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Need Help with Answering a Biology and Evolution-related Question for a Fictional Story?

Asked by BB8ISGREATMATE (39points) November 13th, 2022

Ok so, I’m writing a fantasy story at the moment which takes place in a world where there exists a special race of warrior women called Golden Girls (that’s a awful name, I know. Just consider it a placeholder) who evolved into basically near perfect life forms. They’re Strong enough (both physically and mentally) to join men on the battlefield, beautiful enough to attract companions and metabolically fit enough to give birth. They’re also slightly taller in height than the women of our reality and have reactionary, fine-motor, hand-eye coordination and spatial awareness skills on par with men. In simple terms, I basically wanna design a realistic race of women similar to the Mythology Amazons (Zelda’s Gerudo Tribe or Wakanda’s Dora Milaje might be better comparisons. Ignore their blood-red hair and lack of hair though) without invoking magic, biogenetics or similar forms of hand-waving.

This is where the problems start to arise. Not only am I trying to rewrite history and alter evolution itself without relying on the things that could solve the issue near instantly, but I’m also trying to defeat the the exact purpose behind evolution making women less optimised for hunting and fighting than men. Based on the information gathered from scientific Q&A websites, Wikipedia, Quora, Reddit, Biology Stack Exchange and various other online sources, the reason that women are so much more unsuited for the things men are capable of doing is because evolution found that splitting up our species into two sexs (one optimised for fighting, lifting and hunting and another optimised for birthing and nurturing offspring) was the best method of speeding up sexual reproduction. Not only that however, but in order to in order to make a human physically stronger, you have to increase their testosterone levels, which in turn, decreases the things men find conventionally attractive in women (e.g. medium-large-sized breasts, soft skin, minimal muscles, small frames, wide hips, high-pitched voices and a few more I’m probably missing). There are also other factors that contribute to the massive gap in physical strength between the two sexs such as our male ancestors lacking the intelligence to consensually mate with females, thus oppressing them through forced copulation and gender divisions preventing women from doing the same jobs that men do and vice-versa but based on the things I’ve read, the first point seems to be the most important.

Of course, not every species of animal is like this. In fact, in some species like Spiders, Spotted Hyenas and Preying Mantis, certain Birds of Prey and Angler Fish, the females are physically stronger and far more aggressive than the males. Seahorses and Lions are the ones that interest me the most though. Seahorses have borderline no sexual dimorphism at all between each other in regards to size and strength, yet they still have different inner workings that make them unquestionably different from each other and Lions have males that are very visually distinct from females and stronger than them too, yet they choose to use that strength to defend their pride from outsiders. As far as hunting and gathering food is concerned, that duty falls onto the females. This right here is what I’m trying to create using real evolutionary science. A species of human where women are visually distinct from men in regards to appearance, yet are close enough to them in physical and mental strength to justifiable enlist them into an army (a medieval-period-inspired army with swords, shields, bows, spears and bludgeons specifically).

Ok so now that context has been supplied, here are my questions:

Is what I’m trying to create scientifically possible?

If the answer to this question is yes, the next two questions will be:

What changes is history would need to be made in order to make this possible and what things about my fictional society’s culture and the personalities of those a part of said society will be different from how they are in our reality?

If the answer to the first question is no however, the second question now becomes:

Is it possible to maybe create a watered-down version of my described race of female warriors? Like, would removing sexism and gender roles from history potentially make women stronger than they currently are, or is it scientifically and evolutionarily impossible to increase the physical and mental strength of a woman without compromising her ability to safety give birth to children and altering her appearance so much that she no longer looks like a woman?

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