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.
Yes! And I think about the current US administration’s wiping of archives and military documents to remove women (and other folks) from that history. Maybe another reason there’s fewer well-known examples of female power in the past is because removing the evidence is part of patriarchy.
As archaeology and anthropology become more diverse, we’re seeing long-standing biases in historical interpretation being challenged. At last!
These fields have been dominated by a masculine lens, for a very long time, with narratives that often overlooked women’s roles in past societies.
Current research is beginning to be more nuanced in its understanding of history and to acknowledge collaboration, female leadership, and complexity of past cultures.
I studied archaeology, many moons ago, and social anthropology for my MA and I stay curious about current research.
There’s no been virtually no archaeological of actual matriarchal societies on the anthropological record. Sure, there have been matrilineal ones where women have more power, especially old women. But it’s not like we’ve had full on ‘female-run’ societies at large scale.
Patriarchy seems to be the unfortunate default. We’re closer to our chimp cousins than our baboon cousins in that way even thought both are infinitely more violent than us.
Actually, once female archaeologists started to do the research and interpret the previous “findings” of male archaeologists, they found plenty of evidence of female dominated cultures. Whether too small for some to be considered significant or not, they existed and collaboration seems to have been the norm with few signs of fighting.
Have a look at Wengrow and Graeber’s Dawn of Everything (2022), Arif. It’s a thorough-going attempt to challenge the idea that human societies have always been characterised by hierarchy, inequality - and the dominance of men. They discuss and cite the work of female anthropologists/archaeologists who have challenged the myth of constant ubiquitous patriarchy. I’m sure archaeologists and anthropologists have critiques of the book - how could they not, given that it’s an enormous synthesis of the research on early human societies - but it does at least have full citations and offer an overview of findings that one might dig into further to find out more.
Do you have any evidence or links to this research? Because feminist anthropologists in the 20th century were hellbent on finding matriarchal societies only to come up short and find no substantial evidence.
Another example of difference in the the way male and female scientists observe things and how that affects scientific outcomes challenges even the concept of "alpha" male, which comes from years of primarily male scientists observing herd animal behavior. Male scientists observed one member of the herd making an signal indicating what the herd should do in terms of moving in directions and acting in relation to threats. They coined the idea of "alpha" males as the male who takes charge and leads the herd.
When female scientists came into the research, they observed that the single male signalling before the herd reacted was actually taking note of subtle signals from throughout the herd, and was basically only serving as an "indicator" of the will of the herd. As he was often the biggest in the herd, his signal could be best observed by the full membership of the herd.
Female scientists realized that the "alpha" male's necessary strongest skill set was actually that of perception, and understanding consensus, and being able to quickly survey and recognize the will of the group and signal to indicate the decision.
So what does this mean about how the male scientist erroneously defined "alpha" skill set has been laid out across our human
That’s fascinating, I’d not heard of this before - not the specific example anyway. Do you recall where you found it, maybe? I’m too lazy to search and would love my food-for-thought cut up for me🙃
You must have heard about the poor scientist who made a blunder early in his career by studying wolves in captivity and coming up with the alpha-beta-gamma wolf descriptors, only to realise his mistake once he had the chance to study wolves in their natural habitat - since then he’s been trying to reverse it but it’s all quite got away from him! So many implications.
I kknnnooowww. I tried to look it up again as well, I heard it on a podcast that was not at all about animals or herds or scientists, but rather on another topic where they used this example. The example stuck, the details of the podcast unfortunately not🙈 if I really stretch I believe the prominent example was with deer.
Arif, I appreciate your willingness to engage and ask questions. Here's one for you: what if male anthropologists in the years before, say, women had the right to vote in Europe and America, were hellbent on interpreting evidence as patriarchal?
Try Douglas Fry. Just google him. He wrote a book challenging the normative conclusions. Also, Nurturing our Humanity is relatively new but it is a built off of the Chalice and the Blade. They propose a different way of viewing society organizations…dominance versus Partnership based. They provide a wealth of evidence but do not confine it to matriarchy or patriarchy. It is worth the read. You will also have a lovely bibliography to read for the journey. If you want to go cross-discipline, I recommend Darcia Narvez. She has a substack here called the nested pathway. From here you can climb into neurobiology, kinship culture, etc….
It doesn’t sound like you read the piece, because Celeste addresses *both* of the things you bring up, and not just in passing either.
Celeste's post is really a fantastic educated-layperson’s primer on these concepts. Me, I certainly appreciate it - I wish I’d had this to ring-fence the whole sprawling discussion when I waded through related reading as part of my university course, and even later on in expanding on that. Much easier than figuring it out piecemeal the way I had to! (But I guess then I might have missed out on reading all kinds of great writers, so it’s all good I suppose)
Still, you’d do well to avail yourself of the access to this excellent work. If not to further your own education, then at least to wipe some of all that runny egg off your silly face 🙃
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."
