Men vs women -Food for thought - science?

science
(Karen) #1

Back in the day our keto hunter primal ancestors, likely the men, we’re hunting animals, eating fattest parts tossing the rest to the dogs (or women and children), or having a poor hunt and running on the ketones. Their bodies were evolving to eat this way and to thrive this way.

The other half of the population, the women, were likely eating meat brought back that was less fatty. In every society I have ever heard of , the women were burdened with the children, or pregnant. As they were not as likely to be hunting with children, they were probably gathering what edible plants and roots they could. This was certainly partially true of the American Indians. So their bodies were evolving and thriving on less fatty meats, edible plants and roots, or running on ketones.

I wonder if this might account for the difference in how men and women’s bodies store and use energy. Was just thinking about this a bit.

(squirrel-kissing paper tamer) #2

That’s interesting. I always thought of it like men were built to work, build, hunt, protect–body wise and nature made women bear children and made us fat so we had resources to breast feed and after that we were soft and fleshy so we could be a physical comfort to children from to holding them to sleeping with them and keeping them warm. And maybe it’s BECAUSE of the roles women played, they ate what they did and the men ate what they did to support their roles in the community as well.

I blame everything on hormones. :neutral_face:

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #3

I would be leery of generalizing from familiar patterns. I’m not so sure, for example, that patriarchal thinking is as old as the human race. One philiosopher I read blames the oppression of women on the discovery of agriculture—which happened an eye-blink ago in evolutionary terms—since the notion of inherited property made men want to be sure they knew who their progeny were—hence the need to keep an eye on the wimminfolk. In many tribal societies, the solution was instead to concentrate on your sisters’ children, because you knew for sure that they shared your genes.

(squirrel-kissing paper tamer) #4

My ideas come from my experience working with animals and understanding gender in relation to them. I’m attributing male/female aspects of animals to long, long ago humans who were living on the land and wild too. I may be totally wrong, but this is what I imagine when I think of the “way, way back” times.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #5

I don’t know. My male rats tend to dominate the females, but I have known alpha females who kept their male counterparts under control. Personality is a large part of the dynamics.

Among chinchillas, the females are larger and more dominant.

Lionesses do the hunting for the pride, whereas the lions stand guard. In housecats, the queen is in charge. I don’t remember who runs a wolf/dog pack.

Male herbivores often fight for control of a harem, but I’m not entirely sure of the evolutionary value of that to the species as a whole.

Female rats make the bucks chase them (sometimes whether the bucks want to or not, lol!), but they usually make up their mind which buck they want a day or two before going into heat (and it’s not always clear how they decide, either). I once watched a smallish doe try to drag a large buck (he was over twice her size) into a secluded spot and make him have his wicked way with her. Since the buck had been neutered, she had only limited success. It was hilarious, though.

(squirrel-kissing paper tamer) #6

Wait, I thought we were just talking about who has more fat and why. You sound like quite the animal lover (watcher?). Love it. I’ll be the first to admit, I’m not talking science here, just speculating and day dreaming.

(Karen) #7

I was actually just referring to the type of a diet that women and men might have evolved to thrive on. Men might have more success with keto. Women might have more success with Paleo. I wasn’t really focusing on domination.

I think Leanne Vogel uses a keto version that has women doing Paleo carb ups once a week. Something having to do with the adrenals and hormones.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #8

Sorry, I guess I went off on a tangent. Keto has healed many things, but apparently not that . . .

I think my point of departure was the characterization of women as gatherers and men as hunters, and I just started riffing. Was I offensive, or harsh? I didn’t mean to be, sorry! :insert apologetic emoji here:

#9

I’d be hesitant to believe any “men did X” and “women did Y” talks when it comes to pre-patriarchal societies because considering how a lot of pre-colonialist indigenous societies operated, we can’t even be sure that Ancient Humans even recognized a gender binary that would have made such divisions.

(Bob M) #10

I like Karen’s theory. I think is has aspects that are true to this day. I’m not totally sure about the fat idea. I know we theorize fat was the most prized, but I’m not so sure that’s true. For instance, if you’re a plains Indian faced with survival over what could be a brutal winter, you need that fat for pemmican and the like. You need to keep it. What if the men brought back the fat for processing?

(Karen) #11

No worries, I didn’t read it that way I was just musing that there might of been a percent of the population that did not eat as fatty meats, that might have eaten leaner and might have eaten more roots and vegetables. Just trying to figure out why women struggle more on keto than men … in general.

(Karen) #12

True, it’s possible the women did most of the hunting in the men and did most of the child rearing.

(Running from stupidity) #13

I’d be doing the hunting, because I’m lazy.

(Robert C) #14

Not sure of the OP’s logic there. Me and Joe come back from the hunt and want to find the best women. I’ll be sure and eat all of the best type of fatty meat and try to attract her with my crappy leftovers. Joe’s brain must be developing faster than mine because he saved the better meat to seek out a woman. Being as humans are definitely where we are because we are social creatures - I can see why his genes would have a better chance than mine.

(Running from stupidity) #15

But I WANTED to quote the whole thing, Discourse.

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(Karen) #16

Weird that’s some strange tech glitch there.

On bringing fat back for processing … I do think the fat was rendered and packed for pemmican in camp. I do think everyone shared in the pemmican.

(Omar) #17

maybe that is why the fat women were preferred in old societies and even in some existing original societies.

I also not sure that all humans ancestors where hunters unless we are talking about our genes to prehuman .

man will eat what is readily available and requires less energy to collect then and now.

#18

It did that to me the other day & I hadn’t quoted any of the previous post :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #19

Personally, I blame it on your hormones. Guys just don’t have all those complications. Besides, when you have to be ready to produce offspring at any moment, for sure your body is going to be careful about letting go of extra energy. Quite apart from any social roles, it makes a lot of evolutionary sense.

Just as an aside: I watched a documentary series once that was exploring the differences between the sexes. One fascinating detail had to do with cross-cultural ideals of beauty. When shown shots of women from behind, respondents of both sexes, and regardless of culture, almost unanimously chose as most beautiful those women with the best hip-to-waist ratio for child-bearing. And among the men, those with the broadest shoulders compared to their waist size got the votes for most attractive. Fascinating! (If only I had spent half the time lifting weights as I spent worrying about my pimples as a teenager!)

(squirrel-kissing paper tamer) #20

You are never offensive. Not at all!