Here are some links to studies supporting the Maternal Dominance Hypothesis
You can read my complete thread on the idea here: https://genderdreaming.com/forum/gen...ypothesis.html
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Here are some links to studies supporting the Maternal Dominance Hypothesis
You can read my complete thread on the idea here: https://genderdreaming.com/forum/gen...ypothesis.html
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/...,4391984.story (this is interesting and shows that high-ranking primates really DO have higher testosterone.)
Very interesting!
Ugh that really makes me feel hopeless....my testosterone just kicked in and im anxious now lol
DON'T feel hopeless! Swaying can counteract all that stuff by making your body "think" you are dropping in status!
I think the stuff like hip ratio and less likely to be divored stuff gets to me because we cant change our hips and most would not divorce just to see if it helped our sway lol and i always wondered and now it seems true that are girl moms just more loving and maternal and all that? Maybe lowering my T will make me more affectionate and mellow?
You know, I haven't wanted to say this, because it makes me sound like a bad mother to begin with, but I feel far more cuddly and loving towards the boys these past couple of weeks. Of course I always cuddle and love them but my patience doesn't last very long when they're making a fuss over something like a broken toe nail (rather than a 'proper' injury!) and in general I'm not a touchy sort of person. I've wondered whether this is a positive effect of all the stuff I'm doing to lower my T. I guess I feel more maternal.
I love my kids with evey ounce of my soul but im not the huggy kissy type.i find it easier to be affectionate when they are babies but as they get older its harder because i just want them to behave and be quiet and give me my space ugh i sound horrible.It HAS to be the hormones that effects the way we interact with our kids.The weird thing is that i get choked up easy like when i watch a sweet commercial or movie and i cry...after the birth of all my kids i cried like a baby i was soo happy they were born. Does our bodies sense that female babies need more tenderness so they can grow up and nurture their children and if we are less nurturing and more domineering a boy may be a better bet since they are usually not the ones who need to raise the babies so they can be less affectionate? Does this make any sense? Im sorry if i am offending anyone and we are all good moms but there is no denying we all interact with our kids differently and i wonder if this sends some sort of message.
Aww, queen-of-harts, that made me cry! No matter how many boys or girls I have in the future I'm going to make it my mission to be more tender and touchy with them every day - the difference is subtle, I'm being just a little more patient, cuddling a little more often and I'm a little less likely to say 'never mind, you'll be alright' and to sympathise instead. These are qualities I want them to have (their future wives will be grateful I'm sure!) and it's how I want them to remember their childhoods and what their mummy was like. Aww, I've gone all mushy, I love my boys so much :D
Ladies I am not sure you being cuddly or not towards your boys has anything to do with the maternal dominance hypothesis (which I thought was pretty much proven in animals anyway). If it makes you feel beeter my mother had 3 girls and she was not an affectionate person. I have 2 girls and I go out of my way to be more affectionate towards them because I was missing that from my mother. Also there was a doco that I was watching but can't remember the name. They did this experiment where they left different adults for 5 min with a baby dressed in blue. All the adults were like hello fellow aren't you a tough little boy, look at those big tough cheeks and they were practically throwing him in the air and playing tough with him. Then they got the same baby and dressed it in pink and left the adults with "her." All the adults were like hello beautiful girl aren't you sweet, singing lulaboies to her and cuddling her. In other words we are socialised to raise boys tough and raise girls affectionatelly. Thus, I am sure the fact that you feel you are not very affectionate towards your boys will not stop you from having a girl or will stop you from being affectionate towards her. GL sending you lots of pink dust.Quote:
Originally Posted by zanacal
You know i always said i would be more affectionate when i had kids since my mom was not supper huggy kissy with us but i kinda ended up the same way as she was and here is what i think.My mom is sooo awesome she had 5 kids 3b2g and dealt with my dad who was a cheating fool who would leave my mom for weeks at a time with little food for us and when he did come back he would bring his skank and want my mom to make them something to eat.When he was home he was violent and beat my mom alot and would put us kids against her "who do you love more mommy or daddy? and so i really think my mom was so busy being a parent and making sure she got day to day life accomplished that she never had time to just enjoy being a mom,and now i feel im wrapped up in being busy that i do the same thing but i have a wonderfull husband so that is not a issue.I really am so focused on getting through the day that before you know it the day is over.My kids are very loving and sweet even with each other so i cant be that bad but i do strive to be more affectionate with them.