I appreciate your willingness to engage with the damage the patriarchy does to both men and women.
I just listened to “The Will to Change” which I believe was recommended by this blog or related threads. It made me appreciate how conditioned I’ve been to suppress my emotions. Men in our society generally feel incapable of being loved. We feel unworthy. We are taught that our power comes from unhealthy power and control dynamics over others. To show any emotion but anger is weakness.
This is an important conversation because connection with our authentic selves requires us to be feel to emotions that are both traditionally masculine and feminine. We need all of it to be self-actualized.
“Men in our society feel incapable of being loved. We feel unworthy.” Yes this is a direct result of our cultural belief that men are innately wired for violence and dominance. Domination and love do not mix. Thanks for this comment Nate!
Nate - thanks for sharing your experience. I'm sure you know this already, but there are humans who appreciate it when men can show vulnerability/regret/sadness/etc or other "weak" emotions. I am one such human.
It’s sad to me how pervasive this mindset is, even amongst the more progressive and open minded people I know. I was lucky to be a gender studies major as an undergraduate and we talked a lot about these ideas. When I had kids I was determined not to allow these concepts about inherent behaviour to effect my parenting (as much as possible, of course I grew up in a patriarchal society too and still live in one, and it’s impossible not to be effected by that). My three kids, two girls and a boy are all unique, because every human is unique and thus need different things from me, but I tried not to fall into the trap of seeing it just through a gendered lens. My first son was a boy and I bought a range of toys for him, including a kitchen set and dolls. He loved all of them, and especially loved emulating me caring for his younger sister with his doll. I tried hard to help him understand his emotions and learn empathy for others in his play and interactions. He did like to “rough house” with some boys, but he also learned that behaviour had to be mutual. He was bigger than most kids his age, so it was especially important to reinforce that. People were also quick to make judgments about him because of tgat, and often saw normal toddler behaviour as somehow more menacing because he was a boy and his natural size. He was very physically active as a toddler compared to my second child, a girl, but not more so than my third, also a girl. She had the same energy. The oldest and youngest were the most similar, more so than the two girls. He also was maybe the most sensitive of the three, easily crying over sad stories for instance. As an adult he’s studying to be a teacher because he loves interacting with young kids. He’s aware there is a lot of bias against this, but is ok with being one of the few men in his program because he’s comfortable being around women, and not feeling like he needs to be perceived a certain way. He’s obviously just one example, but I was surprised at how differently many of his male peers were raised, even in similar households. I was aware for most of his childhood how little we actually talk about how to raise boys. Much of the focus is on raising strong girls, and not falling into old stereotypes but I didn’t really see these same discussions about boys happening at all. I really do think so much could be changed by changing the mindset that boys are inherently one thing. I still think, despite our rapidly changing ideas about biology and gender, that we are still in a very rigid mindset about what it means to be male and female.
My oldest son attends a small school that is very focused on promoting positive social behavior among the children--from the youngest nursery school toddlers to the 12-14 year olds in the 7th and 8th grade classes. They have purposefully created a school culture of cooperation and equality where violence and aggression are not normalized and both male and female students are supported and encouraged to express a range of emotions in healthy ways. Arguments happen, but physical fights between the children are extremely rare. Bullying is also extremely rare.
When I am on campus, it is perfectly normal to see kids of all different ages and genders holding hands with friends as they walk to class or play together--yes, the boys hold hands with each other, too. If there's ever any comment about it, it usually comes from a child who has only recently started attending the school. The comment is typically shrugged-off and everything continues on as usual. Hugs are a commonly offered form of greeting between all of the kids.
Friend groups aren't usually divided by gender and frequently mix with others. It is common to see the kindergarten and preschool boys playing "family" with baby dolls, with or without any girls playing along. The older boys are just as likely to stop and help a younger child do up a button, pull on a hat, or zip a jacket as the older girls are.
At home, my oldest child actively seeks opportunities to engage with his younger brother. There are arguments and moments of sibling rivalry, for certain, but mostly they build things, create art, help each other with chores, and invent detailed cooperative scenarios to play out together. My partner and I are constantly amazed by all the big and little differences between the ways our children are learning to interact with others and our own childhood memories.
This stuff is absolutely possible. It will happen in the right environment. I've seen it with my own eyes. Imagine what our world could be if this was the experience for most children. How much more could we rely on each other? How much safer would we feel in each other's presence? How free would we be from fear and self-loathing?
I'm sure that my child's school isn't a perfect "proof of concept" for a more egalitarian society. But the possibilities it points to are wonderful to think about.
Great stuff (again). I think you nail the point that falling back on biological essentialism a la Musk, Peterson, et al, is an abdication of responsibility rather than recognising the need to do better.
Excellent work, as always, Celeste! Whenever I read statements like, "It's just biology, there's nothing that can be done," I ask myself, "Who benefits from this way of thinking?" It's easy to see why men would flock to a biological argument that they are better leaders, doctors, scholars, etc., but why would women be okay with this? Misogyny runs deep, and is taught to boys and girls from a very early age.
