Re: Gender Importance

Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
22 Apr 1999 19:42:51 +0200

"Scott Badger" <wbadger@psyberlink.net> writes:

> I suspect that, if given the choice today, more would choose to be males,
> primarily (I regret to say) because there are still more social rewards and
> opportunities for males than females in general.

I'm not sure; at least on average here in the West people seem to like a balanced family. But there are likely subgroups that will bias things locally.

Even more interesting is non-traditional forms of reproduction, such as in vitro gestation and male pregnancies. They could help erode even more of the old assumptions (if they ever get popular).

> If economics were not an issue, I don't know. Not to be chauvinistic, but I
> once heard and suspect it's true that the male physiology is considerably
> less vulnerable to systemic perturbations...i.e our systems are more
> homeostatic and less susceptible to hormonal (an other?) fluctuations than
> females on average.

The downside is that we are the weaker sex; I'm not sure about the perturbation thing (never seen any data on it), but we have a higher mortality due to what appears to be a slightly less robust construction. That is why you find plenty of old widows but few old widowers. 

-- 
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Anders Sandberg                                      Towards Ascension!
asa@nada.kth.se                            http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
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