What if men and women traded physical strength?

[cosmicalstorm]

I was listening in on an argument between two girls during a drinking session yesterday. It struck me as somewhat entertaining and I realized that I couldn't really figure out what would happen if it was to play out. The question being debated was basically something like this.

What if something caused the men and women of this world to trade their physical qualities in terms of strength and muscle-mass all of the sudden? Would men still "rule the world" afterward?

Lets say the process began today and took two or three years to finish, after that period of time every man would basically find himself being about as physically strong as a woman of his own age / height / lifestyle before the change took place.
Conversely, after that time women would have grown in physical strength and muscle mass to equal that of what a man of her own age / height / lifestyle used to have before the "muscle-switch".

This switch would be mainly restricted to physical strength, i.e no sex change would take place. It would be more apparent in children growing up since I don't believe it's possible for the adult skeleton to remodel itself too much. It would be possible for the post-switch men to do what female bodybuilders of today are doing with steroids and heavy weightlifting.

[Bakustra]

Well, there are problems with this scenario regarding childbirth, but I'll handwave them away for the more interesting question. I don't think that gender relations would change that much, since physical strength is functionally unimportant in the majority of society. The main difference is that female athletes would outperform male ones and women might become dominant in firefighting and combat arms positions. But sexism is reliant on entrenched power, which would still remain male-favored. That's why I said "might"; the arguments that women are unsuitable would probably turn to emotional justifications rather than physical ones, while the underlying belief system would not be likely to change. As it is, the chances of women becoming more prominent in other fields because of this are pretty unlikely.

The scientific consequences are interesting; would estrogen become a performance-enhancing drug? Would men use it for competitive edges? Or would there be additional hormones responsible for the muscle development?

[Coyote]

Rape statistics would go down considerably. We'd get more spam for "bigger boobs! Slimmer thighs!" instead of "make your manhood massive!"

We'd quickly start seeing an increase in female leadership. In the military, women would start to dominate since it is one area where physical strength can be a deal-breaker (it's one reason why combat arms are so limited). Assuming all other things in our society stay the same, military status can be turned into political status relatively easily. So we'd see female officers leaving the military where they excelled and going into politics faster than we might see female executives from boardrooms doing the same.

[Bakustra]

Rape statistics would go down considerably. We'd get more spam for "bigger boobs! Slimmer thighs!" instead of "make your manhood massive!"

We'd quickly start seeing an increase in female leadership. In the military, women would start to dominate since it is one area where physical strength can be a deal-breaker (it's one reason why combat arms are so limited). Assuming all other things in our society stay the same, military status can be turned into political status relatively easily. So we'd see female officers leaving the military where they excelled and going into politics faster than we might see female executives from boardrooms doing the same.

Doubtful. Many people argue against women in combat on emotional grounds currently, and I doubt that that would change significantly, at least initially.

As for rape... doubt it too. Most rape is acquaintance/ "date" rape currently, and the conditions that lead to that are not necessarily dependent on physical strength anyhow. Sure, the "man in a ski mask jumps out at you" will become less common, in all likelihood, but many of the conditions that make sexual assault acceptable/forgivable in our society won't change all that much.

[Starglider]

I think the issue of women taking much more time out of their careers for child-rearing would dominate, physical strength is much less important in modern society.

[Bakustra]

I think the issue of women taking much more time out of their careers for child-rearing would dominate, physical strength is much less important in modern society.

That's not really an issue so much as a cultural assumption.

[Freefall]

If there's no real hormonal change to go with it, you might have social issues with a lot of guys suddenly developing a kind of version of "Napoleon complex."

Relationship dynamics would need some readjusting on the part of men; while most guys are not physically abusive, there are still a lot of behaviors that go on that seem to stem from the idea of inherent male dominance. Guys are supposed to be big and strong, they're supposed to protect the woman, they're supposed to be the primary support of the family.

Guys just don't deal with girls the same as they deal with other guys, and part of this is gender roles, but I think some of those gender roles exist because most men genuinely do not view women as an actual threat. There's just kind of an inherent condescension that's typical of American culture at least (not sure how things might be overseas). I wouldn't be surprised if there was a period where the instances of men even asking girls out dropped noticeably. A lot of guys really don't like the idea of asking out girls who are taller or buffer than themselves.

It's also possible girls will become responsible for more violence and have to adjust as well. While I don't think women are really as prone to violence as men psychologically, at the same time, I'm sure there are plenty of girls who at one point or another, wished they could just kick some guy's ass, and now they can. I think it would go to the head's of at least some of them. And the men, if their pride and ego's are still somewhat intact, will probably still be hesitant to call for help or report getting beat up by a girl.