Although we are living at a time with the greatest access to factual information, leaders in the US are some of the key players spreading dangerous misinformation. We have a secretary of health (and human services) who doesn't believe in vaccines although they had virtually wiped out measles and polio. Critical thinking skills are at an all time low and I honestly fear for future generations. Sadly, we can present people with all the factual evidence in the world, but many lack the critical thinking skills to process new information.
This is amazing! Seriously, all of it. Thank you for writing this. And interestingly enough, as I was reading the part about male aggression being a response NOT to biology, but to falling short of societal roles for masculinity, I saw a parallel in mom aggression. Social roles for women and mothers are quite prescriptive (maybe more so because I’m in Utah?) 🤷🏼♀️ But the greatest tool I’ve had for fighting the rage when my offspring makes a scene at the grocery store has been to shake off those societal expectations of women and mothers. That and what I call wiggle-breathing. 😅 Suddenly when I don’t perceive myself to be failing everything it means to be a mom, (confession: I have never made sour dough bread) I’m a lot more able to show up for the little people in my life and to hold my ground when it’s important without feelings of aggression.
I'm not in Utah nor a Mormon; am I hearing that children are expected always to behave well and/or that there are narrowed expectations of appropriate reactions from a mom/a parent?
I’m a progressive Mormon in Utah so I only have my perspective never having lived for more than three months outside of the state, but the mom culture here feels to me like children should always be behaved and pristine in their appearance. And anything less than is the mother’s fault. It is very common for me to see moms snap at their kids and I’ve noticed when I feel like snapping it is pretty correlated to my internalization of not living up to the image. It also seems like moms snap not because they think snapping is okay but because they take their children’s emotions as a personal indicator of their value as a parent. They’re supposed to always have control over their kids but do it in a soft voice and it’s all just too much. I know a few people who feel this way but I rarely hear another Mormon admit it.
I'm happy you pulled this together. It's the best lead in I've seen against the overreach of sociobiologists.
For a layperson's explainer on T, read Cordelia Fine's 'Testosterone Rex'. It fills out the debunking of T as destiny from a biologist's perspective.
As for change, I think that we are seeing large cracks in the structure of patriarchy. It started when we noticed that we handle and comfort male infants less than we do female infants. Many parents care for their children more evenhandedly now. Imagine that, males infants are being comforted more when they cry! Second, many of us parents recognized the bullying and bullshit that rains down on our male offspring. We adjusted our parenting. When we saw bullshit we called it out. Our children have noticed.
We're far from done. Performative patriarchy creeps in from every corner, but if we continue to call it out, we will help carve out a new river channel. Also, not that this is the answer, but a new cadre of young men is more inclined to play video games than chase women in the older patriarchal way, unthinkable. We need to reach out there too. Rejecting the bullying for status is a first step. Those recognition circles you reference, ones used in other cultures, might be a start.
I hold up the current backlash and reactionary retrenchment as evidence of the change. "We're losing so we must regain control!" Where this has been in place longer, people are starting to push back against the reactionaries.
I’ve been obsessed with Robert Sapolsky’s work for the last few years—and was delighted to see you bring it up here.
Similar to our wildly inaccurate collective illusions about testosterone=dominance, I learned from Sapolsky that the strong protective urge I’ve always felt in my body when someone threatens a loved one didn’t make me “masculine;” indeed it was driven by the very oxytocin I—a deeply social, loving, empathic, overtly feminine individual—have always produced when I feel most bonded in my relationships. Especially if someone threatens a child, I tend to be the scariest form of myself—which strangers almost never anticipate based on my physical appearance alone.
It’s seems to me a huge part of the understandable overwhelm that has manifested in so much psychological fragility around these ongoing nature versus nurture fallacies is explained most simply by epigenetics. Domination indoctrination demands we see the world through a simplistic, binary lens. Ie if a biological trait is highly correlated to gender, it can’t be social conditioning, etc. But all decent scientists know correlation is NOT causation.
Epigenetic research, which has evolved suuuuuper rapidly alongside technology (the Internet, social media, AI) is inherently integrative. Epigenetics have revealed—with an unprecedented amount of clarity—countless foundational lies upon which our entire economy and social systems rest. The idea that our human nature adapted to abusive nurturing by domination indoctrination causes so much cognitive dissonance, many of us can’t bear the losses of connection we begin to realize we’d have to grieve if we admitted the Truth. So it makes sense that most of us resist until it becomes even more painful to live in modern humanity’s (inherited, but not inherent) lies.
This is what healing looks like. It’s hard and messy. And impossible to do without helping each other. Thank you, Celeste, for blessing those you curse you with articles like this🔥
Just like in the case of the river choosing its path, the nature/nurture divide need only be 51/49 for the effect to get amplified across generations to arrive at today's world.
