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this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2026
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Where are you getting the 3% figure from wars?
WW1, UK saw a 11-12% mortality rate among their troops. Germany saw an 18% mortality rate. The Russian empire ~ 14%
WW2 the USSR had a rate estimated at ~27%, UK 4%, US 3%, Germany ~27%, Australia 4%, Japan ~ 20%, Finland 3%
Spanish civil war, 10%
The US civil war saw a mortality rate of ~25% among enlisted men.
The napoleonic wars saw ~30% across the board.
And in the 1600s, you were expected to lose 10-30% of your sailors before even reaching your enemy due to disease and illness on the ship. Depending on the length of the voyage.
And as a final note. Death during childbirth is the highest for the first child. The risk will decrease for subsequent children. As in, a woman having her second child, is less at risk of dying from that childbirth than someone who ia birthing her first.
Not that it's a competition between the sexes.
It's what I heard for pre-industrial warfare since actual fighting happened so infrequently and most people died from disease than actual warfare.
I tried to make it a direct comparison between the two (the original claim in the Twitter screenshot) not counting disease in preindustry which like you said killed the most men in the military.
Why do you think fighting happened so infrequently?
Soldiers or Sailors dying from disease is a direct result of warfare and service. Getting shot or stabbed in the arm could very well be a death sentence. Not because the wound itself is fatal, but because of the bacteria and infection that takes root afterwards.
Does it matter if you die from disease, splinters, steel, or lead? You died. And you died as a direct result of your service.
And the area under the curve for both sides still is somehow in line with my point. Does this really matter that much?
If this is your point. Then no. It is not in line with your point. You're simply factually wrong.
That's what I said but you've misattributed what I'm saying you're missing the forest from the trees here. I can explain it to you but I can't comprehend it for you. I was pointing out the math behind the post directly to give it numbers, but even with your correction you're still wrong about the magnitude of women who died vs men dying from disease or battle. More women died full stop no matter how you try and slice it. Look up historical mortality rates for women from child birth and see for yourself.
10-30% deaths in (whatever % of men are military men) is less overall deaths than the 85-90% of women who reproduced historically, with an average of 5.5 children roughly, and a 1-2% chance of death from each childbirth.
But this is a really stupid argument since you're going to end up agreeing with the post and me in essence even if you disagree about the minutiae.
I wouldn't be so sure if I were you. There are more people alive today. Than people that have died since the beginning of our species.
130 years ago. We were ~1.8 billion people. The mortality rate from childbirth hoovered around 1%. Today, it's 0.0001%
We are, roughly. 8 times as many people today than 130 years ago. As our population increased, childbirth mortality decreased. While armed conflicts have increased.
More Ukrainian soldiers have died since the start of Russias war. Than childbirth deaths in the Europe for the past 20 years combined.
And that's just Ukrainian losses. Rather. Those are just the Ukrainian losses they officially admitt have died. Other international estimates quadruple those losses.
It does not look very promising for your "full stop" that more ukranian soldiers have died in the past 4 years than european women in childbirth over the past 20.
And by the looks of it. The war doesn't have an end in sight anyone soon. Not to mention the new ones we're starting
I am sure since even conservative estimates for the total number of humans that have ever lived is 100 billion+
Total human lives
So 50 billion women roughly, at a mortality rate of 10-20% (how bad would it have been in pre history? Maybe worse?) you're looking at 5-10 billion women who died from child birth in prehistory alone.
Literally 10-20% of half the world population constantly until the 19th century.
Your link does not work.
But there's a giant flaw in your calculations here if we assume your 100 billion figure is accurate. Which it seems that it is. So i was wrong about that.
Infant and child mortality was extreamly high in our primitive past. 50 billion girls born. Does not mean 50 billion girls grew up. If you want to estimate the number of girls (and boys) that even made it past age 5. You'll have to cut that number in half. And then there's another ~10 years they will have to survive to even have a chance of dying in childbirth. (Not the best phrasing but you know what i mean)
So, your 5-10 billion is starting to look a lot more like 2-4 billion (if we're being generous). Unfortunately for your argument. The boys that also grew up past puberty were all expected to be soldiers when called upon. You either fought and died or you just died. With some luck you survived. And by luck i mean lucky to have been born on the winning side.
The various empires in our history did not become empires because they were nice to eachother. They did so through blood and conquest.
Genghis Khan's conquests killed ~40 million people alone. That's estimated to have been 11% of the worlds entire population at that time.
Again. This isnt a competition. But men have always (unfortunately) been very resourceful when it comes to war and killing their percieved enemies. And there's been no lack of fighting, ever.
It's a bit of a trope but various massgraves confirms it. Kill the men. Enslave the women and children. (And then work them to death)
Is that military men or does that also include women and children?
I still think the order of magnitude difference is too big between the two groups. 90% of women had children historically, and had kids for basically the entire time they could bear them. Men would be conscripted for war, true, but there were also long periods of peace and war wasn't constant unlike childbirth.
The male subset is naturally smaller and more sporadic.
The female subset is larger, encompasses 90% of women, and was constant until menopause.