Men are the most expendable in a tribe. Women and Children should be protected, so it probably makes sense that Women put themselves before men. Modern society is the first time women don't actually need help or protection from men anymore, you just need an income.
It is true that men are the most expendable from a cultural and sociological perspective. And it's also true from a reproductive perspective. If, for example, we were in an all-out war that completely decimated our population, it's much more better in this scenario to have a larger number of females than a larger number of males: A decimated population can quickly rebound if females outnumber males, because, in theory, one man can reproduce with as many women he can mate with. Conversely, if males outnumber females, the population will decline until the gender ratio reaches an equilibrium, before it can grow, because a woman can only bare one child (or set of children) per year, at best, no matter how many men she mates with.
It's the same reason why nearly all polygamous marriages in the world are between one man and many women, not vice versa.
It's also why there are exceptionally few animal species with a gender ratio where males significantly outnumber females, because it is exceedingly difficult for such a species to produce enough offspring to replace its population, let alone increase it. The vast majority of species that find themselves in this evolutionary predicament go extinct. For the most species, the gender ratio is either roughly equal (which is by far the most common), or females outnumber males. For the most extreme case of the latter, there's this mite genus, in which each female is literally born pregnant, and only produces one male offspring, which mates with its sisters inside of the mother, and said sisters then eat their way out of their mother to suffer the same fate, and the male dies almost immediately. (Thank God we don't have a life cycle like that lol.)
Men are the most expendable in a tribe. Women and Children should be protected, so it probably makes sense that Women put themselves before men. Modern society is the first time women don't actually need help or protection from men anymore, you just need an income.
It is true that men are the most expendable from a cultural and sociological perspective. And it's also true from a reproductive perspective. If, for example, we were in an all-out war that completely decimated our population, it's much more better in this scenario to have a larger number of females than a larger number of males: A decimated population can quickly rebound if females outnumber males, because, in theory, one man can reproduce with as many women he can mate with. Conversely, if males outnumber females, the population will decline until the gender ratio reaches an equilibrium, before it can grow, because a woman can only bare one child (or set of children) per year, at best, no matter how many men she mates with.
It's the same reason why nearly all polygamous marriages in the world are between one man and many women, not vice versa.
It's also why there are exceptionally few animal species with a gender ratio where males significantly outnumber females, because it is exceedingly difficult for such a species to produce enough offspring to replace its population, let alone increase it. The vast majority of species that find themselves in this evolutionary predicament go extinct. For the most species, the gender ratio is either roughly equal (which is by far the most common), or females outnumber males. For the most extreme case of the latter, there's this mite genus, in which each female is literally born pregnant, and only produces one male offspring, which mates with its sisters inside of the mother, and said sisters then eat their way out of their mother to suffer the same fate, and the male dies almost immediately. (Thank God we don't have a life cycle like that lol.)
But I digress.