Female Supremacy Articles - Page 29

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One of the shortcomings of any system of men sitting in front of screens making financial bets was reported last year in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior, in case you missed your copy. That study found that men are particularly likely to make high-risk bets when under financial pressure and surrounded by other males of similar status.

As for women, their risk-taking was unaffected by this kind of peer pressure.

The study’s authors point to an evolutionary hangover. Across cultures, women prefer high-status men, while a woman’s reproductive prospects depend much less on her social status. Thus, when men of similar status gather, they jockey for an edge and jostle for the alpha role — and try to get ahead with high-stakes gambles.

On the plus side, boasting about these financial bets might make a great pickup line. On the downside, the bank goes bust.

A greater gender balance could reduce some of these unhelpful consequences of male herding. After all, we also saw some unexpected gains from the balance resulting from women’s suffrage.

Skeptics have noted that the first president elected after women got the national vote was Warren Harding — an embarrassment to female voters ever since. Yet a remarkable study published recently in The Quarterly Journal of Economics by Grant Miller of Stanford University indicates that female voters did have a profound and positive impact.