# What if women evolved to be taller and stronger than men (on avg)? (novel research)



## shivanib

Hey all!

I'm writing a sci-fi novel on the premise that our world was shaped by one simple difference in human evolution:

Female hormones made women, on average, taller and stronger than men.

Nothing else changes (women still give birth, men still have testosterone (it just doesn't contribute to height and strength), etc). 

And my question to the forum (which I've been marinating on for some time for my world-building research) is what would the world look like today if that was the case?


Some things that have come up as I've been discussing this with other friends and thinking about it myself:
- Perhaps women would have been hunters; men would be child-rearers
- Perhaps families would be more community oriented rather than nuclear (this is already the case with many cultures)
- Perhaps birth control would be men's onus, not women
- and others...

Thoughts from you?

Thanks in advance for all your input!! And apologies if this is me posting in the wrong place. I'm new to the community!


----------



## Jigawatt

The women would eat the men after mating.


----------



## LeeC

Jigawatt said:


> The women would eat the men after mating.


One of many possibilities, as the men might be more useful as protein after fertilization.

Actually there are many reasons for such in the natural world.

Females are larger in many species of insects, many spiders, many fish, many reptiles, owls, birds of prey, certain mammals, and some plant species. 

Research into other life forms would give you many realistic ideas, since we're just a mostly morphological variation of physical life.


----------



## Mutimir

Wait...birth control isn't men's onus? Guys are you that stupid? Wow.


----------



## K.S. Crooks

In early human history- as long as women still have babies men are a safer choice for being hunters to maintain or increase the population. Women would still need to stay with nursing infants. As time passes what should be different is the community type of thinking and structures. Governments, religious hierarchies and family units would be more balanced or become female dominant. Violent crimes against women would be lower since women could not be seen as weak. Would crimes of women against men increase, perhaps. And perhaps men would be fighting against the glass ceiling for promotions and equal pay. There would be a majority of female sports leagues, astronauts, explorers, action heroes and the like.


----------



## afk4life

Mutimir said:


> Wait...birth control isn't men's onus? Guys are you that stupid? Wow.



Uhm, yeah I agree with that. Ask any teenager who's pulled out when he thought it was soon enough how much that f'd up both their lives when it wasn't quite soon enough.

We're kinda living in a post-traditional-gender role world so I'm not sure the story works. We all know women can do basically anything men can, yeah there's sometimes strength issues but shorter people figure out other ways to get things done. Your other points just don't quite make sense. Lots of guys raise kids on their own, and lots of teenagers get more community and family from their friends than they ever got from their official parents. The whole nuclear family thing blew up a long time ago (no pun intended). It was all based on a sexist ideal to begin with. And I really could care less about the person leading my country's bits as long as they're a good leader.

It's likely gonna come off as well as _Rush Hour_ TV show that basically pissed everyone off for being racist in 2016 when it was based on a movie tradition that was one of the highest grossing of the late 90s and early 2000s.

If you wanna shake the earth maybe marinate in what it would be like if genders were obsolete and the world was transgender and the people that identified cis were discriminated against. Check out the movie_ White Man's Burden _(even those agree with me this is a must-watch).


----------



## Mutimir

A post-traditional-gender world? I'm pretty sure we are not there yet. The whole wage gap sort of nullifies that argument.


----------



## Sam

shivanib said:


> Hey all!
> 
> I'm writing a sci-fi novel on the premise that our world was shaped by one simple difference in human evolution:
> 
> Female hormones made women, on average, taller and stronger than men.
> 
> Nothing else changes (women still give birth, men still have testosterone (it just doesn't contribute to height and strength), etc).
> 
> And my question to the forum (which I've been marinating on for some time for my world-building research) is what would the world look like today if that was the case?
> 
> 
> Some things that have come up as I've been discussing this with other friends and thinking about it myself:
> - Perhaps women would have been hunters; men would be child-rearers
> - Perhaps families would be more community oriented rather than nuclear (this is already the case with many cultures)
> - Perhaps birth control would be men's onus, not women
> - and others...
> 
> Thoughts from you?
> 
> Thanks in advance for all your input!! And apologies if this is me posting in the wrong place. I'm new to the community!



Unless you're planning to invert the structure entirely and swap men's bodies with women's, your premise is not going to work for the simple reason that you're preceding on the flawed assertion that testosterone is the sole reason why men are stronger, on average, than women are, on average. This isn't the case at all. Men are stronger for numerous reasons. 

They have a higher basal rate of metabolism, allowing them to consume more calories, and much more of their calorific intake is converted into muscle. They have bigger hearts and lungs, which allows them to do physical labour longer. They have 20% more red blood cells, which supply oxygen, in their bodies, allowing them to tire less quickly than women. They have higher circulating clotting factors, leading to a faster healing of wounds and a higher peripheral pain tolerance. Their bodies are specifically designed for strength and endurance, which is why men, on average, are better athletes and hold better records in sports than women. 

