Did men and women used to have lower sexual dimorphism in ancient times?

69odin420 · 2020-02-23T18:46:23+00:00

We were actually more sexually dimorphic like 100,000 years ago. Men used to be much larger than they are now and women used to be a bit smaller. The evidence for this is fossils as well as observations made about apes. Humans are not and have never been extremely dimorphic compared to many other species, but that doesn’t take into consideration how humans main asset is the brain and it’s impossible to measure the difference in the male and female brain.

Workaholiconew · 2020-02-23T18:58:01+00:00

It was probably a higher dimorphism in some aspects, and lower in some others. Depending on what used to help, and doesn't anymore... and what used to not help, but can help nowadays.

Example 1: there was not as much difference in height between sexes until modern age, because there was a enormous pressure for men to not be much taller or their caloric intake would make them susceptible to malnutrition.

Example 2: On the opposite, there was a fucking enormous difference muscle structure between men and women compared to modern age (look at the ice man, who died in the alps). We are a more sedentary species, so male muscle could become less and less red muscle fiber rich, and get more white muscle fibers (like women). There was not such option previous previously, because such things would make them more susceptible to not get enough to eat.

Example 3: The pelvis opening of modern women are diminishing, the effect of C sections, making women having a walk and posture more reminiscent of men, than previous women.

MagicGainbow · 2020-02-23T22:23:27+00:00

OP...assassins creed is not real life...I would like to quote the film Billy Madison when I say the following;

''What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul. ''

sublimemongrel · 2020-02-23T19:34:27+00:00

I think in terms of a species we are not that sexually dimorphic now but I’m not a biologist so maybe someone who is can tell me if that’s accurate or not

TheonuclearPyrophyte · 2020-02-23T20:59:17+00:00

I've been playing a game called Assassins Creed Odyssey

When you get your beliefs about history from SJW video games

Atlas_B_Shruggin · 2020-02-23T19:22:25+00:00

the opposite, women have grown huger and their faces are more masculinized even since i was young in the 70s-80s

factorfactorfactor · 2020-02-23T18:41:25+00:00

no it was higher

beetlejuicer__ · 2020-02-23T18:59:23+00:00

One fairly big driver of sexually dimorphism is parental investment, but all things considered humans are probably in the lower end spectrum of sexual dimorphism in the animal species. This is because human males also help raise infants, which lowers any evolutionary driver for women to be different. I dont really think we have evolved much from the first large society, (I think its mesothelioma). The reason is there's just not enough time. Human evolution takes hundred thousands years.

I remember reading that basically most hunter gatherer societies were egalitarian. Here's a excerpt from wikipedia. This isn't meant to be a source, it's just to get the general idea across.

Hunter-gatherers tend to have an egalitarian social ethos,although settled hunter-gatherers (for example, those inhabiting the Northwest Coast of North America) are an exception to this rule.Nearly all African hunter-gatherers are egalitarian, with women roughly as influential and powerful as men.

ontherailstoday · 2020-02-23T19:23:43+00:00

People were on average more masculine in the Neolithic... which is admittedly a later time frame than you are thinking of. I quote " "Having reconstructed a lot of Stone Age women and men, I think some facial features seem to have disappeared or 'smoothed out' with time. In general, we look less masculine, both men and women, today."

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2018/01/archaeology-agvi-greek-stoneage-facial-reconstruction/

As for the clothing... the remaining hunter gatherer populations that have memory of their original ways seem to have both men and women wear many similar clothing items because practicality is the most important thing, but the few differences are strictly enforced unless they have a trans class of gender in which case there's different sets of rules for that class too. They sometimes have in place differences that change with "legal" adulthood. The boys might wear a bark flap while the men wear a penis gourd, that sort of thing.

One of the strongest forms of difference in remnant hunter-gatherer cultures seems to be religious/ceremonial. There's "women's business" and "men's business" and the penalty for sharing one with the other or accessing one if you are the other is usually death or banishment or some form of near deadly assault such as a knock on the head with a club or a spear through the thigh.

NockerJoe · 2020-02-23T19:42:19+00:00

Men and women didn't hit puberty until later in life due to nutrition quality. I remember reading that hundreds of years ago it wasn't uncommon for a woman to start her periods in her 20's.

