The most damaging assumption we make about men
Part 3 of our patriarchal masculinity series. We have freed women from their biological essentialism box, it’s high time we do the same for men.
We’ve come to the 3rd installment of our patriarchal masculinity series. Read PART 1 here on what it is and PART 2 here on just how much it affects our world.
Before we go any further, we must address the most common conversation-stopper of these discussions: the idea that patriarchal masculinity is biologically hard-wired into men and there is nothing anyone can do about it.
Since writing about patriarchy and masculinity this past year, I’ve been told this hundreds of times. Most recently, Kryptogal urged me to consider that patriarchal masculinity isn’t something that can be changed when she shared the first article in this series in this Substack note:
Kate and I agree about a lot of things, but I strongly disagree with gender biological essentialism.
In fact, assuming that men are biologically stuck with the worst parts of masculinity is the most damaging assumption we can make about men.
The one surefire way to ensure things don’t change is to assert that change isn’t possible.
Quick note: I’m pushing back on Kate’s ideas here, not Kate as a person, so please don’t go attacking her on her page and be respectful in this comment section as well.1
Every sentence in her second paragraph brings up something worthy of discussion, so I’ll be using her words as an outline for this article. Namely:
“This is not something that is socialized and is not something that can be changed.”
“It is a natural result of male biology and bodies and hormones.”
“When you see precisely this pattern in every society that has ever existed on earth, through all of history… you should assume it’s biological.”
“….. even observable in non-human species”
What happens when “we assume IT CANNOT BE ALTERED.”
“You can only set up the right incentives and disincentives.”
“This is not something that is socialized and it is not something that can be changed.”
I’m going to assume that the “this” that cannot be changed refers to the problematic aspects of patriarchal masculinity- a propensity for violence, sexual exploitation and domination.
And let’s not confuse patriarchal masculinity with maleness or masculinity, which are not problematic.
And yes, I am aware that humans are sexual dimorphic creatures, meaning there are indeed biological differences between the sexes, as opposed to monomorphic creatures like clownfish or poison dart frogs.
However, I am less interested in our actual biological differences2 than I am in what we make those differences mean.
Throughout history, we’ve made our biological differences mean all sorts of things.
For instance, here are just a few activities that our leading scientists, professors and doctors declared women couldn’t do because of their biology in the late 19th/ early 20th century:
Ride a bicycle
Dr. A. Shadwell, a British physician wrote The Hidden Dangers of Cycling in 1897 claiming that women’s “physical structure is not adapted for such exertions.” The undue strain cycling puts on their weaker frames may result in “long-term nervous exhaustion, internal inflammation, appendicitis and chronic dysentery.”
Sorry. Nothing to be done. It’s just biology.
Receive an education
William Withers Moore, the president of the British Medical Association wrote in 1886 that educating women was dangerous to their reproductive systems and “they would succumb to the disorder ‘anorexia scholastica’ —becoming sexless.”3
Dr. Edward H. Clarke, a Harvard professor in his book Sex in Education said, “A woman’s health must suffer if she studies too much. The brain cannot develop and be educated without injury to the reproductive organs.”
Sorry. Nothing to be done. It’s just biology.
Vote
Sir Almroth Edward Wright, a doctor and immunologist, wrote The Unexpurgated Case Against Women’s Suffrage in 1913 saying “The woman’s nervous system is more excitable, her vital force more easily exhausted, and her physical endurance less than that of man. These facts make her unfit for the continuous strain and excitement of political life.”
Sorry. Nothing to be done. It’s just biology.
Work in the medical field
An issue of the Journal of American Medical Association published in the late 1800s claimed that a woman’s nature simply could not handle the field of medicine stating, “Women’s nerves are too fragile to practice medicine.”
Sorry. Nothing to be done. Just biology.
Public Speaking
Amidst a host of complaints issued when Cambridge opened its first college for women in 1869, an Oxford professor claimed that “Women are naturally incapable of the sustained intellectual effort needed for oratory, as their nerves are too delicate to endure the strain of public speech.”
