1) In the essay the term women
and men will be stated rather commonly. It will be used generally, for the sake
of simplicity. This does not mean that there are no exceptions and that all men
and women are included in every statement. There are always variations. We are
speaking strictly of natural trends.
2) The point of the essay is to
derive a new outlook on sexism based heavily on the work of anthropologists and
sociologists. The conclusions made by research in these fields is mentioned as
evidence, however it is mentioned briefly. This is again, for the sake of
simplicity, as including every debate, and every detail, would be an attempt to
summarize anthropology as a whole in a fifteen page paper. This is not to
discount the possibility of alternate reasoning.
American society abhors the many “–isms”
that permeate the harmony of our community. Sexism, in particular, has been an
aspect of the human condition since before the development of language. Feminism
today often points to society as the root cause of sexism, as if some form of
nurture from our current societal values has bred male dominance and female
subordination. To attempt to eradicate sexism on such a superficial level,
however, is bound to fail, without a deeper understanding of how and why sexism
exists.
It is not as if all men are trained in youth to feel the need to control and
dominate the opposite sex. What if this behavior is simply genetic? While it
may be easier to blame society, society is not a facet of human existence
separate from our genetic predispositions; it is our genetic predispositions
that have created the type of society around us. As such, it is our genetic
predisposition that has established sexism as well. I do not believe, that
genetic predispositions justify sexism in anyway. I do believe, however, that
if feminist movements hope to create a true egalitarianism between the sexes,
they must understand the deep evolutionary roots that have made sexism such a
dominant attitude.
The fight for gender equality has raged for decades, and progress has been
made. But to truly find equality, not just institutionally but as an attitude,
is a much harder fight than is anticipated. To many social psychologists it is
a battle that may be impossible to win, a battle that strives to overturn
thousands of years of evolutionary history in mere decades. Sexism may be an
inevitable by-product of being human, and particularly a by-product of “being
male”.
To tie modern day gender attitudes with a discussion of the distant past, let
us focus on a specific case study – Hilary Clinton’s run for President in 2008.
There was a moment in the democratic race where Hilary Clinton showed a bit of
tearful emotion, causing an outcry of what many considered a sexist backlash. To
viewers, female and male alike, her tearful moment, however brief, showed a
sign of weakness. It created controversy over the masculine female ideal, where
only females who repress their feminine aspects are seriously considered
for positions of power. A man can cry on TV, and spark sympathy and respect,
whereas a female risks hurting her campaign by seeming unfit for a job that
requires a hard head and stiff spine (Derry 2008 New York Times) .
But to say that American viewers, particularly males, were all consciously
sexist when watching this brief moment in Clinton’s campaign, is too general of
a statement. It does bring to light many problems associated with gender roles,
but by criticizing viewer responses as some form of intentional bias is placing
too much weight on nurture rather than nature. Instead, it is important to
understand the root reasons behind this “backlash”, a term who’s negative
connotation ignores the purely natural motivations deeply understood by
anthropologists, sociologists, and neurologists, who’ve spent years observing
humans and our closest relatives, the chimpanzee.
To get the real, wide-angle view of sexism outside of the twenty-first century,
we should start at the beginning, travelling back to the Pliocene era, around
five million years ago. Here, in the large sparse savannah of the African
continent do we pinpoint the culprit of modern day sexism – meat.
The anthropological community has several theories (note: theory does not mean
unproven. Gravity is a theory. And we all know that exists) for the emergence
of meat eating in early hominids. The most general, and most-supported is the “Savannah
Hypothesis” (Dart, 1925). The African savannah is a biome characterized by
sparse foliage, a drastically seasonal climate, and large migratory herds.
During a lengthy dry period that spanned thousands of years, early hominids,
which were predominantly omnivorous hunter-gatherers, were suddenly forced to
rely more on meat to fulfill their nutritional needs. With less water came less
foliage, and soon early hominids found themselves looking to the migratory
herds as a source of food (Stanford and Bunn, 2001).
