Nice to see you back E.J.

One quick comment off the top of my head: Most people in general (working moms, working dads, childless and single people) do fantasize about dumping their jobs and becoming people of leisure, presumably after winning the lottery or inheriting from a hypothetical rich uncle. Nothing at all to do with feminism or any sort of politics. It's just that even many "good" jobs really do kind of suck.

Good point.  For many people, even good jobs suck more when you leave a little one at home.

I agree that quitting ones job is a common fantasy (although mine also includes a secluded beach hut and a typwriter where I will write romance novels...but I digress). However, women are far more likely to be able to have that fantasy come true in the form of a higher-earning spouse. Add a kid or two to the mix and she's publically applauded for not working.

The sentiment might be shared, but the opportunity to live it out is very different for men and women.

Dads, too.

However, women are far more likely to be able to have that fantasy come true in the form of a higher-earning spouse.

Young women in some urban centers are now, on average, making more than similarly situated males.  Maybe things will change if this trend continues....

A few Mr. Moms in my shop, too.

Women (on average) still look for a man that earns more than they do, according to David Buss in "The Evolution of Desire." This applies also to high-earning women execs. Presumably, selection of successfully competitive males correlated with surviving offspring. Not hard to accept that proposition, and we still see selection events like tsunamis and Katrina rewarding the successful, who don't live at sea level full-time.

But as women do achieve adequate income on their own, and marry less competitive men, our descendants might not understand why men were always so warlike, and had all the good jobs.

Most people in general (working moms, working dads, childless and single people) do fantasize about dumping their jobs and becoming people of leisure, presumably after winning the lottery or inheriting from a hypothetical rich uncle.  Nothing at all to do with feminism or any sort of politics.

Sure.  I would add to that, though, that winning the lottery makes one economically independent, while depending on one's spouse or partner does not.  The history of women's enforced economic dependence -- now that has to do with feminism and politics.

Not that economic dependence can't be okay if it's freely chosen and whatnot -- but it is different from winning the lottery.

I'm not sure that an increase from a total of 5 stay-at-home dads to a total of 7 over a period of ten years augurs a trend.

jpf, small nit perhaps, but evolutionary explanations for the status quo that may not hold up are often called "just-so stories." Social Darwinism is something else: seeking iron laws of economic determinism on the model of natural selection that may or may not happen to enrich capitalists and starve the poor or conquered territory. 

John 

http://www.haberarts.com/

Re: It is not arguable that higher social standing gives one a wider field of mate choice, mainly for men but now for women, too.

Your reductionism does not account for the sheer complexity and richness of human existence. How do you explain homosexuality or religious celibacy? Genetics is secondary in human beings. Our evolution has involved factors that have nothing to do with genes or mating because very much of it has been social evolution. Suggesting that Plato, Jesus, Elizabeth I, Beethoven, George Washington and Mother Teresa (to name some famous figures who left no biological offspring) were evolutionary failures is simply absurd.

I hate to see you subjected to such spurious allegations.

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

Okay. Some women are making more than similiarly educated, same-aged males. But women still marry, on average, older males who are more educated than they are.

There is alot of social conditioning that will have to be overcome before men can feel equally allowed - much less encouraged - to quit working if they want to.

I say this as a university professor married to a cop. I've told my husband many time that were our careers reversed, there is NO WAY I'd still be working. Alas....he wants to work. And so he does.

"Human character is roughly 50% inherited, from identical-twin studies." A certain trait can be heritable, and one can argue whether it's clearly defined or free enough of gene interactions, the effects of gene expression, and so on to test its heritability as a percent. But still, I'd agree that using twin studies and talking about "50% heritable" is not nonsensical. 

However, talking about the heritability of human character truly is nonsensical.  What in goodness name is the totality of human character?

John 

http://www.haberarts.com/

I mention the 50% number to show that 50% is not inherited, as well. Add as many grains of salt as you want, but a number of twin studies have been done, and while "character" is hard to define precisely, attributes such as testable intelligence, taste in food and music, and similar, show that percentage, roughly.

Of course cooperation is as important as competition. Life has been a tension between the two since the first eukaryotes joined to make a symbiote. The more effective cooperator-groups probably out-hunted  or out-fought the other groups. But we were talking about male/female role division. A cooperative male tends to lose out to his less charitable competitor when it comes to sharing women. (Take my wife, please!)

No one's genes are solely his property. You have copies of genes identical to those in a mouse or earthworm, or a Nazi or Mother Teresa. Read up on kin selection. "My" reductionism looks at the reproduction of the gene, not the individual. The individual is the vehicle, and makes the choices, but he does not of course survive. Life is invariably fatal, except for bacteria and fungus. No one succeeds, exactly, but many of his genes will continue.

