# Why has male domination worked so well? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 2, 2016, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-male-domination-worked-so-well/770424 "2016-11-02T07:43:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2016, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-male-domination-worked-so-well/770424/61 "2016-11-03T09:46:34Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Well, you might want to point that out to the guy who tried incoherently to argue that the exploitation of 19th-century working-class women in industrial slave-labor jobs somehow makes it “deliciously ironic” for mid-20th-century middle-class women to have complained about being kept out of middle-class jobs. :rolleyes: Well maybe if your reading comprehension was slightly better and you spent less time on witty quips, you would have actually read what I wrote [QUOTE=Me] …later half of the 19th-century social reformers and progressive had ensured that women mostly (but not totally) left the factories (which makes post 1970’s feminist/progressive protestations about women being kept in the home, deliciously ironic [/QUOTE] Note it is progressives in the 19th century and feminist/progressive in the 20th. The 19th century progressive movement was _not_ much concerned with feminism (there were some feminists who were progressives) and indeed some of its members were hostile (if not downright misogynistic). This contrasts with the 20th century when progressive and feminists were essentially on the same page. > [@](#): > > ? Your “argument” is _exactly_ what I was attacking. Your “argument” was indeed a distorted picture of historical reality, besides being a feeble and ill-thought-out attempt at a “gotcha” that was quite faithfully paraphrased by _“Haw haw libbers, I guess you didn’t realize how good you had it, amirite?”_ > > Mocking the remarks you made doesn’t constitute in any way an attack on **you personally** , as opposed to the argument you were attempting to put forth. > > If you can’t handle having your arguments made fun of without reacting as though it’s somehow some kind of _ad hominem_ insult to you as a person, maybe this is not the board for you. :rolleyes: Oh really? Tell me why its wrong, rather than making bare assertions backed up by zero facts. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2016, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-male-domination-worked-so-well/770424/62 "2016-11-03T09:52:40Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > You think they’ve never faced discrimination for being women? Starting with how many of them have had to hear and read “she only got where she is because she’s Mrs. her-husband”? If Hillary Clinton had been a Harry, there might have been a President Rodham years ago. She never would have been in this position, if she had not married him, that much is true. The correct retort to that is pointing out lots of male politicians have also used their name to get into politics, amongst US Presidents, both Bushes, JFK, FDR come to mind. And how good/bad as Presidents they seems to not have any relation to whether they had a political name or not. Surely you can have criticisms of female politicians and analysis of their backgrounds without being misogynistic.😕 ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2016, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-male-domination-worked-so-well/770424/63 "2016-11-03T10:00:30Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > You think they’ve never faced discrimination for being women? Starting with how many of them have had to hear and read “she only got where she is because she’s Mrs. her-husband”? Tell that to Angela Merkel, Nicola Sturgeon, Margaret Thatcher, Ruth Davidson, Gabriela Michetti, Sarah Palin, Nikki Haley, etc etc. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2016, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-male-domination-worked-so-well/770424/64 "2016-11-03T10:20:24Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Oh really? Tell me why its wrong I’ve already told you: because 19th-century reform efforts on behalf of working-class female laborers don’t make it in any way “ironic” for mid-20th-century middle-class feminists to complain about deflecting women from the middle-class workforce. Do you have **any** better explanation to offer about why you’re claiming it **is** ironic? Because just going on what you wrote, your argument is incoherent and/or just plain dumb. > [@Quartz](#): > > It’s good that we have progressed beyond the era of male domination in the West to equality […] > > I think you’re mistaking equality of opportunity with equality of result. I think it may be a bit unclear exactly what you mean by “equality of opportunity”. If you mean that in most developed western countries there are no longer any legal prohibitions on women’s pursuing careers in the same way and to the same level as men, we can probably all agree that that’s true. If, on the other hand, what you mean is that there no longer exist in developed western countries any patriarchal prejudices and cultural assumptions about male domination hindering women’s advancement in any effectual way, I doubt we’re all going to agree with you on that. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2016, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-male-domination-worked-so-well/770424/65 "2016-11-03T10:34:29Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > I’ve already told you: because 19th-century reform efforts on behalf of working-class female laborers don’t make it in any way “ironic” for mid-20th-century middle-class feminists to complain about deflecting women from the middle-class workforce. > > Do you have **any** better explanation to offer about why you’re claiming it **is** ironic? Because just going on what you wrote, your argument is incoherent and/or just plain dumb. I would need a cite that the complaints made in the mid 20th century were about lack of access to Middle Class jobs? Because, everything I have read says otherwise. Their middle class stauses were often brought up by their opponents. Its ironic that the same movement responsible for getting women out of the workforce was 100 years later instrumental in getting them back in. Its ironic that the feminist movement of the 1970’s allied with a movement that had traditionally been farily indifferent at best and actively hostile at worst, to the feminist movement. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2016, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-male-domination-worked-so-well/770424/66 "2016-11-03T10:42:26Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > I think it may be a bit unclear exactly what you mean by “equality of opportunity”. If you mean that in most developed western countries there are no longer any legal prohibitions on women’s pursuing careers in the same way and to the same level as men, we can probably all agree that that’s true. > > If, on the other hand, what you mean is that there no longer exist in developed western countries any patriarchal prejudices and cultural assumptions about male domination hindering women’s advancement in any effectual way, I doubt we’re all going to agree with you on that. Getting to the top in politics is incredibly hard for anyone. That there are so many women at the top indicates that sexism is no longer an issue. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2016, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-male-domination-worked-so-well/770424/67 "2016-11-03T10:55:58Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > Getting to the top in politics is incredibly hard for anyone. That there are so many women at the top indicates that sexism is no longer an issue. That’s as ridiculous as saying racism is no longer an issue because we have a black president. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2016, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-male-domination-worked-so-well/770424/68 "2016-11-03T12:06:20Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Its ironic that the same movement responsible for getting women out of the workforce was 100 years later instrumental in getting them back in. Except that, as I noted, it wasn’t really either the same movement or the same women. Working-class women went on mostly working for wages even after factory/sweatshop reforms in the late 19th century. Middle-class women were mostly not working for wages, either in the 19th century or in the early days of second-wave feminism in the 20th century. And the early Progressive movement that supported factory reforms was not the same as the 1960s liberalism that catalyzed Women’s Lib. (As you yourself pointed out, “you cannot compare the 19th century with the 20th century”.) So no, it’s not really “ironic” at all, much less “deliciously ironic”, that one group of 19th-century liberals opposed industrial exploitation of working-class women and several decades later a different group of 20th-century liberals advocated for the career independence of middle-class women. > [@Quartz](#): > > That there are so many women at the top indicates that sexism is no longer an issue. Not very persuasive: there can be a lot of individual success without necessarily implying that there’s no longer any systemic prejudice or discrimination. For instance, besides **iiandyiiii** ’s example above, we could point to large numbers of gay people who’ve made it to the top of their professions. Would we be right to infer from that that homophobia is “no longer an issue” working against gay people in our society? I doubt it. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2016, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-male-domination-worked-so-well/770424/69 "2016-11-03T12:22:10Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Is that not one hypothesis as to why we out performed the Neandrathals, our division of labour amongst genders (very roughly, hunting men, gathering women). It is (from a 2006 paper) but[others argue differently](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047248414002887). ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2016, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-male-domination-worked-so-well/770424/70 "2016-11-03T13:21:48Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Cite? > > Or perhaps give the definition of “egalitarian” you’re using - because all the really “primitive” societies I know of are _very_ non-egalitarian - for a start, I don’t know offhand of _any_ HG or horticulturalist societies that don’t have gender-based division of labour. “egalitarian” as on end of a spectrum, the other end of which is “sexual inequality”. A “division of labor by gender” is simply orthogonal to whether a society is “egalitarian” or not. What matters, is social or political power in actual decision-making among humans. In “egalitarian” societies, this power tends to be spread more equally between the sexes; in “patriarchal” societies, this power is concentrated in the hands of men. HGs _tend_ to be more “egalitarian” in this sense then tribal peoples, who in turn _tend_ to be more egalitarian than state-level societies. As societies increase in social stratification, they also increase in sexual inequality. Here’s an article about some recent research (published last year) into the HG end of this: [http://science.sciencemag.org/content/348/6236/796](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/348/6236/796) Title: “Sex equality can explain the unique social structure of hunter-gatherer bands” Abstract: > [@](#): > > Abstract > > The social organization of mobile hunter-gatherers has several derived features, including low within-camp relatedness and fluid meta-groups. Although these features have been proposed to have provided the selective context for the evolution of human hypercooperation and cumulative culture, how such a distinctive social system may have emerged remains unclear. We present an agent-based model suggesting that, even if all individuals in a community seek to live with as many kin as possible, within-camp relatedness is reduced if men and women have equal influence in selecting camp members. Our model closely approximates observed patterns of co-residence among Agta and Mbendjele BaYaka hunter-gatherers. Our results suggest that pair-bonding **and increased sex egalitarianism in human evolutionary history** may have had a transformative effect on human social organization. [Emphasis added] As can be seen, actual research does not tend to support the crude “just-so” story that sexual inequality derives from the fact that men are bigger and more aggressive, and that this tradition descends from the earliest patterns of human society - on the contrary: the earliest patterns of human society were more egalitarian. