essay on male dominance

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"Explanations" of Male Dominance

To explain the origins of female subordination we need a theory that accounts for the control of women's work by men.

Stephanie Coontz, Peta Henderson 12 October 2017

Published in 1986, Women's Work, Men's Property: The Origins of Gender and Class , edited by Stephanie Coontz and Peta Henderson, comprises five essays by a group of French and American feminist historians and anthropologists, in search of the sociohistorical basis of gender inequality. The editors' introduction, reproduced below, surveys previous efforts — anthropological, sociobiological, psychological, and historical — to exhume the origin of male dominance before outlining the conclusions of their own study. 

Male dominance is one of the earliest known and most widespread forms of inequality in human history. To some, the very idea of a book on the origins of sexual inequality is absurd. Male dominance seems to them a universal, if not inevitable, relationship that has been with us since the dawn of our species. A growing body of evidence and theory, however, suggests that this is not the case, and a number of scholars have begun to address the issue of male dominance as a historical phenomenon, grounded in a specific set of circumstances rather than flowing from some universal aspect of human nature or culture. The essays in this volume offer differing perspectives on the development of sex role differentiation and sexual inequality (the two are by no means identical), but share a belief that these phenomena did have origins, and that these must be sought in sociohistorical events and processes. Before turning to these theories, we would like critically to review some of the alternative explanations of sexual inequality.

A starting point for many theories of gender inequality is the assumption that biology is destiny: the roles men and women play in society, and the different privileges attached to these roles, are said to be fundamentally determined by our genes, which are in turn the product of natural selection. One common approach within this general framework of biological reductionism is to explain human sex role patterns and inequalities by reference to our primate heritage. The most popular model for this approach is the baboon. The scenario is as follows: Male baboons are twice as large as females; this sexual dimorphism (differentiation in secondary physical characteristics) is related to differences in both function and status; male size, strength, and aggression are adaptive traits for defending the troop and maintaining order within it, and a tight male dominance hierarchy also reproduces this aggression, the most dominant/ aggressive animal being the one that gets the greatest access to receptive females and to food. With minor differences in emphasis and use of evidence, a whole series of authors imply that male aggression and dominance (with their necessary accompaniment, female passivity or dependence) are therefore part of our genetic primate heritage. Male aggressive instincts are also said to have served early humans well in their role as "predators."  1

There are a number of problems with this approach. In the first place, there is much more variability in primate behaviour than these authors admit. Some species are highly dimorphic; some are not. Mating patterns range from monogamy to promiscuity (by both males and females), while parenting and socialization behaviours are extraordinarily diverse among different species, or even in the same species under different environmental conditions. 2  Forest baboons, for example, are very different from the savannah baboons so beloved by the theorists cited above: "Aggression in general is very infrequent, and male dominance hierarchies are difficult to discern. Intertroop encounters are rare, and friendly. When the troop is startled . . . it flees, and, far from forming a rearguard, the males – being biggest and strongest — are frequently up the trees long before the females." 3  Adult females, far from being passive followers of the males, actually determine the direction and timing of troop movement. Similarly, chimpanzees, with whom humans share ninety-nine percent of our genes and from whom we may have diverged as little as five million years ago, are highly social animals who display a very low degree of male dominance, hierarchy, or aggression.  4

Where aggression and male dominance are found in primate groups, there is some question as to how much of this is natural and how much a response to stress. The male dominant savannah baboons live in game parks where predators and humans are concentrated in numbers far beyond those likely in aboriginal conditions. There is considerable evidence that such stressful circumstances, especially captivity, markedly increase hierarchy and aggression. Indeed, the noted researchers who filmed Baboon Social Organization  (1963) only induced what they called "latent" dominance behaviour by artificial feeding, while forest baboons placed in cages and fed with clumps of food that had to be competed for showed a great increase in fighting, aggression, and dominance behaviour. 5  Is such behaviour natural or pathological? Many scholars now suggest that the normal behaviour patterns of our primate ancestors involved sharing and cooperation rather than aggression, male dominance, and competition.  6

Finally, there is little evidence that aggressive or dominant behaviour gives males privileged access to females, thus allowing them to pass on their supposedly more aggressive genes.  7  Gorillas and chimpanzees are not normally sexually aggressive and males tend to wait patiently for an oestrous female to make herself available. Among chimpanzees and orangutans, sex is usually initiated by the females, and their choices seem to have little to do with the males' rank.

Of course, the capacity for aggressive and dominant behaviour was undoubtedly an important part of primate survival, but this is not the same thing as having such behaviour determined by our genes. In general, research is demonstrating that the primates are capable of highly adaptive learning. Not only have chimpanzees been taught to talk (sign) and rhesus males to parent in captivity, 8  but increasingly sophisticated techniques of wildlife observation have shown primates to be capable of inventing new cooperative behaviours. 9  If primate behaviour is this plastic, it is only reasonable to suppose that plasticity is more pronounced in humans, whose much longer period of neotony (physical immaturity at birth) makes them almost totally dependent on learning.

A no less reductionist approach to the origins of gender inequality is found in the theories of sociobiology. 10  Starting from species (such as ants, bees, and slime moulds) that operate only by instinct and whose members cannot make individual decisions or even survive alone, sociobiologists have come to believe that certain behaviours are determined by the genes and selected because of their survival value for the species. Individuals are believed to be driven by their genes to maximize their "inclusive fitness"; they strive, that is, to maximize the number of their genes passed on to the next generation, even if this lessens their individual fitness. This explains why bees and ants engage in "suicidal" behaviour that ensures the survival of their group (and therefore, since all are related, the survival of more of their genes than if they had saved themselves at the expense of this group). Thus there is a genetic base for altruism, and such behaviour will be directed toward those to whom the organism is most closely related, with proportionately less investment in more distant kin or strangers. Applying these theories to humans, E.O.Wilson suggests that occasional examples of helpful behaviour toward non-related persons are explained by an additional concept that takes care of the residual cases: "reciprocal altruism." This suggests that sometimes individuals will act favourably toward unrelated people from whom they can expect an equivalent or more generous response at a later date. Such behaviour is said to be genetically programmed, and Wilson also speculates that there may be a genetic basis for a number of other traits that he alleges to be universal, including "spiteful intrigue," aggression, national chauvinism, female monogamy, male promiscuity, and the fact that humans "are absurdly easy to indoctrinate" since they "would rather believe than know." 11  Through this combined theory of "inclusive fitness," individual (Darwinian) fitness is translated into a theory of how cultures, rather than species, survive. Successful cultural behaviour is transmitted between generations and cultures through the genes.

Predictably, sociobiologists assume a biological/genetic basis for the division of labour by sex, male dominance, and the double standard. The origins of sexual inequality are seen as an outcome of genetically programmed male behaviour derived from the species' hunting heritage and continuously selected for since by war and imperialism. According to Wilson:

In hunter-gatherer societies, men hunt and women stay at home. This strong bias persists in most agricultural and industrial Societies and, on that ground alone, appears to have a genetic origin. . . . My own guess is that the genetic bias is intense enough to cause a substantial division of labor even in the most free and most egalitarian societies. . . . Even with identical education and equal access to all professions, men are likely to continue to play a disproportionate role in political life, business, and science.  12

Thus sexual selection acting on the prehistoric division of labour by sex tends to create dominant, public-oriented males and passive, home-centred females. This is reinforced by the different genetic strategies required by males and females in order to maximize their inclusive fitness. Since males produce literally millions of sperm, any male has a better chance of fathering many individuals if he spreads his sperm widely rather than investing in a few children, who could be killed. There is thus a genetic base for male promiscuity. Females, on the other hand, can produce relatively few eggs over a lifetime. The sociobiologists thus argue that it is an adaptive genetic trait for females to desire a monogamous union. Women also, they assert, have a genetic bias toward concentrating their reproductive interest on men who are socially, economically, or educationally superior to them, as well as physically fit enough to provide for them and their children. Thus patterns of male domination and female subordination, as well as the sexual double standard, are seen as an outcome of genetically determined mate selection.