Thanks Layla - I was talking about a change in myself and how I am which I thought may be related to the diet and supplements I'm taking to try and lower my own T - it may or may not be related and may be real or completely imaginary :D
Hugs queen-of-harts, that sounds so tough x
:HH: to both of you. I meant to add that neither one of you sound to me like you are not affectionate towards your boys. GL with your pink sways I also look at all sorts of things and wonder (or more like it hope) that they are a sign of increased T levels in me. :bigsmile:
Zanacal - I can totally relate to what you're saying. I am a VERY affectionate mum to my two boys...loads of kisses and cuddles. But I can be hard on them too and my patience gets thin fast and I can end up screaming before I know it. Since beginning my supps (well, about a week into them) I noticed a definite shift in my 'demeanor' in terms of being more patient and tolerant. I put it down to the supps working and lowering my T. Not sure if it fits with the hypothesis here but I do recognise a change.
Let's put it down to that together then sassy - positive thinking together :D I'm not sure it's anything to do with this hypothesis either, it's just where the subject came up!
Thanks Layla!
My puter is not working well this morning (hubby infected it with a virus yesterday and I couldn't get it to work at all) and it's taking forever to load up the "reply with quotes" so I'll do it this way.
QOfH said: "I think the stuff like hip ratio and less likely to be divored stuff gets to me because we cant change our hips and most would not divorce just to see if it helped our sway lol and i always wondered and now it seems true that are girl moms just more loving and maternal and all that? Maybe lowering my T will make me more affectionate and mellow? "
Well, you CAN change your W to H ratio through diet and exercise and with the divorce thing, you have to keep in mind that it's not getting a divorce that sways, it's much more likely that the personality of people who are more likely to have boys are just more likely not to divorce. Maybe from sheer stubbornness, who knows??? It's coincidental, not a cause and effect. If you were to get a divorce, you would not suddenly be more likely to have girls, because your fundamental personality would remain the same.
I do not believe for 5 minutes that girl moms are more maternal and loving than boy moms are. I have Grant's book and that really isn't what she's saying at all. According to her research, boy moms were more interactive with their children than girl moms were. The boy moms were constantly initiating interactions with their sons while the girl moms hung back and let their daughters begin the interactions, at which point the moms responded to them. Grant is a mom of 3 boys herself and if anything, her book and some of her conclusions were kinda derogatory to the girl moms and actually left a bad taste in my mouth because of that (which is why I don't go around suggesting people read it.)
My own personal take on this is as follows. (and this is in no way meant to be offensive to anyone.) I do think that there ~may~ be slight differences in the way boy moms and girl moms interact with their kids much along the lines of what Grant observed. I suspect that boy moms are a little more proactive and girl moms may allow their kids more space and opportunities to handle things on their own. But BOTH of those can be good parenting strategies depending on the child.
As those of us who had very controlling parents might attest, having a mom or dad who is really micromanaging every aspect of your day-to-day existence and demanding perfection, can be a bit soul-crushing for a more sensitive kid (and on average, girls tend to be a bit more sensitive than boys do). Whereas with a more self-reliant and confident kid (and on average, boys tend to be a bit more...I don't even have a word to desribe it but it's the opposite of sensitive, yet not "insensitive"), not only do they not put up with too much of that nonsense, but with a real firecracker of a kid, sometimes you NEED to be a little bit OCD with them, constantly monitoring every little thing they do because otherwise they'll get themselves into trouble. It just makes a kind of evolutionary sense for kids that are a little more shall-we-say, labor-intensive (and there are both boys and girls that fit into this category) to have moms that are able to rise to the challenge of that. Otherwise every kid who came along with a penchant for getting into mischief (again, perhaps more likely boys but there are plenty of girls who are high-maintenance as kids and teens as well) would have died before reproducing themselves. Being a mellow mom with a kid who needs a firm hand is just not going to work for that kid.