If you get waaaaay back down the family tree to even before we were even hominids sexual dinorphism has been pushed between then and now for the same reasons. As humans developed tools we could get food more easily and those calories meant bigger skulls and bodies even in the womb. Which means you need wider pelvises to deliver that baby and more and more nutritious milk to feed it.

You can say masculine men in the modern era need the same thing. Developing all that manly muscle mass is calorie intensive. When I was lifting seriously I was probably eating over three thousand calories a day and doing activities the human body could do but hadn't quite been specialized in like swimming. Even among hunter gatherer types or prinitive activities you see this where ocean based cultures have people with different builds that are both more masculine and feminine since the ocean yields a lot of nutrient rich foods compared to plains running.

Even to the modern day look at a lot of asian and african countries. Prior generations are smaller with less muscle mass and smaller bust sizes and less muscle. Just look at north vs south korean people.

The default "ancient" person was a small individual who didn't have the extra calories needed to grow into a particularly masculine or feminine person. Even in modern times nutrition and lifestyle alone can account for like a three to five inch height difference between individuals at the extreme end.

Pastelitomaracucho · 2020-02-23T19:57:52+00:00

You are right.

See Shrek and Fiona.

goatismycopilot · 2020-02-23T20:25:38+00:00

I mean chances are you never made it out of your little village unless you were a noble or a soldier pillaging foreign villages. So sure. If you were a hot local girl your father might barter you to a local noble to pay off debt. There was not much choice edit so you ended up with what you ended up with.

rus9384 · 2020-02-23T20:51:59+00:00

Well I think this is a true.

Why?

I like ancient history and I personally think that men and women used to have a similar body shape, height and weight in ancient times, before the industrial revolution in general.

Why do you think that?

Everyone, men and women used to do a lot of physical labour which could give both genders a lean, athletic body with broad shoulders.

Are you kidding? Women were expected to stay at home, looking after kids, cooking, cleaning, knitting, etc. Even among peasants the heavy labor was performed mostly by men.

Also everyone used to wear makeup and bras and high heels did not exist in the past.

Makeup is old as fuck. You are correct on bras and heels part, though.

Because of this I think most women used to be flat chests and natural big breasts was quite rare.

Bras stimulate breast growth? The first time I hear it.

In antiquity men and women used to wear the same kinds of clothing.

Not true as well.

Marketing did not exist

The New Testament gives an example of it existing.

gendered products did not existed

What kinds of?

I also think that masculine and feminine words weren`t used so much as nowadays as well.

If you need to know about gender stereotypes in ancient times you just should read some Aristotle.

I've been playing a game called Assassins Creed Odyssey and Kassandra is athletic and muscular and tall.

Which is reasonable. She is a fighter, after all.

I believe that many women in antiquity and in middle ages had a muscular, and athletic body shape similar to her.

Few women were fighters.

And there are also researchs that shows that naturally most women tend to have a straight up and down figure with small boobs.

What does "straight up and down figure" look like? And source?

Now, to show you the differences between men and women in ancient times.

Not so flat tits.

Venus of Milo probably is closer to what you describe.

However, Ares looks a lot stronger (a small NSFW!).

HerosEnd · 2020-02-23T23:21:05+00:00

Yeah we were a lot uglier

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DangZagnut · 2020-02-23T19:01:04+00:00

Nobility had time for fat, makeup, and body shaping garments. Peasants did not.

When the middle class began becoming bigger, more and more women had time for such luxuries, such as not working in the fields and doing manual labor in favor of less difficult jobs, or poor people were hired to do the crappier jobs. Extra money allowed the ability to promote their daughters to make them more marriageable, whether with fecundity markers (makeup for youth, body shaping clothing for breast and ass), and free time to gain feminine education in the arts and music.

Peasant class? Nope, still in the mud. Fat is still a sign of luxury and over supply. Like, say, fat Americans.

We can blame all the hormone food and such nonsense, but it's still over-abundance and our decadence.

Obesity is still a modern invention for the masses where it was once reserved for royalty and nobility. You could afford to eat two chickens, and not just one.