The fundamental assumption of sociobiology is that "similar" behaviours are manifest in animals and humans (Wilson talks about ants having wars and slaves) and that they must therefore have similar origins (genetic programmes). This assumption suffers first of all from a confusion of analogy (similar traits due to similar functions) with homology (common genetic ancestry). 13  Even if we agree that there are behavioural similarities, this does not necessarily mean that there is a common genetic basis. As Richard Lewontin, specialist in population genetics at Harvard, notes: "Certainly the fact that all human societies cook is a result of their genes, not because they have genes for cooking but because they have genes for solving problems in their world."  14  Sociobiologists, moreover, draw very sloppy analogies between distinct animal and human behaviours, projecting anthropomorphic motivations onto animals, who are said to exhibit "xenophobia," "altruism" and "spite."  15  Since these "traits" in animals have demonstrable genetic links, it is argued that they must have in humans as well. The logic is circular. Since "the outcome of the model is determined by the assumptions underlying the model," 16  the possibility that there can be a cultural, as opposed to a genetic, explanation for similar behaviours is "systematically excluded."  17

Furthermore, like the other biologically determinist theories, sociobiology tends to ignore the variability that exists among cultural systems and cultural behaviour. As one critic has shown, 18  nowhere do people actually behave in the manner predicted. For one thing, it is well known that in societies based on kinship as an organizing principle, expediency rather than actual blood relationship dictates the interactions between individuals. Through the fiction of adoption, complete strangers are assimilated into the group and treated as if they were brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, etc. Although mutual aid is certainly a factor in most relationships between people, genetic relatedness is clearly not the primary factor in such kinship systems. Among the Trobriand Islanders, for example, a sister's son has more rights to a man's goods than his own son, though his own son carries more of his genetic material. Among the Lakher of Southeast Asia, a child is considered related to his mother only by virtue of her marriage to his father. If they are divorced, the cooperation and interaction of mother and child cease. In some African and Native American tribes a woman becomes a female husband, and is considered the parent of the children her wife bears by various lovers. The child's loyalty is to the social, not the biological, parent. And in many societies, of course, loyalty and sharing extend far beyond the family.

In answer to these criticisms, sociobiologists have recently attempted to explain cultural variability through the theory that genes and culture "co-evolve."  19  The implication of this theory is not simply that genes and culture interacted initially in the development of the human brain ("mind"), or even that cultural behaviour is limited and shaped by our biology (genes), both of which concepts are uncontroversial; what it purports to demonstrate is that even past and present differences among human cultures and behaviour have genetic origins.  20  This means that not only the aboriginal division of labour by sex, but also the variability found in male-female interactions throughout history today can be explained as outcomes of natural selection.

As various critics have shown, this theory is seriously flawed. 21  First, it rests on an inadequate knowledge of the precise relationship between our genetic structure (genotype) and our physical traits (phenotype), and of how these affect behaviour.  22  Genes are not the units of evolution and several genes, located on different chromosomes and acting in combination, influence the physical trait. Moreover, the mechanisms of inheritance are complex and poorly understood. Biologists are beginning to recognize that they are an outcome of the dialectical interaction of biology with environment.  23

The sociobiological theory of gene-culture "co-evolution" also depends on an inadequate conception of culture that sees it as being composed of a series of unitary traits ("culturgens") each of which evolves independently of the others "through populations by way of the adaptive force of natural selection." 24  According to this view, culture traits such as a particular ritual, or a conception of women as polluting, are an outcome of natural selection working through the particular populations and facilitating the survival of the group. Such an atomistic view fails to take account of culture as a system of interrelated traits. 25  Moreover it is, once again, a basically circular argument: if institutions survive they are adaptive; if they are adaptive they were selected for; therefore institutions that survive derive in some measure from genetics. It is an explanation that discounts the inventiveness of human minds and ignores the fact that lack of genetic programming is probably the most important adaptation humans have made. There is evidence from recent ecological research, for example, that rates of change in the incidence of genetically determined traits in a population are very low, and that it takes even longer for a trait to become established at the level of the group than in the case of individual selection. If it took genetic changes in a population to adapt to new circumstances, humans would probably have died out long ago. Most acquired cultural behaviour is thus likely not genetic even if it is adaptive.  26

In sum, although few would dispute that human behaviour is genetically constrained (humans can't fly without the aid of an aeroplane), sociobiological theory fails to provide a satisfactory demonstration that either similarities or differences in cultural behaviour can be explained by genetic determination. The evidence suggests only that the big brain provides the potential for problem-solving ability (such as the invention of the aeroplane), not the determination of specific behaviour (such as male promiscuity), however widespread its manifestations in time and place.  27

It is true, of course, that there are some readily visible physical differences between men and women that seem to a large degree genetic in origin, and some would argue that these mandate different roles and statuses for the sexes. In most (though not all) populations, the average male is taller than the average female, both at birth and after puberty, though the average difference between the sexes is a matter of inches, while the normal range of variation within each sex is more than two feet. Males are also heavier and seem to have greater physical strength, though again the variation among individuals of the same sex is far greater than the average variation between the sexes. But physical sexual dimorphism cannot explain the different roles of the sexes, and far less male dominance, as Leibowitz points out in this volume and elsewhere.  28  Although males tend to do the fighting in many primitive societies, women do as much "heavy" work as men, if not more.  29  Western history testifies, moreover, that the strongest workers and best warriors often serve the dominant members of society, who may be physically very weak. Among a group like the seventeenth century Iroquois, a strong emphasis on male physical prowess was fully compatible with a high position for women, and indeed there is little evidence that men in most foraging societies use either their strength or their weapons as a means of controlling women.  30

Some authors argue, however, that males are innately more aggressive than females. Although recent studies have repudiated the idea that there are significant sex differences in intellect, analytical powers, social skills, or personal motivation, there does seem to be a strong difference in physical aggression that appears at least as early as the kindergarten years. Some observers suggest that this is partly biological in origin.  32

Attempts to demonstrate a biological tendency toward aggression (as opposed to a biological capacity, which obviously exists) have centred on studies of hormones. High levels of the male hormone testosterone have been correlated with high levels of aggression, and injections of testosterone increase fighting behaviour in rats. But a hormonal explanation of sexual inequality is hardly admissible, since even in animals aggression does not guarantee dominance 33  and in many societies aggressive individuals are social outcasts or face severe sanctions. 34  In addition, cross-cultural studies show some important variations in rates of male aggression. Margaret Mead found that women among the Tchambuli were more aggressive than men, that women and men were equally fierce among the Mundugamor, and that neither men nor women were aggressive among the Arapesh. 35  The explanation for such variability can only be that socialization is more significant than hormones in determining appropriate behaviour among both men and women.

The explanation of social behaviour such as aggression by a single biological factor, moreover, reflects a central weakness of almost all biological determinism. The methodology of such reductionist theories generally involves introducing a disruption of the organism's normal functioning and then explaining the normal working of the organism by its response to the disturbance. The result "confuses the nature of the perturbation itself with the 'cause' of the system's normal functioning." 36  If, for example, injection of a hormone increases aggressive behaviour, it does not follow that the ordinary levels of that hormone in the animal cause its other aggressive behaviour. Thus, injections of the female hormone oestrogen also increase fighting behaviour in rats while injections of testosterone into the pre-optic area of a male rat's brain stimulate maternal nest-building behaviour.