Urg, it's late/early, so I'll stop here and hope this doesn't sound like complete gibberish. But basically, I think it could require serious readjustment of gender roles, and the biggest, immediate effects would be seen on the domestic front. I think men would need the greatest adjustment, but women would also need to get used to their new power and not abuse it, i.e. the "it's not okay to hit girls" rule would get reversed.

[Lord of the Abyss]

What if something caused the men and women of this world to trade their physical qualities in terms of strength and muscle-mass all of the sudden? Would men still "rule the world" afterward?

It has never really been physical strength that has led society to be patriarchal (after all, there have been short kings). It's the instinctive male tendency to form themselves into groups for the purpose of power and mutual benefit; gangs, old boy's networks, that sort of thing. Generally any conflict of men versus women has historically boiled down to a gang or an entire system of men against one or just a few women, so naturally the men tended to win. Only by finally organizing into pressure groups did women start to finally gain some semblance of equality. I don't think the power structure would be affected much at all.

I wouldn't be surprised if there was a period where the instances of men even asking girls out dropped noticeably. A lot of guys really don't like the idea of asking out girls who are taller or buffer than themselves.

A lot of women don't like going out with men who are shorter or weaker than they are, either. Women often appear to find male displays of strength attractive. I think that both genders would dislike this change as far as sexual attraction goes. I expect there'd be a huge male market for steroids.

[Starglider]

That's not really an issue so much as a cultural assumption.

It's an inherent part of human psychology. For example, an excerpt from a parenting blog critising the UK government's attempts to get more men into childcare (currently 96% female);

Parents need to listen to their instincts, even if they’re wrong. If you’re not comfortable with a caregiver, it’s not the time to worry about a grown man’s feelings.

While this post illustrates that child abuse is not gender exclusive, I have to wonder why any grown man would want to be around other people’s babies and toddlers so much, that their career path would include wiping away toddler’s tears and applying band-aids. It reeks of super creepy in my book.

Recently a trend of male nannies has become fashionable. These boys/men are referred to as “Mannies“. I can see the lure of a good looking Manny to boss around the house and drive my kids to and fro, but in the end, I’ll take the nurturing older female, who brings with her a maternal instinct and innate desire to tend to tend to children. Of course, those women could be potentially as dangerous, but again, at least I can relate to maternal instinct that allows females certain nurturing skills that men might lack.

We all know that pedophiles pick careers and occupations that give them greater access to children and the majority of pedophiles seeking prepubescent children are male. I couldn’t live with myself for giving such a man free access to my children, let alone PAY him to do it. Really, how many of us are “oh my gosh, shocked” to hear that this man did this? The only thing that I’m more surprised about is that his wife did these actions with him.

From the comments;

I would never want to send my child/baby to a male-run daycare center. I would run into a burning house, throw myself in front of a car, and commit manslaughter out of self defense to save my children.
Gender discrimination is not even a blip on my radar when it comes to my children’s safety. Seriously, I have no problems descriminating or hurting one’s feelings when it comes to protecting my children. And I’m not sorry if people have a problem with that.

I just think men in a home daycare situation is riskier and I would question their motives. It’s one thing to swoon over a baby at Whole Foods, quite another to want to take care of a gaggle of OTHER PEOPLE’S small children 5 days a week, all day. In fact, when my older son was at a home daycare, with a provider I absolutely loved (and very much miss now), one of the first questions I asked her in the interview process was, “Are there going to be any men around my baby?

Although this is a somewhat different issue to that of who takes years out of their careers to raise children, it is closely related psychologically; and in modern economies where both parents have to work in most families, the issue of which gender runs day-care may actually be more significant.

Changing the physical characteristics won't change the psychology. If you did swap male and female psychology, then you would indeed have women acting just like men and vice versa, except for women still having to deal with the physical inconvenience of pregnancy and childbirth.

[Bakustra]

"Inherent part of human psychology" and "single example from a single culture" don't go very well together. Do you have any actual evidence for, say, women automatically assuming men interested in childcare to be pedophiles to be a universal phenomenon, rather than a product of de-emphasizing male involvement in childcare, media stereotypes of pedophiles, and gender roles? Or for any other evidence that supports humans being hardwired to only have female involvement in childrearing?

[Rabid]

[...] I don't think women are really as prone to violence as men psychologically [...]

Wrong. It's purely an educational and a cultural bias.