But all of that comes with a price. Men have a higher incidence of death in every known disease except two: disorders related to female reproduction, and breast cancer, which are two diseases they cannot contract. They have a much higher tendency to high blood pressure. They die younger. They are more prone to arthritis and other bone disorders. Their higher basal rate of metabolism changes as they get older, transferring less of the calorific intake into muscle and more of it into fat, making them prone to obesity and obesity-related issues in old age. 

As much as women can aspire to in this age, and that list in virtually endless, there is no escaping the fact that their bodies are anatomically designed to give birth. They have shorter legs, a longer trunk, larger kidneys and liver, not because of lack of testosterone but because their bodies are designed that way to allow the birthing of children. It's not as simple as "let's give women more testosterone than men and they'll be taller and stronger than men". Not unless they have the exact same attributes and physical makeup as men. 

So unless you're going to invert the entire physical constitution of men and women in your story, it's not as simple as giving women testosterone, anymore than giving men oestrogen will make them less stronger. Men are physically stronger than women because their bodies are designed to promote physical strength.


----------



## Annoying kid

Men's lives would be seen as even more expendable than our history has displayed. Be it in battle,  work, or crime.


----------



## JustRob

Those sex magazines probably wouldn't be on the top shelf in newsagents. Hey, details are important!


----------



## Patrick

The men would favour the more feminine women, who would therefore have more children, and the women would gradually return to the norm.

But that aside, how would the women hunt during the months of their pregnancy? What would the men have to gain by child-rearing opposed to looking for their next conquest? Male promiscuity would, by nature, force women into child-rearing. Why would the men care about birth control in a community-based family where the women are the hunter-gatherers (not the man's mouth to feed)? They'd be quite happily lazing and sexing, I would suggest. It would pretty much be the worst culture on the planet.


----------



## TWErvin2

It has been stated above some of the physiological differences, such as red blood cell count, skeletal structure differences, etc.

Just a few semi-scattered thoughts on the topic to consider:

I think that you would need to look at it from a natural selection angle. What advantage would there be for females to be larger than males. What examples might there be in nature that could parallel it.

Consider that if the females were larger and stronger (maybe not necessarily more athletic) they would have far more input into who would father their children, their genetic investment in the next generation. In many cultures today, women have a lot of input as to their spouse and/or sexual partners.

But also, with increased size, comes the need for more caloric intake for example, which could be a disadvantage in times of famine. As technology advances, size has less of an impact. Expertise with a sword, or the creation of firearms sort of balances the field.

Might increased size in women have been selected for, as in if they are the who select the males...might they compete with the other women for first choice, and the larger and more physically dominating women would pair off with the most successful/athletic/cunning or smart males? That sort of culture or such could be created, and have an impact that lingers as technology advanced.


----------



## SilverMoon

> Originally Posted by* shivanib  *
> 
> 
> 
> - Perhaps women would have been hunters; men would be child-rearers



What first came to mind.

Fact: The Seahorse. The female enters the male's smaller territory for an elaborate mating dance resulting in his gestation period, giving birth. Keeping to your notion of the physically taller, stronger female would this not give more room for the Speculative in anthropomorphizing them?  Here's a real gender bender.

Would their children have a genetic mutation? Would they wander the world aimlessly (as the seahorses immediately abandon their offspring)?  What would this world look like? So many more possibilities for the "What if?"


----------



## Harper J. Cole

TWErvin2 said:


> I think that you would need to look at it from a natural selection angle. What advantage would there be for females to be larger than males. What examples might there be in nature that could parallel it.



Yes, well said. *Shivanib*, you could really have fun with this. Why didn't men evolve to be hunters? How different must the world have been for that to happen? If women were both the child-bearers and the fighters, what would the male role have been instead? Quick and nimble, or cerebral thinkers, or just drones for mating, as with bees?

In the modern day, which subtle instances of sexism would be reversed? Would there be any barriers to abortion if our main religions had been written by women? It might be worth your while asking for input from feminist discussion boards as well.

HC


----------



## Crowley K. Jarvis

TWErvin2 said:


> I think that you would need to look at it from a natural selection angle. What advantage would there be for females to be larger than males. What examples might there be in nature that could parallel it.



Spiders. >:} 

And many other creatures also have larger females.

If they evolved to be stronger, the definition of beauty and what's considered attractive in a female, as well as social roles would be reversed or severely different for all of recorded history. 

How exactly, none could say. 

But theorizin and writing about it in fiction is very fun indeed.


----------



## Patrick

There's very little viability in Amazon, hunter-gatherer women with child-rearing men. Since we're social creatures, it hardly makes sense to use spiders as a template for the "strong woman", "puny man" concept. Because humans have large brains, human babies are born with very tiny, vulnerable bodies, which means they cannot be left lying around because mum has to go and hunt some deer, and since men can't breastfeed them and don't have the same instincts as a woman toward children, they could hardly be pushed onto the men (and certainly not if they form part of the women's diet).