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2016, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-male-domination-worked-so-well/770424/71 "2016-11-03T13:26:13Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Emphasis added. I think people are tending to overlook the fact that all modern humans are descended from a relatively small number of prehistoric humans existing around a hundred millennia ago. Patriarchal patterns in human societies were probably firmly established by then. Again, actual science does not support this notion. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2016, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-male-domination-worked-so-well/770424/72 "2016-11-03T13:43:55Z")
> [@](#): > > Mark Dyble, the leading anthropologist on the study at University College London, said: “There is still this wider perception that hunter-gatherers are more macho or male-dominated. We’d argue it was only with the emergence of agriculture, when people could start to accumulate resources, that inequality emerged.” > **[Cavemen had more sophisticated attitudes towards equality than we do now](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/early-men-and-women-had-gender-equality-say-anthropologists-10251956.html)** > > The study suggests inequality only occurred when people started to accumulate resources The arguments in this thread are a demonstration of this “wider perception”. ---
**Author:** ![Vicsage](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/e68b1a/32.png) [@Vicsage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vicsage)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2016, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-male-domination-worked-so-well/770424/73 "2016-11-03T14:27:06Z")
A while back, Little Nemo posted all the western countries and how they are dominated by men. Yet, most if not all those countries allow women to vote and probably, like our country, have a majority of women. So it seems that women don’t like women running them. You’ve got the vote, you’ve got the numbers, so don’t blame men if we are in charge. Even with the upcoming election, the male candidate may be the worst in recent history, and if the woman wins, it looks like it may be by the skin of her teeth. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2016, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-male-domination-worked-so-well/770424/74 "2016-11-03T14:43:20Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > “egalitarian” as on end of a spectrum, the other end of which is “sexual inequality”. A “division of labor by gender” is simply orthogonal to whether a society is “egalitarian” or not. I disagree. Separate is never equal, just ask any Civil Rights activist. > [@](#): > > What matters, is social or political power in actual decision-making among humans. And you think this can co-exist with division of labour? How so? The “actual decision making” on hunting is done by the men, and the “actual decision making” on gathering is made by the women. Fine, and you’d be right, this would be kind of egalitarian IF both spheres are accorded equal social weight. But they’re not. At least in the HGs I have familiarity with, meat and the proceeds of hunting have much higher social status. So women have no say in their society’s highest status decision-making and no access to the highest-status occupation. Tell me how that’s egalitarian. > [@](#): > > In “egalitarian” societies, this power tends to be spread more equally between the sexes; in “patriarchal” societies, this power is concentrated in the hands of men. Agreed. How is this compatible with division of labour, though? > [@](#): > > HGs _tend_ to be more “egalitarian” in this sense then tribal peoples, who in turn _tend_ to be more egalitarian than state-level societies. As societies increase in social stratification, they also increase in sexual inequality. I disagree, based on my personal experience with HGs (San) and tribal cultures (various Bantu) - they’re about equally patriarchal. > [@](#): > > Here’s an article about some recent research (published last year) into the HG end of this: > > [http://science.sciencemag.org/content/348/6236/796](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/348/6236/796) > > Title: “Sex equality can explain the unique social structure of hunter-gatherer bands” > > Abstract: > > [Emphasis added]. As far as I can tell, that article is talking about sexual equality _qua_ sex itself. Fine and dandy, but that doesn’t say anything about _overall_ social equality. While Congo Basin H-Gs are not _socially_ stratified, groups like the Mbendjele do still have sex-based division of labour, and other decidedly non-egalitarian behaviours like their menstruation _ekila_ taboos. > [@](#): > > the earliest patterns of human society were more egalitarian There’s no evidence given for this, certainly not by any cite of a modern HG group’s practices. I wouldn’t trust any anthropologist who tried to tell me that what Congo Basin H-Gs are like today are the same as the earliest patterns of human societies were. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2016, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-male-domination-worked-so-well/770424/75 "2016-11-03T15:37:28Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > I disagree. Separate is never equal, just ask any Civil Rights activist.And you think this can co-exist with division of labour? How so? The “actual decision making” on hunting is done by the men, and the “actual decision making” on gathering is made by the women. Fine, and you’d be right, this would be kind of egalitarian IF both spheres are accorded equal social weight. > But they’re not. At least in the HGs I have familiarity with, meat and the proceeds of hunting have much higher social status. So women have no say in their society’s highest status decision-making and no access to the highest-status occupation. Tell me how that’s egalitarian.Agreed. How is this compatible with division of labour, though?I disagree, based on my personal experience with HGs (San) and tribal cultures (various Bantu) - they’re about equally patriarchal. > As far as I can tell, that article is talking about sexual equality _qua_ sex itself. Fine and dandy, but that doesn’t say anything about _overall_ social equality. While Congo Basin H-Gs are not _socially_ stratified, groups like the Mbendjele do still have sex-based division of labour, and other