Originally Posted by
Peterski
As for "just nature" argument:
In a natural state of the human condition, humans are hunter-gatherers and live primitively, constantly threatened by bad weather, hunger, and so on. In such conditions, men as the stronger gender have naturally higher status than women because they are better hunters (and meat was the gold of the Upper Paleolithic world), while women - as the weaker and more vulnerable (especially during pregnancy) sex - have a naturally lower status than men. There is no such thing as a "strong independent woman" in Paleolithic world.
So in a primitive society every man - except handicapped or sick ones - has by definition higher status than every woman.
And during the last 100,000 years, humans lived in such societies for 90,000 years, as agriculture was invented only 10,000 years ago and civilization started even later.
And now to the point - please note that there is nothing at all "natural" about civilized society, it is an entirely man-made construct.
And some aspects of civilization are incompatible with human nature (meaning that our natural instincts are destructive for our progress and threaten our civiluzation).
For example, equality of the sexes is such a noble idea invented by our civilization, which contradicts the primeval, natural condition of humans, in which women are dependent on men for survival and protection.
Today we have affirmative action for women (for example gender employment quotas for high-paying jobs - some employers are required to hire 50% women 50% men, to pay them equally, and so on), which means that the status of women is improving and approaching that of men. This is only possible thanks to a highly civilized society.
This gender equality is of course contradictory to the conditions in which our species evolved, in which women were not independent.
If there is a "gold digger istinct", it emerged as an adaption to Upper Paleolithic world, when women had to enter relationships with men to survive, and only a small minority of men (the ones with serious sickness or disability) had lower status than any woman.
Today the status of women on average is similar to the status of men on average.
What it means is that an average woman who lived 20,000 years ago perceived 90% of men as having higher status than herself. So it was veru easy to find a higher status boyfriend in the Uppper Paleolithic, because every caveman had a higher status than every cavewoman, simply because of better hunting abilities.
Today with gender equality, most women will not be able to find partners who have higher status than themselves, simply because their own status has improved so much compared to prehistory.
So if a woman submits to this primordial "meat digger" (as I said, meat was the gold of Upper Paleolithic) instinct, it means there is a high chance that she will never find a partner good enough for her own perception, and she will end up as a bitter 45 year old spinster with cats. Her lineage will get extinct and she will be a dead end of evolution (will not pass her DNA to future generations).
To sum up, gold digger mating strategy is natural but that's exactly why it is being condemned in our unnatural, civilized world. This strategy belongs to human prehistory, and it is counter-productive (destructive for society) in a world in which we are trying to elevate the status of women as a gender through equal rights and affirmative action.
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