Sorry. Nothing to be done. It’s just biology.
Participate in any activity requiring thought or action while on her period
J. McGrigor Allan, an anthropologist when speaking at the Royal Anthropological Institute in 1869 said, “At such time [during. menstration] women are unfit for any great mental or physical labour. They suffer under a languor and depression which disqualify them for thought or action, and render it extremely doubtful how far they can be considered responsible beings while the crisis lasts.”4
Sorry. Nothing to be done. It’s just biology.
If we are able to clearly see that what we interpreted as “biological facts” about women were actually just sociological, why are we so unable to do the same for men?
If we can see that women aren’t biologically destined to not be in leadership, why do we still believe that men are?
We believe that women don't have to be soft - that's just social conditioning, but men can't be soft - that's just biology.
Women don't have to be subservient- that's just social conditioning, but men have to be dominant- that's just biology.
Women don’t have to act feminine - that’s just social conditioning, but men have to act masculine- that’s just biology.
If we can see that in every other century we've used biology incorrectly to justify the gender roles of the past, why can’t we see that we may be doing so in this century?
Do we think we’re above reproach because we are living in the apex of scientific understanding? Guess who else thought that?
Literally ever single other generation of humans throughout time.
Imagine 100 years into the future, our great grandkids going through old internet articles and scientific journals giggling, nudging their buddies, “Oh my gosh, can you believe they used to think that men were biologically unable to express any feeling other than anger? And couldn’t help but start wars and cheat on their wives because of their DNA? Hahahahahaha! Crazy!”
Imagine if in the late 1800s no one pushed back on the medical journals, Harvard professors and literary digests. Then women would still be the property of men, unable to vote, speak in public or become financially independent.
We made very necessary changes because people pushed back against the idea of biological essentialism for women.
Very necessary changes in our future now hinge on our ability to do the same for men.
“It is a natural result of male biology and bodies and hormones.”
Yes let’s talk about hormones.
Ever since its discovery last century, we have accredited testosterone with all sorts of achievements. Financial success, theft, leadership ability, fist fights, war, rape, basketball skills and even the 2008 stock market crash have all been attributed to testosterone.
Elon Musk recently said that “low T” men cannot think clearly so the world should be run by high T men. Running the world is a lot of responsibility for a gland chemical.
In the book A Natural History of Rape5, evolutionary biologist Randy Thornhill argues that men raping women is the natural result of evolution. Because men have a biological need to “scatter their seed,” males with fewer mating opportunities have had to resort to coercion in order to spread their genes. Evolutionarily, the potential reward of reproduction is worth more than the potential harm to the victim.
Sorry. Nothing to be done. It’s just biology.
You do not have to look hard to find scores of men online hell-bent on believing that rape is the natural result of evolution and testosterone.
If that were true men with higher levels of testosterone would be more rapey and abusive than men with low levels.
But scientists have measured testosterone levels and disproven this theory.
A meta-analysis combining the results of seven different studies published in The National Library of Medicine found that sex offenders do not have higher testosterone than non-sex offenders.
Among prison inmates, no testosterone difference was found between physically aggressive prisoners and nonaggressive prisoners.
Trans men who increase their testosterone do not become more abusive.
When scientists decreased the testosterone in domestic violence perpetrators they did not find it to be an effective solution to curbing the abusers’ behavior.
But do you know what they did find was effective in curbing domestic abusers’ behavior?
