IamNotCreepy wrote:I think part of reluctance to have women fighters is partly biological.
A society's population is limited by the number of females, but men are pretty much expendable because one man can impregnate multiple women. Other men getting killed in battles reduces competition for the females, whereas women getting killed increases competition.
So from a male perspective, it's beneficial to keep women from combat, unless you're the one getting killed.
That's a very good point. For most of our history, we lived in hunter-gatherer groups of 25 to 50 people, max. That means about half of those are women, and maybe half the women are of childbearing age. You have the future survival of your group depending on 6-12 people, who can only have about 1 baby per year
tops, and for hunter-gatherers, the rate is more like 1 baby every 3 or 4 years because of longer breastfeeding times and a physically stressful lifestyle. Basically, if even one or two women get killed, the group can be screwed. That math could contribute to the strong human bias against putting women in danger.
However, we have things like guns now and our species isn't teetering on the edge of survival from a population perspective, so what was logical in history may not be logical now.
Then the LORD said to me, "Go again, love a woman who is loved by her husband, yet an adulteress, even as the LORD loves the sons of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love raisin cakes."
Hosea 3:1