decidedly non-egalitarian behaviours like their menstruation _ekila_ taboos.There’s no evidence given for this, certainly not by any cite of a modern HG group’s practices. I wouldn’t trust any anthropologist who tried to tell me that what Congo Basin H-Gs are like today are the same as the earliest patterns of human societies were. I’m not going to argue with your personal impressions or experiences. I will merely say you challenged me to provide a cite to support that the point I was making was based on current research in anthropological science - and I did. You also challenged me as to how I was using “egalitarian”. Which I also provided. While sexual division of labor may translate into inequality of decision-making, it isn’t necessarily so (the notion that sexual division of labor in HGs has anything to do with modern “separate but equal” slogans is, of course, a risible rhetorical flourish). Apparently, not all anthropologists share your certainty that they are one and the same - as evidenced by the cite that you asked for. While the research paper itself is behind a paywall (sadly), the article clearly is using “sexual equality” in the way I describe. See the news articles reporting on the paper, which include this quote from the lead researcher (cited upthread): > [@](#): > > Mark Dyble, the leading anthropologist on the study at University College London, said: “There is still this wider perception that hunter-gatherers are more macho or male-dominated. We’d argue it was only with the emergence of agriculture, when people could start to accumulate resources, that inequality emerged.” Now, you may distrust the science - that’s fine, nothing should be accepted uncritically. However, the point of this particular research isn’t to claim ancestral HGs were “the same”, bur a rather subtler one: that the model of HG societies they were working on is consistent with present-day observations. ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2016, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-male-domination-worked-so-well/770424/76 "2016-11-03T16:39:53Z")
Nothing to add here, other than thanking the posters - this thread is one of the more informative Great Debates. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2016, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-male-domination-worked-so-well/770424/77 "2016-11-03T16:48:35Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > I disagree; Japan aside - it’s not really the West anyway - I think you’re mistaking equality of opportunity with equality of result. Are you saying that men and women have equal opportunities to run governments? That men and women are competing on a level playing field and the significantly greater success enjoyed by men is just an indication that they’re generally better than women? ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2016, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-male-domination-worked-so-well/770424/78 "2016-11-03T18:06:13Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > [Early men and women had gender equality, say anthropologists | The Independent | The Independent](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/early-men-and-women-had-gender-equality-say-anthropologists-10251956.html) > > The arguments in this thread are a demonstration of this “wider perception”. Actually, that is _exactly_ what I would predict as well. HG societies, to the extent they are more egalitarian, _have_ to be because of resource constraints. That patriarchal dominance is more expressed in agricultural society makes perfect logical sense to me - witness it also allows men to more thoroughly dominate other men. The accumulation of excess resources allows for ( though need not predicate ) authoritarianism. I fear I’m not expressing myself very well. I’m not generally trying to make the argument that naked force always rules a la larger female Spotted Hyenas dominating smaller males. We’re too complex and big-brained for that. Rather that in terms of gender dynamics an imbalance in physical strength and aggression has had a more subtle and insidious effect in pre- and early modern societies. If you are _almost always_ the smaller, weaker sex in an era where there had important implications in a social species like humans, I simply can’t envisage where that would not have a systematic impact. It’s _not_ as simple as “Og rules, because Og is strongest!” It’s that this permanent disadvantage looms huge in the background. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2016, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-male-domination-worked-so-well/770424/79 "2016-11-03T18:13:00Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > It’s ridiculous to claim we’ve progressed beyond the era of male domination in the West. > > 90% of the people in the Japanese House of Representatives are men. > 84% of the people in the Irish Dail Eireann are men. > 83% of the people in the United States House of Representatives are men. > 83% of the people in the United States Senate are men. > 83% of the people in the Australian House of Representatives are men. > 81% of the people in the British House of Commons are men. > 74% of the people in the Canadian House of Commons are men. > 73% of the people in the French National Assembly are men. > 73% of the people in the Israeli Knesset are men. > 69% of the people in the Italian Chamber of Deputies are men. > 63% of the people in the German Bundestag are men. > > Rather than go on like this, I’ll skip ahead to the end of the list. There are exactly two national legislatures which do not have a majority of men; Bolivia’s Chamber of Deputies and Rwanda’s Chamber of Deputies. But what’s the per capita election success rate% for women? If fewer women run for office than men, then fewer women would get elected than men. Are women substantially more likely to be defeated when running for office vs. a man than vice versa? ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2016, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-male-domination-worked-so-well/770424/80 "2016-11-03T20:01:33Z")
We’re getting away from the subject of the thread: why has male domination worked for humanity? Arguments about discrimination right now are irrelevant. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-male-domination-worked-so-well/770424.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-male-domination-worked-so-well/770424.md?page=5)