RPS coverage of Sexism, Misogyny

[gamer0004]

Hey all,

I wanted to hear your opinion on some stuff that's been bothering me the last week. I am a daily Rock, Paper, Shotgun reader and I like their focus on PC gaming and generally interesting sidestuff.
Last week however, there have been a few posts that both surprised and disturbed me. Most importantly: one post about the wage gap in the game industry and then a second post about misogyny and RPS's stance on that.

Now, I've seen this debate pop up more or less in OVER 9000 of internet forums. I don't want to repeat the discussion here (which can be summarised as "sexism is a huge problem and anyone who does not agree with full conviction is a misogynist bastard" versus "men are discriminated as much as, or even more than, women and any man who argues otherwise is a white knight and traitor") but I am kind of worried and annoyed at how even a website like RPS is tackling this. I like to think they are generally an agreeable and intelligent bunch. However, when I see a post like the one about the wage gap I'm not so convinced. The journalist writes with an indignant tone about the wage gap between men and women in the game sector: "It’s despicable, and the only valid response is for those in senior positions at publishers and developers to not pretend it isn’t them, to look at their own figures, and to rectify discrepancies."

Now, this wage gap thing is rubbish. The facts are the facts, but they are meaningless and certainly do not point to sexism in any logically sound way (note that I am not arguing that there is no sexism, merely that the reasoning in this coverage is extremely flawed). As is well known (at least in the labour economics literature), pay depends on many factors, not just on job position. Pay depends besides the position on education, experience, the number of consecutive years of employment, the length of employment with the current employer, whether one maintains a family, whether one works full-time or part-time (part-timers earn less per hour) and some other "weird" factors (beautiful people earn twelve percent more than people with below-average looks; a 1% difference in tallness corresponds to a 1% increase in wages). Basically, many of these factors are to the advantage of men, which shrinks the actual wage gap tremendously. There have been several studies which typically point to a residual (i.e. unexplained) wage gap of between two and seven percent.
To conclude that the remaining wage gap of between two and seven percent is due to sexism (even if much smaller than suggested by RPS) is still completely misguided. There are many variables left which are difficult to measure: one is sexism (which is illegal and hence difficult to determine), but others include obvious factors like negotiation motivation and negotiation skills and the variables like attractiveness, tallness and family, which are often not included in research. This means that it is possible that these factors have no effect and that there is a full two to seven percent sexism effect. Or that the effect may be fully attributable to other factors like negotiation. Or that other variables may in fact positively affect the position of women, but sexism has a much larger effect than seven percent which negates this advantage.
TL;DR: wage gaps don't tell us anything about sexism.*

The comment section, for obvious reasons, exploded (500+ comments). Many pointed out the huge flaws in the reporting. Overall, I think people were commenting in an intelligent and well-mannered way. There was some discussion as well, which is always good. The writer of the article only responded to one dick who blamed him for being a white knight with "fuck off". No response to the huge body of intelligent discussion pointing out the flaws in his logic. I find that very disappointing from someone who claims to be concerned about this issue. After all, to actually get somewhere you need intelligent intercourse, correct? Closing the comment thread below the other article is very disappointing as well.

I consider this to be a larger societal problem. Of course, feminists** often the wage gap to attack sexist attitudes in our society. Which is woefully unscientific.
But this is not just an issue of feminism. Take global warming, for example.***
Activists have long decried the ties of some scientists to oil companies, which, they argue, means the research is biased and unreliable. There is something to say for that of course, though as long as researches stick to scientific standards their research is not necessarily worthless. They have attacked the whole right-wing campaign against global warming, of which discording research is but one part. To be honest, I think that the thing that hurt climate science the most is rather the activity of such activists. Consider, for example, Al Gore's "An inconvenient truth". It is, of course, the most famous source of information for laymen on global warming.

It is also rubbish.

For much of the documentary, he is merely sensationally suggesting lots of misery. He spends but a small part of the time explaining global warming and why it is actually happening. He shows how tightly correlated CO2 levels have been throughout history to temperatures. He then get a hydraulic lift and goes all the way up to show just how high CO2 levels are right now. Shocking!
Except for the fact that, considering just how tightly correlated temperature and CO2 levels are, his graphs suggest we should already be frying. And then there is the extremely basic rule of statistics: correlation is not causation, which he does not discuss.
He also suggests that 100% of all scientists agree that global warming is a thing. Which is the kind of agreement only found in dictatorships like North-Korea and hopefully not in science which relies on disagreement, criticism, and replication of results.
So, anyone who is mildly intelligent will have to acknowledge that "An inconvenient truth" is garbage. But it raises a very important question. These ideas are presented as an accurate depiction of current ideas and consensus in climate science. If this is the best the "global warming side" has to offer, then how bad must be the state of climate science?