So glad you brought up chimps & bonobos. But I think it is also worth pointing out that in bonobo tribes, the females control males who attempt to dominate or subjugate other males or females by bonding together & punishing the aggressor. I.e., they ally with other women & attack the aggressor to protect their daughters & sons from bullying & harm. I have often wondered why human women d/n do that but perhaps it is b/c we are isolated in family groups so that sisters & friends are separated. There is also conditioning, especially religious.
There have been isolated incidents where women got together & punished a rapist or abuser, but they are few & far between.
This is a very important point to ponder- thank you. I think conditioning and punishments for women speaking out against men/ rewards for women keeping silent and keeping the peace have a lot to do with it. Look at what we do to women who speak out against their abusers like Amber Heard- it’s enough to keep women silent
thank you for saying something along the lines of what I wanted to say… the way I would put it is that bonobo society gives a key model for overcoming dominance by strong males:
FEMALE SOLIDARITY!
And let’s not be too pessimistic about the power of solidarity across gender and other lines. User “woolstone” shared a link to a 1999 work of Christopher Boehm about “reverse dominance coalitions”, which is another way of saying:
the weak joining together to overcome the strong.
This is of course also supposed to be a basis of “the social contract” and constitutional government etc.
I recommend a 2019 book by anthropologist Richard Wrangham called “the goodness paradox”, which argued that it’s probably built into our evolutionary history for groups (often composed of men) to band together to (violently) depose a tyrannical bullying male who has gone beyond the bounds of social acceptance.
Wrangham also points out that as bad as human violence is — including physical and sexual violence against women — we are MUCH LESS less violent overall even than bonobos.
Thanks for the book suggestion -- I love anthropology & will check this out. I d/n know that the level of violence in bonobo society was higher than in human -- that's interesting. Maybe confirmation of the self-domestication theory!
Wrangam emphasized the different levels of primate violence in his book — humans being much less violent than chimps and bonobos and many or most other primates. We are so much less violent on a day-to-day level (reactive violence) but we commit these horrible act of mass violence and war—coalitionary proactive violence, including the execution of those who break the rules. He calls that low AND high level of violence the “goodness paradox”. Yes, self-domestication has occurred, partly or mostly due to capital punishment of violent transgressors. I’ve forgotten most other details of what he said but it is super interesting! :-)
Brilliant piece. You touch on it briefly but I think the role of rape in warfare is responsible for much of where Men are today. Rape and pillage was the command. The 'reward' for soldiers, often indentured, was 'take what you want and torture and rape the women' as an act of war and aggression. Kill the children even. Kill the intellectuals. Burn it all down. Thousand of years of this behavior has brought us here. Nothing to do with biology, unless you consider selective breeding.
Examples of matriarchal societies extended across much of Native America. In the Southeast US in the 1700s, British fur traders often married Native women (there are at least 3 such marriages among my Cherokee ancestors). They moved into Native family compounds as husbands in a matrilineal, matrifocal, and matrilocal society. One fur trader warned his friends that, in Native homes, "the women Rules the Rostt and weres the brichess." Abusive men were run out of town by the in-laws and uncles.
It seems to me that you and Kate agree with holding men responsible, and that is what she meant by incentives and disincentives. Also interesting to quote Sapolsky to support one of those points, when he is claiming that testosterone levels do have a strong influence on male behavior. It isn’t exactly the same influence as people currently claim, but Sapolsky’s claim that higher levels of testosterone are correlated with more concerns about status seem to be similar to the claims that men are more interested in dominance. They aren’t exactly the same, as Salolsky points out in that quote, so if you gain/maintain status in prosocial ways, men will tend to adopt those behaviors. Again, that seems to me to basically be what Kate is saying.
Yes I am not at all saying "men are violent rapine beasts, oh well, what are you going to do, boys be boys". I'm saying that the response and incentives would be different if you assume their behavior mostly has to be learned versus assuming it is mostly natural and just an expression of testosterone. Of course every society needs to address these things. And I certainly have absolutely zero desire to be bossed around by, dominated, restrained, exploited, harmed, or told what I'm allowed to do by some "alpha male"...nor for anyone else to be subjected to that, either. There is a big difference between accepting that some things are biological/natural and thinking that makes them right or good. There are lots of bad natural things that humans correctly make extensive efforts to oppose or mitigate (cancer, wildfires, floods, disease, it's a long list). Male desire to domineer, control, and lord it over others and make others I to supplicants is not something that's good for anyone but that particular man, and no one else should want to or have to submit to it.
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.
Yes! And I think about the current US administration’s wiping of archives and military documents to remove women (and other folks) from that history. Maybe another reason there’s fewer well-known examples of female power in the past is because removing the evidence is part of patriarchy.
I was just about to write something similar.
As archaeology and anthropology become more diverse, we’re seeing long-standing biases in historical interpretation being challenged. At last!
These fields have been dominated by a masculine lens, for a very long time, with narratives that often overlooked women’s roles in past societies.
