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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   1133 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 11, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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What physiological/psychological advantages do women have over men? The only solid ones I can think of off the top of my head are a better immune system, greater flexibility, and greater conscientiousness. I've also seen some stuff about more acute color vision, more efficient use of fat stores during endurance activity, and better scores on verbal/memory IQ subtests, though I haven't investigated those as thoroughly.

The ability to produce, birth, and feed a child.

And only men can produce the sperm required to conceive said child. Primary sex characteristics are table stakes.

I don't think those two contributions are really equivalent.

If I knocked up my wife when we made love this morning, and I died in an accident this afternoon, the kid would be fine. I mean he'd probably have a thing about not having a dad and his mom being sad about it and whatever; but he'd still grow up and everything.

If I knocked up my wife this morning and she died in an accident any time in the next nine months, the kid is dead. If she died any time in the next eighteen months the kid follows a different development path right away.

Even just economically, the one is of far higher cost than the other.

When I say "advantages", I mean those things which make it better to be of one sex over the other in a particular practical circumstance. It is true that mammalian biology places the burden of gestation on the woman; my question is about what other aspects of her biology might take the sting out of her manifest physical inferiority and considerable neurotic pathologies.

Fair enough, I just think being the essential sex is such an advantage that everything else pales in comparison. If we were playing a strategy game, you'd know which was more important.

Thank you for making the thread, it's been a highly entertaining read.

Women's importance to the continuance of the species is absolutely important, I agree. My concern is that on an individual level, it seems to me like women get the short end of the stick in their potential for eudaemonia, to the point where the Athenian prayer isn't unwarranted. See here downthread for my elaboration.

(I appreciate your enjoyment, thx!)

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