The thing is, the internet allows people to talk about these things. Many people are not familiar with statistics, although some may feel intuitively that correlation does not prove anything, but with the advent of the internet they have a wealth of knowledge to rely on in determining Mr Gore's reasoning is indeed completely unsound.
The same is true for statistics on the wage gap. Organisations that want to change something cannot rely anymore on spouting bullshit which shocks and may convince laymen for a short while, because there is a mass of sometimes intelligent and knowledgeable, sometimes ignorant, people who can convincingly and without any difficulty pinpoint these flaws. They're actually making their case much weaker, because if the "science" behind these theories is so woefully unscientific, then why should we attach importance to these ideas? Of course, it is usually not actually the scientists themselves who present their ideas like this, but activists claim to present the scientific consensus.

What do you think? Are activists (and journalists trying to do good) actually doing more bad than good when taking a more activist stance and presenting meaningless information as proof in important issues?

Also, I said I don't want to get into the debate whether sexism is happening. But I would like to express my opinion that the hostility to women is there but should not be treated separately because it is simply the result of a bigger issue, which is the lack of refinement or class in the whole gaming community. Just think of the hostility towards other minorities as well, the large number of action/shooting/xplosiun games compared to the small number of games that deal with more complicated human issues (which is partly the result of the complicated nature of such issues, but the industry hasn't exactly been on the cutting edge of those developments), and the trolling, flaming and insulting.

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*They do point towards the fact that women have a disadvantage somewhere, which is interesting to look into. But the wage gap doesn't tell us where that disadvantage lies; this can be a 'bad' external disadvantage like widespread sexism but also internal disadvantages like a preference to working less hours.
**That is, some feminists. Feminists do not exactly share a common vision, which makes it discussing feminism an absolute minefield.
***Disclaimer: I accept that there is scientific consensus that global warming is a thing and that humans are responsible. Not that there is no possibility for me to actually determine whether this is true: the whole debate has been ruined by activists and misinformation and politicisation.

[neuDialect]

I haven't posted much on this forum, though I spent a few months around the release of TNM on the irc. So apologies if my input is not very wanted. I only just wandered here after several years, wondering how things have been.
It also happens that I am a poster on one of those forums that you mention. In fact, what finally pushed me to become one was the importance johan seemed to place on advertising there back when TNM was first publicly released. Even if that in particular hadn't gone very well at all.

Firstly I want to say that I feel that hostility towards women (amongst gamers or otherwise) should be considered separate from issue of wage inequivalency. In fact I don't believe that many feminist activists would consider it the primary reason. Rather, they would probably consider it an another manifestation of a patriarchal social order. Not to say that such arguments are not publicly levied by them against their opposition. However I believe that they use it because it is a verifiable (even if not necessarily causative) set of data that is much harder to challenge than claims of patriarchal society. And even then there are some who would consider such a society a natural state of affairs, most commonly for reasons of "evolutionary predisposition" or because of simple belief that the world is better of this way.

I hope I didn't come across as too confrontational as I sincerely didn't mean to, I do not even consider myself particularly feminist really. It's just that these are the arguments I see for perhaps more sensational activism from the feminist side.

Edit: it's also 4:30 in the morning, so excuse any errors in grammar

[Jonas]

johan

ಠ_ಠ

[bobby 55]

Hey all,

I wanted to hear your opinion on some stuff that's been bothering me the last week. I am a daily Rock, Paper, Shotgun reader and I like their focus on PC gaming and generally interesting sidestuff.
Last week however, there have been a few posts that both surprised and disturbed me. Most importantly: one post about the wage gap in the game industry and then a second post about misogyny and RPS's stance on that.

As an (part) owner of the site I believe he's entitled to *post articles as he sees fit. I think he's been attacked from several quarters for his stance on misogyny/sexism and maybe that has contributed to his "take no prisoners" attitude. Change can take time so I don't mind the continuance of those kind of articles as long as they highlight the issue and not become pieces full of rhetoric and hyperbole. As for the wage gap issue I'm not qualified to comment other than to say if any discrepancies are based on gender then that is despicable. The one thing I would really like to see more of in the comments sections of articles about misogyny/sexism are responses and/or opinions of females.