During this transition period in early human diets, a variety of evolutionary
changes took place that made us the bipedal, big-brained species we are today.
For one, by starting to chase down migratory prey, humans eventually developed
an upright posture and the ability to traverse long distances on two legs
(Sinclair et al., 1986). Early hominids, which used to avoid confrontations
with predatory carnivores (several of which were much larger than the lions and
tigers of today), were suddenly placed in the same competitive guild, battling
at the top of the trophic pyramid (Walker and Shipman 1996). Together, these
factors selected for larger, more muscular builds. Hunting also required social
coordination between hunters who now had to hunt in packs in order to even
compete with the big cats(Boesch 1994). Here, is where language began to
develop, and intelligence served a newfound evolutionary advantage (Stanford
and Bunn 2001).
An interesting causality of this transition into active hunting was the
selection for larger brains, and while larger brains required much more energy,
the consumption of meat, a high caloric diet, ensured that those with larger
brains would have the nutritional supply they needed to function (Kingdon
1997). Meat was also easier to digest than vegetables, allowing for more energy
and time to be applied to mental processes rather than digestion (Aiello et
al., 1995). How this led to sexism is a simple matter of lock and key, between
the female pelvis and the neonatal cranium (Stanford and Bunn 2001).
With larger brains, there required a wider vaginal opening, and wider hips.
This led to the more obvious female shape we are accustomed to today. But there
was a balance point, where if the female pelvis became too wide to accommodate
the larger brain, then the mother’s actual ability to maneuver would be greatly
hindered (Stanford and Bunn 2001). As such, early human babies began to be born
with their brain only partly developed. The rest of their brain (3.5 times its
size) developed after birth, in a post-natal phase (Martin 1983). A consequence
of post-natal development was the need for maternal care, a longer weaning,
and lactation period (Stanford and Bunn 2001).
Suddenly, evolution required
hominid females to “stay at home” creating the drastic sexual dimorphism
between men and females we see today, one that selected for females who were
better parental care-takers (Clutton-Brock 1991). Why? With longer weaning
periods, females were having less offspring, and those who could better ensure
the survival of their limited offspring would more likely pass their genes to
the next generation.
This need to stay at home was compounded by the establishment of home bases and
territory. Before meat hunting, hominids were nomads, moving from location to
location. But with migratory herds moving such vast distances, and the dangers
of consuming a catch on the spot due to other carnivorous competition, hominid
males began to establish territories where they could bring back their catch to
a safer location (Rose and Marshall 1996). This created a place for women to
exert their dominance. A stark similarity to the cultural attitudes of
today, in which men are the bread-winners who bring food to the table, while
women are home-makers who exert dominance over the on-goings of a single
territorial establishment (Stanford and Bunn 2001).
Besides the establishment of gender roles and sexual dimorphism, the increased
intelligence also played a pivotal role in the establishment of patriarchy,
male dominance, and male social bonding (Wood and Collard 1999). Increased
intelligence allowed the advancement of tool use, and the specialization of
jobs - to hunt, to cut the meat, and to distribute the meat. There
was also the establishment of rudimentary economics (Kitahara-Frisch 1993). A
single catch, when brought back to the home base had to be shared, but how it
was shared became a matter of politics and a matter of control (Hawkes 1991).
Males, who received more meat, could share more of that meat with females, and
thus have more offspring (Cosmides and Tooby 1992). Suddenly, men had dominance
over dependent females. And this dominance in turn created a hierarchy
amongst males, where males who could afford to feed more females were
considered more powerful. Thus a society as born based on sexism and
hierarchy, evolving alongside the increasingly cooperative, intelligent, and
reproductively successful Homo Sapien Sapiens (Stanford and Bunn 2001).