If boys and girls are raised in the same way (the "boy way"), girls become as violent as boys. You can see this in French "banlieues" or "cités" (you'd call them "ghettos"), where girls (well, some girls) ARE as violent, sometimes even more, than boys.

So, like I said, this isn't predominantly determined by sexual characteristic, but by an educational bias deriving from a cultural mental framework ("Girls are nice and do their homework ; Boys are silly and never stop fighting").

Now, I don't say that Womens have nothing in how their brains are wired that naturally lead them to be less violent than mens. What I say is that this thing, if it exist, is really too feeble to have a serious impact if women suddenly gain the upper hand on physical strength.

IF I remember well, I think that some "evolutionary psychologists" are saying that if women developed more social skills than men, it is because they had to find a way to turn around their physical weaknesses. If womens were naturally AS muscular AS mens, I think that natural and sexual selection wouldn't have pushed selected them so much to develop them (the social skills) in the first place. At least more than mens.
And if from the start things had been "Womens are strong, mens are weak", I'd say that the roles would be reversed - But I don't see how exactly to make pregnancy and "child-bearing" (after the birth of the children, but before weaning) fit into this scheme.

[adam_grif]

Gender differences are also neurological and psychological, not just physical. We would see women becoming a more prominent part of sport and athletics, but I doubt much or anything else would change. The idea that men "rule the world" because they're "stronger" can't really be true since physical strength has exactly nothing to do with getting positions of authority in modern society. It's more likely going to be related to men's risk-taking behavior and natural tendency toward dominance related hierarchies (see: difference in play structure in young girls vs young boys).

[Bakustra]

Gender differences are also neurological and psychological, not just physical. We would see women becoming a more prominent part of sport and athletics, but I doubt much or anything else would change. The idea that men "rule the world" because they're "stronger" can't really be true since physical strength has exactly nothing to do with getting positions of authority in modern society. It's more likely going to be related to men's risk-taking behavior and natural tendency toward dominance related hierarchies (see: difference in play structure in young girls vs young boys).

How do you account for societies with a different structure of gender roles, such as the Apache where gender segregation of work was far weaker than even in modern Western society, or the Iroquois, whose idea of "women's work" involved all the agricultural labor, or the number of Plains tribes with tri- or even penta-gendered societies? The extent to which gender differences are hardwired is a matter of debate, but that debate doesn't really consider the idea that the majority of them are.

[adam_grif]

Bakustra, if you think I'm arguing that "women don't belong in positions of power" or "the traditional western gender roles are the correct ones" you're very far from the mark. Rather, I'm suggesting that physical strength has nothing to do with modern gender roles, except maybe in the construction and "private security" (nobody wants scrawny thugs!) industries. Nobody lifts weights to become the president. As it happens, women can and do wield authority positions all across the modern, educated world.

I don't deny the role of what you call entrenched power as maintaining gender stereotypes, but I deny that it is the sole cause and maintainer of them. It's undeniable that male and female brains are not the same, and further that these manifest in at least some neurological differences. This study for instance shows that female children that were exposed to Androgens in the womb (as a result of a condition in the mother) performed higher on scores of spatial ability, an area where boys traditionally perform higher. Without this information, you could probably conclude that "oh it's just because boys play more ball sports" or what have you, but this shows that it does have, in fact, a biological basis. This one has the same kind of exposure resulting female children preferring "boys toys", at age 3.

I'm trying to tread carefully here, because it's easy to fall into the "everything is biological trap", but I find the idea that "it's all social" is equally offensive. I will slightly refine my initial position here to clarify and be more inclusive; trading physical strength will not result in a societal upheaval favoring women because neither social nor biological factors have changed with that one exception, and that factor alone has nothing to do with societal success except in a very limited number of fields or professions.

[Starglider]

"Inherent part of human psychology" and "single example from a single culture" don't go very well together.

I like to think the UK is doing pretty well on gender equality, compared to both the rest of the world and historically, yet only 4% of people who care for young children professionally are male and the amount of male primary school teachers from 78% in 1970 to 25% in 2010. In the US, only 15% of men take any (official) paternity leave at all, despite federal law granting them 12 weeks. Do I really need to keep digging up statistics to show that men are vastly less interested in or willing to undertake childcare?

Do you have any actual evidence for, say, women automatically assuming men interested in childcare to be pedophiles to be a universal phenomenon

I would not argue that that specific fear is a cultural universal; on the contrary, contemporary western culture has a much greater awareness and fear of pedophilia compared to most cultures through history. However this is essentially a rationalisation, it would not have such a powerful grip if women weren't already predisposed to view men caring for children as weird and unnatural.

rather than a product of de-emphasizing male involvement in childcare, media stereotypes of pedophiles, and gender roles?