That DOES NOT mean in any way, shape, or form, that because as Grant puts it, a person is overall better "suited" towards raising a kid of one gender and so those of us with a lot of one gender should just give up and pack it in. I believe with all my heart and soul that the world NEEDS a variety of people and the human race has survived for a million years with kids of both genders being born to all kinds of women. Remember, just because we have more boys or girls on average than some other women do, if we had 10 kids at least SOME of them would surely be opposites. (Remember the Duggars and their 6 boys in a row and now 4 girls in a row...a lot of us are throwing up our hands in the air and thinking we're set for producing only one gender after 2 in a row LOL!!!)
We are all very flexible human beings with a wide repertoire of skills and behaviors in our mommy arsenal and ALL of us are totally capable of tweaking our parenting style in response to a child of different needs. A mom who is maybe a little more passive will find herself rising to the challenge of a more intense kid, and a mom who is a little more in-your-face will find herself backing off if she sees that a sensitive child doesn't respond as well to that strategy. My third son is a spitfire and needs a firm hand sometimes, while my 4th is sensitive and gets upset easily. I find that I respond to DS 4 totally differently than I did DS 3. Different kid, different response. In no way are we only "suited" to raise a kid of one gender or another. That is silly nonsense and I HATE it that Grant sullied her otherwise sound research by drawing a conclusion that is just patently ridiculous.
Oh thank goodness it's working properly now!!! Yay.Quote:
Originally Posted by queen-of-harts
That is EXACTLY what I believe. We tweak our parenting in response to the needs of each individual child and there are plenty of girls who are firecrackers and need a more proactive parent just as there are plenty of boys who are sensitive and need a gentler response. We aren't programmed automatons acting out some ancient script. Parents and kids are two separate human beings interacting with each other in myriad ways.
Please, no one despair over these ideas. They are only that, ideas - the ideas of ONE person and although it is backed up by some interesting research, the conclusions drawn do not necessarily follow (see above post). I honestly think that the world NEEDS girls born to mostly-boy-moms and boys born to mostly-girl-moms!!!
I want to share the story of a "hypothetical" person (she actually exists and some of you will know exactly who it is but I she isn't on this board and I feel weird talking about a friend in the third person without her permission!!! I am sorry but I do think it can help people.:() Anyway this hypothetical person had a son who passed away as a baby and then 7 daughters in a row. Her last daughter is a little spitfire and has temper tantrums non stop and then after dealing with this situation for several months, she got pg again and lo and behold, it was a boy!! So it seems to me well within the realm of the possible that the interactions she had with her last, most difficult daughter, actually may have caused the kind of response that altered her hormones in such a way that she finally was able to conceive a baby boy.
My point is, our bodies respond to the needs of our kids and can even change our hormones according to our children's needs. No one should get frustrated or decide that maybe they don't "have what it takes" because we ALL have what it takes. If we didn't, if we couldn't alter our emotional response to our children depending on their needs, the human race would have died out a long time ago!!!
Well, Grant's research dealt with actual human beings and not animals and she did a lot to differentiate between socialization and actual differences between boy and girl moms.Quote:
Originally Posted by Layla
My q regarding "socialization" is, do people socialize boys and girls differently just for fun/patriarchy or because there are real genetic differences between boys and girls and boys may NEED to be treated like a big boy and girls may NEED a more tender approach??? Couldn't socialization have developed over the ages as a response to the needs of different-gendered children and not because gender is a social construct?
I used to believe that all gender stereotypes were artificial and even bought my older sons a Barbie and she ended up naked on the floor with her head ripped off inside of 5 minutes LOL.
