The Myth of the Male "Provider."

I remember watching a documentary years ago on the Ice Man they found in the Alps. The scientists performed chemical analyses on the contents of the stomach fully expecting to find mostly traces of meat. The scientist were shocked to find that 80% of the Ice Man's diet was vegetation and concluded that Ice Man must have been facing a bad hunt. Since then similar analyses continue to show that the primary food for early humans was NOT meat, but vegetation - knocking the "bad hunt" explanation off the board. The logical implication is clear and disturbing to those who contend that the male is the dominant gender and use the "provider myth" as support for that position.

As everyone knows, early humans were "hunter/gatherers" with the men concentrating on hunting and the women concentrating on gathering (mostly vegetation). That 80%+ of early man's diet consisted of vegetation shows clearly that it was the WOMEN who were the primary providers. This conclusion is consistent with the observation of bonobos - a type of chimpanzee with whom humans have the closest genetic affinity. Bonobos are known to be matriarchal to begin with, but what's relevant here is that essentially the females occupy themselves with gathering food while the males play around and beg the females for that food. One can easily see a human male's taking the lucky gains from his sport (hunting) and offering it as a gift to a female for the purpose of gaining her favor (and, thus, a steady supply of the food she gathers) as a parallel between the antics and gifts male bonobos use to gain the favor of females.

Where evolution separated us from the bonobos is that human males learned to hunt (a significantly more productive sport than bonobo males are capable of), but more importantly human females learned to FARM! It makes no sense to hypothesize that the hunters somehow switched interest into growing vegetables and yet that's exactly what the predominantly male scholars do and, in fact, consider it historical fact without any significant substantiation. It makes much more sense that female gatherers recognized the benefits of growing some of the vital things they'd gather in the wilderness. Imagine the dangers and drawbacks of foraging. Women would have had to risk attack by animals depending on the same food supply; they'd also have to deal with sharing that food supply with those animals (first come, first serve) which would make the supply unpredictable and relatively unreliable; and that's just to name two. It is quite reasonable to hypothesize that females whose primary role in early human society was to gather up vegetation would sooner or later realize the benefits of growing their own supplies of commonly gathered vegetation within a defensible area near to their encampment.

This hypothesis of mine is quite consistent with the observed fact that the overwhelming amount of agricultural labor in third world countries (predominantly in Africa, where agriculture began) is still performed by women. The rest I must conjecture, but is as plausible if not more plausible than any of the patriarchal explanations of human development. Obviously the gender controlling the food supply would exert the most influence over any human society and, in fact, we see that goddess worship (going hand-in-hand with agricultural themed fertility rites) was very popular in early human history - every year they're digging up more and more female idols. At some point in history that hasn't been established yet, men began to take over agriculture (or simply just the property the agriculture took place on) by physical force and, thus, began to "dominate" women. One can see the male version of at least one such transition in the Bible where the old goddess rites and beliefs were suppressed (though continued to be extremely popular throughout the Biblical narratives) ruthlessly by the ascending patriarchy.

Once men took power, they maintained it by reinforcing their "right" to dominate women through religion, law, and social custom all engineered to keep them in this unnatural and relatively less productive position of dominance over women. But in modern Western society, these tools are becoming less and less effective. As brute force and aggression become less and less venerated in society we find women excelling beyond men where they were previously barred from even venturing. The majority of academic honors awarded in secondary school are awarded to females. Women are now graduating from college at a 3:2 ratio to men. Most new businesses are being created by women. And that's just naming a few of areas where women are rising above men in the social order. If these trends continue, the economy will eventually become female dominated (that is mostly female entrepreneurs and management with a predominantly male unskilled labor workforce). This is a prospect well known to those who support patriarchy and is the cause of their hysterical rantings of the "evils" that will befall mankind if men are subordinated to women in society.