* as long as valid criticisms are welcome and inaccuracies acknowledged.

What do you think? Are activists (and journalists trying to do good) actually doing more bad than good when taking a more activist stance and presenting meaningless information as proof in important issues?

Yes. An example from somebody a bit more qualified: A scientist in this part of the world has bucked the trend as he believes global warming climate change will cause more precipitation. With the severe snow storms in the northern hemisphere, and the increase in rain and storms in the southern hemisphere, in the last few years...he may be proved right. Having said that, the sight of glaciers melting in news footage is a worry.

[AEmer]

This is going to make me sound like a horrible person, but here goes:

Statistically, I hate feminists. It is very rare that I partake in an online discussion, or watch a debate, or anything else that has a self titled feminist in it and I don't come away from the debate thinking they're a total ass.

Typically, it is impossible to engage in discourse with them in anything resembling normal discussion; having an oppinion on the subject is like stepping into a minefield. You don't get to mulligan if you end up saying something silly or untrue, you're pounced upon and branded. Your arguments are deconstructed and put into neat little boxes and it's nearly impossible to get them back out again if they don't belong there. Finally, you're not listened to and your oppinion is not taken into consideration. You are not engaged with. You are getting taught.

This is populism, and unfortunately, a lot of supposedly feminist writ functions in this fashion. It's unfortunate because, while populism can do good, it most often makes people confused, and while it electrifies some listeners, it completely repels others.

But sometimes, it's necessary. I'd argue that the civil liberties movements in the United States kindof have to rely on populism to energize and electrify a lot of the undecided masses to get same sex marriage going.

Of course, if somebody intelligent presents populism on their blog or in their articles for intelligent listeners, well, they really deserve to get cut down to size; at best it is worthless drivel to their audience, at worst it offends them. It does everybody a disservice when the people who are actually willing to understand the issues are spoken to as though they are children.

[VectorM]

I think most of the mainstream coverage of sexism in the gaming media right now is essentially sensationalism and people trying to get on the current bandwagon for attention. Like that "Gone Home" guy: "Hey guys, there's all this sexism in video games and we need to stop making sexist shit that alienates the female audience, AND DID I MENTION I HAVE A GAME WITH A FEMALE PROTAGONIST THAT IS SO VERY NOT SEXIST AND HAS NO MANSHOOTING YOU SHOULD CHECK IT OUT AND BUY IT CUZ IT'S SO NOT SEXIST AND FEMALE FRIENDLY AND NO MANSHOOTING DONT YOU JUsT HATE COD WINK WINK".

I am generally pretty cynical towards people like that in general though, regardless of the topic at hand, so personal bias and all that.

With that said, most of these people are pretty genuine, but the current bandwagon to me is just that, a bandwagon and an opportunity for certain developers and groups to get some attention. And some of them need it, to be honest.

Typically, it is impossible to engage in discourse with them in anything resembling normal discussion; having an oppinion on the subject is like stepping into a minefield. You don't get to mulligan if you end up saying something silly or untrue, you're pounced upon and branded.

But DUUUUUUUUUDE, NAFALT! NAFALT!

[gamer0004]

I haven't posted much on this forum, though I spent a few months around the release of TNM on the irc. So apologies if my input is not very wanted. I only just wandered here after several years, wondering how things have been.
It also happens that I am a poster on one of those forums that you mention. In fact, what finally pushed me to become one was the importance johan seemed to place on advertising there back when TNM was first publicly released. Even if that in particular hadn't gone very well at all.

Hi there, you and your input are both very much welcome

Firstly I want to say that I feel that hostility towards women (amongst gamers or otherwise) should be considered separate from issue of wage inequivalency. In fact I don't believe that many feminist activists would consider it the primary reason. Rather, they would probably consider it an another manifestation of a patriarchal social order. Not to say that such arguments are not publicly levied by them against their opposition. However I believe that they use it because it is a verifiable (even if not necessarily causative) set of data that is much harder to challenge than claims of patriarchal society. And even then there are some who would consider such a society a natural state of affairs, most commonly for reasons of "evolutionary predisposition" or because of simple belief that the world is better of this way.

