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'''Bateman's Principle''' is a principle in evolutionary biology which states that there is greater variance (or inequality) in reproductive success among males than females. | '''Bateman's Principle''' is a principle in evolutionary biology which states that there is greater variance (or inequality) in reproductive success among males than females. That is, there are few males who have lots of offspring, but some males produce none (high variance), whereas nearly all females reproduce, each with a similar number of offspring (low variance). | ||
There is debate as to whether this principle holds true across the animal kingdom as a whole, or only under certain conditions in some species, however there is strong evidence that the principle holds for humans, as well as a variety of other species like birds and even certain kinds of fungi. Moreover, the latest large study from 2016 did find a significant effect across many animal species, including humans<ref>Janicke, T., et al. 2016. ''Darwinian sex roles confirmed across the animal kingdom.'' [[https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1500983 Abstract]]</ref>. | |||
Bateman suggested that females have greater ''parental investment'' because the production of eggs is more expensive than the production of sperm and the offspring has higher dependence on the mother. Males, on the other hand, can produce millions of sperm cells with little cost and can get away with reproducing with lots of females as they do not need to care for the offspring as much. Females are thus the limiting factor in reproduction rate, causing men to become less choosy (promiscuous), to have a high sex drive and to compete in order to gain copulation opportunities. Promiscuous males, in turn, cause females to be choosy to avoid a mate of low genetic quality, exaggerating the effect. The result is that females reproduce much more reliably and few (alpha) males have a disproportionally high reproductive success. | |||
One expression of female choosiness in humans is [[hypergamy]], i.e. the tendency that women prefer men of higher education, social or economic status. The differential parental investment can explain why men have a higher cumulative demand for sex and hence why male incels outnumber female incels, e.g. social psychologist Roy Baumeister wrote about the ''Tragedy of the Male Sex Drive:'' | |||
{{Quote | |||
|Given the mismatch between men's and women's desires, most men are doomed to experience chronic sexual frustration. […] [Men] are doomed to be horny. | |||
|Roy Baumeister<ref>Baumeister, R.F. and Bushman, B., 2010. Social psychology and human nature, brief version. Nelson Education.</ref> | |||
}} | |||
==Increased Intensity== | ==Increased Intensity== | ||
Nagle | Academics such as scholar [[Angela Nagle]] and sexologist [[Kristin Spitznogle]], and others such as [[Roger Devlin]] argue that imbalance in reproducive success has intensified recently, largely a result of [[Feminism|female sexual liberation]]. | ||
==Proof== | ==Proof== | ||