The main outcome of this hierarchy was competitiveness, particularly between
males. Competition bred aggression, and aggression bred violence – leading to
all the so-called evils of the male sex, pride, ego, arrogance, and domination
(Wrangham and Peterson 1996). To move away from the science lesson, we can now
draw strong parallels between our meat-eating past with the masculine, and
often sexist, behaviors of today. To jump the gun, let’s take a closer look at
rape and control.
To understand human rape and control, researchers have taken a closer look at
male orangutan sexual relationships, where the prevalence of domestic abuse and
rape provides insight into our evolutionary past. As Wrangham and Peterson
state, “[Human] society’s growing sympathy for rape victims may be working to
end a system that has deep evolutionary roots”. After the establishment of
hierarchical competitiveness, as described above, evolution created an
aggressive and large-bodied male figure. As such violent actions such as rape
and battery began to become venues for sexual control. The evolutionary
advantage to these acts on a very superficial level seems to be mere
copulation. But primate research has shown that this is not as evolutionarily
beneficial, since it is a one-time act.
Instead, violent domination, such as unprovoked battery between married
partners, stems from a different evolutionary advantage. Ensuring more
predictable sexual contact. By creating a sense of control, the male ensures
that the female will submit to him sexually in the future (Wrangham and
Peterson 1996). It’s a simple captive becoming enamored with the captor – a
psychological state that is more commonly recorded amongst women. And while
this type of partnership between domination and submission may seem to have
only evolved from the male’s side, this is ignoring the reproductive benefit
the females would have received as well.
While their male partner might be violent, males also make it a point to
protect their woman (notice the sense of “property” in that sentence) from
other rapists. They also ensure the woman’s survival because the woman will be
carrying their future offspring. Thus, in a sense, women that were more
submissive and accepted this type of control were more likely to pass on their
genes, creating generations of offspring that were inherently submissive as
well (Wrangham and Peterson 1996).
A woman’s safest future was not to run from a violent male, but to bond with
one. It is in part why, to the surprise of many primatologists, primate
females whose babies have been killed by a fellow male primate, end up “in a
relationship” with their baby’s killer (Wrangham and Peterson 1996).
Consequently the male demonstration of power was selected for as an attractive
factor in sexual dynamics. It is in part why men in power today exert a great
deal of influence over the opposite sex. It is the source of control that many
women feel from oppressive corporate bosses, as well as the male
over-confidence that many females are attracted to.
On an interesting note, the idea of monogamy is also a form of control that
many females don’t see as a form of sexism. Consortship is actually much more
valuable to a male, because not only does he ensure the birth of his offspring,
but he also ensures no competiveness to his fatherhood. This is in part why
apes and humans have honeymoons (Wrangham and Peterson 1996). While females can
copulate with several men and still have a child, when multiple males copulate
with the same women the likelihood that the ensuing child is theirs is greatly
reduced. Monogamy is a result of the protectiveness and almost territorial
behavior many males exhibit in sexual relationships.
It’s a simple; if you can’t beat them, join them. And while men in today’s
society don’t practice infanticide, the development of human intelligence has
helped to amplify “the range of tactics used to manipulate” the relationship.
Inherently speaking, men are naturally accustomed to being in control of women
(Wrangham and Peterson 1996). To be clear, that does not justify rape and
battery, because behaviors can be controlled. My main point is that such
behaviors may never truly be eradicated. And while men may never batter women in
a corporate setting, their battery can take a subtler role, one they may not
even be aware of themselves.
For females to join together to battle these control-attitudes is possible, but
is also naturally non-intuitive. An unfortunate side effect of the home base
vs. hunter sexual dichotomy discussed earlier is the natural selection for
males with strong male-to-male bonding. As a troupe of hunters, it was in the
troupe’s advantage to have a strong male-bonded social system. While some
females also engaged in this type of close-knit bonding, it was mostly only the
females without offspring. Those that had offspring were often left behind and
kept to themselves. In general, males spent more time together, and are more
naturally unified amongst their sex than females are (Wrangham and Peterson
1996).