Studies of humans do not show consistent correlations between hormone levels and aggression. 38  Even where correlations are found, it is unclear whether the aggression or the hormone level came first. When low dominance monkeys are placed with monkeys toward whom they can safely act aggressively, their testosterone levels go up; when they are returned to an established group to whom they must defer, their testosterone levels fall dramatically.  39

Even granting that hormone levels or other chemical changes in the body affect mood, the interpretation of that mood and the behaviour it "induces" depends upon the social environment. Researchers at Yerkes Primate Centre, for example, were able to locate an "aggression centre" in the brain of chimpanzees. When this was stimulated electrically in laboratory animals, increased fighting resulted. However, when this was done in monkeys who were released into the wild the result was increased grooming behaviour.  40  Similarly, people injected with adrenalin (the "fight or flight" chemical), but placed in a peaceful setting, displayed sociable behaviour.  41  As one of the pioneers in hormone research has concluded: "Hormones are often necessary but never sufficient cause for the occurrence of behaviour."  42

All human behaviour, of course, has a biological base, else it could not exist. But the dominance in humans of the cerebral cortex means that what we do with our biological capacities is almost entirely a matter of learning. The difference in aggression between boys and girls should be considered in light of the different socialization given them. Significantly, Sears, Maccoby, and Levin  43  found that the greatest parental distinctions between kindergarten boys and girls were made in the area of permitted aggression. Many studies have shown that people's sex role expectations determine their earliest assessment of infants' capacities and behaviours (even at one day old), creating differences where none can in fact be measured by any objective criteria, 44  and undoubtedly establishing a number of self-fulfilling prophecies. The vital impact of expectations can be seen in studies of persons born as hermaphrodites: in ninety-five percent of the cases the person's sexual identity and corresponding social behaviour depended not on actual genetic makeup but on the choice the parents had made in rearing the child as either male or female. This was true "even for those individuals whose sex of rearing contradicted their biological sex as determined by chromasomes, hormones, gonads, and the formation of the internal and external genitals."  45

We conclude that evidence is lacking for clearcut mental or temperamental differences between the sexes. Even where such differences may be established, it is by no means justified to assume, as most of these theories do, that a sex difference explains a sex inequality. This is a conceptual leap made by a number of other authors, who start from the fact that most societies do recognize and define different social and symbolic functions for the sexes. These authors argue that the origins of inequality lie not in naturally different abilities or temperaments, but in cultural attempts to explain or control women's central role in reproduction. Woman's biology does not make her weaker, less intelligent, or more submissive than man, but it does make her society's source of new members. According to this school of thought, cultures tend to interpret or organize motherhood in ways that accentuate differences between the sexes and lead to sexual assymetry. There are quite a number of variations on this theme, offering a cultural or symbolic explanation for gender inequality,

One such variation is the psychoanalytical interpretation that postulates a universal male fear of female reproductive powers. Starting from the fact that large numbers of primitive societies believe menstruating women to be dangerous to men and animals, proponents of this view argue that men fear and hence attempt to control female sexuality and reproduction.  46  One problem with this theory is that such beliefs have often been interpreted in a male biased and ethnocentric fashion, leaving the impression that women are unclean or evil instead of recognizing that certain substances, such as blood, are considered dangerous, whether shed by women or men.  47  Another problem is that some of the simplest foraging societies lack such beliefs altogether, while in other societies males try to imitate rather than avoid female reproductive practices. Elizabeth Zelman  48  has argued that female pollution beliefs validate extreme sex segregation while male rituals imitating female reproduction, such as the couvade, support a high degree of role flexibility. This suggests that fears about female sexuality and reproduction are less cause than symptom of social tensions in male-female relations.  49  A suggestive finding is reported by Raymond Kelly, who notes that pollution beliefs abound in areas of New Guinea where male power and prestige depend on female labour.  50

A richer psychoanalytical perspective is taken by Nancy Chodorow, 51  who suggests that the primary role of women in bearing, nursing, and socializing children leads to a different psychological dynamic for each sex. Girls learn their gender identity by imitation of a particular, individual female, which leads them, she argues, to relate to others in a particularized and personalized way. They become more present-oriented and subjective than boys, who must learn to identify with a sex that is frequently absent and less accessible and who can only do so by learning an abstract male role. In the attempt to gain this "elusive" male identity, the boy tends to define himself as not-woman, repressing his own feminine qualities and denigrating femininity in general.

Although Chodorow perceptively analyzes the reproduction of sex roles in male dominant societies, her work does not really address the origins of male dominance, as she assumes much of what needs to be explained: for example, the confinement of women to a private domestic sphere cut off from the public sphere of male activity and authority. Even where women are primarily responsible for child care, however, and males do work away from the domestic arena, it does not follow, except in an already sexist society, that a boy should move from defining himself as not-woman to denigrating women in general; and it is even less logical that such childhood denigration (which females also frequently direct against males) could in and of itself produce the institutionalized subordination of adult women.

Another theory based on reproductive roles emphasizes symbolism rather than psychodynamics. Sherry Ortner  52  attempts to show how gender identification can lead to a denigration of adult women on the part of both sexes by arguing that women's biology and domestic role make her appear closer to nature. Nature, she argues, is in turn seen as lower than culture, so that women are perceived as lower in the social scale and subject to the restrictions that culture puts on both nature and the domestic unit. Other authors build on Ortner and Chodorow in suggesting that there is a "universal, structural opposition between domestic and public spheres"  53  that juxtaposes the fragmented, private interests of women to the higher universalistic and integrative activities of men. Men are concerned with collective affairs — politics, governance, and external relations — while women individually tend hearth and children. Ortner and Whitehead assert that "the sphere of social activity predominantly associated with males encompasses the sphere predominantly associated with females and is, for that reason, culturally accorded higher value."  54

Formulations such as those above, however, tend to impose a Western dualism and hierarchy that do not do justice to the complexity of other cultural behaviour and belief systems. In the first place, the association of women with nature and men with culture is far from universal. Many ancient societies had androgynous deities that reflected an integration of both male and female principles with natural and cultural forces. 55  Among the Mandan and the ancient Sumerians, the earth is a female symbol, but among the Iroquois and ancient Egyptians the sky — surely a transcendent symbol — is considered female. Among the Sherbro, children are considered close to nature, but both adult men and women are associated with culture. 56  Australian aborigines attribute such qualities as passivity, ferocity, and sweetness to membership in a kinship section rather than to gender. Sperm, incidentally, are thought to belong to a kin section designated as passive and associated with the moon, calm water, and temperate weather.  57

Not all societies, moreover, devalue nature. For the Haganers, the wild and domestic "are in an antithetical rather than a hierarchical, processual relationship. The . . . development of social consciousness in persons is not represented as culture transcending nature." 58  The adversary approach to nature is linked to the rise of state society, as is the idea that both women and nature are forces to be tamed. 59  The latter is an effect, not a cause, of male domination.

It is true that men tend to be associated with the political sphere in most societies where this sphere exists. The political arena, however, is not the only public arena in non-state societies, for many vital collective decisions are made within the domestic grouping.  60  The idea that politics is a higher social sphere derives from state societies where the political realm can coerce the domestic one. But a remarkably consistent aspect of simple societies is the fact that political leadership confers neither power nor prestige, and is frequently ignored by domestic groups. 61  It might be more reasonable to describe political affairs as peripheral in such societies rather than as paramount.