I look forward to the "evils" frankly. Men, apparently due to our nature, tend to favor short-run satisfaction considerably over long-run satisfaction. This is the force behind what has become known as the business cycle and is most clearly seen in the numerous scandals of fraud perpetrated by male-dominated business enterprises seeking short-run profits at the expense of sustainable long-run profit. To put it simply, men are more inclined to lie, cheat and steal to increase their wealth NOW than to develop long-term productive relationships with customers that will profit them (and their customers!) MORE in the long run. Women generally tend toward the opposite - prefering the development of long-term mutually beneficial relationships. To make this brief: it's a simple matter of comparative advantage. Women are better at building lasting customer relationships (making them better at management) and men are physically built for hard physical labor. While women have proven that they can perform physical labor just as well if not better than men, the law of comparative advantage holds that both genders would benefit from each doing what he/she does best; that is, it will produce the highest output per unit of input - or in simple terms - We'll all be wealthier for simply letting this aspect of human nature take its course.

It is certainly my hope that man's simple desire for a better standard of living will overwhelm his egotistical obsession with maintaining control over the women that can make that happen and that within my own lifetime we can see, in practice, the destruction of the "male provider" myth.

Why I Prefer Female Leadership

Simple observation and a growing body of evidence shows that men typically "lead" through coercion (The use of force or the threat thereof). This appears to be due to our aggressive nature and is difficult for many men to overcome. Women, on the other hand, tend to lead through building concensus on major decisions: that is by use of persuasion and, where such is inhibited by aggressive opposition, "manipulation." As a strong believer in natural law theory, my preference obviously falls to the method of leadership typically displayed by women. Where men are capable of following this method, I can respect male leadership, but in general - when men dominate the ruling bodies of any society - this trait is scorned as "not masculine" and stamped out.

This is not to argue that all aggression is inherently wrong. In a world where no one ever tried to coerce another, it would be altogether unnecessary, but we don't live in such a world; thus, natural law recognizes the fundamental right of self-defense. One has the right to defend oneself aggressively against one who acts aggressively toward him/her and can even contract others to do so for him/her. Men, unfortunately being more prone to aggressive behavior by nature, will too often initiate an act of coercion and excuse it as necessary. This is why I think it the most evolved thing for a male to do to defer his use of aggression to judgment of a female authority figure he chooses.

Peace-Loving Primates' Population Plummets; Only Female-Led Primate Species, Bonobos Under Siege from Poachers, Says WWF

The following article can be found at http://www.commondreams.org/news2004/1209-07.htm.

I thought I'd post this article, because I'll be speaking about the bonobos from time to time.

WASHINGTON -- December 9 -- Bonobos, or pygmy chimpanzees, arguably our closest relative, may have been hunted so extensively that the survival of the species is at risk, World Wildlife Fund (WWF) warns.

"The world could soon lose the primate species that shares the greatest genetic connection to humans," said Richard Carroll, a primatologist and director of WWF's Central Africa program. "Bonobos are fascinating creatures and little understood. They have the only great ape society led by females, with a sophisticated social structure that encourages cooperation and peace and settles disputes through sex. If humans allow our closest relatives to go extinct, we have failed as a species."

Found only in the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo in Central Africa, bonobos were believed to number as many as 50,000. But preliminary results from the first systematic survey of a known bonobo stronghold found more evidence of poachers than bonobos, indicating that there may be as few as 10,000 left in the wild. Bonobos, along with other species, are targeted by hunters for meat for personal consumption and for the commercial bushmeat trade.

The survey was conducted in Congo's 90,000-square-mile Salonga National Park, a protected area the size of Holland. The first data available, from about a third of the park, show evidence of very few bonobos living there. No bonobos were encountered, and nests and dung were seen in only a quarter of the area surveyed, at lower densities than previously measured. In contrast, there was abundant evidence of human encroachment into the park and of poaching. WWF hopes to be able to establish a clearer picture of how many bonobos are left in the wild once all of the results of the survey have been compiled and analyzed early next year.

The findings coincide with the 75th anniversary of the scientific description of bonobos, close relatives of the chimpanzee that were mistaken for chimps until a German scientist described them as a new species in 1929.

"These preliminary results are obviously disturbing," Carroll said. "Salonga National Park was created in 1970 specifically to safeguard bonobos and we thought it was the least disturbed and best protected habitat for the bonobo. Based on how bad it looks here, we can assume that across the Congo, bonobos are in crisis."

The survey of Salonga National Park, supported by WWF, was undertaken by the Congolese Institute for Nature Conservation and the Wildlife Conservation Society. During the long-running civil war in the country, it became almost impossible for Congolese wildlife authorities to effectively protect the country's national parks. Increased poaching by armed militias and local people was inevitable, with serious consequences for the bonobos of Salonga as well as the local people.