To share my own personal experience, I am a pretty tough mama with very high expectations (too much sometimes) and yet I am still very affectionate..I like to think the affection mitigates the toughness to a certain extent. Even my grown son still hugs and kisses me and my MIL has always remarked on how lucky I am because neither of her kids, son or daughter, is at all affectionate to her. I think that it's partly my own personality and upbringing, but at the same time DS 1 and 3 have always just sort of needed a more firm-yet-loving approach. I really do think there is a chicken-egg situation where we respond to the needs of the child at hand regardless of their gender...it's just that on average, more boys need firmness and more girls need TLC. NO ONE is only suited towards raising a kid of only one gender!!!!
I don't think gender differences are purely a social construct at all, I think it is a mix of both and definitely chicken and egg question. I also tried giving my dd1 boy toys and she would not have a bar of them. Everyhting has to be pink or she will not touch it. DD2 was only 11months when she started admiring and picking flowers, have never seen a little boy do that esp at that age.Quote:
Originally Posted by atomic sagebrush
Honestly atomic I think Grant is offensive. As such I cannot agree with anything she says. I was talking about the other studies mentioned that were looking at animals. I am also tough with my girls even though I am affectionate. All that I was trying to say was that every mum has to be both otherwise they will either walk all over you (if you are not tough) or will turn into psychopaths (if you are not at all affectionate). Parenting is damn hard we all hope we are doing the right thing but who knows. I hope my girls continue to give me hugs when they grow older but who knows. DD1 is only 5 and already I have to remind her to give me hug...
I'm sorry, not trying to imply that YOU thought that gender is a social construct, but I do feel that the researchers who designed that study were trying to prove that gender was a social construct.
I understand that Grant might rub some people the wrong way but data is data and I don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water...her data is valid even though many of her conclusions aren't. Just like the data of the people who did the pink/blue study you mentioned - people really DID treat babies differently based on how they were dressed but their conclusions were off.
Anyway I think we basically agree totally, moms have the potential to raise a child of either gender and it's poopy to suggest otherwise!!
I don't know atomic. I think it is more than the mere conclusions that were wrong about her study. I really don't want to get into an argument with you, but this Grant woman annoys me.
I do agree with you that parents adapt their parenting to the temperament of their child, but I actually disagree with you about girls needing more affection than boys from their mums. Boys are more physically active when little, but intelectually (and here I am talking on average and hope I am not offending anyone) they are much slower and way behind girls. This is why I think boy mums get more active with their boys because they not only need taming but they also need guidance. Girls are stubborn and too clever too soon. My 5 year old already thinks she is smarter than me. I have tried to lead her in her play but she is not interested. She always wants to do something else from what I want to do: "nooo mum not like that, like this.... oooh muuummmm :rolleyes: (which clearly shows she is thinking silly mum)" So I let her lead. Because that is how you raise a girl with self-confidence that will not end up being someone's punching bag I think.
The majority of my friends and family have mixed gender children. Usually GB or BG, a few GBB and one or two GBG. They say this exact thing about their kids. They say their boys love the attention they get from their mums while their girls (especially if there is 2 of them) are always the sneeky trouble makers :-). They always pay more attention to their boys because their boys start talking later, start reading later, start learning math later and it takes them longer to get it. So they need more attention and more guidance then their girls do. They all say that girls are way harder if not impossible to control especially when they get to be teenagers. If girl mums were having it "easy" when the girls were babies, boy do they have it tough when they get to teenage years. You have to be a very tough and strong mum to raise 3 or more girls.
Another thing that I don't like about her study is this new type of blame the parents for everything thinking. There is just way too much of this going on today. I am not talking here about willfully neglectful and abusive parents (and unfortunatelly there is a lot of this going on as well). I am talking about this attitude of blaming hard working parents that are really trying their best to do the best they can for their children. Her "data" showed that boy mums were more controlling and involved in their kids play. So what does she do rather than thinking "or it depends on the temperament of the child" or "it is because girls need more affection (which is what you think)," or "it is because boys need more guidance (which is what I think)," she goes and blames the parents. No it is because boy mums are more domineering and girl mums are more caring. What a bunch of crap seriously. As we both have agreed parents adapt their parenting depending on their child and usually (if they are good caring parents) it has nothing to do with their personality.