Current research is beginning to be more nuanced in its understanding of history and to acknowledge collaboration, female leadership, and complexity of past cultures.
I studied archaeology, many moons ago, and social anthropology for my MA and I stay curious about current research.
Thanks for this great post, and comment.
There’s no been virtually no archaeological of actual matriarchal societies on the anthropological record. Sure, there have been matrilineal ones where women have more power, especially old women. But it’s not like we’ve had full on ‘female-run’ societies at large scale.
Patriarchy seems to be the unfortunate default. We’re closer to our chimp cousins than our baboon cousins in that way even thought both are infinitely more violent than us.
Actually, once female archaeologists started to do the research and interpret the previous “findings” of male archaeologists, they found plenty of evidence of female dominated cultures. Whether too small for some to be considered significant or not, they existed and collaboration seems to have been the norm with few signs of fighting.
Have a look at Wengrow and Graeber’s Dawn of Everything (2022), Arif. It’s a thorough-going attempt to challenge the idea that human societies have always been characterised by hierarchy, inequality - and the dominance of men. They discuss and cite the work of female anthropologists/archaeologists who have challenged the myth of constant ubiquitous patriarchy. I’m sure archaeologists and anthropologists have critiques of the book - how could they not, given that it’s an enormous synthesis of the research on early human societies - but it does at least have full citations and offer an overview of findings that one might dig into further to find out more.
Do you have any evidence or links to this research? Because feminist anthropologists in the 20th century were hellbent on finding matriarchal societies only to come up short and find no substantial evidence.
Another example of difference in the the way male and female scientists observe things and how that affects scientific outcomes challenges even the concept of "alpha" male, which comes from years of primarily male scientists observing herd animal behavior. Male scientists observed one member of the herd making an signal indicating what the herd should do in terms of moving in directions and acting in relation to threats. They coined the idea of "alpha" males as the male who takes charge and leads the herd.
When female scientists came into the research, they observed that the single male signalling before the herd reacted was actually taking note of subtle signals from throughout the herd, and was basically only serving as an "indicator" of the will of the herd. As he was often the biggest in the herd, his signal could be best observed by the full membership of the herd.
Female scientists realized that the "alpha" male's necessary strongest skill set was actually that of perception, and understanding consensus, and being able to quickly survey and recognize the will of the group and signal to indicate the decision.
So what does this mean about how the male scientist erroneously defined "alpha" skill set has been laid out across our human
perceptions of gender?
That’s fascinating, I’d not heard of this before - not the specific example anyway. Do you recall where you found it, maybe? I’m too lazy to search and would love my food-for-thought cut up for me🙃
You must have heard about the poor scientist who made a blunder early in his career by studying wolves in captivity and coming up with the alpha-beta-gamma wolf descriptors, only to realise his mistake once he had the chance to study wolves in their natural habitat - since then he’s been trying to reverse it but it’s all quite got away from him! So many implications.
I kknnnooowww. I tried to look it up again as well, I heard it on a podcast that was not at all about animals or herds or scientists, but rather on another topic where they used this example. The example stuck, the details of the podcast unfortunately not🙈 if I really stretch I believe the prominent example was with deer.
Boom 💥
Thank you for sharing this!
Arif, I appreciate your willingness to engage and ask questions. Here's one for you: what if male anthropologists in the years before, say, women had the right to vote in Europe and America, were hellbent on interpreting evidence as patriarchal?
Try Douglas Fry. Just google him. He wrote a book challenging the normative conclusions. Also, Nurturing our Humanity is relatively new but it is a built off of the Chalice and the Blade. They propose a different way of viewing society organizations…dominance versus Partnership based. They provide a wealth of evidence but do not confine it to matriarchy or patriarchy. It is worth the read. You will also have a lovely bibliography to read for the journey. If you want to go cross-discipline, I recommend Darcia Narvez. She has a substack here called the nested pathway. From here you can climb into neurobiology, kinship culture, etc….
The evidence is listed in the book! Borrow it from a library and you will see what the sources are and can then examine them at your leisure
It doesn’t sound like you read the piece, because Celeste addresses *both* of the things you bring up, and not just in passing either.
Celeste's post is really a fantastic educated-layperson’s primer on these concepts. Me, I certainly appreciate it - I wish I’d had this to ring-fence the whole sprawling discussion when I waded through related reading as part of my university course, and even later on in expanding on that. Much easier than figuring it out piecemeal the way I had to! (But I guess then I might have missed out on reading all kinds of great writers, so it’s all good I suppose)
Still, you’d do well to avail yourself of the access to this excellent work. If not to further your own education, then at least to wipe some of all that runny egg off your silly face 🙃
Read: The Chalice and the Blade
by Riane Eisler
Bonobos, not baboons. Infinitely more violent than human males? Seriously?
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."
👀👀 So interesting- Thanks for this addition Guy!
I appreciate your willingness to engage with the damage the patriarchy does to both men and women.
