuous women RAISE their expectations vis-a-vis casual sex. Promiscuous men LOWER their expectations vis-a-vis casual sex.
In any case, the tendency of women to ostracize genetically superior women (while men do the opposite with genetically superior men) leaves superior stronger women isolated from other women -- and LESS ABLE TO CONTROL their husbands, or stop them from cheating. Go lower down in society, and women end up with more control over their men, limiting cheating, and forcing them to work HARDER in their labors -- which creates surplus value that benefits the wealthy at the top.
At the same time, in the highest levels of society, the fact that women engage in kin selection while men engage in group selection also means, disempowered rich women will be unable to use their instincts towards kin selection to try too hard to get a rich man to engage in TOO MUCH kin selection (or nepotism or cronyism) since, after all, the leaders of a group must think about the poor and not throw them under the bus too much -- but their wives will tend to myopically favor close family members and, in so doing, encourage their husbands to be too ruthless with other members of society. Thus, it is in the interests of society to try to prevent the wives of rich powerful men who are "managers" of society to have too much influence over him. This is especially true with regard to political leaders who might benefit financially by forcing the children of OTHER FAMILIES to fight in bloody wars, while their OWN WIVES will do whatever they can to spare their OWN CHILDREN from the fighting, at least if left to their own devices.
I also have to say, this also reminds me of the degree to which rich women were extremely dependent on servants, say in Newport Mansions, where they were required to submit to having tons of servants follow them around, cater to their every whim, and even dress and undress them. Men had more independence. Yet, this social custom could be seen as reflecting a societal understanding that women are more prone to kin selection and more prone to favoring those they are close to, rich women are influential, and extra measures would be taken to ensure extra close connection between rich women and the lower classes in society, who made up the servant class. Whereas rich men might be seen as more likely to understand such issues in absence of close personal connection.
1 hour ago
If you look at the debate among sociobiologists over kin selection versus group selection, you will not find much of a discussion of gender, however you will notice that there are some who persist in attempting to discredit group selection theory, insisting human beings behave MOSTLY according to the dictates of kin selection. The ones who discredit group selection theory seem to be those who are in line with certain neoliberal policies, including neoliberal feminists, and it seems pretty clear to me, they want to cover up the fact that men engage in altruistic group selection far more than women, who are more likely to favor kin which usually is described not as altruism but as nepotism or cronyism.
The fact that WOMEN strongly engage in kin selection with regard to whom they cooperate with, while proving hostile to non-kin outsiders, can be tied to their comparable physical weakness and the fact that, in the absence of technology, they were dependent on men for resources, especially when with children. Men's physical strength and greater ability to gather resources for more than just themselves explain why MEN are the ones who engage in multi-level group selection, are less hostile to outsiders but, instead, are willing to COLLABORATE with outsiders and FAVOR non-kin men, though they do have a large tendency to be selective about WHICH outsiders they collaborate with, or invite into the fold, always favoring other non-kin men who are genetically SUPERIOR. Whereas, women instead tend to form groups of equals who gang up on or isolate genetically superior women, which generally guarantees that these women will end up with a man and have less independence in their relationship with him.
Given that genetically superior women tend to mate with genetically superior men, the tendency of women to marginalize genetically superior women, even while other males lift him up to the top of the hierarchy generally creates conditions where the genetically superior woman will breed and have many babies with a top ranked man, but also not have the kind of social clout or bargaining power with her husband sufficient enough to prevent him from cheating on her and siring as many children with other women as possible. All in all, this converges in a direction that results in genetically superior males maximizing their offspring AND genetically superior females maximizing their offspring too without the genetically superior females having the power to limit the man's offspring to ONLY what she can give birth to. Men can have more children than women, and it is in the interests of all human beings to ensure that genetically superior humans have as many children as possible. Meaning, harem structure for top males, but not for lower ranked males who often won't breed but will be providers to other peoples' children.
What I notice is that those theorists who try to deny or minimize group selection also tend to be consistent in some way with those feminist forces who, while they do sometimes talk about "old boys clubs" and "patriarchal conspiracies" otherwise don't like talking about male cooperation with other males in a positive light. Richard Dawkins is a particularly vociferous opponent of group theory and promoter of kin theory. And, instantly after reading an article of his denouncing group theory a bit too ferociously not to arouse my suspicions, I decided to google "richard dawkins gates foundation" and discovered just what I expected to discover. That he is heavily involved in some of the Gates Foundations activities.