Such reasoning is a bit better than the one I thought of (which is the one implied by the guy from RPS because he is attacking the employers, not society). Still, the question is whether a wage gap is a sign of patriarchy. To give an example: if, for a moment, we assume that women are less interested in working and prefer spending time on their family, and that this is the result of biological factors rather than societal expectations and habits. If we then see that women take breaks from working and more often work part-time then men do, is that a sign of patriarchy? As to whether there is a biological explanation I do not know. Wikipedia presents the views of some sociologists on this but those aren't exactly the people you'd expect to claim that biological factors are more important than social factors. I'm wondering what the scientific consensus (if any) is of biologists in this matter.

As an (part) owner of the site I believe he's entitled to *post articles as he sees fit. I think he's been attacked from several quarters for his stance on misogyny/sexism and maybe that has contributed to his "take no prisoners" attitude. Change can take time so I don't mind the continuance of those kind of articles as long as they highlight the issue and not become pieces full of rhetoric and hyperbole. As for the wage gap issue I'm not qualified to comment other than to say if any discrepancies are based on gender then that is despicable. The one thing I would really like to see more of in the comments sections of articles about misogyny/sexism are responses and/or opinions of females.

He is certainly allowed to write whatever he wants, but that doesn't mean it's of high (or even decent) quality, which was more what I am concerned about. As to the opinions of females: it's always interesting to read them, but from my experience they often fall into three groups. "No particular opinion" (that is, they're against discrimination and support equal rights but are unsure whether there is much of a problem at the moment), "Sexism is rampant" (often by women who feel they are constrained by sexism, though whether this is actually the result of sexism rather than statistics* is rarely discussed) and "women should stop whining about sexism, women can achieve whatever they want" (often by successful women, though they rarely discuss whether their rise to the top is due to a lack of sexism or that they got to the top despite sexism).
So, ironically, in something which concerns women so much, their personal experience rarely elucidates the problem, in my experience. I'm more interested in their arguments.

*Only a small percentage of people can be at the top. Considering the huge benefits of being at the top (income, societal recognition, power) we can be pretty sure that many more people want to get to the top then there can be at the top, and that there are probably many suitable people who will never make it.

[neuDialect]

ಠ_ಠ

That must've been someone else [-( Too much reading about paradox interactive I guess. (not that that makes it better, given the sort of bad rap Johan sometimes gets )

Statistically, I hate feminists. It is very rare that I partake in an online discussion, or watch a debate, or anything else that has a self titled feminist in it and I don't come away from the debate thinking they're a total ass.

Do you actually know any feminists in person? I was the same way for the longest time, but actually talking to some of the activists about their viewpoints has turned me around. This is not to say that some of them aren't truly vile human beings (Burchill, ugh) but most of them are quite reasonable people, probably not at all how you'd expect.

Such reasoning is a bit better than the one I thought of (which is the one implied by the guy from RPS because he is attacking the employers, not society). Still, the question is whether a wage gap is a sign of patriarchy. To give an example: if, for a moment, we assume that women are less interested in working and prefer spending time on their family, and that this is the result of biological factors rather than societal expectations and habits. If we then see that women take breaks from working and more often work part-time then men do, is that a sign of patriarchy? As to whether there is a biological explanation I do not know. Wikipedia presents the views of some sociologists on this but those aren't exactly the people you'd expect to claim that biological factors are more important than social factors. I'm wondering what the scientific consensus (if any) is of biologists in this matter.

I am not a biologist myself so I cannot really answer that question, but from what I've heard the majority considers the motivation of caring for the family more than men largely social. Specifically one argument I remember is that some animals have males caring for the young, and many others yet care for the young a largely equal measure. This may or may not apply to hominid biology however.

As an (part) owner of the site I believe he's entitled to *post articles as he sees fit. I think he's been attacked from several quarters for his stance on misogyny/sexism and maybe that has contributed to his "take no prisoners" attitude. Change can take time so I don't mind the continuance of those kind of articles as long as they highlight the issue and not become pieces full of rhetoric and hyperbole. As for the wage gap issue I'm not qualified to comment other than to say if any discrepancies are based on gender then that is despicable. The one thing I would really like to see more of in the comments sections of articles about misogyny/sexism are responses and/or opinions of females.