WWF has now launched a new project to monitor and protect surviving bonobo populations in the northern sector of Salonga National Park. It is providing park staff and researchers with training and equipment as well as supporting anti-poaching operations on foot and by boat to stop the illegal killing of the rare apes. The project is being implemented by Congolese Institute for Nature Conservation and the Zoological Society of Milwaukee in partnership with WWF's USAID/EU-funded Salonga Landscape Program.

"The war has had terrible consequences for the people and wildlife of the Congo Basin," said Lisa Steel, co-ordinator of WWF's Salonga program. "However, now, as the Democratic Republic of Congo rebuilds socially and economically, the opportunity is there to make sure that forest conservation benefits not only wildlife but also local people."

Bonobos live in matriarchal societies that reinforce cooperation, and unlike male-dominated chimpanzee troops, exhibit little aggression toward each other. The species resolves conflict through sex, a behavior not found in other primates and one that strengthens group cohesion. Although often equal in height to chimpanzees, bonobos' limbs are more slender; they have smaller, more rounded skulls; and they have a black face with reddish lips.

My Matriarch

My matriarch is the eldest daughter of her family. In her mother's absence from home (which was economically necessary) during her childhood, she took up the reigns of her mother's role. Without her, I'm quite certain, her family would have fallen apart. Though (particularly the male) family members never did give her the respect she deserved for her wisdom and all she did for them, they oddly enough expected me to do exactly that when she and I married. To some degree to spite them and probably more to conform to social expectations of male-dominance, I fell far short of giving her the respect she deserves. Her natural instinct was to take charge of the relationship, but I resisted and neither of us really knew how to resolve the conflict. We tried to have the "egalitarian" home that so many insist is the "right way" today, but found that the effect was essentially to have two people living separate lives under the same roof. This wasn't something either of us wanted. We wanted a family. The love was certainly there, but the structure just wasn't. For around 10 years we argued frequently and many times considered calling it quits, but neither of us really wanted to lose the other and feared the effect it would have on our children.

An irony is that what had constituted a sexual "standard" between us since very early on in our relationship became the impetus toward a relationship structure that would put her right back in her natural position of authority within the family and essentially save our marriage. I have, for as long as I can remember having sexual thoughts, been strongly attracted to the "dominant" woman; so much so, that I became disgusted at the thought of dominating sexually. I found it degrading to her and unsatisfying to me. My matriarch was always open to my zany bedroom fantasies, but neither of us even thought about taking it outside of the bedroom until just a few short years ago. Around that time many websites and groups were cropping up promoting a novel idea of female-dominance that had little if anything to do with men's sexual fantasies. They promoted, quite convincingly, the idea that a female-headed home is a happy home and a man who obeys is a man who stays. I was a pretty zealous convert and pitched the idea immediately to my matriarch and we began our experiment.

Though the ride has been bumpy and I've had to learn to control my fantasies of how I think a woman should lead, we'd both have to say that the experiment was a resounding success. We found that all of the excitement and fun that came with my courtship of her before our marriage has returned and my efforts to please her by meeting (and occasionally exceeding) her expectations has brought the structure we had sought into our home and reduced stress immeasurably for everyone in the family. Things just work so much more smoothly when roles are agreed on and everyone sticks to them. She coordinates and the "boys" (myself included - we have four sons) follow. Things get done efficiently and according to her preferences so she's happy; and, her happiness makes us happy. In fact, seeing the respect she commands from her husband and children has begun to affect even her relatives and every time we visit, we find them more and more beginning to emulate our behavior.

An interesting irony is that her family clearly realizes that it would be hypocritical to criticize us for me doing essentially what they insisted I do from the very beginning even though it makes her male relatives look pretty bad in comparison. Where they thought that they'd influence her relationship, they're finding that she's setting a standard for their own...and she's beginning to get respect from them that they failed to show when she was with them. In a very real sense, her relatives are starting to look to her for guidance in their own affairs - in short, she's becoming a matriarch of more than just her own nuclear family and I am so honored to be a part of her rising to her natural role rather than the hindrance I've been for far too long.