[roenxi]

Maybe we've redefined what patriarchy means, but going by the dictionary this article, and the associated viewpoint, is clearly reversing the cause and effect.

In context of broad society patriarchy is "control by men of a disproportionately large share of power". It is obvious that, given there are a small number of leadership roles, if one gender is more assertive, aggressive or violent (or indeed prone to risk taking - although the article does not mention that one) then that gender will end up with a disproportionate representation in the military and from there social leadership positions.

Patriarchy doesn't cause male behavior, male behavior causes patriarchy.

I'm throwing an assumption here that armies lead governments. Most countries need a few military victories early on to legitimise their control of territory.

[busterarm]

> Patriarchy doesn't cause male behavior, male behavior causes patriarchy.

You say this as if women have zero agency. To accept your statement at face value, you would first have to assume so.

It is far more likely that male _and_ female behavior causes patriarchy, otherwise it would have been bred out of existence.

I believe that if you see a problem as "caused by men", then you're just looking for a bogeyman and not working in good faith to solve an issue.

[magrimu]

> Patriarchy doesn't cause male behavior, male behavior causes patriarchy.

There doesn't have to be a behavioral difference between men and women for societies to trend towards patriarchy. The simple fact that women bear children and are pregnant for nine months is enough to have limited their political prospects in pre-modern times.

A society of antiquity that allows women to fight in battle will have fewer women to bear children, which means fewer bodies to grind in the next war. Societies that forced their women into domestic roles could have faster manpower replenishment and win more wars, taking more territory and spreading their customs. Political power was inexorably tied to warfare, and women, often lacking the crucial military influence enjoyed by generals were locked out of the elite decision making classes.

Today, we no longer fight wars of annihilation, and a society that promotes women in the workforce has access to more brilliant minds than one that doesn't. I think there's more to gender relations than human psychology. Natural selection among human societies can be a powerful driver of cultural change.

[spricket]

I think it's deeper than that. Men are more assertive as well as many women preferring it that way. The easiest place to see it is online dating apps, a system that has only existed for a decade or so. Size, strength, and status symbols (like having a nice car in your picture) are big selection factors for profiles of men seeking women. But these factors hardly matter for women seeking men. This clearly influences males to seek positions of status and power moreso than females, even though they're equally capable.

I would argue that eventually this small selection bias causes generic personality bias toward more assertive traits, larger size, and aggressiveness in males. In humans and many ape species this selection runaway has gone so far I doubt we can do anything about it.

It would be interesting if we could find a closely related species where the females are larger and more dominant. Human "dominant male" sexual dimorphism isn't the norm across the animal kingdom but is very common in apes.

Anecdotal, but I've heard MANY women say "I wish I had a male boss", but I've never heard the opposite from either male or female friends. Could this be related to similar selection factors? Who knows, but researching this kind of stuff is nearly radioactive to your career so we may never know.

[ThrustVectoring]

And what causes the extra risk-taking by men, though? Male reproductive success is heavily tied to being able to successfully acquire economic and sociopolitical resources. It could easily be argued that women are "responsible" for this via setting up the incentive structure that men responded to in the ancestral environment.

[hobofan]

> And what causes the extra risk-taking by men, though?

Probably Testostorone

> Male reproductive success is heavily tied to being able to successfully acquire economic and sociopolitical resources.

That has only been true for something between a few thousand years to maybe a hundred years (when true upwards mobility was established). So as much as I like to think that humans can overcome their inner animals, it can't be ignored that a lot about us is governed by traditional evolution (which movea much much slower than our social systems).

Trying to place blame here on either sex in the current social system is not really productive here. Trying to place blame on women, who had (and in some places of the world still don't have) little/limited say in their choice of reproductive partners up until a few generations ago, is historically short-sighted at the least.

[belorn]

> Probably Testostorone

No. When accounted for gender Testostorone do not have a correlation to risk taking for men.

> traditional evolution

One of the research findings among primatologists about 50-70 years ago is that female choice has a significant impact. That "little/limited say in their choice of reproductive partners" is actually not that little or limited, but simply different compare to male primates. The research on prehistorical human behavior is also extreme speculative, so great caution to attribute anything specific down to it.

[hobofan]

How are arranged marriages (as they still exist now) not "limited choice"?

[belorn]

What are you talking about? Baboons, macaques, gibbons, great apes, capuchins, howlers, or squirrel monkey do not conduct arranged marriages, nor marriages at all for that matter. Looking at evolution and how it formed us and we find very little of arranged marriages.

Arranged marriages also limits men and women equally (the definition is the bride and groom are selected by individuals other than the couple themselves) so I am not sure what argument you are trying to make in the first place.

[hobofan]

> It could easily be argued that women are "responsible" for this via setting up the incentive structure that men responded to in the ancestral environment.

I was saying that this argument by ThrustVectoring doesn't hold true, as neither men nor women (at least not the bride or the groom) made the partner choices themselves.

[busterarm]

Just to pile on with what you said to the parent...

For most of the thousands of years we've had something like marriage, it was a privilege of the upper class anyway. Marriage served as a means to preserve political power.

If you don't have any political power, you weren't getting married.

[ThrustVectoring]

Arranged marriage was not a feature of the ancestral environment that these traits evolved in; that practice came about later.