“Changing their deeply held beliefs about their sense of entitlement.”6
Neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky says,
“Testosterone doesn’t make you aggressive7. Testosterone exaggerates pre-existing social patterns of aggression… What testosterone really does is when your status is being challenged, testosterone makes you do whatever you need to do to maintain status… Take an economic game where people get status by making generous offers and give people testosterone and they become more generous in the game… The trouble isn’t that testosterone makes us aggressive, the trouble is that we reward aggression with status so readily.” - Robert Sapolsky
Testosterone is affected by status, and status is a social construct.8
Unfortunately, in our society, a man’s status revolves around proving his masculinity. And the stress of proving one’s masculinity is associated with violence:
“Evidence suggests that it is not innate aggression that makes men violent, but the internalized belief that they fall short of society’s perceived standards for masculinity. Psychologists call this phenomenon, “masculine discrepancy stress” and research shows that the more acutely a man suffers from this, the more likely he is to commit almost every type of violence, including sexual assault, intimate partner violence and assault with a weapon.” - Ruth Whippman
What about women’s hormones? Let’s talk about them for a minute.
In 1970, a member of the US Democratic Party Committee on National Priorities, Dr. Edgar Berman declared that all women are unfit for leadership due to their “raging hormonal imbalances.”9
Just imagine he said, a female bank president needing to issue loans on her period!!
Women were initially barred from the space program because it was inadvisable to have such “temperamental psycho-physiologic humans” on board a spacecraft.
It used to be seen as objective biological fact that a woman’s hormones made her incompetent, hysterical and unstable.
If it now seems crazy to us to think women incapable of prosocial behavior due to their hormones, why does it seem perfectly normal to think men incapable of prosocial behavior due to theirs?
If we believe that women can experience hormonal fluctuations and still exert self-control, why don’t we believe that very same logic applies to men?
“When you see precisely this same pattern in every society that has ever existed on earth, through all of history… you should assume it’s biological.”
If men’s propensity for violence and sexual abuse was purely biological, then rape and violence rates would be consistent across every society in the world throughout history.
But they’re not.10
The book The Patriarchs by Angela Saini examines matrilineal societies (ancestry and property is traced through the mother’s line), matrifocal societies (women are the heads of household) and matrilocal societies (the husband moves into the wife’s household).
Masculinity in these matri-centric societies do not follow the “same pattern” of patriarchal masculinity:
The Minangkabau people of West Sumatra, Indonesia are the largest and most stable matrilineal society in the world with over five million people dating back to the third century.
For 18 years, anthropologist Peggy Reeves Sanday lived among the Minangkabau in West Sumatra. She calls it a “rape-free” society saying that rape is virtually non-existent among the Minangkabau. She attributes this to their cultural emphasis on gender equality and mutual respect.
In her article “The Spirit of the Circle,” Sanday describes how from the time Minangkabau boys become teenagers until the marry, they stay in what’s called a surau where they learn oral tradition, martial arts, Quran recitation, and randai- a singing and dancing tradition shown above. All of these practices and performances are held in a circle — the opposite of a hierarchy, a representation of equality.
The Mosuo people of Southwest China, a matrifocal society, have a system where women lead households and men engage in “walking marriages,” where they visit partners at night but do not live with them or claim ownership over them.
When National Geographic journalist Liu Kankan stayed among the Mosou people of Southwest China, she found the men to be quite content to be living in a what is known as “The Kingdom of Women” even though their way of life differed dramatically from that of the men in neighboring societies.
Masculinity in Mosuo culture is not tied to being a provider or protector in the patriarchal sense but rather to being an involved uncle (the men stay in their mother’s home and help raise their sisters’ children), a good lover, and contributor to the community.
Anthropologists have found that the absence of rigid patriarchal structures has led to lower rates of violence and greater male emotional expressiveness.
Other examples include:
The Khasi people of Maghalaya India - a matrilineal society where domestic violence is incredibly rare.
The Iroquois or Haudenosaunee people of North America - a matrilineal society where men’s roles center around diplomacy.
Minoan Crete - an ancient matriarchal/egalitarian society with no evidence of royalty and very little weaponry. Men are depicted in roles of ritual participation rather than as leaders or warriors.
By contrast, criminal justice researchers have found that societies “that define masculinity or male honor in terms of dominance are strongly associated with violence and domestic abuse.”
This study found that the amount of violence in a country is correlated with how patriarchal their legislation is and how rigid their gender roles are. The more patriarchal, the more violent.