The notion that gender roles are constructed tabula rasa, as opposed to growing out of the realities present during most of human evolution (females spending a lot of time pregnant, men away from the home hunting), is ridiculous. I am in no way endorsing human intuitive psychology, indeed I think a significant amount of it is noxious crap that we should fight to educate away and hope to dump at the first opportunity (inherent tendencies towards racism, superstition etc), but to deny that it is the fundamental basis for human behavior is lunacy.

Or for any other evidence that supports humans being hardwired to only have female involvement in childrearing?

Even assuming 'only female involvement' is an overgeneralisation (ignoring those 4% of males who do manage to work in daycare) rather an outright strawman, I am not going to do a literature review and compile you a bibliography of the blatantly obvious. The burden of proof is rather on you, to prove that men can be convinced to become the major providers of childcare (to the extent that women are now) with any amount of re-education and cultural change. I am not aware of any historical evidence for this, not outside of a tiny handful of minority groups and institutions.

[Bakustra]

Bakustra, if you think I'm arguing that "women don't belong in positions of power" or "the traditional western gender roles are the correct ones" you're very far from the mark. Rather, I'm suggesting that physical strength has nothing to do with modern gender roles, except maybe in the construction and "private security" (nobody wants scrawny thugs!) industries. Nobody lifts weights to become the president. As it happens, women can and do wield authority positions all across the modern, educated world.

I don't deny the role of what you call entrenched power as maintaining gender stereotypes, but I deny that it is the sole cause and maintainer of them. It's undeniable that male and female brains are not the same, and further that these manifest in at least some neurological differences. This study for instance shows that female children that were exposed to Androgens in the womb (as a result of a condition in the mother) performed higher on scores of spatial ability, an area where boys traditionally perform higher. Without this information, you could probably conclude that "oh it's just because boys play more ball sports" or what have you, but this shows that it does have, in fact, a biological basis. This one has the same kind of exposure resulting female children preferring "boys toys", at age 3.

I'm trying to tread carefully here, because it's easy to fall into the "everything is biological trap", but I find the idea that "it's all social" is equally offensive. I will slightly refine my initial position here to clarify and be more inclusive; trading physical strength will not result in a societal upheaval favoring women because neither social nor biological factors have changed with that one exception, and that factor alone has nothing to do with societal success except in a very limited number of fields or professions.

It's undeniable- and also mostly irrelevant. If they were important causes, than societies in which women maintained political power (such as the Iroquois and many North American tribes) would not exist, and neither would societies in which gender roles were fluid (such as the Plains Native Americans), and everything we have uncovered about the earliest human societies points to them having incredible levels of gender egalitarianism. In other words, biological causes almost certainly cannot be important, because the evidence just doesn't fit.

"Inherent part of human psychology" and "single example from a single culture" don't go very well together.

I like to think the UK is doing pretty well on gender equality, compared to both the rest of the world and historically, yet only 4% of people who care for young children professionally are male and the amount of male primary school teachers from 78% in 1970 to 25% in 2010. In the US, only 15% of men take any (official) paternity leave at all, despite federal law granting them 12 weeks. Do I really need to keep digging up statistics to show that men are vastly less interested in or willing to undertake childcare?

Do you have any actual evidence for, say, women automatically assuming men interested in childcare to be pedophiles to be a universal phenomenon

I would not argue that that specific fear is a cultural universal; on the contrary, contemporary western culture has a much greater awareness and fear of pedophilia compared to most cultures through history. However this is essentially a rationalisation, it would not have such a powerful grip if women weren't already predisposed to view men caring for children as weird and unnatural.

rather than a product of de-emphasizing male involvement in childcare, media stereotypes of pedophiles, and gender roles?

The notion that gender roles are constructed tabula rasa, as opposed to growing out of the realities present during most of human evolution (females spending a lot of time pregnant, men away from the home hunting), is ridiculous. I am in no way endorsing human intuitive psychology, indeed I think a significant amount of it is noxious crap that we should fight to educate away and hope to dump at the first opportunity (inherent tendencies towards racism, superstition etc), but to deny that it is the fundamental basis for human behavior is lunacy.

Or for any other evidence that supports humans being hardwired to only have female involvement in childrearing?

Even assuming 'only female involvement' is an overgeneralisation (ignoring those 4% of males who do manage to work in daycare) rather an outright strawman, I am not going to do a literature review and compile you a bibliography of the blatantly obvious. The burden of proof is rather on you, to prove that men can be convinced to become the major providers of childcare (to the extent that women are now) with any amount of re-education and cultural change. I am not aware of any historical evidence for this, not outside of a tiny handful of minority groups and institutions.