I just listened to “The Will to Change” which I believe was recommended by this blog or related threads. It made me appreciate how conditioned I’ve been to suppress my emotions. Men in our society generally feel incapable of being loved. We feel unworthy. We are taught that our power comes from unhealthy power and control dynamics over others. To show any emotion but anger is weakness.
This is an important conversation because connection with our authentic selves requires us to be feel to emotions that are both traditionally masculine and feminine. We need all of it to be self-actualized.
“Men in our society feel incapable of being loved. We feel unworthy.” Yes this is a direct result of our cultural belief that men are innately wired for violence and dominance. Domination and love do not mix. Thanks for this comment Nate!
Nate - thanks for sharing your experience. I'm sure you know this already, but there are humans who appreciate it when men can show vulnerability/regret/sadness/etc or other "weak" emotions. I am one such human.
It’s sad to me how pervasive this mindset is, even amongst the more progressive and open minded people I know. I was lucky to be a gender studies major as an undergraduate and we talked a lot about these ideas. When I had kids I was determined not to allow these concepts about inherent behaviour to effect my parenting (as much as possible, of course I grew up in a patriarchal society too and still live in one, and it’s impossible not to be effected by that). My three kids, two girls and a boy are all unique, because every human is unique and thus need different things from me, but I tried not to fall into the trap of seeing it just through a gendered lens. My first son was a boy and I bought a range of toys for him, including a kitchen set and dolls. He loved all of them, and especially loved emulating me caring for his younger sister with his doll. I tried hard to help him understand his emotions and learn empathy for others in his play and interactions. He did like to “rough house” with some boys, but he also learned that behaviour had to be mutual. He was bigger than most kids his age, so it was especially important to reinforce that. People were also quick to make judgments about him because of tgat, and often saw normal toddler behaviour as somehow more menacing because he was a boy and his natural size. He was very physically active as a toddler compared to my second child, a girl, but not more so than my third, also a girl. She had the same energy. The oldest and youngest were the most similar, more so than the two girls. He also was maybe the most sensitive of the three, easily crying over sad stories for instance. As an adult he’s studying to be a teacher because he loves interacting with young kids. He’s aware there is a lot of bias against this, but is ok with being one of the few men in his program because he’s comfortable being around women, and not feeling like he needs to be perceived a certain way. He’s obviously just one example, but I was surprised at how differently many of his male peers were raised, even in similar households. I was aware for most of his childhood how little we actually talk about how to raise boys. Much of the focus is on raising strong girls, and not falling into old stereotypes but I didn’t really see these same discussions about boys happening at all. I really do think so much could be changed by changing the mindset that boys are inherently one thing. I still think, despite our rapidly changing ideas about biology and gender, that we are still in a very rigid mindset about what it means to be male and female.
Totally agree- thanks for this perspective Cary
thank you for raising an emotionally aware male!
My oldest son attends a small school that is very focused on promoting positive social behavior among the children--from the youngest nursery school toddlers to the 12-14 year olds in the 7th and 8th grade classes. They have purposefully created a school culture of cooperation and equality where violence and aggression are not normalized and both male and female students are supported and encouraged to express a range of emotions in healthy ways. Arguments happen, but physical fights between the children are extremely rare. Bullying is also extremely rare.
When I am on campus, it is perfectly normal to see kids of all different ages and genders holding hands with friends as they walk to class or play together--yes, the boys hold hands with each other, too. If there's ever any comment about it, it usually comes from a child who has only recently started attending the school. The comment is typically shrugged-off and everything continues on as usual. Hugs are a commonly offered form of greeting between all of the kids.
Friend groups aren't usually divided by gender and frequently mix with others. It is common to see the kindergarten and preschool boys playing "family" with baby dolls, with or without any girls playing along. The older boys are just as likely to stop and help a younger child do up a button, pull on a hat, or zip a jacket as the older girls are.
At home, my oldest child actively seeks opportunities to engage with his younger brother. There are arguments and moments of sibling rivalry, for certain, but mostly they build things, create art, help each other with chores, and invent detailed cooperative scenarios to play out together. My partner and I are constantly amazed by all the big and little differences between the ways our children are learning to interact with others and our own childhood memories.
This stuff is absolutely possible. It will happen in the right environment. I've seen it with my own eyes. Imagine what our world could be if this was the experience for most children. How much more could we rely on each other? How much safer would we feel in each other's presence? How free would we be from fear and self-loathing?
I'm sure that my child's school isn't a perfect "proof of concept" for a more egalitarian society. But the possibilities it points to are wonderful to think about.
Great stuff (again). I think you nail the point that falling back on biological essentialism a la Musk, Peterson, et al, is an abdication of responsibility rather than recognising the need to do better.
Excellent work, as always, Celeste! Whenever I read statements like, "It's just biology, there's nothing that can be done," I ask myself, "Who benefits from this way of thinking?" It's easy to see why men would flock to a biological argument that they are better leaders, doctors, scholars, etc., but why would women be okay with this? Misogyny runs deep, and is taught to boys and girls from a very early age.