Because women engage in kin selection of the sort that results in them being hostile to non-kin outsiders, the influence of women results in nepotism much more than that of men. This is of especial interest to powerful rich Western influences who love exploiting third world countries by using their wealth to corrupt elites. Thus, the Gates Foundation has a huge investment in the kind of gender equality that results in empowering rich women's tendencies to engage in nepotism of the sort that characterizes what Western Elites like doing with third world countries: pay off elites, distribute wealth to rich elites who pocket it and ensure that wealth is limited to THEIR OWN FAMILIES, in return for same elites agreeing to throw the rest of the population under the bus and help Western Businessmen enslave populations in third world countries.
Bill Gates has given tons to charity -- yet somehow only gotten richer and not from Microsoft stock increasing. That is no accident.
When you read articles written by "feminist economists," one interesting intellectual mistake you instantly see them making is their tendency to butcher the English Language, wherein they will describe women as "more altruistic" than men, and then when you read on further, you instantly can figure out, it isn't altruism they are talking about, it's nepotism and cronyism. Aka "women are more inclined to favor their own families." These "feminist economists" are heavily aligned with the neoliberal order, whereby they have taken advantage of the "sacred cow" status of feminism to figure out ways to define "gender equality" in a way that really is all about slavery, and the way money influences politics, they will try get away with it for as long as they can, even while they continue to skew feminism in a direction more and more designed to push the interests of the rich, and enslave the poor. And we can guarantee that all those who oppose this will have tons of barbs thrown at them along with accusations of misogyny, etc. Money makes lots of people go on the attack.
In any case, this article simply shows yet another example of many that show how women network with closer kin, while men tend to favor larger groups to network with that include non-kin.
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I will also add to this a comment in AVFM forums where I first articulated the notion that I, as a man, care that the genetically most superior men (and women) around me breed as much as possible, and I have an interest in ensuring THEY BREED more than inferior ones do. Because, my progeny will, at some point, many generations down, likely benefit from breeding with a SUPERIOR population.
This ultimately is true because my genes keep getting split off and separated from one another down successive generations so 50 generations down, my genes are going to be divided up and distributed in different ways among an enormous population. Breeding patterns will determine, though, whether certain patterns of behavior persist, however. And it gets very complicated. Ideally, I will develop an ability to "spot" which men have genes which, when combined with various genes I have, interact in complimentary ways to them, producing a descendant with similar sets of skills to mine, thus if I see someone who is similar to me but, possibly in some ways, a better version of myself, I will hope to maximize his reproduction in order to ensure my children have a better chance of reproducing with those whose genes best combine with mine.
Think about this in terms of traits. I am very muscular and strong, and I sweat a lot and get dehydrated easily, making me perfect for Northern Climates. I'll want my children to reproduce with either muscular and strong types and I am hairy and sweat a lot and live in Northern Climates, or else in case they have to live in a Southern Hot climate, I might also want to favor men who are weaker but don't over-heat and sweat as much, hedging my bets and producing a set of progeny which include some adapted to cold climates and some adapted to warm climates. But I won't want to help anyone who is weak AND overheats easily. They won't do well anywhere.
This is not unlike Richard Dawkin's selfish gene theory, where he argues genes want to replicate themselves. But, no, it's more like human beings want to spot good genes in others, and then encourage their preferential replication over that of inferior genes.
However, women will encourage such replication in genetically superior women by treating them badly and excluding them from the group, which tends to leave them more dependent on marrying men, while men will celebrate genetically superior men and be drawn to them and be supportive of them. Surround them, as it were, which tends to result in them having a huge male labor pool to draw on, for when they choose the best of the isolated genetically superior women to breed with and support LONG TERM.
Now, I'll caveat all this by pointing out, there is no such thing as an "up-down" one dimensional measure of superiority, either male or female. There are many divisions of labors in our society, with much complimentarily which renders it misleading to try to label one group as superior to another. Often among ruling classes you will have genetically inferior people in most ways, except possibly with respect to certain narrowly defined intellectual skills. At least, this is what happens when you get to certain very developed and perhaps decadent societies. Often the class labeled "superior" and at the top ISN'T really superior, and the classes of people lower down are truly the superior ones in many ways.
