Gender Balance: A Hypothetical Question

[Rain Man]

Biologically, we tend to have roughly equal numbers of males and females throughout our lives. Babies are slightly more likely to be male, but then they fall earlier to illness, kickboxing, and electric poles, so in adulthood we have roughly equal numbers of males and females. Then once you get past 40 the women become more common since they live lives of leisure and comfort in their corsets and bonnets while the men dig coal and chop wood and kickbox. However, the ratio doesn't really get extremely out of whack until the age of 70 or 80 when the men are mostly dead and the women are watching Court TV.

But what if it was different? How would society be different if one gender was notably less common than the other? I'll propose two scenarios, and let me know how you think the world would be different if...

Scenario 1. The ratio of men to women was 8:1. In other words, there were 8 men for every woman.

Scenario 2. The ratio of women to men was 8:1. In other words, there were 8 women for every man.

How would the societal power structure be different? Family structure? Sports? Housing? Leisure? What do you think?

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by Cornstock

This was another one of the choices in the breakdown that a lot of women picked. Basically, I think women would still want to look good, whatever their reasons are.

I wonder if, outside of modern pressures towards equality, there would naturally be more women than men or vice versa. Or if it would end up equal. In other words, our species was genetically naturally selected to have more of one gender than another, but modern medicine and health advances interferes with this tendency.

I think the natural ratio is roughly 50/50 for biological reasons, though I don't see why that is an ironclad rule. It seems like it should be possible to have species that aren't balanced.

[cdcox]

In scenario 2,

Q: what would you do if you won $1M

A:16 girls at the same time.

[Slayer Diablo]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

I'll address individual issues, starting with family structure.


If men greatly outnumbered women...


I don't think that core family structures would be that much different than they are now, other than the fact that we'd have a lot of wandering bachelors. More powerful men would have wives, and less powerful men wouldn't. Would this give females more power in the family or not? It's a tough question. Women could become "prizes" and would trade any power for what would undoubtedly be a comfortable life (no poverty other than maybe cases of true love). Or they could become power brokers and use their relative scarcity to create matriarchal power structures. However, I'd lean more toward the first outcome, in part because there would still be lots of women competing for the "best" men and in part because they would be a small minority. Perhaps I'm projecting historical shadows on that, though. You'd probably reverse fidelity roles a bit, though, with husbands becoming less "wandering" and more protective of the relationship, while women would be more likely to wander.

Maybe you'd have some guys getting together in some sort of "bachelor civil unions" just for companionship and standard of living. My guess is that gay behavior would be quite acceptable and no one would give it a second thought.

On the first part, I would add that prostitution is likely to increase in some areas. As for the second, I believe there were quite a few more men than women in Sparta, and although they encouraged the homosexual behaviors between male and boy soldiers, between two adult males was punishable by death.

Originally Posted by Rain Man

If women greatly outnumbered men...


I think core family structures would be a lot different. I think that families would consist of one man and multiple wives, and with children being born to all of them we'd have little tribal villages instead of families.

The bigger question is power. Would women have greater control due to their greater numbers? In this situation, would we have a matriarchal structure where the guy is just the "pet" in the clan, playing a critical reproductive role but otherwise being a secondary member of the tribe, or would he be the ruler of the clan?

I think an easy assumption is that women wouldn't have much power because they'd be in great supply, so you'd see lots of "divorces" as guys traded in wives for newer models, because they'd be less loyal other than cases of true love. However, I think that the opposite might occur. I think women would control the clans, and they would control if a woman gets kicked out or not, or at least have equal control with the man.

In fact, another plausible scenario is that the men aren't even permanently attached to clans. The women would be in stable clans, and the guys would rotate between clans as they and the women saw fit. In this case, then, you wouldn't have the permanently exiled female bachelor civil unions like you'd get in the other scenarios. The unions would exist in group form, but with men entering and exiting them over time.

That's my family structure theory.

Since men seem to assume a greater spiritual role of leadership, I think they would proclaim themselves shaman/prophet/messiah and create a more feudal system whereby several less powerful men could live with their less powerful wives under a King and Queens as Lords. On the other hand, you could also see a bunch of "off-grid" Manson Family-style communities sprouting up.

I don't think the divorce side would really be an issue, but there would be a hell of a lot of competition between the women to become the "main wife" or at least akin to her.

The last scenario sounds like men roaming from brothel to brothel, but that could just be because I came from the thread about Bill Clinton and the porn stars.

[whoman69]

I think in either scenario the minority sex would be traded like cattle. There would also be the possibility that majority sex children would be killed just after birth.

[ThaVirus]

Originally Posted by Valiant

I think it was maxim, but rio I believe has way more women to men.

So one, they love foreign and american men. Two, women share quality boyfriends. That is just win.

I work with three Brazilians and from what they tell me, the guys pretty much have the pick of the litter in that country..

EDIT: Sorry, three Brazilians. Two men, one woman. The guys tell me that. I'll have to ask the girl to confirm..

[patteeu]

Scenario 1. The ratio of men to women was 8:1. In other words, there were 8 men for every woman.

Lots of war.

Scenario 2. The ratio of women to men was 8:1. In other words, there were 8 women for every man.

Polygamy is the norm.

[Rain Man]

Okay, next thought. Societal power.

If men greatly outnumbered women:


I think that power struggles would be much more relentless and ruthless. Having power means getting women and having children and passing your genes on, but it's also a very visible sign of status. Take our current competitive environment and multiply it by ten.

In this case, I think we would see a lot less democracy and a lot more dictatorship. Falling from power has more repercussions, and the only way to get power is to have the support of the 87 percent of men who will never have a mate or a family. There's going to be a lot of anger and resentment as a normal part of life, and the way to get power will be to tap into that, and then ride the tiger.

If women greatly outnumbered women:


This is again the more difficult scenario. Will women seize power? I think so. But how will they use it? Per my social theory, women can biologically share a man much more easily than men can biologically share a woman, so I don't think you'd have the ruthless power struggles that you'd have in a male-dominated world. Plus, by virtue of the biology, men would be able to maintain some power even in their smaller numbers.

I think you'd have women running government, but I think that men would be an important minority group that wields disproportionate power. And the women in power can maintain calm by appeasing the "bachelorette females" better than the males in power can appease the bachelor males in their scenario.

I think you'd still have democracies in a female-dominated world.

[Setsuna]

Originally Posted by cdcox

In scenario 2,

Q: what would you do if you won $1M

A:16 girls at the same time.

You wouldn't last past one. Dumb.