Where male political activities do exert an important influence on wider social interactions, it is still not inevitable that males are exclusively associated with "integrative, universalistic sorts of concerns"  62  that give them prestige and/or power. Denise Paulme points out that in many African societies

. . . men never seem to conceive of ties other than those of kinship linked with common residence . . . whereas among women the mere fact of belonging to the same sex is enough to establish an active solidarity. An appeal addressed by a woman to other women will reach far beyond the boundaries of a single village, and a movement of revolt among women will always be a serious matter, even if its immediate cause should be of minor importance.  63

In nineteenth century America it was men who were stereotyped as rebels against (or refugees from) the social order, whose continuity was often represented by women. Men may also be associated with the destructive acts of war and personal rivalry. Among the Iroquois, men were more likely to engage in individualistic behaviour that required social control, while "feminine activities . . . coincided with the cooperative and pacific principles upon which the League was built." Indeed, it has been suggested that it is typically male-centred activities and organizational principles that are individuating, competitive, and fragmenting, while female ones are associated with integrative social concerns and cooperation.  65

To be sure, there is much ethnographic evidence that women are perceived as particularistic and fragmenting in many societies. Once again, however, this is likely to be not cause but consequence of processes in which female labour and reproduction are privately appropriated for the aims of male household heads — aims often called "social" but more appropriately labelled as clan or patriarchal family. Thus among the Haganers the view of women as particularistic, even anti-social, and men associal, corresponds to the fact that women change residence at marriage and cannot always be counted on to place the interests of their husbands' clan ahead of their own.  66

Attempts to explain women's low status by psychological or symbolic processes associated with female reproduction often provide insightful analyses into how male dominance is perpetuated and why male-female relations are so complex and fraught with tension. They help us understand the dynamics of sexual inequality in a way that the articles in this volume do not even attempt. Ultimately, however, they cannot explain the origins of gender inequality, as they assume universal psychological associations that do not withstand detailed examination. A seemingly more historical and materialist theory is presented by William Divale and Marvin Harris,  67  who believe that population pressure on resources, especially following the Neolithic Revolution (the transition from food collecting to food production; for example, horticulture and herding) led in an elaborate sequence of cause-effect to the subordination of women.

Divale and Harris assert "the existence of a pervasive institutional and ideological complex of male supremacy in band and village sociocultural systems. "  68  This complex includes patrilineal inheritance and descent, patrilocal residence, marriage by capture, polygamy, brideprice, postmarital sex restrictions on women, property rights in women, male secret societies, male age grades, men's houses, and a preference for male babies. What, they ask, are the origins of such a phenomenon? They suggest that the origins of the male supremacist complex lie in warfare, which places high value on male qualities and allows women to be used as rewards for male valour. Warfare, in turn, stemmed from population pressure, especially after the Neolithic Revolution resulted in a more sedentary life style and starchy diets, causing an increase in fertility. The most efficient way to limit population, in the absence of birth control, was to reduce the numbers of potential mothers through female infanticide. To justify killing female babies, however, the male supremacist complex outlined above was necessary. Warfare, "always" present in human societies, now became increasingly important to "sustain" the male supremacist complex. Warfare elevated maleness and allowed women, already in scarce supply due to infanticide, to be used as reward for male feats of war. This necessitated rearing females to be passive. In short, Divale and Harris argue that the subordination (devaluation) of women was necessary to justify female infanticide (required for population control), and that warfare functioned to sustain this system both by reinforcing "macho" values and by keeping the adult sex ratio somewhat in balance, through male deaths in battle.

In important ways, the argument advanced here seems to us to be circular. In this analysis, warfare arises to enforce female subordination; yet warfare also presupposes female subordination, in order for women to be used as rewards for male warriors. Warfare is a consequence of female infanticide, helping to create balanced sex ratios through the death of adult males; but it is also a cause for such infanticide, providing its main justification. One reads Divale and Harris in vain for an actual explanation of the origins of male domination and warfare. We only learn their supposed functions. But to say that a phenomenon sustains male dominance is not to say that it caused it. And the consequences of a male supremacist complex or of warfare should not be used to explain their origins. Equating the two, as functionalist theories like this do, allows the specific historical developments to be interpreted as inevitable, when in fact the question is why alternatives were not chosen.

Indeed, a major flaw in the argument of Divale and Harris is the assumption that the route of warfare and patrilineal organization was the most common or most successful path for Palaeolithic and Neolithic societies. Their sample of band societies is drawn mostly from twentieth century ethnographies of collecting economies severely influenced by Western culture and imperatives; it undoubtedly distorts our concept of the nature of Palaeolithic band and Neolithic village society. Thus the prevalence of warfare asserted in their Table IX (p.532) is a likely consequence of the heightening of cultural stress due to capitalist penetration in many areas of the world in this century. For example, Napoleon Chagnon, the original ethnographer of that prototypical macho' and warlike society, the South American Yanomamo, suggests that warfare was a recent introduction, and this view has been corroborated by other researchers.  69  Similarly, in asserting the predominance of patrilineality, Divale and Harris fail to acknowledge recent research questioning the model of the "patrilineal band" and suggesting, rather, that in many instances collecting societies have a highly flexible bilateral organization which allows men and women to choose their place of residence according to circumstances, and to move freely between groups. The Bushman band, for example, has at its core a group of related brothers and sisters, but its membership is highly variable and fluctuates according to seasonal conditions. 70  The patrilineal band that features in twentieth century ethnographies may well have been introduced by trade and colonialism.  71

A more historically oriented study comes to quite different conclusions, showing that warfare is frequent in only eight per cent of hunting and gathering Societies, becoming more common in advanced horticultural systems but only "endemic" in the early agrarian states.  72  The archaeological record suggests that high levels of warfare did not follow the adoption of horticulture or agriculture per se , but developed only after the evolution of complex sociopolitical systems.  73  Catal Huyuk, one of the best-documented examples of an early Neolithic urban settlement, was notably free of defensive structures.  74

Furthermore, the precise relationship between warfare, food production, and population growth is highly controversial. 75  Divale and Harris cite only their own work as evidence for the assertion that warfare in band and village societies "represents a systematic attempt to achieve stationary or near stationary populations." 76  There is little evidence of endemic population pressures in Palaeolithic society and no reason to think that early Neolithic cultures would have accelerated any problem that did exist. Indeed, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, one might assume that improved farming techniques might have eased population pressures in some areas.

In short, this "theory" of the origins of male dominance is unsatisfactory at all levels of analysis. Even if we accept the assumption that population increase was the problem faced by Palaeolithic and Neolithic societies, we would question first whether female infanticide was the only solution. It is well known that pre-industrial cultures have many artificial means of controlling births, apart from infanticide.  77  Second, supposing a cultural need for female infanticide, why was it necessary to devalue adult women in the process of constructing such an elaborate complex of institutions and ideology? Many primitive societies abandon the aged and infirm without faltering in their extreme respect for old age.  78  We suggest that "the male Supremacist complex" arose under specific historical conditions interacting with particular types of social structures, not as a mechanical solution to justify killing female babies. (Indeed, one could as easily read the evidence presented by Divale and Harris to show that female infanticide arose to balance out deaths from warfare, though we decline to use the same mechanical approach even in reverse.) We must look elsewhere for an explanation of the historical evidence for increasing male dominance in advanced horticultural and early state societies.

A more complex theory purporting to explain that evidence is offered by Parker and Parker.  79  They propose that the early development of differential power and prestige for men was as reward for male risk-taking (in hunting, warfare, and so on), and that this was reinforced and intensified by technological developments in the first complex societies. The Parkers believe that human biology and sexual dimorphism predisposed men and women to play certain roles in the division of labour. They characterize the male role as involving men in work requiring greater physical strength, high levels of risk and danger, mobility, cooperation, and technological skill — in short, a combination of brains and brawn.  80  Women, on the other hand, tended to engage in activities that involved less danger and mobility, required less concentration or skills, and were more easily interruptable and substitutable. 81  While not saying that the tasks were intrinsically unequal in the sense that one sex made a more important contribution than the other, the Parkers believe that throughout most of history men have been asked to make consistently more difficult and risky contributions (p.299). The requirements of male tasks, combined with a biopsychologically-based male vulnerability (greater susceptibility to disease, death, and so on) resulted in a situation where the male labour supply was relatively costly and inelastic (not easily substitutable). In order to induce males to come forward in adequate numbers and with the requisite skills to perform the social tasks needed by an increasingly complex socioeconomic system, it was necessary to devise some sort of reward. Thus the 'myth of male dominance' was created as compensation and reward (in a kind of social exchange).

