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Comment by sudosysgen | Hacker News Reader

People do not fight for the protection of reproductive resources. The peaceful way birth rates fell around the world these days is proof of that.

People fought protecting material resources. Reproductive resources were only useful insofar as they help you produce more subordinates to generate more material resources. In feudalism this meant that reproductive resources were very important, but in slavery and capitalism it isn't really the case.

Given the realities of military engagements in Feudal Europe - and the rather small army sizes - its not true that sending women to war would cause a fatal decrease in the birth rate, at all.

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> People do not fight for the protection of reproductive resources. The peaceful way birth rates fell around the world these days is proof of that.

People have fought for a number of reasons, material resources AND reproductive resources are usually key to those. Historically, raiding for woman and resources has been a constant. A big tribe is a safe tribe, more women is key. Even in modern times, you can see the pressure in expensionist/aggressive societies for women to have more children.

Again, I certainly agree. Reproductive resources are, however, ultimately a means to an end. Material resources and power are the driving force.

Fighting for reproductive resources is, however, an outmoded concern. While some states are fighting falling birthrates, none have went to war to acquire more women in recent times. And the reason why states are pursuing population is, again, material.

I'm speaking of evolutionary biases, not conscious motives... in all species, the men go to war. Female lions do hunt, but they don't fight.

What you are saying is simply wrong. Females participate in war in many species, including humans and lions. Female lions will often defend their pride to prevent the attacking lions from killing their cubs, and similarly in humans women often fight in defensive wars.

Evolutionary biases are also essentially irrelevant in how societies are structured. The structures of societies are very intentional and based on material reality, not mere biases.

Generally, men have mostly done the fighting, especially in wars of aggression. The reasons for these are material, as men are often better at fighting. It's not to protect women. When it's useful and makes sense for women to fight, then women fight.

Interesting, do you have any examples of female warrior societies? The wikipedia article seems to start with WW1:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_military

And even then, they were support, not infantry.

Women have been in support and combat positions in war since antiquity. Women buried with weapons were found in Kazakhstan in antiquity, otherwise quite a few Chinese armies had women in infantry positions (most often manning defences). See : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_ancient_warfare

This generally doesn't happen unless either the society is quite rich but lacks strong men, or cases of emergency, or if there is surplus of land and food, because raising armies is very costly, and as a result it doesn't make sense not to send the strongest fighters possible as it is expensive to outfit them and to maintain production at home.

Nowadays, women are proving extremely competent as fighter pilots as their bodies are better at withstanding G-Forces, but in classical infantry where there is a large strength requirement again it doesn't make much sense.

> as their bodies are better at withstanding G-Forces

Likely coming from being shorter. The heart doesn't have to push the blood as far uphill.

Women do indeed fight, but not until it gets desperate.

That is indeed part of why women are better at withstanding g-forces. The other is lower bodymass.

It's true that women generally don't fight until it's desperate historically. I explained why in the comment you replied to.

The miniseries Spartacus (recommended!) decided to pit women gladiators against male ones. Both the men and women were obviously highly fit and ripped. Try as they might, the filmmakers simply couldn't make it look like a fair fight.

This is indeed true. That's why women in combat roles historically did not engage in such roles. Instead, women often manned defences, were light archers, and so on.

>Evolutionary biases are also essentially irrelevant in how societies are structured. The structures of societies are very intentional and based on material reality, not mere biases.

Evolutionary biases are fundamentally relevant to the way society is structured. Historically more violent behavior in males has always been very adaptive as the rewards are far greater.

Evolutionary biases simply aren't relevant structurally. While men do exhibit more violent behaviour, it's been since the invention of the state that violence became a tool and not a concern. The vast majority of violence has for a long time been organized, calculated state or political violence, not instinct-driven agression. The latter still exists, but pales in comparison.

Put another way, if you took almost any society today and made everyone women, you would not see a major decrease in violence, as the vast majority of violence done serves structural and material reasons.

While violence is not always a tool, it is an evolutionary strategy. Before the advent of the state, it was already a tool, or could be at least. It, and other adaptive behaviors still hold some sway on us, and our societies are still shaped by them. We've become more complex, and cultural evolution influences as well, but you cannot cross this a defunct relic of our history.

I agree with your second point though.

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