This is clear today as well, in which females who aren’t married or have kids
find more success in the corporate world. This is analogous to the females who
accompanied male hunting troupes because they lacked offspring. It explains the
fundamental controversy over maternal leave in the workplace, and the general
male dominant unification of power in the upper echelons of the government and
society in general. Male leaders are more likely to bond with other male
leaders, not because a female leader may be less effective, but because it is
simply more natural to them. In fact, primate research has shown that females
are certainly capable of being aggressive towards each other and to be as
politically adept as males, but they don’t care as much as males do. (Wrangham
and Peterson 1996). It is not inherent to them to have to fight the
hierarchical ladder that has been evolutionarily instilled in their male
counterparts.
This is in part why, in social media and movies, the aggressive cutthroat woman
is the exception, not the rule. And is often a character of unique interest to
her viewers. The exception is confusing to men; it is a threat to their
domination and, unfortunately, is why men may try to impede her success.
To speak the stereotype, an aggressive businesswoman is never “motivated”, she’s
a “sour bitch”, or “needs to get laid”. In fact, primate observations have
shown that human males may simply not see women as a threat, or “take them
seriously” (Wrangham and Peterson 1996). Chimpanzee males, upon reaching
adolescence, begin to have political aspirations, to compete for the top spot.
But what is interesting is that before ever confronting another male, these
chimps first affirm their dominance over all the females in the troupe. Only
then do they confront the lowest ranking male chimp (Boehm 2001).
The effect of this is obvious in the home setting, where society tends to look
down on men whose wives earns more money than they do. While society can be
blamed for making men feel "insecure" about being the stay at
home dad, I’d argue that it is the evolution of man as a control freak that
created this societal expectation. Apes, for example, don’t beat or abuse, but
they exert definite control over their harems by controlling the food supply.
There isn’t any real good reason for males to have to earn more than their
female counterparts, besides what is deemed a sexist attitude, but the male
sense of “it just doesn’t feel right”, stems from an evolutionary product.
And while it can’t be argued that this attitude is one hundred percent
unconscious, as some may embrace the feeling and then exaggerate it, I do
believe it is unconscious enough for men to have little to no understanding
behind their own ambitions and goals. To focus a little on this “unconscious
sexism”, let’s look at an even bigger picture, one that spans across nations.
How deeply do sexist attitudes drawn from sexual advantage affect the political
and cultural dynamics of the entire world? Are wars the product of the same
control and pride men seem to exert in a relationship?
Based on the evidence, the answer may very well be yes. While it is often hard
to truly pinpoint the evolutionary source, the vast sexual dimorphism between
males and females has led to even larger divisions on a global scale. For
example, men are more territorial than women, but for what reason? Females,
when they lose territory, have the capability of emigrating or surviving within
a new regiment. Not considered a real threat, they will more likely be used to
copulate with. They have something to offer the new territorial owners - a
womb (Wrangham and Peterson 1996).
Men on the other hand, have everything to lose if they lose their territory,
mainly because they lose their women. Without women they cannot pass their
genes on to the next generation, therefore males that were better at protecting
their territory (hence territorial), have been naturally selected for.
According to Wrangham and Peterson men have a much stronger desire to expand
their territory as well, because they can acquire more females. They are the
resident sex.
And while acquiring more land to acquire more women may not be the true
conscious motivation, some believe leaders such as Genghis Khan, Hitler,
Alexander the Great, etc., who were driven by power and the need to control,
were following the evolutionary product of the competitive territorialism that
stemmed from sexual benefit. As Wrangham and Peterson put it "a man is
unconscious and irrational and will challenge another man not because he
actually sees sex in the long run, but because he sees power". He is “unconscious
of the evolutionary rationale that placed this prideful goal in his temperament”
(Wrangham and Peterson 1996).
So the question arises, is the reason men fight in bars more often, or are more
inclined to join gangs, a product of a sexist attitude? Not necessarily. But if
we look at species who have little sexual jealousy and are much more
egalitarian between sexes, such as the Muriquis, a small primate who’s average
temperament is much more mellow than humans, we return to the same conclusion.