In addition, the Parkers assert that male dominance had adaptive advantages which were reinforced through time associeties became more complex, requiring ever greater levels of technological skill. However, although they believe that this situation has prevailed since the establishment of a division of labour by sex, and, in fact, that it intensified with increased complexity, they think that "efficient means of birth control and other technological aids" of modern industrial society can and will lead to its elimination, and thus to the demise of the "myth of male superiority."

Parker and Parker may be criticized for their uncritical acceptance of a universal patterning of sex roles as an outcome of sexual dimorphism. A growing body of research lends credence to the counter-assertion that women in collecting and in simple horticultural societies undertook tasks that demanded as much brawn, as well as brain, as did male tasks. 82  Other research suggests that women were just as mobile as men, at least when they were not pregnant or nursing, and that in band societies this was quite a bit of the time. In non-sedentary Bushmen bands, for example, a combination of birth-spacing (average of four years) and sharing of child care tasks enables many women to range far from home in search of food. 83  West African women are well-known for their success — and mobility — as traders and entrepreneurs in their own right, proving that women, even those with children, do not have to be sedentary. In any case, the cross-cultural record demonstrates more variability in the assignment of tasks, and much greater socio-political variation, than is suggested here.

We would not deny that there is a general pattern in the division of labour. Indeed, our own article suggests that there were some consistent patterns in early societies in which males took on more geographically far-ranging assignments that frequently involved more risk (though not more brain or brawn) than women's tasks. But the social exchange theory fails to explain why male tasks "universally" receive recognition and valuation. If male supremacy was a reward, what precisely was being rewarded? The Parkers seem to think that in early societies it was the male capacity for heavy work, whereas they suggest that later it was male "skill." But females engage in heavy work along with men in many societies, and they certainly take risks in childbirth, which is surely a socially necessary kind of labour. Furthermore, skill is a matter of training, so we have to ask why males were given that training and assigned tasks requiring a high level of skill. It is commonly accepted that women were the first potters: How and why did pottery become a male-dominated craft, and why weren't the inventors of this important manufacture given social rewards? It was not skill, but the social relations accompanying the development of craft specialization that must have determined that men should be trained in these tasks.

Furthermore, in the more complex societies — where the Parkers say male dominance was intensified by rewards for male skill and risk — it was increasingly only some men, not all, who were given prestige and power. What kinds of work did slave owners or family patriarchs do that justified their power and prestige vis à vis slaves, wives, and junior men? Why did women have low status in slave societies, such as fifth-century Athens, where free men took few risks and did little work? Why, conversely, have women had high status in many societies, from ancient Crete to the seventeenth century Iroquois, where males undoubtedly did take great physical risks? The answers to these questions must lie not in the nature of the work itself, which the Parkers themselves admit is not intrinsically hierarchical, but in the origins of the hierarchy itself. These, we would suggest, lie in the relations of work, the issue of who controls whose labour. To explain the origins of female subordination we need a theory that accounts for the control of women's work by men. Such a theory cannot be derived from the nature of men's and women's tasks on their own, nor from any inevitable technological tendency, because human cultures have exhibited too much variation to postulate any necessary relation between a task or a tool, on the one hand, and a particular social relationship of superiority or subordination on the other.

This brings us to a central assumption of all the preceding theories that we have so far failed to challenge — the assertion that "in every known society, men and women compose two differentially valued terms of a value set, men being as men , higher."  84  Although this assertion seems supported by an extremely large body of anthropological and historical observation, there are good grounds for challenging the idea that male dominance has been a universal in human societies over time.

In the first place, many observers have simply been unable to divest themselves of their own cultural preconceptions. Male ethnographers have dealt with male informants, accepting any uncomplimentary remarks these may make about women as the social reality, and ignoring equally disparaging comments about men made by women. 85  A number of anthropologists have recently gone back to the original anthropological sources on various cultures and found that the "masters" had reported almost exclusively on male activities and prerogatives, ignoring or downplaying equivalent female activities, rights, and prestige systems. 86  Among the pre-colonial Ashanti, for example, the head of state was a female position but in accounts of Ashanti life this is often only "mentioned in passing, designated by the misnomer "queen mother," although she was never the king's wife, and was not necessarily his mother. She did not hold her position by virtue of her relationship with him; indeed it was she who appointed him, and was above him in the state hierarchy."  87

Proofs of male dominance, moreover, frequently rest on fuzzy or inconsistent criteria: if women are excluded from some activity, that is considered proof of male power; when males are excluded, it's considered evidence of women's "restriction" to a subordinate sphere. Considerable selection is also used in choosing examples. While Rosaldo emphasizes Yoruba women "bowing and scraping" before their husbands, 88  Suderkasa adds that the same behaviour is engaged in by males, who "prostrate themselves before their mothers, older sisters, and other females whose age or position demand that they do so."  89  Similarly, observers who stress that only males engage in trance dancing among the Bushmen neglect to mention that the dance cannot go on unless the women agree to make the music for it.  90

Western authors also seem unable to understand a world that lacks a conception of hierarchical relations among different things. Pre-state societies often have a concept of "separate but equal" that state societies lack  91  and male/female distinctions may best be described in terms of complementary functions rather than superordination/subordination.  92  Indeed, the very attempt to define "equality" may obscure the dynamics of societies where "equality exists in the very nature of things, not as a principle to be applied. . . . Often there is no linguistic mechanism whatever for comparison. What we find is an absolute respect for . . . all individuals irrespective of age and sex."  93

A second major problem with the collection of cross-cultural examples "proving" the universality of male dominance is the ahistorical nature of such evidence. Two major geographical areas where extreme male domination of women is well-documented in non-state societies are Melanesia and South America. But Melanesia is an area where rapid socioeconomic and status differentiation had taken place prior to Western observations, and the status of women seems to have been declining from a previously higher position.  94  In South America, devolution from larger political entities had taken place 95  and there was extreme (and atypical) population pressure and warfare.  96  In both these cases, the low status of women should probably be related to the tensions and pressures consequent on economic, political, and demographic transformation, not to "the state of nature." On close examination, in fact, many cases of male domination in "primitive" societies seem to have evolved only under the pressure of trade or warfare following contact with expanding groups, or under the direct impact of colonialism.  97

Finally, there are examples of societies in which asymmetry between the sexes is difficult or impossible to discern. Among the Mbuti "both men and women see themselves as equal in all respects except the supremely vital one that, whereas the woman can (and on occasion does) do almost everything the male does, she can do one thing no male can do: give birth to life."  98  John Nance reports that among the Tasaday "decision-making apparently was based on discussion in which men and women expressed views equally, with age and experience determining degree of influence."  99  And Peggy Sanday describes five societies that offer or offered "scripts for female power."  100  Summing up a review of recent anthropological research on women, Naomi Quinn comments: "Together, the bias of male informants in reporting, ethnographers in describing, and cross-cultural workers in interpreting various disparate customs . . . and the depressive effects of colonialism on many aspects of women's lives, may seem to leave very little cross-cultural female subordination to explain."  101

This is, of course, an overstatement. Male dominance is a material fact, with concrete repercussions for women, in most of the world, and our egalitarian examples come from relatively isolated simple societies. Long before Western trade and colonialism had even arisen, ancient societies in the Middle East, Mediterranean, and British Isles had gone through earlier processes in which the position of women had deteriorated. What is required, then, is a theory that explains why male dominance, though not inevitable, was a likely outcome of processes connected with socioeconomic expansion and increasing social complexity.