Yes violence and domestic abuse are very wide-spread both now and throughout history. But as matri-centric societies show, that does not mean it is innate or inevitable. It just means that patriarchy is very wide-spread both now and throughout history.
Patriarchy is not a set in stone biological imperative. Patriarchy is like a river- at first rivers start out as mere trickles through permeable soil running down a mountain. They could have gone any which way through the soil at first, but once it flows for a while the path becomes grooved in deeper and deeper until it calcifies.
It’s not inevitable, it’s just the river whose current we’ve been swimming in for a very long time.
Gender equality seems to be the key to altering the course of this particular river.
“Even observable in non-human species”
I’m so glad you brought this one up.
In his book 12 Rules for Life, Jordan Peterson makes the case that male dominance is a natural imperative because the animal kingdom is full of it.
His followers call themselves lobsters because Peterson is particularly fond of using lobsters to show that male dominant patriarchy is an evolutionary imperative. Lobsters have existed for hundreds of millions of years, have nervous systems influenced by serotonin like humans and live in dominant hierarchies.
Sorry. Nothing to be done. It’s just biology.
I could take this argument apart on the lobster level, but a marine biologist already has, so let’s move to the area of the animal kingdom closest to homo sapiens.
It used to be believed that our closest living relative genetically speaking were chimpanzees, with whom we share 98.7% of our DNA.
But in 2012, an international team of 418 researchers sequenced the genome of the bonobo and found that we also share 98.7% of our DNA with bonobos. (I’m sure they’re thrilled.)
Genome sequencers and the academic journal Science have since issued a genetic tie between chimps and bonobos for the coveted position of our closest living relative in the animal kingdom.
Since they share 99% of DNA, if everything were down to genetics, the social structures of chimps and bonobos would be 99% the same wouldn’t they?
But they are very different.
Chimpanzees live in a patriarchy. Chimp groups are led by an alpha male who determines where the group moves, what they hunt and who gets to mate with whom.
Chimps are also famously violent and territorial, frequently attacking and killing each other.
Bonobos, by contrast, live in a matriarchy. Bonobo groups are led by a matriarch along with a small group of females and occasionally one or two males mixed in.
Bonobos are famously peaceful. They share both food and territory. Everyone chips in to hunt and take care of the young. Violence is very rare, even between different bonobo groups.
Back in the human world, it is commonly believed that men must be dominant because they are bigger and stronger, but female bonobos are smaller than males and yet they lead and their role is not regulated to child care.
It’s almost like, patriarchy and male dominance isn’t the inevitable social structure for primates, predestined in our DNA. It’s almost like, humans could have gone another way.
“When humans invented inequality and socioeconomic status, they came up with a dominance hierarchy that subordinates like nothing the primate world has ever seen before.” Robert Sapolsky
What happens when “we assume IT CANNOT BE ALTERED”
We do not have to ask the question of what happens if we assume that patriarchy and patriarchal masculinity cannot be altered because THIS IS WHAT WE’VE BEEN ASSUMING!
Sorry for shouting, but we are the living result of centuries of existing under this assumption.
For thousands of years those in charge of our religions have declared it God’s will that women be subjugated to men:
Islamic Hadiths say that men are allowed to rape war captives. Men are allowed to take child brides. Men are allowed to have sex with multiple women, but women can only be with her husband. Men are allowed to beat their wives.
The Bible says that women should be silent, submit in all things to their husbands and be excluded from leadership.
One of the morning prayers for a Jewish Orthodox man says “Blessed art Thou, oh Lord … for not creating me a woman.”
The Hindu Code of Manu says “In childhood a woman must be subject to her father; in her youth, to her husband; when her husband is dead, to her sons. A woman must never be free of subjugation.”
The Abrahamic religions believe woman was created out of a man’s rib, caused original sin and must be subjugated to men as a result.
Sorry. Nothing to be done. God says so.