Although we are living at a time with the greatest access to factual information, leaders in the US are some of the key players spreading dangerous misinformation. We have a secretary of health (and human services) who doesn't believe in vaccines although they had virtually wiped out measles and polio. Critical thinking skills are at an all time low and I honestly fear for future generations. Sadly, we can present people with all the factual evidence in the world, but many lack the critical thinking skills to process new information.
Yes! We must always ask who is the beneficiary of a societal structure.
This is amazing! Seriously, all of it. Thank you for writing this. And interestingly enough, as I was reading the part about male aggression being a response NOT to biology, but to falling short of societal roles for masculinity, I saw a parallel in mom aggression. Social roles for women and mothers are quite prescriptive (maybe more so because I’m in Utah?) 🤷🏼♀️ But the greatest tool I’ve had for fighting the rage when my offspring makes a scene at the grocery store has been to shake off those societal expectations of women and mothers. That and what I call wiggle-breathing. 😅 Suddenly when I don’t perceive myself to be failing everything it means to be a mom, (confession: I have never made sour dough bread) I’m a lot more able to show up for the little people in my life and to hold my ground when it’s important without feelings of aggression.
I'm not in Utah nor a Mormon; am I hearing that children are expected always to behave well and/or that there are narrowed expectations of appropriate reactions from a mom/a parent?
I’m a progressive Mormon in Utah so I only have my perspective never having lived for more than three months outside of the state, but the mom culture here feels to me like children should always be behaved and pristine in their appearance. And anything less than is the mother’s fault. It is very common for me to see moms snap at their kids and I’ve noticed when I feel like snapping it is pretty correlated to my internalization of not living up to the image. It also seems like moms snap not because they think snapping is okay but because they take their children’s emotions as a personal indicator of their value as a parent. They’re supposed to always have control over their kids but do it in a soft voice and it’s all just too much. I know a few people who feel this way but I rarely hear another Mormon admit it.
I'm happy you pulled this together. It's the best lead in I've seen against the overreach of sociobiologists.
For a layperson's explainer on T, read Cordelia Fine's 'Testosterone Rex'. It fills out the debunking of T as destiny from a biologist's perspective.
As for change, I think that we are seeing large cracks in the structure of patriarchy. It started when we noticed that we handle and comfort male infants less than we do female infants. Many parents care for their children more evenhandedly now. Imagine that, males infants are being comforted more when they cry! Second, many of us parents recognized the bullying and bullshit that rains down on our male offspring. We adjusted our parenting. When we saw bullshit we called it out. Our children have noticed.
We're far from done. Performative patriarchy creeps in from every corner, but if we continue to call it out, we will help carve out a new river channel. Also, not that this is the answer, but a new cadre of young men is more inclined to play video games than chase women in the older patriarchal way, unthinkable. We need to reach out there too. Rejecting the bullying for status is a first step. Those recognition circles you reference, ones used in other cultures, might be a start.
I hold up the current backlash and reactionary retrenchment as evidence of the change. "We're losing so we must regain control!" Where this has been in place longer, people are starting to push back against the reactionaries.
✨Hope ✨
God, you’re good.
I’ve been obsessed with Robert Sapolsky’s work for the last few years—and was delighted to see you bring it up here.
Similar to our wildly inaccurate collective illusions about testosterone=dominance, I learned from Sapolsky that the strong protective urge I’ve always felt in my body when someone threatens a loved one didn’t make me “masculine;” indeed it was driven by the very oxytocin I—a deeply social, loving, empathic, overtly feminine individual—have always produced when I feel most bonded in my relationships. Especially if someone threatens a child, I tend to be the scariest form of myself—which strangers almost never anticipate based on my physical appearance alone.
It’s seems to me a huge part of the understandable overwhelm that has manifested in so much psychological fragility around these ongoing nature versus nurture fallacies is explained most simply by epigenetics. Domination indoctrination demands we see the world through a simplistic, binary lens. Ie if a biological trait is highly correlated to gender, it can’t be social conditioning, etc. But all decent scientists know correlation is NOT causation.
Epigenetic research, which has evolved suuuuuper rapidly alongside technology (the Internet, social media, AI) is inherently integrative. Epigenetics have revealed—with an unprecedented amount of clarity—countless foundational lies upon which our entire economy and social systems rest. The idea that our human nature adapted to abusive nurturing by domination indoctrination causes so much cognitive dissonance, many of us can’t bear the losses of connection we begin to realize we’d have to grieve if we admitted the Truth. So it makes sense that most of us resist until it becomes even more painful to live in modern humanity’s (inherited, but not inherent) lies.
This is what healing looks like. It’s hard and messy. And impossible to do without helping each other. Thank you, Celeste, for blessing those you curse you with articles like this🔥
❤️❤️❤️
Just like in the case of the river choosing its path, the nature/nurture divide need only be 51/49 for the effect to get amplified across generations to arrive at today's world.