One theory that has been advanced to explain the evidence suggesting a decline in a formerly high position for women is that of the matriarchy. According to this view, women were once pre-eminent in economics and politics, but matriarchal rule was overthrown by men at some early point in human history.  102  Engels asserted that "mother right" was a general phase of human pre-history that was overthrown when men developed movable wealth and created patrilineal inheritance in order to pass it on to their own children.  103

We do not have the space to consider the various theories of matriarchy here, but simply note that there is no evidence for a matriarchal stage in human history. The theories cited above all contain one or both of the following fallacies: 1) Matriarchy is confused with matrilineality, and traces of matrilineal descent in the historical record are, without other justification, asserted as proof of an ancient matriarchy; 2) The importance of women in ancient myths and religious artifacts is often said to reflect a "survival" of prior matriarchal social organization. Pomeroy  104  points out, however, that the role of women in myths has been subject to much misinterpretation, and Monique Saliou (this volume) suggests that such myths may indicate greater equality for women in the past but are not evidence of actual female rule. Childe  105  asks: "are female figurines any better evidence for matriarchy than are the Venus figures and Virgins of undeniably patriarchal societies?" (See Fleuhr-Lobban  106  for a further critique of theories of matriarchy).

The search for origins will never be definitively settled. But if we are to counter the assertions of inevitable and universal male dominance we must suggest some concrete reasons for the historical appearance and spread of male domination in ancient cultures. Probably no single historical account will suffice to explain every case: we will need to look at different time periods and processes, as Rapp points out in an excellent survey of the problem.  107  The two most important recent attempts at a historical explanation have been made by Peggy Sanday and Eleanor Leacock.  108  Both have combined a historical approach taking into account the variability of sociocultural experience with an explanatory framework that identifies underlying recurrent patterns of development.

Peggy Sanday focuses on the ways in which gender is used by many societies as an organizing principle on both the structural and symbolic levels. She has presented a complex account of the conditions under which balanced and symmetrical power relations between the sexes are replaced by asymmetry and male dominance. Basing her analysis on the evidence of both quantitative cross-cultural data and in-depth case studies, she finds that characteristic "cultural configurations" result from the interaction of natural environments, child-rearing practices, and sex-role behaviour. For example, hunting societies and societies in which large animals play an important part tend to produce distant fathers, masculine creator symbols, and an "outer," animal orientation toward the powers of the universe. Gathering societies, and societies in which animals are less important, tend to produce involved male parents, feminine or couple creator symbols, and an "inner," plant orientation. A "dual" orientation sometimes occurs in societies that combine "a ritual concern with both plant gathering or incipient cultivation and the predatory activities of men."  109

Sanday believes that the natural environment and mode of subsistence fundamentally "cause" the symbol system and sex role plan of any society. However, she is also concerned to emphasize the independent role that symbols play in determining subsequent sex role behaviour and authority relations. She suggests that there is an underlying bio-psychological basis for gender concepts that, in turn, provide "scripts" for behaviour. For example, she suggests that in all societies women are associated with the power to give life, while men are associated with the power to take life. Depending upon natural and historical conditions, one or both powers may be culturally valued and receive ritual emphasis. Where food is abundant and fertility is desired, women tend to have ascribed power and female principles are stressed. On the other hand, where the taking of life is important, as in hunting or warlike societies, men tend to exercise power and male principles are elevated in ritual and social life. However, a high value on male aggression does not automatically or necessarily translate into male dominance, as women may achieve power under some circumstances.

According to Sanday, men and women tend to be more segregated and competitive in societies that have a masculine/outer configuration. Higher levels of integration and cooperative relations between the sexes are more likely to be found in societies with an inner/plant orientation.  110  Sexual segregation, like male aggression, does not necessarily create male dominance. Some societies may segregate the sexes but relations between them may still be balanced and cooperative. However, Sanday thinks that male dominance is a likely outcome of the outer/segregated configuration where historical conditions have favoured an expansion of the male sphere leading to increased dependence of women on men.

Such conditions have arisen in a variety of historical contexts. Increased technological complexity, warfare, famine, migration, and colonization — all conditions leading to heightened social stress — have resulted in an expansion of the male role. Here Sanday borrows from the "social exchange" model in suggesting that "real" male dominance arises from the political rights that are granted to males as compensation for their role and as "a privilege for being the expendable sex."  111  However she says "adaptation to stress does not always include the subjugation of women."  112  In inner-oriented or dual societies, where women still exercise some power, stress may lead to "mythical" male dominance where "conflicting sexual power principles coexist."  113  For example, external pressures may lead to the projection onto women of cultural fears associated with female fertility. Under such circumstances, women may voluntarily cede mythical power to men because it is more reproductively efficient to do so and allows both sexes manoeuvering room. Thus for Sanday the determinants of male dominance are the conjunction of stressful historical circumstances with a prior cultural configuration.

The great value of Sanday's book lies in her attempt to show how gender is used as a "powerful and available metaphor" to organize society, and how the system of sexual symbols interacts with environment and social institutions to influence the relations between the sexes. She offers interesting insights into the richness and complexity of sex role plans and the mechanics of sexual inequality. We do not, however, feel that she has been totally successful in her claim to explain the origins of inequality, even while she has done much to elucidate its dynamics. As we have seen, she seeks the origins of sexual inequality in the pressure of stressful historical conditions on prior cultural configuration/sex role plans. But since externally generated stress does not, she argues, automatically or necessarily lead to male dominance, in the final analysis it seems to be the prior cultural configuration that determines the outcome. We have some difficulty with her emphasis on the independent role of such configurations, which she tends to treat as separate from changing social relations within the culture. Rather than examining the dialectical interaction between a culture's internal evolution and its sex role configuration, Sanday treats the sex role configuration as though it arises independently from internal social processes, determines internal social relations, and changes those internal relations only when it interacts with externally generated sources of stress, such as famine, invasion, or colonialism. We remain unconvinced by her tendency to give primary emphasis to environmental factors in her analysis of the origins of those configurations. We also question her contention that societies react to stress in fundamentally different ways depending upon their prior cultural configuration.

To explain the origins of the prior cultural configuration, Sanday relies on a somewhat awkward combination of environmental and bio-psychological factors, neither of which, taken separately or in combination, can account for the ambiguities of the data. Why, for example, do the Copper Eskimo, a hunting society par excellence , have an "inner" orientation? Why do twenty-eight percent of societies with a feminine orientation hunt large animals? Why do seventy-three per cent of fishing societies have masculine orientation,  114  while fifty-four per cent of these same societies have equality between the sexes and only fifteen per cent have inequality?  115

Furthermore, Sanday does not really demonstrate that societies with diferent cultural configurations have qualitatively different reactions to stress. She gives no examples of inner-oriented or dual societies that reacted to stress without undermining the status of women. Even the Cheyenne and the Iroquois failed ultimately to resist the social tensions of colonialism and the pressures toward male dominance. Her distinction between "real" and "mythical" male dominance does not really help to explain the ambiguities of the evidence. Does the fact that women cede power to men voluntarily make "mythical" male dominance any less real than that which develops in outer-oriented societies? At times, Sanday herself seems to suggest that "mythical" male dominance is but a transitional state: "a waystation where opposing and conflicting sexual power principles may coexist."  116  If so, then the critical issue in explaining the origins of male dominance lies less in the prior cultural configuration than in the nature and origin of the stress.

