No, men and women aren’t from completely different planets. (Talk about a long-distance relationship!)
Oh sure, watch enough television (boob-evision, as in “boob-tube,” not in terms of “hooters-tube”) and listen to enough stand-up comedy and you might be left with the impression that it’s a wonder how males and females ever get along. Men, with all that immature beer-drinking, sports-watching, sexual obsession and emotional cluelessness. Women with all that mature emotional insight, but still shoe and chocolate-obsessed, gossiping-mongering craziness. Or something.
Although you might not know it from the above gross stereotypes/caricatures, it’s a whole new world out there, baby. We’ve got metrosexual men, stay-at-home dads . . . we’ve got corporate ladder-climbing women who have no problem telling men what to do, without breaking down and crying under the stress.
Are we heading toward a time of functional androgyny, of a mixing of the sexual characteristics, with men psychologically migrating into the realm of feminine traits, women into the realm of masculine?
Perhaps. Somewhat for some individuals in some social/cultural environments. And yet . . .
Recent research of college-age men and women have found that one gender difference persists.
As hooking up takes over from dating as a means of heterosexual interaction on university campuses, more women than men continue to prefer dating whereas more men than women rate hooking up above dating. Both genders however perceive similar benefits and risks to dating and hooking up. Carolyn Bradshaw from James Madison University in Virginia, US, and colleagues explored the reasons that motivate college men and women to hook up or to date, as well as the perceived relative benefits and costs of the two practices. Their findings are published online in Springer’s journal Sex Roles. [source; bold mine]
In the words of Richard Dawkins, will our “selfish genes” — the male Y and the female X — place a limit upon how similar the genders could become on attitudes about, sex? Evolutionary psychology would tell us that, of course, men prefer hooking up because they can sow their “seed” more widely. Women prefer dating so as to assure the guy is going to stick around and help raise the offspring, should any result. But is it really the case? Will it always be the case?
An interesting additional finding was this -
Even though men initiated significantly more first dates than women, there was no gender difference in the number of first dates or number of hook-ups. For both men and women, the number of hook ups was nearly double the number of first dates.
I’m not sure whether this has always been the case, with men and women engaging in similar, high levels of casual sex. But if not, if sexual behavior is becoming more androgynous, perhaps the thinking and values will soon catch up to the behavior.
Or maybe not.
There are many types and degrees of hierarchies. As there are types and degrees of egalitarian social structures. Consider marriage. Monogamous marriage. Does this qualify as egalitarian? In a sense, yes, but in another sense, maybe not. As Robin Wright has pointed out,
“The idea, rather, is that polygyny has tended to disappear in response to egalitarian values–not values of equality between the sexes, but of equality among men.” (26)
If women are possessions, property of men, then monogamy only serves to keep some men from collecting more women than others. A far cry from what we think of as egalitarian.
Yet even when males and females appear to have equal standing in a social organization, it certainly doesn’t guarantee the equality of all members. And, as mentioned, where we find the most egalitarian of social groups, it can be argued that rather than eliminating any hierarchical strivings in the members, these instead have been harnessed to assure that none rise above all others. And individual members, the all, are the one’s that behave in relative concert to assure that their own status is not diminished. In a sense the “rank and file” dominate these groups to assure their status is not diminished. (27)
Many human innovations, be they technical, philosophical, or even social, are the step-children of necessity. A necessity to do better in a new environment. Yet we look at many novel features as if they were somehow meant to be. But change the environment and . . . ? Primatologist Franz de Waal makes a point about primate evolution in general that pertains quite well to human social evolution.
“The irony is that we probably never would have reached this point, never would have evolved the necessary solidarity at the base, had we not been such a hierarchical animal to begin with.” (28)
What were the environmental pressures that led to more egalitarian social structures? Good question. In his earlier book, Peacemaking Among Primates, de Waal makes these salient points.
(more…)1. “Equity and unity are hard to combine within one social system.”
2. “Unification through subordination has shaped the world.” (29)
“Naturally, to an affluent Englishman, reared amid servants, a society never far from starvation will seem starkly egalitarian. There will be no opulent displays of status, no gross disparities. But social hierarchy can assume many forms, and in every human society it seems to find one.” Robin Wright (18)
In today’s democracies, while there is scant legal/explicit favoritism shown to individuals of upper status — no special laws on the books for billionaires only — informal favoritism continues. A man or woman need to wear no jeweled crown for special treatment. Fancy clothes and an automobile crowned with a Mercedes-Benz hood ornament might do it. Yes, you, to the front of the line. Here, sit at best table in the restaurant. You, you with the Ford sedan, just who do you think you are?