Once the age of enlightenment placed rational thought above religion - science replaced God as the moral imperative of the day. But instead of questioning the inevitability of male dominance, science just took God’s place.
“Sorry God says so” became “Sorry biology says so.”
But is it biology or is it a self-fulfilling prophesy when those in charge of setting up our systems of governance in addition to our systems of worship have all declared it an unquestionable imperative that men rule over women?11
“The man is by nature superior to the female.” - Aristotle
“Woman was specifically made to please man… I grant you this is not the law of love; but it is the law of nature, which is older than love itself." - Jean Jacques Rousseau
“It is unchallengeable that woman is destined to live under man's influence and has no authority… Woman is something deficient or accidental.” - Thomas Aquinas
“Women are nothing but machines for producing children.” - Napoleon Bonapart
“But our good American ladies, I trust, have been too wise to wrinkle their foreheads with politics. They are contented to soothe and calm the minds of their husbands.” - Thomas Jefferson
“Nature . . . paints them to be weak, frail, impatient, feeble, and foolish, and experience has declared them to be unconstant, variable, cruel, and lacking the spirit of counsel and regiment.” - John Knox
Sorry nothing to be done. It’s just biology.
What kind of world would we live in we hadn’t been taught from the time of our earliest written word that men dominating over women cannot be questioned?
We will never know.
One thing is for sure- what happens when we assume it cannot be altered is… WE DO NOT ALTER IT.
Both on a societal level and on an individual level.
The real bummer about assuming that men have no control over their aggression or sexual urges is that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy of the worst sort.
The “Pygmalion Effect” refers to the phenomenon that people’s behaviors rise or fall to the level of others’ expectations of them.
It was coined in 1968 by the landmark study where teachers were told certain students in their classroom tested as “gifted.” Even though those students were randomly selected and didn’t actually have a higher IQ, by the end of the year each of those students really did exhibit significant higher IQ gains compared to the rest of their class.
The Pygmalion Effect has since been tested hundreds of times in the workplace, sports teams, homes and hospitals—confirming that for better or worse, others’ expectations have a massive impact on individual behavior.
So when scientists, religious leaders, parents, teachers and media all send the message that to be a man is to be violent and sexually deviant, what do we expect will happen?
It’s true that our current generation’s expectations for men are higher than former generations’. However, we don’t seem to have any real faith that men are actually capable of rising to our higher expectations.
As usual,
nails it:“We are right to focus on the boys right now, but not for the reasons we’re told. Boys and men deserve attention not because we’re uniquely sad, nor because we merely need to learn how to “be men” in a new and different way. It’s more complicated than that, because we’re trodding a new path, but it’s also quite simple. We need to respect boys and men enough to ask us to be human.” - What did the boys do today?
What would happen if our new path was lined with the belief that men aren’t slaves to their aggression or sexuality but fully capable of self-control, empathy and care?
What if we both expected that of them and believed they were capable of it?12
“You can only set up the right incentives and disincentives”
If I understand it correctly, the crux of Kate’s argument is that words are not enough to suddenly make men less aggressive. Instead of trying to talk men out of their aggression, we should provide healthy outlets for it as well as “incentives and disincentives to promote good outcomes and discourage bad ones.”
I’m on board with productive outlets for aggression, however, no amount of incentives or disincentives will hit the core of the problem— the belief that men are simply incapable of controlling themselves.
I grew up Mormon. I was taught that men could not control their sexual urges. Sorry nothing can be done. It’s just biology. So it was up to the women to cover up their shoulders, thighs and stomachs so the men would never be tempted.
I went to college at BYU where there is an honor code— a series of incentives and disincentives to promote good behavior you could call it. As a 23 year old woman, in an apartment I was paying for, it was against the rules for a guy to ever come into my room for any reason at any time. You faced getting put on academic probation for breaking these rules.
The boys on my mission were told the more righteous they were, the hotter their wife would be. If he could just behave himself while single, a hot wife that he could have sex with whenever he wanted would be his reward for his good behavior.