Firstly, you're wrong about the US. Those twelve weeks, like maternity leave, are completely upaid. Meanwhile, according to a 2007 monster.com survey, 68% of American fathers would consider being a stay-at-home father if money were no object, 58% took paid paternity leave if their company offered it (71% if they had a child under five), 82% prefer having flex time as a benefit... yes, you do need to dig up overwhelming statistics to show that men just don't care about children. You might not, but not all of us in this gender are so impaired.

But secondly, and more important, you haven't shown that this is inherent rather than cultural. You need a broad selection across cultures to do so, and they need to be roughly similar to one another. This would be nearly impossible (this is why evolutionary psychology doesn't mesh well with humans) given the lack of good information about early hunter-gatherers, but even a broad cross-section of modern cultures would do. But instead, we have a paper (I helpfully linked to the relative page) wherein rates of father involvement are found to differ across a range of pastoral, horticultural, and hunter-gatherer societies. Hardly a major blow for biology.

[Broomstick]

As for rape... doubt it too. Most rape is acquaintance/ "date" rape currently, and the conditions that lead to that are not necessarily dependent on physical strength anyhow. Sure, the "man in a ski mask jumps out at you" will become less common, in all likelihood, but many of the conditions that make sexual assault acceptable/forgivable in our society won't change all that much.

I disagree - I think the potential for violence is a factor in a lot of "date rape" situations. A lot of women fear making a man angry, and there is some reason for that when there is a large disparity in size and strength. If women feared physical confrontation less (because in this scenario they would have the advantage) they might be much more inclined to say "no" and be prepared to back it up, rather than giving in for fear of physical harm.

It wouldn't eliminate date rape situations, but it would make them less common.

It would not, however, have much, if any, effect on date rape given that greater numbers outweigh greater individual strength.

[Broomstick]

"Inherent part of human psychology" and "single example from a single culture" don't go very well together.

I like to think the UK is doing pretty well on gender equality, compared to both the rest of the world and historically, yet only 4% of people who care for young children professionally are male and the amount of male primary school teachers from 78% in 1970 to 25% in 2010. In the US, only 15% of men take any (official) paternity leave at all, despite federal law granting them 12 weeks. Do I really need to keep digging up statistics to show that men are vastly less interested in or willing to undertake childcare?

For the US statistic you have to keep in mind that virtually all parental leave in the US is unpaid - a lot of women don't take the full 12 weeks due simply to financial concerns, much less men. For the average family, the highest wage earner needs to stay at work and that still is frequently the male half of the marriage, and a women who recently gave birth may have a physical motive for taking leave, and the decision for the man to forgo parental leave starts to be rooted more in finance and logic than any inherent dislike of caring for his children.

As if that wasn't enough - although paternity leave is offered to men, in corporate America any man who takes it will likely never be promoted again. He will not be viewed as serious about his job. The penalty he'll pay within the corporate culture will be enormous, even if on paper that isn't supposed to happen. Women suffer from their careers stalling as well, but for men it's much worse. Women, after all, have physical reasons for taking leave after childbirth, for a man....? Socially, it is much more acceptable for a woman to take leave after the birth of a child than it is for man, so much so it most likely skews the results.

Really, I'm not sure that statistic somehow proves men are "vastly less interested in or willing to undertake childcare" in the US given the social and monetary obstacles to them taking even a mere 12 weeks of leave.

[Spoonist]

As a comparison, I live in commie Sweden. For our kid we get 480 days with roughly half pay from the gov. 60 days to each parent and 120 that can be divaded any way you chose. Plus 10 days for the partner directly following birth.
Link in english
Work in heavy industry with software. All guys normally take between 4-10 months of parental leave. With the bosses doing the same. So no direct cultural penalty.

Now mind you if you are in a union the contract usually adds a 10-20% bonus pay for 3-4 months.

So in my case my wife took the first 10 months and I'm right now at the end of my 10 months. (Yes we divided it evenly without an argument)
Only reaction from work was; how long is your leave, 10 months? OK, good then we can have a temp who actually learns the job. (Instead of a 3 month temp who hardly gets up to speed).

Now you might want to argue about the manliness etc. But we don't have the same moronic machismo culture as the mediteranean or US. We have a different one.
But just look at most world sport results and compare our 10 million pop to most given countries pop and results and you'll find that strangely enough Swedes Norwegians and Fins all end up with a good ratio and we all have better than world average parental leaves for both parents.