That children reflect some of the personality traits of their parents does not of course prevent the occasional failure, fractious son, or prodigal. So? If the majority of children showed zero correlation, OK. But as before, the correlation is about 50%.

Of course fame is dependent in its particulars on the culture. Europe puts scientists and artists on its currency, while we use politicians. What is not culture-dependent is the payoff for being famous.

Why do you think I'm trying to explain evolution by genes alone? Doesn't 50% leave a fair amount of room? But that we pass on a lot of knowledge through culture does not mean that culture came from nowhere. It evolved, too, and the two systems affect each other.

So back to point, evolution can explain male/female role divisions, and changing circumstances may eventually be reflected in changing preferences among women. Please note that explaining is not justifying. This mainly because as far as we can tell, Nature doesn't give a damn how males and females view each other. It only rewards what works.

So we have bonobos, who seem to prefer gift exchange, negotiation, and lots of casual sex with casual gender roles, and we also have chimps, who have dominant males and settle questions of authority with violence. We have the praying mantis biting the head off the male after intercourse, and we have some birds mating for life. It's up to us---there is no sanctioned path.

You're missing a main point, which is that there is variation in choice, in opportunity, and in genetic makeup.

Most men are not free with their spouse, of course, which is necessary for monogamy, I'd say. So you prove my point there---men are not charitable toward other men concerning their wives. (The nice guys finished last.)

Of course no family has 2.4 children, and of course fame does not benefit all.

Any genetic predisposition can be overidden in any individual, but the effects being discussed are the aggregate of individuals.

Women choose their mates, and so do men. They have different goals, which makes things pretty interesting.

Re: When exactly did women have enough freedom of choice or even choice to impact evolution?

Let's remember that most of human history was spent as hunter-gatherers. Patriarchy is a creature of civilziation and economic surplus. It has a fairly brief history (in evolutionary terms); "primitive" peoples cannot afford it. Segregation of sex roles certainly existed in the Paleolithic, but women were not "controlled" by their fathers or even their mates since the means of social control was lacking, and they had about as much freedom of choice as men did.

What's the evidence for this?  (Really asking.)

It seems to me that male-dominant social structures are close to universal, and deeply ingrained.  That's not necessarily evidence that these structures are a product of selection, but I'd be very surprised if they don't have prehistoric roots.  

Having said that, like the difference between hunter-gathering and agriculture, I imagine these earlier structures weren't nearly as efficient at domination.

Re: What's the evidence for this? (Really asking.)
It seems to me that male-dominant social structures are close to universal

The evidence derives from studying hunter-gatherer cultures of which a very few still exist even today (on the Andaman Islands for examples, and a few of the San people of the Kalhari). As I mentioned above, sexual division of labor exists even among these folks (men hunt, women gather) but women in these cultures are not "controlled" by men. Rather all individuals in these cultures are controlled by the group as a whole. Again: patriarchy exists only where civilziation provides for the sort of economic surplus that allows a society to seclude the female half of the population (or at least the urbanized female population).

Good points, and since I'm an amateur at this I won't go any farther. I do have the impression that in the majority of the world, and over the majority of our formative history, society was not affected by arranged marriages. It likely was affected by dominant-male harems. Evidence of Genghis' DNA is supposedly found in millions of Mongolians.

But the selection did not start at any one time. It had been occuring while our ancestors were apes not yet distinguished from the chimp/bonobo line. A few thousand years of agricultural-affected selection wouldn't easily overturn millions of years. However, cultural evolution might be able to fight deeper genetic drives, and more women may choose non-competitive nurturing-type providers or helpers as spouses, in the future.

Re: Do you consider physical domination a means of social control? What about shunning and banishment?

For those to work the whole group must agree on it. A man who beat his mate without group approval might well end beiung the one shunned, not the mate (and in fact this is usually found in such cultures, since they cannot afford intra-group violence). And since such groups are 1/2 female the women would have to agree to the system too. See a probolem there with women agreeing to a system that degrades them? I don't know why this is such a hardthing toi graps when the empirical evidence is there: low tech stone age cultures simply do not have male-dominated societies, if onlk becausde they cannot afford to idle half their members. They do have marked sexual division of labor, but while men's work and women's work is diffrerent they are complementary and more of less equally valued. Also, forced sex and abuse (by members of the group) are generally not tolerated, though of course in conflicts between groups these things certainly do occur.

Re: Mating outside the group probably would have at least required approval of the group leader

Exogmay is actually common in such cultures, though usually only with other bands who speak more or the less the same language.

Re: It likely was affected by dominant-male harems.

Um, hunter-gatherers do not have "harems". Good grief, there's no practical way to do that when you don't even fixed dwellings in which to lock up your concubines! Sure, a "he-man" probably gets to mate more often then a wimp in such cultures, but that's as much the women's choice as it is the men's-- they want to mate with such men. Why is this obvious fact so hard for some people to grasp?