Although Sanday does show that certain kinds of stress, such as war, migration, or environmental conditions, elevate the male role and lead to new sexual fears and tensions, she tends to ignore internal sources of stress that may help to account for increased social competition and a fearful attitude towards the environment. These are most likely to be associated with the breakdown of community reciprocity, and with the development of differences in rank or property ownership. For example, in her discussion of the Bellacoola she suggests that they perceived the environment as hostile and threatening due to seasonal food scarcity. This, in turn, accounted for the Bellacoola's cultural perception of women as dangerous. But it is unclear why this should have been a cultural response among the Bellacoola, while it was absent among the Bemba, a society which suffered more extreme seasonal food shortages, but where female principles were ritually elevated.  117  Surely the Bellacoola environment (the Pacific Northwest Coast of America) was lush by comparison with other societies where there was/is no institutionalized need to control or dominate women? In fact, it is by no means the case that environmentally-caused scarcity always results in increased conflict and competition within groups. In some, it may lead to heightened cooperation and sharing.  118

In the case of the Bellacoola, Sanday might have considered both the control of women and the fear of the environment as consequences of other social tensions that were breaking down cooperative interaction and trust. Her own account mentions, in fact,  119  that they were a ranked society with slavery. This certainly might indicate that they were suffering from heightened competition for resources and tensions over social status. Such internal socially-based sources of stress might help us explain the evolution of the group's sex role plan and the changes in women's position better than Sanday's environmental analysis, especially since the aggression was directed against only some women, while others participated as men's equals. In other instances too such an approach might better explain the anomalies in her data and would allow her to make better use of her valuable insights.

The primary achievement of Sanday's book is to show us that a mechanical explanation of sex roles and status is not possible. Because gender is such a powerfully charged way of organizing social interactions, and involves so many basic bio-psychological processes, disruption in social organization and male-female roles may have far-reaching and complex repercussions. Male dominance cannot be understood as simply a matter of economic interest or political power; it interacts with every thread in the fabric of social life and may thus have a different dynamic in each society where it is set into motion.

No review of theories of the origins of sexual inequality would be complete without reference to Eleanor Leacock, who has done pathbreaking work in applying a historical materialist framework to the ethnohistorical record, and in formulating an alternative vision of the social relations of foraging societies. On the basis of her research among the Montagnais-Naskapi Indians (a society based on fur trapping), she challenged the widely accepted model of the patrilineal band, with its accompanying assumption of sexual inequality, and proposed in its stead that relations between the sexes were both flexible and egalitarian.  120  She argued that there is no reason why there should be gender hierarchy just because there is a division of labour by sex; in fact, she has shown that the social relations of many foraging societies are necessarily egalitarian and communal.  121  Taking its cue from Leacock, a whole generation of feminist anthropologists has begun to explore the implications of her model of the "primitive commune," which includes a rough equality in the social relations between the sexes.

Leacock has, in addition, taken a leading role in efforts to revise and build on Engels's original theories about the origins of the patriarchal state.  122  Again beginning with her own fieldwork among the Montagnais-Naskapi, she has explored the historical processes whereby formerly egalitarian cultures were transformed by contact with patriarchal state societies, and especially by capitalist colonization during the past two centuries. 123  Basing her early theory of the evolution of sexual inequality on Engels's central insight that it was connected with the breakdown of kinship (clan) social organization and successive transformations of the division of labour, she has worked for a decade to refine her model. Her most recent and evolved statement is presented in her article "Women, Power and Authority."  124

Leacock believes that male dominance was a consequence of the development of commodity production, which accompanied the evolution of ranked, and then stratified, societies:

The direct producers lost decision-making powers over their lives when the specialization of labor and production of commodities for exchange led to the formation of slave, aristocratic, and merchant classes. Women in particular lost out because the new economic relations based on exchange were in the hands of men (the first important commodity exchanged, in Engels view, was men's responsibility, cattle); because these relations undercut the communal households women had controlled and transformed women's domestic work into private service; and because the privatization of property through individual inheritance in the budding upper class required control of women's sexuality.  125

According to Leacock, as the importance of inter-group exchange increased, especially as groups became more sedentary, there was a growing need for products that could only be obtained through exchange. In the process, some people were better placed than others to take advantage of the new relations of production. Leacock, then, following Fried, 126  sees a close relationship between the development of social ranking and the institution of centralized redistribution of products. She believes that women lost public authority as exchange and economic inequality developed, in particular because they tended to provide the labour that produced the goods exchanged by men (for example cattle, or pigs in New Guinea). She also notes that warfare may have increased as ranked societies expanded, and this may have given males additional control. Furthermore, she suggests that women unwittingly participated in the process of their own "commoditization" because it was in their interest to ensure that their own husband was a "big man," successful in trade exchange, and because they, too, could benefit from the labour of low ranking men. In sum, women lost autonomy as labourers when processes of economic differentiation were already transforming labour into a commodity. Commodity production, in turn, aided in the process of subversion of kin-based organization and the development of private property, as described by Engels.

We are in basic agreement with Leacock on this overall outline of the historical evolution of male dominance, and of the effects of commodity production on the primitive commune. However, we see a need for a more detailed explanation of how and why, in the "pristine" case, societies that were transitional between egalitarian and ranked began to produce for exchange, and of why women in particular seem to have lost political and economic autonomy in such societies. In other words, we need a theory of why, by the time that true ranking had emerged in the form of institutionalized inequalities of access to production, exchange, and distribution, it was already "big" men, and only rarely big women, who usually achieved the institutionalized leadership statuses. We agree with Leacock that women's status in ranked societies is quite variable, and that there is no reason to assume a "conspiracy theory" of the emergence of sexual inequality. But the underlying question of what stimulated men to commandeer the productive activities of women in order to engage successfully in trade exchanges is still not clearly answered. Even if cattle were the first exchangeable commodity, they were certainly by no means the only trade item; nor was warfare inevitably the accompaniment of the transition to ranking. It is therefore necessary to examine more closely why men were able to privatize the services of women and why women in many societies did not successfully resist.

These questions and others are analysed by the authors in this volume from the standpoint of their respective disciplines (history and anthropology) and scholarly traditions (French and American). In the first contribution, Leibowitz, an American physical anthropologist, presents a model of the origins of the division of labour by sex, which she sees arising out of the early conditions of production and long antedating any formal or informal sexual inequality. Two papers, Chevillard and Leconte "The Dawn of Lineage Societies: the Origin of Women's Oppression," and Coontz and Henderson "Property Forms, Political Power, and Women's Labour in the Evolution of Class and State Societies," then offer contrasting analyses of the origins of sexual inequality in pre-state kinship-based societies. These are followed by a second contribution by Chevillard and Leconte, "Slavery and Women," which discusses women's status in early slave-based state societies. Finally, Monique Saliou, a French historian of religion, looks at the evidence from pre-Classical and Classical iconography and literature concerning "The Processes of Women's Subordination in Primitive and Archaic Greece." We turn now to a consideration of the different views presented in these articles. (The following section of the Introduction was written jointly by us and two of the French contributors, Nicole Chevillard and Sébastien Leconte.)

It is striking that, though working independently within two different scholarly traditions, empirical data bases, and language systems, the authors find themselves in substantial agreement on many fundamental aspects of the development of female subordination. First, the point of departure for all is that the explanation of gender inequality must be sought in social rather than biological imperatives. Leibowitz argues that the division of labour by sex was not biologically determined but was a social construct arising from changes in the techniques and relations of production. The other authors emphasize various social determinants of different male and female activities, agreeing that biology does not mandate an invariable division of labour between the sexes. They also agree that even where a division of tasks and activities does occur, that is not grounds, in and of itself, for assuming gender inequality. Indeed, they point to various indications suggesting that the earliest societies were based on interdependence and egalitarianism.