Incentives and disincentives.
Guess how this is turning out?
Utah has some of the highest rates of pornography, child pornography, sexual abuse, anti-depressants, addiction, plastic surgery and teen suicide in the country.
It leads to men who feel wholly entitled to their wives’ body and completely powerless when it comes to their “pornography addiction.” They are then trapped in an inescapable shame tornado each time the succumb to their “natural man.”
When you treat men like children who must be controlled with lollipops for good behavior and slaps on the wrist for bad behavior, predictably they act like children.
When you teach men they have no self-control, predictably they have a hard time controlling themselves.
When we expect men to act like monsters, predictably they act like monsters.
When you keep men from facing any accountability for hurting others because “they can’t help it,” predictably, they keep hurting others.
Everyone loses- the men, the women, the children, everyone.
Why have we questioned biological essentialism when it comes to women but not men?
Earlier I asked the question- if we believe that women can experience hormonal fluctuations and still exert self-control, why don’t we believe that very same logic applies to men?
The answer is patriarchy.
Biological essentialism alleviates men from facing accountability for their actions. If it’s just biology, there is nothing that can be done, so there is no consequence that needs to be faced. Men get a free pass for doing what they feel like doing and everyone else can just adapt themselves to men’s “biology.”
War is justified because men gotta fight. Egregious wealth accumulation and inequality is justified because men gotta succeed. Rape, affairs, sexual coercion- men gotta spread their seed. Husbands can’t help with housework and childcare- they just aren’t wired for that.
But. If we believe that men are equal to all other humans, equally capable of self-control and care, suddenly men have to be held accountable when their behavior is harmful, when they place themselves atop an inequality hierarchy, when they hurt others physically, when they turn women into objects for their sexual pleasure. Suddenly they must face consequences for their actions.
It’s not a real head scratcher why male biological essentialism has been so rigid for so very, very long. There is a lot of motivated ignorance when it comes to deconstructing patriarchy and patriarchal masculinity. This would mean real change and real accountability.
I’ve written before that love + accountability is a rare mix, but it’s the only combo that is going to get us out of this mess—loving men and believing men are capable of loving behavior and then holding them accountable for their actions.13
In sum
Who knows maybe I’m totally wrong. Maybe men are biologically wired for violence and sexual exploitation. Maybe the nature/nurture divide is 60/40 or 75/25.
But you know what? Even if it was 90/10, I would still say- let’s focus on the 10% that we can do something about. Let’s focus on what we have agency over.
Even if men are just naturally predisposed to violence and anti-social behavior I would still say, let’s experiment with assuming they are perfectly capable of being present fathers, contributing members of the community and loving partners.
We are living the result of assuming men aren’t capable of change.
Maybe let’s try out assuming they are.
I know you guys have thoughts on this- hit me. How much of patriarchal masculinity do you think is biology? How much sociology? What had you nodding and fist-pumping? What brought up skepticism? Let’s discuss.
Do you enjoy thinking about and discussing all things patriarchy and feminism?? Cool me too. Come discuss with me and the Matriarchal Blessing community by becoming a paying subscriber. Our next gathering will be in April when we will be discussing Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall.
Alternatively, you could also just pay me for my work just cause, that is also very cool and very appreciated! Thank you!
I’ve given her a head’s up about this article and from what I’ve read of hers, she is not one to shy away from a debate.
Although there is a very interesting conversation to be had even here that sex differences aren’t as black and white as we make them seem (intersex, intrasex, etc). I’ll be talking about gender, not sex in this article and blurring the gender binary makes things better for everyone.
Source: Gender and Our Brains
Whoopsie, we’ve forgotten to update our beliefs about this one.
I have linked this book, but please do not buy this book.
Source: For the Love of Men
Testosterone is not the cause of violent behavior, but rather the result of it. Testosterone follows rather than precedes violent behavior.
We believe that biology shapes our social environment, when it’s often exactly the opposite- our social environment shapes our biology.