Muriquis males and females are the same size, with little difference in body
shape. Here men don’t compete amongst each other and the act of copulation is a
consensual and control free behavior. Men wait their turn, in line, literally
(Wrangham and Peterson 1996).
But the stark sexual dimorphism I described in the beginning of the essay in
humans has prevented such a society from ever existing. During puberty as women’s
hips grow wider (to accommodate the larger neonatal cranium), men’s shoulder
grow wider, to make them more adept at hunting.
But wait, some might argue, we are completely ignoring the human ability to be
rational. If we can understand this evolutionary basis for our actions, we
should be able to rationally behave in a way that masks it. According to
Antonio Damasio, a famed neuropsychologist, however, the difference between
humans and chimps is much narrower in this regard than most people assume.
While our unique ability to reason generates a much larger list of
possibilities when we are faced with a problem, emotion ultimately chooses from
that list.
In essence, the same sexually derived pride and arrogance that chimps’ display
is the same pride and arrogance human males ultimately use to make their
decisions. Chimps strive to be on top, and once they are there, their
aggressive temperament becomes benign. It is the struggle to reach the top that
is the source of this aggression (Wrangham and Peterson 1996). As Samuel
Johnson put it in the book Demonic Males, “No two people [males
specifically] can be a half hour together, but one shall acquire an evident
superiority over the other”. It is the need for status, and like wars between
rival nations, it is a need to reaffirm that dominance.
As an analogy a group of terrorists that successfully attack a larger country
is similar to a small chimpanzee threatening the alpha male. A great example is
the U.S.’s attack on Iraq after 9/11. A war that had no rational basis, but was
instead a reaffirmation of dominance, a decision based on pride. And I can
guarantee, George W. Bush did not start this war because he wished to ensure
sexual success, but because pride and power was an inherent feeling that drove
him and much of America to support the war (hence his male-heavy support during
the election).
It was a clear moment of Us vs. Them, of what is known as in-group out-group
dynamics (Wrangham and Peterson 1996). According to Darwin, this same type of
nationalistic patriotism is the source of sexism in the natural world, where
the Us vs. Them attitude between men and women ensures a societal control that
increases sexual efficiency for all males of a population.
Consequently, looking at sexism as not simply a superficial attitude of the
modern day, but a deeply engrained social phenomenon highlights the extreme
difficulty in equalizing the current playing field. By drawing the connections
one can see how sexual dimorphism, which has led to our extreme intelligence
and success as a species, has also led to the male pride and control that is the
fundamental building blocks of sexism. Male aggression in the sexual realm has
been the underlying motivation for wars, exterminations, gang violence,
and the like. Sexism, it seems, is a much larger issue than one may have ever
expected.
This doesn’t justify “giving up” on the feminist mission, or justify sexism
itself, as it does have many negative consequences in today’s society, but it
does provide a more holistic context to the issue. Our modern society is very
quick to try to change what is inherent, and while I cannot provide advice for
altering such deep rooted attitudes, I do believe it is a solid step forward to
recognize why a male dominated society exists in the first place.
In my opinion, what the feminist approach comes down to is the same
disagreement feminists had during the 1970’s. As a case study, let’s focus on
the feminist backlash against Playboy, the raunchy brainchild of
self-proclaimed feminist Hue Heffner. While one part of the feminist movement
despised Playboy for turning women into sexual objects, another part applauded
Playboy for celebrating the feminine mystique in a freely expressive way
(Pitzulo 2008). In lieu of the evolutionary basis behind sexist attitudes, I
agree with the latter. I do not believe that the female image should be
repressed, for repressing it in such a way seems to me to be the conservative
product of the same type of control males are prone to establish. Instead I
agree with the latter approach, because the only way for feminism to rise above
the oppression is to rise above the control – to rise above societal
constraints, where male dominance, pride, and hierarchy have been comfortably
rooted since before society even began.
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