A long quote from the Joan Roughgarden book.
If social evolution results from complex nonlinear dynamics, then phenomena like sex-role reversal, which Darwin noted in passing, are not so anomalous. A common feature of nonlinear systems is the presence of alternative multiply stable attracting states......
When we focus on social life as a continual exchange of control over resources to reproduce, then complex multigendered societies are not anomalous. The genders emerge as occupational categories, with gendered symbolism to signal occupational roles in bringing about matings, raising young, or tending resources, much as a worker's uniform does in human society. The payment for services rendered is in terms of increased opportunity to reproduce. While some genders reach a market-based accommodation of their needs, others linger on the outside of their political economy, taking the opportunity to reproduce by force and aggression. Social violence is not nature's baseline state, but a special case of failing to strike a successful bargain in an animal society's marketplace for access to reproductive opportunity. (177)
I like the part about the worker's uniform signifying occupational categories. I always suspected my boobs were like a permanently attached mechanic's jumpsuit.
The "social selection" parts are often about homosociality i.e. that (go with me to the roller rink or the mall food court for a minute) boys are attracted to girls who are popular with other girls, and vice versa.
Girl-dicked spotted hyenas, horny hooded warblers, and writhing homosocial nest-balls of rattlesnakes... the metaphors of sociobiology are shaky... but her point is that everyone else's science is filtered through their metaphors and so here are some other ones.
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