My theory is that there are behaviors which build alliances within one sex to the detriment of individual relationships with the other sex.
I have no strong opinion about whether this contributes to individual reproductive chances, though I can make up some theories about why it might.
People don’t just need to produce babies, they need to support themselves and their children—alliances within one’s own gender can quite useful. It’s also conceivable that intra gender alliances are good tools for limiting the mating opportunities of low-status competitors of one’s own gender.
A female example might be women who spend a lot of time commiserating with each other about how awful men in general and their husbands in particular are. This is not to deny that sometimes men are a problem for women, but putting a strong availability bias on their negative traits can push somewhat bad situations towards worse.
For both sexes, a fair amount of work is put into convincing low status members of one’s own sex to not even try to attract someone. I don’t know how much this is in play in societies where people aren’t as expected to get their own mates.
It’s also conceivable that catcalling is a spandrel—it’s a side effect of homophobia, with men trying to prove to other men (who can be quite dangerous) that they are attracted to women. Doing something low-cost to prove that one is attracted to women is easier than than doing something which might actually attract women.
My theory is that there are behaviors which build alliances within one sex to the detriment of individual relationships with the other sex.
I have no strong opinion about whether this contributes to individual reproductive chances, though I can make up some theories about why it might.
People don’t just need to produce babies, they need to support themselves and their children—alliances within one’s own gender can quite useful. It’s also conceivable that intra gender alliances are good tools for limiting the mating opportunities of low-status competitors of one’s own gender.
A female example might be women who spend a lot of time commiserating with each other about how awful men in general and their husbands in particular are. This is not to deny that sometimes men are a problem for women, but putting a strong availability bias on their negative traits can push somewhat bad situations towards worse.
For both sexes, a fair amount of work is put into convincing low status members of one’s own sex to not even try to attract someone. I don’t know how much this is in play in societies where people aren’t as expected to get their own mates.
It’s also conceivable that catcalling is a spandrel—it’s a side effect of homophobia, with men trying to prove to other men (who can be quite dangerous) that they are attracted to women. Doing something low-cost to prove that one is attracted to women is easier than than doing something which might actually attract women.
You may be on to something, there. The times it happened to me, there always (IIRC) were at least 2 of them.