For instance, one study found that men born in the South of the US were more likely to react aggressively and subsequently increase their testosterone levels when they were insulted than men raised in the North of the US.
Neuroscientist Lise Eliot found that contrary to popular belief, boys are neither less emotional nor less empathetic than girls. They do however, show less comfort and ability expressing emotions not because of their genetics, but because they are encouraged not to.
PMS is such an interesting case study showing the muddy waters between sociology and biology. If PMS were pure biological fact, it would affect all women across all cultures the same. But it doesn’t. Robert Frank, a US gynecologist was the first to link hormones to “premenstrual tension.” Then a UK endrochronologist coined PMS as a medical syndrome affecting both mental and physical behaviors. These understandings permeated the West and English speaking countries in particular. But survey data from The World Health Organization shows that negative mood, poor performance at work and school and decline in cognitive abilities before the period are almost exclusively only reported by women in North America, Western Europe and Australia. Whereas women in Eastern cultures such as China, where PMS is not commonly discussed, report physical symptoms (such as water retention) but rarely if ever mention mental or emotional problems.
It’s true there has never been a matriarchy as defined as the inverse of patriarchy where women subjugate men, but that is not because men are just naturally suited to ruling. It’s because when women are given power, they share that power with men, which makes women-led societies egalitarian rather than matriarchal.
Big thanks to
for gifting me a mother load of depressingly sexist quotes from world leaders throughout history. You know me too well.Loved this comment on my recent post on love and accountability from
: “I’m reading a book called 10-25 with a lot of research-based tips on how to appeal to and work with people within this age range. There’s a large emphasis on the developmental tasks of establishing a sense of status and belonging in the world at this phase. To address this fundamental need, the book asserts, one must employ a high-expectation, high-support approach. In short, you must approach people with a sense of faith in their competence and a willingness to support them in employing it and further developing it.”One of the best examples I’ve come across of this love/accountability combo when it comes to men is how
responds to male friends who just want to sleep with her: "I take this as an opportunity to deprogram men from believing that women are just sexual objects... I have had that conversation of‘I am not a conquest for you. I love you. I care about you in a way that is really and truly platonic…. And that is a beautiful thing. It is a beautiful thing to have a chosen family. I need you to see me as a person separate from the conquest you have been programmed to pursue and if you can’t, there is something fundamentally and profoundly wrong with your worldview and I want us to work together for you to be able to get over that because you will never find love in a willing participant if you can only ever see women as sexual objects….
I don’t get disappointed, I get very fucking direct." I talk about that more here.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Such misinformation, especially at this time, will surely be our demise. Female archaeologists have shown plenty of evidence that we once actually had female run cultures where women and men collaborated. Women were once considered the deity. I love your articles. A bright light in so much darkness. Thank you.
Since you mention Robert Sapolsky’s work, it’s worth noting that he also observed significant cultural change within a single baboon troop when the aggressive, dominating males, who had been scavenging contaminated meat, were killed off: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC387823/. This resulted in a much more egalitarian culture that was adopted even by adolescent males who became members of that baboon troop. I used this as a central metaphor in a piece I wrote for the History News Network back in 2020: https://www.historynewsnetwork.org/article/the-garbage-troop-segregation-primatology-and-repu. A selection of that:
"Those appealing to the power of tradition must create conflict in order to prove their point. Natural hierarchies are anything but; they are not written in our DNA. The study of more “primitive” species illustrates that fact.
In other words, Donald Trump and his Republican Party are not afraid that Joe Biden’s election will destroy America. They’re afraid that it won’t. They’re afraid that Joe Biden’s election won’t herald the end of our American experiment in a widening gyre of violence and chaos. They’re afraid that a turn toward egalitarian thinking won’t unravel the survivability of our troop and thus herald our doom. They’re afraid that equality might prove a strength rather than a weakness. And so between now and November, they will create as much chaos as possible in order to prove themselves right."