Re: Egg and chicken

Men traditionally were in power because they either took it by force or defended it by force, and later they institutionalized male rule in both religious and secular rule.

Because prior to firearms, your own muscles' physical strength was the only way to assert authority, and on the whole it's easier for men to be abnormally strong than for women. If there had never been a physical advantage, for example, if we were a venomous species not immune to our own venom, there shouldn't be any difference between men and women allowing one to assert authority by force.

It's also important to note that the difference in muscular content is an adaptation to bearing children. I am pretty sure if we were oviparous, again, there wouldn't be a significant strength advantage for adult males.

At any rate, the fact that males are more violent on the whole is likely due to some relationship between their chemical and genetic makeup.

It could never be that (other things equal) perceiving yourself as strong makes it more rational to either be an aggressor or respond violently to others' aggression than perceiving yourself as weak.

How about looking at the criminal records of men and women? Women have just as much opportunity to commit violent crimes as men do, especially in a country like the U.S. where guns are readily available. And yet they don't.

You would never say the same for Blacks and Whites, and you know it.

Until very recently women have been all but completely barred--directly or indirectly--from fields like the arts and sciences.

And that's my point! You cannot use a sample where women were barred from violent professions to argue that women are bad at violence.

I never said men were better at being tyrants than women; I simply argued that they were more aggressive and violent than women.

I don't tell apart both concepts; but ok. As I just wrote, obviously when women are barred from violent professions, they will not make good examples of violence.

You're talking about countries and regions where traditional values are still quite powerful. I am talking about first world nations, where currently gender preference is about 50/50.

Not even in first world nations the preference is 50/50. The preference is 50/50 only among those who wouldn't care to select gender. Among those who would, the preference is clearly for boys. Even in first world nations. And since it makes sense to have a preference for boys under the huge material abundance of the modern first world, I don't see it changing.

But right now gender selection of a zygote or fetus is not feasible.

Of course it is. It wouldn't be happening if it weren't.

In the future

I see no specific reason to believe you are right; but neither do I see any to believe you're wrong.

I don't believe we're as malleable as that, that the preference for boys will fall, but I admit my belief is just a belief without specific support; 50 thousand years of history are there, but 50 thousand years of history did not happen under the conditions we live in today.

In any case, you know I'd rather have one daughter than ten sons, but I may be biased for girls.