As time goes by, women are naturally competing, wearing body shaping dresses and fecundity markers and going more and more toward youth, which means less gross manly looks (those gross field workers) and more then look of someone who does nothing, ie, no muscle tone.

Video games made today aren't particular accurate. There weren't a whole lot of woman body builders back then. Peasants looked more like Russian weight lifters. Short, squat, and hairy.

The opposite of what nobility wants to be seen as.

FluffyOstrichegg · 2020-02-23T19:02:07+00:00

I've been playing a game called Assassins Creed Odyssey and Kassandra is athletic and muscular and tall. She is taller than me and she is more muscular than many of the male caracters of the game and she is also more muscular than many of the guys who work out in my GYM. I believe that many women in antiquity and in middle ages had a muscular, and athletic body shape similar to her.

Wallstreet3 · 2020-02-23T19:30:15+00:00

Nope. Looking at remains from Pompeii and Herculaneum, average female height was 155cm (5'1" and Male height was 169cm (5'6"). Everyone would have been lean due to diet and labor. Fatness androgynizes people. Note the modern difference in height between the Sexes is still roughly 5-6 inches.

The Roman Legionairy would have been well-built, at 5'6", 150 pounds for a soldier hardened by drill, exercise and walking isnt out of the question. Broad shoulders, sub 15% bf and six-pack isnt out of the question for them.

Women back then would be lucky to break 100 pounds. So average difference of 50-ish pounds. Again, in keeping with modern differences.

Alot of the Roman Statues, especially 1st century BCE, was very likely your average Roman. 1st Century busts of Ceaser, Cicero et al were known for containing warts and all.

Maybelowsmv · 2020-02-23T20:09:19+00:00

I mean can't people tell the difference between the genders easily from bones ?

TheonuclearPyrophyte · 2020-02-23T22:08:28+00:00

When. Where. Yes. No. It varies through time and space.

I could be wrong, but sexual dimorphism seems tied to population density and related factors. Smaller scattered communities, such as in prehistoric times, are more sexually dimorphic. To a degree. As others have said, differences in bone structure and musculature were more pronounced. But we were both hairier. Women didn't shave as much, men didn't cut their hair so short, until villages began to coalesce into cities. Perhaps to compensate for decreasing sexual dimorphism similar to what we see today.

Many factors at play though, including diet. If anything, men and women eat more similarly than ever before, since the sexes have different nutritional needs and we questioned our instincts much less back in ancient times. Certain foods were also limited by climate and geography prior to advances in relevant technologies, so that should be considered when discussing dietary effects of the history of sexual dimorphism. Ancient Greece is a very tiny sliver of the human story.

akihonj · 2020-02-23T22:27:21+00:00

So you're partly correct in the sexual dimorphism aspect.

First don't use video games as a lense for history they aren't meant to be seen like that.

Second Roman women and men did have gendered clothing along with clothing styles for rich and poor and free people and slaves, they all had clothing that determined their social status, Roman women would also paint their lips red, to mimick their vulva, they even shaves their legs and arms.

While you're correct about the food in most parts, you also have to understand they didn't have preservatives that prolong food as well as freezing and refrigeration so food poisoning and death from eating food that was bad was also common.

Now as for body shape, I think that you are correct mostly because men and women worked together, they had little choice but so did children and they would be working the fields with parents too.

However as for fat deposits on the body well again that was a status thing, Roman times right through to the rennaicance a healthy woman was larger and more rounder, called chubby or thicc now. That was a sign then of rich diet and ability to eat well. This has changed now that less fat and healthier eating and thinner body is the sign of wealth because it takes wealth to maintain the diet and gym membership etc.

The reference you made to men wearing quite feminine clothing, I assume that you mean Elizabethan era where it was common to wear heels for both men and women but you need to understand this would be for town people who again we're wealthy enough to afford those shoes and this was to enable them to keep their feet literally out of the shit as human waste was empties into the street. Also again the idea you put forward of gendered clothing isn't actually correct as men would wear frilly clothing yes but women would often wear dresses and gowns while men would wear thick tights often made from wool again this was a functional purpose for warmth and less about being fashionable as heating in the home was largely by fire.

felis_magnetus · 2020-02-24T04:53:26+00:00

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Museum_of_Anatolian_Civilizations_1320259_nevit.jpg

From one of the earliest urban centers of civilization, pretty much tanks your thesis.

