You now why? Because they’ve got breasts, that’s why.
No, it’s not what you’re thinking—the goal here is not to make some sort of blanket sexist-pig statement—just wait for me to explain, before unduly getting your knickers in a bunch.
Having breasts and a uterus relate to one of women’s primary functions (in the whole survival-of-the-species scheme of things), child bearing. Now, babies are basically defenseless little things and their survival during a bulk of their formative years requires—amongst other things—close proximity to lactating teats.
(It’s clear I’ve been reading way too much of and into evolutionary psychology of late, but bear with me as I hand-wave through the following argument.)
In terms of early woman, this general scheme almost implicitly implies that she (or another caregiver with functioning nipples) is going to be home with this baby; feeding, taking care of it, and making sure the kid doesn’t do something stupid or get eaten by a predator or something. Now all this basically means, in a primal sense, is that there is a good possibility that groups of women stayed close to home and used to gather up small edible goodies, while the men were out trying to hunt or whatever. This has given women an inordinate amount of time to build up interaction skills—you know, getting other people around to help out and what not, and an uncanny knack of not only easily reading social situations, but also developing the ability to manipulate social situations to ensure their best interests. (The overtly-swaying walk or the seductive hair-toss anyone?)
Before you scream, think about it. For instance, you might have a situation where, or need to:
a. sleep with the alpha male to ensure your kid has the cream of the gene-pool crop (as opposed to that thin bald guy with the inhaler in the corner)
b. said stud is obviously more interested in “spreading his seed” (for the good of the species, mind you), and is probably not the kinds to stick around and take care of her (at least when she needs it, like child birth) or the kid
c. convince an available, gentler, more caring male that the baby is his (you know, so you now have a supportive dad instead of an absconding stud)
See? Perfectly plausible situation in a prehistoric group. And what does all this teach our woman? The art of carefully reading, manipulating social situations and the ability to communicate, well.
The men on the other hand, leave home to find, chase and hunt down food. So, what does this do for them? They probably develop the ability to run faster (as in hips and such more tuned to chasing beasties (or running away from them) than delivering a baby) and throw farther. They’re probably enhanced in terms of spatial dexterity, get stronger perhaps, and probably even gain some problem solving skills.
But the thing is, the world today is ripe for the taking when seen from the point of view of a group capable of sensing social nuances and easily best resolving situations to suit their benefits.
A group with defined biceps?, not so much.
It’s a woman’s world.
If you’re wondering how many frickin’ times I am going to bring up the same topic under different guises, I have to let you know, I have a ton of these up my sleeve. An idea pops up in my head every time I contemplate male redundancy.
Fun “science”: The average pH of a healthy human female vagina is 4. Now that’s rather acidic, like red wine.
So u think women shud just sit at home, cook and make babies eh? And if hubby dearest is kicked off his job, would he do all that she did while she earns moolah?
EEEK, god no. That’s not what I think or said at all (in answer to your first question).
Let me explain where I’m coming from and what I’m trying to say(, and understand that I will make stuff up along the way to support a point of view). I am, well, to say the least, awkward, in social settings involving groups of people I don’t really know. I don’t see this ever being a problem for any woman (I know). So I proceed to give a plausible “evolutionary psychology” explanation, mostly satirizing an article (the one titled: “Women in games” by Chris Crawford) on a gaming magazine I read a while ago.
With that out of the way, all I tried to reason out was that since prehistoric woman was forced to stay close to home and interact with other people by virtue of a defenseless baby needing to be kept alive (I doubt things like day-care and other niceties had evolved at the time), and men presumably used to hunt or whatever in the meanwhile, they both have gained different sets of skills over millions of years. I threw in the breasts thing (primarily because I wanted to but also) as a reason for why women probably did hang out closer to the baby than men. You know, before pasteurization of milk or the advent of farming, babies probably didn’t have access to the barrage of processed baby food they have today. A non-useful-nippled male around wouldn’t help much.
Now, I personally believe women have gained a far more relevant skill-set as a result, because being able to thrive in a society is far more important than being able to run 100 m in 0.0003s less time (going by the record books, again making up facts).
Making them de facto rulers.
And to answer the second, I can’t talk for all men, but surely can for one I know well and whose life-path I can predict. Firstly, hubby was doing his fair share all along, even before he got kicked off his job. It didn’t even always seem like work, just getting useful things done while hanging around the home and interacting with the wife and kids. After the layoff, sure, he takes on all of it while she raked in the moolah. He doesn’t even think to himself “boy am I lucky to have a wife that works, so I can chill out doing the trivial things around the home” because he knows it’s very hard, but often rewarding, work.
Your comment was longer than the post. Way too much of gyaan. And I get bored reading long stuff. That I think is the biggest problem our generation suffers from, we get bored very fast.
Yeah, I apologize. I just get defensive (and obviously don’t know when to stop) on this issue, because all I want for the woman is anything but.
Anything but… (?)
Anything but “think women shud just sit at home, cook and make babies”.