So glad you brought up chimps & bonobos. But I think it is also worth pointing out that in bonobo tribes, the females control males who attempt to dominate or subjugate other males or females by bonding together & punishing the aggressor. I.e., they ally with other women & attack the aggressor to protect their daughters & sons from bullying & harm. I have often wondered why human women d/n do that but perhaps it is b/c we are isolated in family groups so that sisters & friends are separated. There is also conditioning, especially religious.
There have been isolated incidents where women got together & punished a rapist or abuser, but they are few & far between.
This is a very important point to ponder- thank you. I think conditioning and punishments for women speaking out against men/ rewards for women keeping silent and keeping the peace have a lot to do with it. Look at what we do to women who speak out against their abusers like Amber Heard- it’s enough to keep women silent
thank you for saying something along the lines of what I wanted to say… the way I would put it is that bonobo society gives a key model for overcoming dominance by strong males:
FEMALE SOLIDARITY!
And let’s not be too pessimistic about the power of solidarity across gender and other lines. User “woolstone” shared a link to a 1999 work of Christopher Boehm about “reverse dominance coalitions”, which is another way of saying:
the weak joining together to overcome the strong.
This is of course also supposed to be a basis of “the social contract” and constitutional government etc.
I recommend a 2019 book by anthropologist Richard Wrangham called “the goodness paradox”, which argued that it’s probably built into our evolutionary history for groups (often composed of men) to band together to (violently) depose a tyrannical bullying male who has gone beyond the bounds of social acceptance.
Wrangham also points out that as bad as human violence is — including physical and sexual violence against women — we are MUCH LESS less violent overall even than bonobos.
Thanks for the book suggestion -- I love anthropology & will check this out. I d/n know that the level of violence in bonobo society was higher than in human -- that's interesting. Maybe confirmation of the self-domestication theory!
Wrangam emphasized the different levels of primate violence in his book — humans being much less violent than chimps and bonobos and many or most other primates. We are so much less violent on a day-to-day level (reactive violence) but we commit these horrible act of mass violence and war—coalitionary proactive violence, including the execution of those who break the rules. He calls that low AND high level of violence the “goodness paradox”. Yes, self-domestication has occurred, partly or mostly due to capital punishment of violent transgressors. I’ve forgotten most other details of what he said but it is super interesting! :-)
oh we do that! Maybe not consistently, but when we do it it’s quite effective: https://www.ggd.world/p/reverse-dominance-coalitions?utm_source=publication-search
Thank you -- that was very interesting! More women need to do this, but how to start? I had never even heard of this.
Brilliant piece. You touch on it briefly but I think the role of rape in warfare is responsible for much of where Men are today. Rape and pillage was the command. The 'reward' for soldiers, often indentured, was 'take what you want and torture and rape the women' as an act of war and aggression. Kill the children even. Kill the intellectuals. Burn it all down. Thousand of years of this behavior has brought us here. Nothing to do with biology, unless you consider selective breeding.
Terrific and thought-provoking article. Thanks!
I love your posts!
Examples of matriarchal societies extended across much of Native America. In the Southeast US in the 1700s, British fur traders often married Native women (there are at least 3 such marriages among my Cherokee ancestors). They moved into Native family compounds as husbands in a matrilineal, matrifocal, and matrilocal society. One fur trader warned his friends that, in Native homes, "the women Rules the Rostt and weres the brichess." Abusive men were run out of town by the in-laws and uncles.
It seems to me that you and Kate agree with holding men responsible, and that is what she meant by incentives and disincentives. Also interesting to quote Sapolsky to support one of those points, when he is claiming that testosterone levels do have a strong influence on male behavior. It isn’t exactly the same influence as people currently claim, but Sapolsky’s claim that higher levels of testosterone are correlated with more concerns about status seem to be similar to the claims that men are more interested in dominance. They aren’t exactly the same, as Salolsky points out in that quote, so if you gain/maintain status in prosocial ways, men will tend to adopt those behaviors. Again, that seems to me to basically be what Kate is saying.
Yes I am not at all saying "men are violent rapine beasts, oh well, what are you going to do, boys be boys". I'm saying that the response and incentives would be different if you assume their behavior mostly has to be learned versus assuming it is mostly natural and just an expression of testosterone. Of course every society needs to address these things. And I certainly have absolutely zero desire to be bossed around by, dominated, restrained, exploited, harmed, or told what I'm allowed to do by some "alpha male"...nor for anyone else to be subjected to that, either. There is a big difference between accepting that some things are biological/natural and thinking that makes them right or good. There are lots of bad natural things that humans correctly make extensive efforts to oppose or mitigate (cancer, wildfires, floods, disease, it's a long list). Male desire to domineer, control, and lord it over others and make others I to supplicants is not something that's good for anyone but that particular man, and no one else should want to or have to submit to it.