PrincepsOmni · 2020-02-24T07:03:10+00:00

Before the advent of hormonal birth control women were far more likely to select more masculine males for paring with.

Capable, strong men (of mind and/or body) were far better equipped to be able to produce surplus resources needed for family survival. There was zero welfare, the world was dangerous, outsiders were a risky proposition - people NEEDED each other directly....you knew the man who herded or farmed, you knew the woman who weaved, you were probably related to half the people who provided your material needs...hyper-individualism would be maladaptive and result in less prosperity or even exile/death. Picking capable men was crucial for survival for most women...

Add massive amounts of natural selection in a much harsher world where males who were not strong and tenacious simply wouldn't survive long enough and it's likely that sex differences where even more pronounced in the past. Gender roles didn't come about to oppress women - they came about to shield women from danger to ensure more babies would be born and survive. A group could lose many men and still continue. If it lost man woman it was finished and would die off or be taken over by other groups.

Even in the modern era males are still bigger on average, with denser muscle mass and bone structure. Most of our common attraction markers are based on evolutionary markers that indicate genes likely to result in survival. Smarter, stronger and/or more socially and tenacious/confident men tend to be more attractive to wider variety of women. Younger, healthier women tend to be more attractive to a wider variety of men (purely because they are going to be more fertile)...the game of passing on genes doesn't give a crap about our personal feelings or modern sensibilities.

This is before we even look at brain differences between the genders.

Suki100 · 2020-02-24T07:55:39+00:00

Sugar and Estrogen are everywhere and wreaking havoc on mankind. Birth control pills get released into our water through urine. Sugar impact can even found in nature and animal life. No matter what filtration system is being used, we are all ingesting lots of estrogen and sugar.

I don't think there is an immediate solution. I have traveled to countries where people are naturally slim, regardless of race (West Africa, Asia, C. America). People who don't have sugar or estrogen in their food or water supply have a much more normal physique.

Whereas in the US, go visit any Walmart, mall or grocery store and all that you see are bloated people. Not necessarily fat or obese, but they look stuffed. This is now apparent in people of all races. I can tell a black American from an African or an Asian American from a tourist based on the body type. I can look at a white woman and tell that she is European just based on the shape of her midsection. The US has a very toxic, cancer-laden food and water supply. It is an uphill battle even with exercise.

richlad · 2020-02-24T12:58:31+00:00

My grandmother (6'3) was taller than my grandfather (5'10)

She was also twice as wide but not fat! She used to drink and smoke and do stuff like getting firewood from woods - about 20-25kg backpack of wood to some 3km from hilly forest to village. And lugging water from 1km waterfall 10liter pack.

At the farm both of them did labor together. My grandmother lived much longer and she definitely did twice the labor as my grandfather.

Men in the village were thin and tall, women short and wide but many women were as tall as men but much wider than men. Men spent considerably more time playing cards and drinking.

About the look, yes women of that time looked more musculine to the point that I am not attracted to any girl their village. City girls are very feminine looking to me even the ones who men say are musculine looking are much less musculine that what we have in our village.

The only time they looked feminine was when they were below age 18.

2020-02-24T14:41:36+00:00

Whey you Said boates you mean they have more water attention or more muscle mas than the avetage person who live in other countries? I live in Brazil and I had never went to US.

grand_tiremaster · 2020-02-25T02:44:02+00:00

From all the fertility statues I’ve seen in museums, I think we used to be more sexually dimorphic. Like.. those things have HUGE boobs and wide hips. They also appear to present women as being smaller, perhaps shorter than women are today.

CatchPhraze · 2020-02-23T20:10:21+00:00

A lot of the things you listed are environmental factors. Dimorphism is largely gene based.

Title	Did men and women used to have lower sexual dimorphism in ancient times?
Author	SabrineCrystal
Upvotes	12
Comments	75
Date	February 23, 2020 6:40 PM UTC (6 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/f8dn3q/did_men_and_women_used_to_have_lower_sexual/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/did-men-and-women-used-to-have-lower-sexual.339974 https://theredarchive.com/post/339974

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