About the doco that I was talking about. It was a BBC one and a very good and balanced one. I only told you about one of the experiments that they did, but there were a lot more all of them looking at the development of children from 0-6 years. It did say that gender AND personality AND intelligence were all a mix of genes and socialisation and other external things that happen to the child (for example like the experiment I told you about how adults other than their parents treat them everyday). This is the type of thinking about child raising that I like.
Ok, I think we're getting very far afield here and I just want to state very clearly that this is not boy-moms vs girl-moms, nor do I believe that boys do not need affection from their mothers. I don't think that's what Grant was saying either at the heart of it...I did read her book which was much more in depth than a study, and she went to great lengths to differentiate between dominant and domineering.
It can be hard in the space of a study or even a series of posts to clearly explain what one really believes and thinks. I apologize if I've explained badly or seemed insensitive to either boy moms or girl moms.
Oh and I did want to share with everyone something kinda interesting that happened at church last week. The pastor's wife has 6 girls and then of course I was there with my 4 boys and I overheard her talking to her oldest daugher, who's an adult with kids of her own. Her little girl (the granddaughter of the pastor's wife) had a bag of gumballs and was handing them out to the other kids before the service started so then all the kids in the audience were chawing on a big wad of gum, kinda distracting and I'm sure not good for the cleanliness of the church upholstery either. The pastor's wife asked about the gumballs and what the deal was and then she just sighed and shook her head and told her daughter, "But not at church, baby, not at church!" in a very gentle way and then let it go.
Now if that had been me, I would have responded a lot more harshly than that even to my adult child - but then again I'm not sure I would have even NOTICED the gumballs to begin with or worried about them. I had just read this thread and it made me wonder, is this difference in parenting the reason why we have all girls/all boys or is it a result of raising them for 20 years?? Who knows, but I did think it was kinda interesting.
I have been having the more materal feeling too.... I was very loving, caring, and overprotective mom for DS1. Didn't put him down for the first 6mths, I think mostly because my oldest sis died of SIDs at 1mth and I was afraid of loosing another baby. When DS2 was born I was a little sad so I did put him down more but I still held him a lot. But as he got close to a year old I started to get very sad because I wanted another baby and hubby didn't say anything yet about wanting another baby... In the last few mths I have started to feel more comfortable with that fact that I am planning a baby for once and I really want a girl but if the sway fails then I will be ok with it. I am trying to not fully believing in my dreams yet.
Everyday I have dancing time with the boys, a few exercise video time, several storytimes, our walks, outside playtime and tons of cuddling and kisses. I think that since I started to do research and realize how I got boys I understand and hope changing everything will get me a girl. I feel in control since I am doing everything I can to make my dream happen.
My hubby is a very emotional man... if the boys are hurt and crying he cries too. Everyone that knows him is surprised he has only boys. My boys are 100% boys but they also have a soft side. They have liked flowers and dolls since 9mths old, they hug and kiss each at any given time, and they still roll around and wrestle. I think gender set rolls are closely related to how the parents treat their child... If you give a girl dolls and calm girly toys they are more likely to have a gentle side. If you give a boy cars and tools they are more likely to do boyish things. If you give a child of any gender cars, dolls, play kitchen, tools, and whatever you more likely to see an "actively gentle child".
Gender roles are set by the way parents raise a child... The child will grow into a certain type of adult based on the way they were raised in early childhood! An adult can choose to change a few things about themselves but they have to know what to change... Like me being abused, neglected, and starved I choose what to change and worked at changing it. I see the difference in my parenting to my brothers parenting.
You and your husband sound like fantastic parents purplepoet and I do hope you will get your girl soon.