He is certainly allowed to write whatever he wants, but that doesn't mean it's of high (or even decent) quality, which was more what I am concerned about. As to the opinions of females: it's always interesting to read them, but from my experience they often fall into three groups. "No particular opinion" (that is, they're against discrimination and support equal rights but are unsure whether there is much of a problem at the moment), "Sexism is rampant" (often by women who feel they are constrained by sexism, though whether this is actually the result of sexism rather than statistics* is rarely discussed) and "women should stop whining about sexism, women can achieve whatever they want" (often by successful women, though they rarely discuss whether their rise to the top is due to a lack of sexism or that they got to the top despite sexism).
So, ironically, in something which concerns women so much, their personal experience rarely elucidates the problem, in my experience. I'm more interested in their arguments.

*Only a small percentage of people can be at the top. Considering the huge benefits of being at the top (income, societal recognition, power) we can be pretty sure that many more people want to get to the top then there can be at the top, and that there are probably many suitable people who will never make it.

I am not a woman, but I think the general perception is more that certain professions are an 'old boys club', which leads to subconscious preference of men to women in employment. I would definitely like to hear an opinion of a woman on the matter, though.

[SilverSpook]

I attended for a year a college that's essentially the greatest attractor for feminists (and vegans, and neo-hippies) in the universe, or at least the US, and I have a personal experience involving feminists taking over an organization with semantic debates and general meta-fication, and ultimately running it into a swamp of rotting academic word-salad.

That said, I think those are the outliers that get the most visibility and that the thrust of the movement itself is valid, although the outliers at times can overthrow the original goal by getting caught up in airing out their dissertations.

Having worked in the game industry, I have to be honest: yes, at least in the US, it is still slanted toward "old boys club" or at least "immature boys" club, as much as the external image of a company is brushed all nice and PC. Sometimes, that simple truth just needs to be put out there. Maybe not spammed for a thousand pages.

[AEmer]

Do you actually know any feminists in person? I was the same way for the longest time, but actually talking to some of the activists about their viewpoints has turned me around. This is not to say that some of them aren't truly vile human beings (Burchill, ugh) but most of them are quite reasonable people, probably not at all how you'd expect.

I do and I have. With only two exceptions, they have either been womens rights advocates or misandrists. I would love to claim that _I_ am a feminist, because I strongly believe in gender equality, but the term is completely tarnished in my eyes. As feminists, their number one concern should be understanding the problem of gender inequality correctly; not spreading the word about how unfair things are, which might do more harm than good.

The fact is, men and women are _not_ born equal; one part of humanity is unable to have children (though they _are_ able to provide some genetic material for them, if someone would like them to and they want to take on the responsibility), whereas most of the other part of humanity simply is able to have children whenever they want to. This simple thing is consistently completely unaccounted for in all gender discussions I've had, yet it is this thing which is the entirety of the reason men have struggled to repress women and make them beholden to men since the dawn of mankind. It is the very reason for sexism. Everything flows from it. To think it is completely irrelevant is ludicrous, and yet very few 'feminists' seem willing to recognize it - and that's really all it takes for me to brand them womens rights advocates rather than gender equality advocates (...and I fundamentally consider both men and womens rights advocates sexist...).

And yes, I suppose many of the people I argue with are absolutely decent human beings. I know very decent people that have extreme oppinions about various things though; being decent is unfortunately no guarantee that you won't act like a dispicable person when a very specific subject comes up. This has, unfortunately, been the norm with the internet feminists I've encountered.

I know sexism is rampant, and I know men and women do not currently have equality (and likely never will have - but then, exact equality is likely undesirable because it will result in some messed up shit); I recognize the need for gender equality advocates and I recognize the importance of the subject. I will be the first person to call it out when I see it happening before me - and I will engage in debate with anyone freely and with a willingness to change my position.

That has done absolutely nothing to stem the tide of insults and beligerence coming my way in some of the internet discussions I've been in. It has been unpleasent and crass nearly every single time. So - yeah - I hate feminists, because I very rarely encounter one which I don't end up hating.

[AEmer]

@SilverSpook
I imagine that's absolutely the case; and it absolutely needs to be talked about once in a while. It's a big problem when people are excluded from working in a business they'd love to work in because of how they were born, but it becomes decidedly tragic when they have all the merits that qualify them to do so yet they still can't. It sucks, and the people in the industry should work to try to make sure it doesn't occour in their company.

[shadowblade34]

I'd like to think I'm a feminist in the advocation of equal rights for men and women, however the problem I find with a lot of "feminists" can be shown in this quote that I read: "Feminism? First empower femininity."