In fact, sometimes certain "lower down" positions in societies are actually higher status in all objective measures, and it is almost like there are certain classes of people where we pretend they are higher status as a way to assuage their egos, not unlike the phenomenon of promoting someone incompetent "up" into a position with a fancy title and salary, and with all responsibilities removed from them. That is common in consumeristic societies where spending of money is important.
In which case, the phenomenon I am describing below more is most accurate in describing how things work among genetically superior populations of males who are genetically superior with regard to LOOKS and ATHLETIC ABILITY. And who marry similar women. It also occurs among those with smarts too, I think. But maybe in different ways? And, of course, this leaves out any analysis of how things are sorted out regarding different sections of the population who have different TYPES of skills where the difference is QUALITATIVE rather than a difference in STATUS.
http://forums.avoiceformen.com/archive/index.php/t-7899.html
What you are talking about I think is kin selection theory. There are others who prefer multi-level group selection theory. Both of these I don't fully understand. And I haven't researched it much. But as for evolutionary issues, I dislike most of the thinking I have been exposed to by others and feel most social scientists are fuzzy thinkers. So any theory I mention about natural selection or evolutionary issues is mostly what I have thought of myself and not gotten from anyone else -- and I do know, I am good at math.
Regarding issues of kin selection versus group selection, there most definitely must be gender differences, and I think how big they are varies depending on whether you talk about certain white populations that lived far north where intensive agriculture done by men, along with significant hoarding over the winter, was absolutely crucial to survival and made women extremely dependent upon men, compared to populations in warmer climates where little hoarding or private property was needed and women could provide for themselves given the lush environment.
I notice, among these white populations, men tend to be socially stupid and easily manipulated by women, who are more socially ept and better at emotional manipulation, whereas among more southern populations from warmer climates, those differences seem less pronounced. In any case, I do think gender differences vary according to population, so one can never fully generalize about gender other than that "one size fits all" thinking will always be wrong and potentially toxic.
In any case, women would tend to be much more kin oriented, men much more "group" oriented -- but then one has to ask oneself, what's the definition of kin and non-kin, and how does one tell kin from non-kin? How big can an extended family get before they are too big to be considered part of one family? In the end, it's all relative, the whole entire human race is kin to some degree.
In any case, if one tries to think about it mathematically, it becomes so complicated that any theory would be nothing more than an approximation of reality. However, one thing I can say is, regarding survival of the fittest, if I want to propagate my genes that might make me want to have as many children as possible -- but having children is useless if they don't have children, grandchildren, and so on for tons of generations down the line. Instantly, it's necessary for my friends to reproduce too -- and it's always better if the particularly friends of mine who reproduce are genetically superior, so as to enhance the chances that my children breed with genetically superior humans so their children can compete better than others so, even though they end up with only a few of my genes, the fact that those genes are combined with SUPERIOR genes makes them more likely to last.
From my point of view as a man, I want to have some children -- but then I care a great deal that they will have opportunities to reproduce with the best and most compatible population out there. As a result, I will want to make friends with other men whose progeny would make the best partners to my own progeny, and then proceed to want to support and maximize the reproduction of genetically superior male friends over that of male inferiors. Particularly those whose genes are most compatible with mine or those of my children. From that you get the origins of inequality, and can understand why male inequality is always bigger than female inequality.
With women, motivations are slightly different because there is a limit to how many babies each woman can have, while there is no limit to how many children each man can have, other than that it's necessary that society bring them up. In any case, there are precedents set in past history regarding society encouraging and aiding and abetting mass reproduction of the best male members, with Genghis Kahn being known to have had thousands of children, so much so that in some parts of the world, maybe a full 10 percent of the population can count him as an ancestor.
In any case, with women, if a woman is very attractive, the tendency is for society to want to control her and marry her off to the most attractive man, where attractive women are the most likely to be docile and monogamous to their high-on-the-food-chain husbands, even while more tolerant than other women of cheating. It makes sense, though, that human populations want to maximize the genetic contribution of the most attractive/genetically superior woman to future progeny by ensuring the most supportive environment with which she can not merely conceive the highest numbers of children possible, but also bring them up and ensure their best and highest social status so that their reproduction is maximized too. A man, however, can have so many children, all he cares about is enough of them are raised with high social status -- the rest of them don't have to be.
But I am not explaining this well. It's just, I've seen no evolutionary psychologist ever explaining why human beings have an interest in promoting the enhanced breeding of anyone with better genetic content than them, simply because among a group it's always better, many generations down, for your direct progeny to breed with a SUPERIOR population of humans than an inferior one.