Atomic I really do not beleive that personality type sways at all. I was being provocative with you on purpose. I am a very careing and attentive mother to my beautiful girls, but I have a job in which agression and being argumentative is part of the position description. So my personality type does not fit this sway thinking. I beleive in the Trivers Willard stuff only from a diet perspective because boy babies need more nutrition to survive the 1st year of life. I do not beleive for a second that a mother is more likely to have boys because she is more controlling or promiscuous or the father is more of a lateral thinker. Or that a mother is more likely to have a girl because she is beautiful or caring. I think all those psychological studies that you have up in the Trivers Willard stuff are a bunch of crap. They stereotype traditional "male" and "female" characteristics in a very patriachal way and they are offensive to all women and men is what I think.
Sorry I think very highly of you and I hope that you do not take this personally as you did not do those studies. But they really struck a nerve with me and personally I do not think they should be publicised anywhere. I find this type of thinking really disturbing and have spent most of my life fighting discrimination.
I really wish you do not put those "studies" up and definitely do not provide any support for them at all, but I do get the feeling that on some level you do. I am sorry if I have misunderstood you. Maybe you are trying to think of a reason why your sway did not result in pink last time and are looking for answers outside of diet. Reading your sway you ate a lot on dtd and O day. My understanding of the Oxford study is that you must eat a lot around the time of ovulation to get a boy and even then it is only 65% chance. So there is still 35% of nature trying to maintain itself in times of good and bad. I do not beleive for a second that your personality or how you were feeling at the time of conception is what made you have another boy at that time. But that is my opinion and I could be wrong.
Keep your fingers crossed for me as I attempted couple of days ago and was not eating as much as I have been on day of O and dtd so I am strongly thinking I will have another girl if I am pregnant at all. I will be thrilled with another girl but disappointed that I and especially my very caring and attentive DH will not experience what it would be like to have a son. For me stress of any kind = less food = girl sway. When I am winning I do not eat because I think aha also I am too busy to eat so I will also look great as well as do great. The association with food is very difficult concept and it is psychological and it is connected to how food makes one feel and this is what sways blue or pink for people is what I think.
Ok, well, we shall just have to agree to disagree on that because I feel strongly that ALL the evidence needs to be looked and and examined!
Wishing you the very best of luck as I do everyone for your sway.
I agree with you that all the evidence needs to be presented, but only evidence that has been empirically conducted and is not based on discriminatory presumptions about human behaviour. For example the promiscuous women have more boys study gave mothers of uni students a diary in which to record their day to day ins and outs. Those that had blanks in their diary were assumed to be promiscuous !!! Is that right did I read that correctly, I am not sure? I will go back and re-read the stuff and present the evidence that I think shows that these studies were not properly conducted and data collection and conclusions drawn were wrong. When I have the time. I will ask my friend who is a psychologist to help me out as well. I will just put the data from time to time in the spot where they are if you do not mind. I think that would be useful. Something to distract myself with in the 2ww.
Btw atomic how cute is your bub. Ohhhh how I want one just like him :kiss:
I hope you are enjoying our :fight: as much as I am. You are a :superhero: you know I think that. You are a caring and loving and passionate person. According to all those awful studies you should have at least 10 girls.
Well, I don't have the time or the means to go through and perform all these studies myself in a manner that I think is best. I'm just throwing 'em out here and then chatting about them, in the spirit of "Could this be true and if so what does it mean for gender swaying" and not in the way that you are apparently taking them. I am SPECULATING and nothing more than that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Layla
If you would like to debunk them, that would be great and actually that's why I wanted this section to begin with - as a place to rationally talk about these studies in a sort of dispassionate way without hurt feelings.
I always enjoy a good scrap and I can fight tooth and nail with a person and then be the best of friends with them the next day, I don't hold grudges or anything like that about anything at all ever. In fact NBP (the site owner) and I were always getting into it on the IG site, occasionally in epic fashion, but I am quite happy to call her friend and have a home here on this fab site she made for all of us.Quote:
Originally Posted by Layla
In the name of honesty I must admit I am not digging the personal comments and if you could take that down a notch it would be very appreciated.
Done with personal comments. I am going through the studies as we speak (when DH is not watching). Have recovered and will keep it all official and "dispassionate" as much as I can while going through why I disagree with those studies.
Also I am not a dr so my observations will be purely from a sociological/anthropoligical perspective with some regard to statistics.