Added to the fact that there's a huge divide in feminist thought with the rise of FEMEN, most of the feminists I know are against FEMEN for the reason that they restrict the freedom of women just as much they claim to "save women". Then there's the whole thing about sexual freedom (as in the freedom to display sexual imagery) and sex workers. I'm against both. But then again, that's a different issue of freedom, and I have a different idea of freedom than a lot of people.

[DDL]

This simple thing is consistently completely unaccounted for in all gender discussions I've had, yet it is this thing which is the entirety of the reason men have struggled to repress women and make them beholden to men since the dawn of mankind. It is the very reason for sexism. Everything flows from it.

Citation needed?

You'd have to come up with a very convincing argument to explain why biological differences re:offspring are the underpinning reason for all this shit, 'specially when virtually every sexual species, ever, has a similar biological divide, and yet male dominance is far from a universal phenomenon.

[AEmer]

Nearly all species are seperated into a childbearing gender and a non-childbearing gender.

The non-childbearing gender is consistently disadvantaged as to their probability of reproducing. This is the same accross almost all species, right? So that must mean this is generally a better setup for the various species in terms of fitness to survive.

Ultimately, all the other distinctions necessarily flow from the very reason that we even consider two genders to exist - if both men and women could bear children, we would probably consider humans to be hermaphrodites using our current terminology.

Consider how great of an impact it has had on humans for ages that men could never before be sure that their offspring was actually their own. The whole concept of virginity and female purity stems from the idea that if a man could impregnate his wife the same night he broke her hymen, he would merely need to 'control' her for long enough to verify that she was with child, and then he'd be sure his firstborn was his. Therefore, virgins are worth a lot more - all of this because men can't bear children but have the same desire to reproduce as women. Other sociological constructs derive from that as well - the main inheritance going to the firstborn, for instance. Of course, the resulting patriarchal society means that it was the firstborn male child that generally inherited, but the concept has pretty clear physiological origins.

The reason you don't necessarily see this with other species is probably that females of other species generally cannot be controlled using social means, simply because those species aren't advanced enough.

Or do you disagree with any of that? I mean, this is anthropology and sociology we're talking. I don't even know how I'd go about finding materials for this, and I'm not sure convincing material exists here. How exactly would one go about testing this theory? Well, regardless, even if you disagree with the assertion that this is the source of everything, you must agree that it isn't irrelevant, right?

[DDL]

Well, it's a fairly narrow view of human society, for a start. And ascribes more biological knowledge to early man than is necessarily accurate. Humanity alone has happily generated polyandrous societies, polygamous societies, societies where everyone's humping everyone (that probably also has a scientific name), societies where men and women are almost entirely separate and meet purely for breeding, the list is...fairly extensive. Within those societies there are also a variety of perceptions as to fatherhood: some for instance view the father as the person who raises the child, and even within those there are societies that literally do not have a concept of genetics and sex-related inheritance (and thus the man who raises the child actually IS the father as far as all are concerned) and those that understand sex=babbies but consider genetics to be second fiddle to the act of actually raising a child.

So saying "all sexism descends from the need for men to keep their women locked up so they know they're the daddy" would by definition have to apply to a very narrow spectrum of humanity. Possibly a currently fairly prevalent spectrum, but a narrow one nevertheless. Which lowers its validity somewhat (essentially, why THAT part of the spectrum, and why prevalent? Suggestion: a host of other factors, be they political, economic, survival based, environmental, whatever, are likely to be very important).

And that's (as noted) just humanity.

The non-childbearing gender is consistently disadvantaged as to their probability of reproducing. This is the same accross almost all species, right? So that must mean this is generally a better setup for the various species in terms of fitness to survive.

This might need more clarification. Consistently disadvantaged...how? Like "males are always less healthy than females" disadvantaged, or simply "males cannot make babies" disadvantaged? Or "on average males have a lower chance of being a father than females do of being a mother"?

In terms of "species survival" there are a huge number of factors to consider: availability of resources, environmental danger, size of organism, likelihood of environmental change, temperature, type of actual niche, so on. And nature usually comes up with whatever works best for the current conditions, which can vary a hell of a lot. If considering purely "sex", then we have harem set-ups, pair-bonding for life set-ups, fucking hive set-ups (there is only one fertile female, and she gets ALL THE MANS), troupe set-ups, bonobo-style set-ups (oh my), and so on.


Sex and reproduction is almost certainly a PART of institutionalised sexism, but to say it's the be-all and end-all of it is....naive, I would think.

Humans are complicated.