While status is largely informal and established through symbolic means today, it continues to represent access to resources. Why, for example, you a person want to make friends with the popular guy (high status)? Access to babes, access to parties, access to wealth and the lifestyle it brings. Good food, good drink. And a network of other individuals who may increase one’s access to desired resources.
Taking food as an example here: With equal access to resources, what value is there in status? Relevantly, when food is equally scarce or equally abundant, hierarchies don’t seem to thrive. Abundance, however, is rarely equally distributed. Many anthropological investigations have posited a historical relationship between abundant, non-perishable food stores and highly stratified societies.
“When further intensification of agriculture was needed to support a growing population that could not be supported by a social organization based on extended families such as the teri, chiefdoms evolved.” (19)
Only where there is something to control can big men or women become big, thanks to their ability to wrest control from others. Whatever the source of their power: muscle, advantageous relationships, persuasive talk and impressive behavior and ornamentation . . . .
(more…)Human beings do not chase one another around with hair raised and teeth bared. As other primates do. No, our means of persuasion are more subtle. And in addition to that — symbolic. But first, the subtlety. Margaret Powers has said this about the means of creation and maintenance of primate social organization:
“This infrastructure of social communication is revealed through posture, gesture, facial expression and vocal tone; and differently organized primate species should show differing patterns and social interaction.” (15)
Posture, gesture, facial expression and vocal tone . . . these are things human beings, too, can and do use to send signals to others. Sure beats having to chase and flee, but it is not as visible.
My suspicion is that coming from a large and informally stratified culture, we may perceive a hunter-gatherer culture to be more egalitarian than someone coming from a smaller, more egalitarian culture. In a sense, power relations can be like a poker game. There is so much more to it than the cards. But to someone unfamiliar with poker, little else seems significant. What’s in a mere glance? Sometimes a lot.
Writing about chimpanzee hierarchies, Robin Wright pointed out the relative difficulty of spotting the mechanics of hierarchical behavior:
“In fact, the female hierarchy is so subdued that it takes an experienced eye to discern it, whereas spotting a pompous, imperious alpha male is something a schoolchild can do.” (16)
What is subdued in chimpanzee social groups can be downright subliminal in human. What complicates the matter is that in addition to such things as posture, gesture, facial expression and vocal tone, human beings excel at symbolism. If we want to belittle a person, we don’t need to physically tower over them, or some distillation of that dynamic, we can instead flash a thumbs-down to them. We can say and write things about them. Bad things, in that they are belittling, and thus bad.
One of the strengths of symbolic behavior is that it can be less personal and more general. We can communicate messages about our status without needing to interact with others. We can be less personal. The corporate alpha male need not make impressive physical displays at a meeting or even intimidate and threaten other males. He may, instead, “innocently” draw attention to symbols of his relatively greater power, whether they be possessions, relationships, or signs of accomplishment. This is relatively innocent behavior due to the indirectness of it. The message is broadly broadcast so no other need take it too personally. But is it personal? Yes. For the messages are still about social standing. Where I am; where you are.
So, are humans by nature a peace-and-love species? The bonobo, close cousin to the chimpanzee, has been portrayed that way. But primatologist Allison Jolly, for one, is skeptical.
“When I look at a male bonobo, however, I see immensely powerful arms, with veins like weight-lifters’ snaking under the skin–a very different build from the females. That, and their powerful canines, suggest they are equipped to fight something, whether leopards or one another. I fear that, in Sarah Hrdy’s phrase, –the other shoe hasn’t dropped yet about bonobos.” Meanwhile, they offer a model of an exuberantly affiliative species.” (17)
Meanwhile. And humans? Are we one or the other? Are we egalitarian by nature or hierarchical by nature? Are we both? My interim answer: while we are certainly exuberantly affiliative, our nature is essentially hierarchical. We must, however, keep in mind the impressively variety of forms hierarchies can take, including the previously mentioned “inverse hierarchy” elucidated by Christopher Boehm.
Why do some groups of humans take on more formally hierarchical structures, others more seemingly egalitarian? We need look little further to the environments a social group functions within.
What about the environments? Stay tuned to my “Alpha” series of posts.
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(15) Power, M. The Egalitarians: Human and Chimpanzee, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, 1991, p.189
(16) Wright, R., The Moral Animal: Evolutionary Psychology and Everyday Life, Vintage, NY, 1995, p.246
(17) Jolly, A. Lucy’s Legacy, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1999, p.177