The more I read things the more I wonder if the "problem" is really me, could it be dh? I read high testosterone I don't match that, my dh does lol, I am a mellowed out calm very patient person, I lovey dovey all over my boys until they are old enough to eww and push me away lol I am calm, I never yell, but I am constantly telling dh to chill because he jumps and yells at the boys, the whole gotta toughen them up, don't need to be sissy mumbo jumbo lol their my babies they can whine to mama lol and he dominance take charge kind of person, I am a follower I couldn't lead anything if I wanted to lol he also fits the boy diet perfectly lol so could dh be the problem? And not really me? Or does it have to be me? Am I trying to "fix" the wrong person?
Melinda I have always wondered this too. :think: Both my dh and I have pretty much the same diet though very low testosterone raising type, but still it takes 2 to tango right? Thinking back when both dd1 and 2 were conceived I was doing very well at work. I was promoted just before dd1 and I had a really supportive boss just before dd2 that pretty much let me run my own show. On the other hand DH was having trouble at work before dd1 and was going through a really stressful situation before dd2. Otherwise my DH is very calm, caring, loving considerate person, so that would fit the dad of girls description. One of the first comments that I was going to make about these "studies" is the emphasis on the mother too much. Women always get the blame for everything right? An australian study recently found that children of fathers over 50 had a lower IQ and higher instances of serious mental illness such as bi-polar and schizofrenia. The age of the mother made no imapct on IQ whatsoever. So much for good and bad eggs theory right. I have to find that study and post a link by the way. It might be a good thread discussion to have. I bet there are no other studies like this though as everybody always blames mum.:rolleyes: They should do them though as it is the man with the X and Y sperm not the woman.Quote:
Originally Posted by melinda
Sounds great! Looking forward to reading it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Layla
There was some interesting speculation about this on IG as well which I could not find due to monkeys but it went on for like 12 pages, and there were two trains of thought.Quote:
Originally Posted by melinda
~~~Cannot stress enough that this was speculation and some people's limited observations and not meant to offend anyone.~~~
1) One group of boy moms were married to absolute pussycats and this seemed to support the Maternal Dom. Hyp. The thinking was, in a marriage, it usu. works best (seems like anyway) when one party is a little more in charge and the other party is a little less so. This went along with something that some of us had noticed, that really super macho men in masculine professions tended to have a lot of girls and that could even be taken as evidence in favor of the MDH ~~~IF~~~ their wives were a little less in charge of the relationship accordingly.
2)Some of us (and I fall into this camp) had husbands who are a wee bit more feisty than that and we all had boys too. Like Posh and Becks - "power couples" gag. haha. My husband bosses me around but I'm pretty bossy too (NOT that boy moms are bossy and girl moms aren't - that's just the dynamic in OUR relationship. ;) This would seem to support the MDH as well because even if the woman has someone above her on the totem pole, if she has a high-t personality in her interactions with others, then the net result would still be higher T.
Honestly though, doesn't that cover just about EVERYONE??? ;)
I really really think that aside from dominance this and testosterone that, that it's something INSIDE our bodies that is doing the actual heavy lifting of swaying. So there will always be tons of exceptions and people who don't seem to fit the "rule", it's just that on average, statistically speaking, more women who fit a higher-T profile also tend to have more boys and vice versa. That psychological profile associated with higher-T translates to some biological or chemical event in the body that then sways. So if you have that biological or chemical event happening without having a higher-T profile, you would still have more boys.
PS - Melinda, please don't think of it as having to "fix" anyone. In a more natural living situation like on an African savannah somewhere, these mechanisms worked very well for your ancestors and brought them both boys and girls. I believe that for some of us, modern life with its stresses and easily-available food sources, just 'convinces' our body that we should have kids of all one gender (aside from sheer luck - some of us are just blessed with 4 heads in a row!) These are good, time-tested mechanisms, we just have to learn how to harness them so we don't have to "Duggar-it-out" to get a baby of the opposite gender.
