Not invest in her sons. Her daughters. Shift focus--I can't help having a little fun, forgive me. The matrilineal line extends through all time. The genes of the mother--mitochondrial transference--carry more material than that of the father. Just because the male buzzes around indiscriminately doesn't mean his genetic material predominates. It's his mother's, and her mother's, that have more significance. Which is why 23 and Me uses mitochondrial material to trace ancestry. Males just appear to be in control. It's really the mother that wins the genetic derby. One might say, the male is a delivery system for the female's genetic code.
I think this is why men fear women (Freud certainly did). Instinctively, they know we win the race.
A little bit of serious jesting here...
An edit here, as I reread our exchange:
You talk of mothers doting on their sons. Perhaps this is cultural, because it is not my experience. My experience is that mothers stay close to their daughters, and vice versa. There is a bond between a mother and daughter that most sons cannot match. I hope that's not true in my family. I think I'm equally close to my son and daughter, but in most families I know the daughters and mothers stay close.
Again, this may be cultural. It is true that in some cultures, where the daughter is married off and becomes part of a new family, the son is expected to support elderly parents. In that case, nurturing a son becomes a matter of survival--not survival of genetic material, but actual survival in old age.
Well what you say is very well and forcefully expressed (and I read it multiple times not to understand the point, but out of sheer pleasure! I'm feeling writer's envy!), and I do know about the mitochondrial inheritance etc. (check out this awesome song, for instance).
But I don't know anything about the conclusions you draw, jesting or not. I'd need to study the issue further, and it does sound highly interesting!
A priori, without really knowing anything about it, I can 'argue' that what you theorize is absolutely false, because if any sex was genetically favored over the other, there'd be more of that sex. So, to take the Genghis Khan example again, every other male failed to the extent that he succeeded. So, being a male is not good. Being Genghis is good. In some societies females were actually favored over males, because they were guaranteed to carry offspring, whereas with males it was all or nothing, a gamble. I think there's places in Africa where that's still the case: most males don't procreate, and a few ones have wives to spare.
So, on average (and obviously) women have as many kids as males do! If female DNA preponderated, there'd be less males being born, until their rarity would increase their value to match that of the female, and then the ratios would balance out, let's say 1 male for every 4 females. I think there is data that actually there are slightly more women born compared to males, which might give your argument some support!
The same line or reasoning, I should mention, applies to the queen/drones analogy: given their genetic similarity, there is no sense in which the queen is favored over the drones. If being a queen was advantageous, natural selection would favor more queens being born.
My dear Steemit friend, alexander.alexis--always a pleasure. Believe me, you have no cause for writer's envy, but it tickles me that you say it. Thank you for the song. That guy is clever, bright, funny. Going to send a link to my kids.
I'm not enough of a biologist to sort this out, but I do like to address issues when it seems an argument is settled. You can imagine, many of my high school teachers did not enjoy having me in class for this reason--but the good ones welcomed the challenge.
Because of you I went to sleep last night watching a video about the "shrinking Y chromosome." It seems nothing really is settled. Fascinating.
This is great fun. I thank you for the engagement and also for sending me on a hunt to get more information.
I can't wait for your next blog :))