----------



## Sakura

There's a tribe in Africa [Aka tribe] where the women actually do the hunting & the men care for the children. They won't be the only society where the men's role is about as "macho" as well glorified babysitters. 

Nor where women have a serious role, google the Gladiatrix. There are still very matriarchal societies in so-called "backwards" countries which don't suffer some hangup that women are damsels in distress who can't do something rather masculine without bursting into tears.

None of these women are hulking Amazonian brutes that can bash a guy's head in with a single punch if he gets out of line. Nor are these female growing beards, extensive muscles, and not all are  dog backside ugly. The Mosuo in China for example, the Ryukyuan of Japan still are to degree, the Hopi Indians, etc., etc., etc.


Not only that but scientists have been finding our ancestors evenly divided hunting [or modern male-dominant] roles between male & female due to the simple fact they didn't have the numbers nor the luxury of sitting on their backsides waiting for "he-man" to bring the chunk of mammoth back home for the fires. 


Google some of these societies. They aren't aliens. They don't require bizarre hormones, etc.


----------



## shivanib

Thank you all for the input thus far!!

Great stuff--especially loved the additional science lessons Sam! 

I'll definitely take that all into consideration as I create. I'm not planning on switching testosterone/estrogen, simply changing some physical rules (as my right as the creative writer). As is the case with a lot of science fiction, I'm not trying to be completely accurate here--I studied evolution myself back in the day and I completely understand that natural selection usually meanders in the direction of making a species the most successful (and by that, I mean proliferate) it can be. I'm not saying this could've been possible (or if so, likely), I'm simply trying to create a world and a story to prove a point and explore a different approach to opening minds and breaking down stereotypes. 

I'm definitely taking notes so if anyone else has thoughts, do let me know! Lovin' the community input!


----------



## Jim Erlandson

Whats the name of your novel and could you send me a link it would be interesting to read


----------



## ppsage

Probably hunting would have been easy for women because the men would evolve into bait.


----------



## andrewclunn

I envision more of a queen structure where the alpha woman only mates and the men and other non-reproductive women are the workers.


----------



## Jack of all trades

Sakura said:


> There's a tribe in Africa [Aka tribe] where the women actually do the hunting & the men care for the children. They won't be the only society where the men's role is about as "macho" as well glorified babysitters.
> 
> Nor where women have a serious role, google the Gladiatrix. There are still very matriarchal societies in so-called "backwards" countries which don't suffer some hangup that women are damsels in distress who can't do something rather masculine without bursting into tears.
> 
> None of these women are hulking Amazonian brutes that can bash a guy's head in with a single punch if he gets out of line. Nor are these female growing beards, extensive muscles, and not all are  dog backside ugly. The Mosuo in China for example, the Ryukyuan of Japan still are to degree, the Hopi Indians, etc., etc., etc.
> 
> 
> Not only that but scientists have been finding our ancestors evenly divided hunting [or modern male-dominant] roles between male & female due to the simple fact they didn't have the numbers nor the luxury of sitting on their backsides waiting for "he-man" to bring the chunk of mammoth back home for the fires.
> 
> 
> Google some of these societies. They aren't aliens. They don't require bizarre hormones, etc.



The Aka tribe was more traditional until recently, so that's a poor example.

I question the claim that our ancestors shared hunting.  Also, the women did MUCH more than "sit on their backsides babysitting". Traditional women cooked, made pottery, made clothes, saved food for lean times (drought or cold), and planted for the next growing season.


To answer the question, one has to think carefully about *why* the women are taller. There would have to be a real reason for those who are tall to have more children than those who are short.


----------



## Jack of all trades

andrewclunn said:


> I envision more of a queen structure where the alpha woman only mates and the men and other non-reproductive women are the workers.



Why? That's actually going to result in weak genetics for the colony. Think King Tut.


----------



## andrewclunn

Jack of all trades said:


> Why? That's actually going to result in weak genetics for the colony. Think King Tut.



Large broods + unimpeded natural selection does a wonderful job of preventing inbreeding from causing long term problems.


----------



## Jack of all trades

andrewclunn said:


> Large broods + unimpeded natural selection does a wonderful job of preventing inbreeding from causing long term problems.



Size of the brood has no impact on inbreeding. In a beehive, the queen does not mate with her drones, because that would be mating with her own offspring (inbreeding). I forget if it's the queen, drones, or both who go out to mate. No matter which, I'm having difficulty imagining humans having that kind of lifestyle.

Also, for bees, all females hatch as workers. Certain ones are fed a special diet that enables them to develop into queens. The queens then have a winner takes all fight to be the queen of the hive. How would it work for humans?

Is this supposed to be here on Earth, or some distant planet?


----------



## Winston

Death by Snu-Snu:


----------

