[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.