I really don't think anyone is approaching this puzzle out of a desire to "blame" the woman. Rather, they are trying to explain why it is that men can make 50-50 X and Y sperm (which they do - http://genderdreaming.com/forum/show...-X-AND-Y-SPERM!!! ) and yet 140-160 males are conceived for every 100 females (more male fetuses are lost, ending with a ratio of 105-100 or so.). It is perfectly reasonable to investigate female factors in gender determination, even though traditionally the conventional wisdom has held that it's all up to the guys and the luck of the draw, because the data seems to point that way. No one wants to return to the days of Anne Boleyn, they are just following the evidence wherever it seems to take them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Layla
Also, there are deeper reasons why female factors are probably much more important for gender determination than males are. Pregnancy for starters...females, esp. female humans, risk their very lives to have offspring while males make a deposit and leave (or at least they CAN leave even if they choose not to), so it makes more "sense" for females to have some biological mechanism that selects for the gender with the best "shot" to hand down their genes. Male fetuses need more nutrition and are more fragile from day one. So it would be a good "gamble" for a mom in optimal condition with access to ample resources, and/or a mom who is socially dominant and will probably have access to ample resources in the future by virtue of that dominance, to have a boy - he'll eat more and is more likely to die, but if he makes it to adulthood, he has the potential to spread his genes near and far. Whereas a mom with less access to resources and/or who may not have access to resources in the future, it makes more sense for her to have a girl - she eats less and is more likely to survive to adulthood and reproduce, even though she'll prob. only have 2 or 3 offspring. It is a bad "gamble" for a mom to conceive a male fetus only to lose it, expending resources on maintaining a pregnancy that isn't going to make it and even risking her life in the process (I hope it is obvious that animals/humans aren't making these decisions and calculations consciously, it's that some mechanism(s) have evolved in our bodies that perform that function.)
Secondly, most primates live in harems, with one male and several females (and it's reasonable to assume that at one point proto-humans did the same, and those genes have lived on in us and perform some sort of function, even if it isn't identical any longer due to our different living conditions). ALL the babies, boys and girls alike, are all fathered by the same dad, and it's the social structure of the female hierarchy that determines where a particular female falls on the pecking order and what kind of access to resources she has - so there is much more pressure for the female's body to alter gender ratio than the male's body, because he's fertilizing EVERYONE. Why should he have any mechanism to alter gender ratio if he has a lot of opportunity to father both boys and girls?? (not saying he doesn't, just that he doesn't ahve the same motivation as a female who only gets 2 or 3 shots at handing down her genes.)
Thirdly, in this type of harem, the males who aren't able to reproduce kinda just hang out and bide their time, hoping to get a shot as the man in charge. Only the biggest and strongest males (as controlled by diet and testosterone levels!!!) ever get that chance. So again, for a mother who only gets a handful of chances to hand down her genes, if she "wastes" resources conceiving, carrying, and raising a male baby without enough food to allow him to grow up to compete for mates, is a bad gamble. She just has much more motivation for evolving a mechanism to control gender ratio than a male does.
This is equally true even in traditional human societies - older, richer, more established men tend to monopolize the available females, either through true harems, polygamy, or serial monogamy, while young, poor males have to bide their time and accumulate resources (not so much physical size like other primates, but wealth and reputation) before they can even dream of getting a wife. Throughout human history, only 40% of men who have ever lived, reproduced...60% of all human males died without having a single child. Whereas the genes on the Y chromosome of Genghis Khan are present in 8% of all living Asian males and he is believed to have 16 million descendents (he also had a lot of brothers so they were prob. doing major some reproducing themselves.) Genghis Khan's mother gambled on a boy and got a big payoff, because everywhere that Y chromosome shows up, some of her genes are right there as well!!
PS - this is an aside but there are tons of studies out there linking older dads to all kinds of genetic illnesses.
Thanks atomic. All good arguments none of them making me feel good about being a girl mum even though I love being a girl mum and have only ever imagined myself as being a girl mum in the future.
I find the whole Genghis Khan thing disguisting though. I would have hated to be his mum. Maybe there lies my problem?