Second, following their rejection of biological explanations for male-female social relations, the authors agree that the origins of sexual stratification should be sought in women's role in production, and not in her powers of reproduction. Women indisputably played a central productive role in early foraging and horticultural communities, and the authors suggest that the origins of male dominance were bound up with the struggle to control women's labour and products. Control of women's reproductive powers followed from this. There was no demographic reason, dissociated from this social one, for men to oppress women simply because women bear children.

A third point of agreement accompanies the authors' rejection of biological determinism in favour of explanations emphasizing social production. They agree that while male dominance was not present in the earliest communal societies, it was already present in the earliest class societies as defined in the traditional sense of the term (for example, slave societies). They thus reject analyses which move directly from communal societies to advanced class systems based on individual private property without identifying an intervening social formation or mode of production. Though differing in their conception of such intervening societies, the authors agree that societies based on true private property were preceded by other forms of social organization based on the development of collective or group property. In these lineage or kin corporate societies, ties of kinship determined the organization of work and the appropriation of goods, and it was in these societies that male domination was first elaborated.

It follows from this that the dialectic of kin relations must be relevant to the origins of gender inequality. Although diverging in their reconstruction of the processes involved, the authors agree in seeking the origins of male dominance in some aspect of the rise of these kin corporate or lineage societies. Specifically, they agree on the critical importance of post-marital residence rules in determining gender relations within unilineal kin corporate societies. They argue that patrilocality — the system in which women move to their husband's kin group at marriage — enabled men to utilize and appropriate women's labour and products in ways that ultimately enhanced the authority of the senior males within the husband's kin group.

The authors agree, in short, that without patrilocality, there were limits on the ability of any kin corporation to utilize or appropriate the labour and products of women. Because they stress the importance of residence rules over unilineal descent, they agree in characterizing matrilineal, virilocal systems, in which the woman after marriage goes to live with her husband's mother's brother, as equally conducive to male dominance as patrilineal, patrilocal societies, in spite of the rule of descent through females. The effect on adult women of such a residence rule is similarly to sever her ties with her natal kin group and to encourage her dependence on her husband's kin group. The authors interpret matrilineal, virilocal systems as a contradictory social formation, rather than as proof that "natural" male dominance will assert itself even in matrilineal societies, as is often claimed. Instances of such societies, therefore, make interesting case studies of transitional processes at work.

Having located the source of female oppression in the mechanism of patrilocality, the authors were still faced with the need to explain why this became the dominant mode of organizing social relations in kin corporate society (and hence why male dominance, though not "natural," became so widespread). Although differing as to how this happened, the French and American authors again find themselves in substantial agreement as to the overall evolutionary dynamic which led to the reinforcement and institutionalization of male dominance. They agree that patrilocal societies, where women moved at marriage, had greater potential for expansion because they offered more opportunities and incentives to intensify production beyond the level necessary for everyday subsistence. This was due to the greater value of women's labour and reproductive potential in pre-plow agricultural systems. The more productive the society, the more expansionary it could become, absorbing or conquering more stable, "steady state" societies. It is important to stress, though, that this analysis implies no value judgment that patrilocal societies were somehow "better." Rather, they were simply more capable of exercising coercive power over their own members (women, junior men, children) to intensify production than were more egalitarian social systems.

The above points of agreement lead to one final area of commonality. The authors agree that female subordination actually preceded and established the basis for the emergence of true private property and the state. The historical processes involved varied in time and place, but once set in motion, the evolution of sexual and social stratification was closely intertwined. The oppression of women provided a means of differential accumulation among men, which in turn gave some men special access to the labour and reproductive powers of women, as well as to the services of other men. As class stratification became institutionalized, we find that lower class men were often assimilated to the status of women, while women as a category were assigned to the juridical status of the propertyless in a system increasingly based on private property. The authors of this book offer different historical and sociological perspectives on these processes, but they agree that the oppression of women was a foundation for the emergence of traditional class society, and that sex and class oppression have developed in ways that render them analytically virtually inseparable.

Despite these broad areas of agreement, the authors in this volume differ in important respects. One area of disagreement is over how to explain and analyse the development of a division of labour by sex. Leibowitz argues that the earliest hominid cultures rested on non-gender-specific production, while later an informal sexual division of activities developed with projectile hunting and other technological inventions that led to hearth-centred activities. A full-fledged sexual division of labour, with codified rules for males and females in marriage and work, she argues, arose when Exchange between groups began to take place, and served to facilitate and regularize this Exchange. (She uses the capital E to distinguish this from the informal exchange between individuals that would have taken place on an irregular basis.) Neither the sexual division of tasks nor the sexual division of labour, however, constitutes a cause or a symptom of male dominance, whose origins must be sought elsewhere.

Coontz and Henderson largely accept this account, in which a sexual division of work is related to diversification of productive techniques allowing some members to hunt, trap, or trade as others engage in hearth-based activities, while a more formal sexual division of labour develops as groups need to regularize the production and circulation of goods and services. They agree that the circulation of spouses, of whatever sex, among groups is a means to establish increased social interaction, not male dominance.

Chevillard and Leconte, however, believe that the presence of a well-defined social division of labour between men and women, if accompanied by the circulation of female spouses, is already a symptom of male dominance. They thus reject an analysis which places the origins of the sexual division of labour so far back in history. They argue that Leibowitz's analysis covers a very long period in the history of humankind. There was little chance of absolute continuity, especially in the realm of social behaviour, between peoples of such widely differing periods, and locations. One must therefore be cautious when analysing the role of technological inventions such as the use of fire or projectile weapons in social organization. The implementation of certain techniques was probably greatly influenced, or conditioned, by the social organization of the human groups in which they were "invented." In other words, the link that Leibowitz establishes between these inventions and the sexual division of tasks, then of labour and social roles, appears too rigid and minimizes the influence of other evolutionary factors. Chevillard and Leconte view the sexual division of labour as a concept that is neither very precise nor illuminating with regard to the dynamics of the structure and evolution of the first human groups.

Another area of difference among some of the authors concerns the degree to which male dominance was a conscious creation of men who wished to exploit female labour, or a less consciously planned outcome of social processes whose original dynamic did not rest on sex oppression. For Chevillard and Leconte, for instance, the central contradiction leading to the dissolution of the earliest communal societies lies in the relations between (some) men and (all) women. As primitive communities developed a higher material standard of living, a surplus and an accentuation of the division of tasks by sex and age, they began to codify kinship rules that permitted the formation of larger and more stable human groups. These societies came to be based on both matrilocality and matrilineality, and in them, therefore, there was a tendency for the surplus to accumulate under the control of women. This accumulation engendered contradictions that in the end led to confrontations between women and men (probably from different kinship groups), who desired to gain control of this surplus. Since the natural evolution of matrilocal and matrilineal societies would be toward a certain amount of female control, a reversal of this, they argue, can only be explained by some sort of masculine victory over women, which turned over to a group of dominant men the control of the surplus and also of the female labour force. Thus partrilocality was instituted. There need not have been a generalized confrontation between men and women, for even if this overturn occurred in only a few instances, patrilocality and male domination would then spread by virtue of example and force of arms. Monique Saliou suggests that Greek mythology and tragedy provide evidence of outright conflict between males and females over power.

For Coontz and Henderson, on the other hand, male domination is the outcome of more gradual and peaceful social and economic processes. As surplus accumulated or techniques of production changed, communal societies developed a variety of residence and descent rules, which in and of themselves implied no immediate subordination of one sex by the other. But the emergence of kin corporate property and a kin corporate mode of production created a potential contradiction between kinship and residence. The new kin corporate mode of production was based on the appropriation of the labour of non-owning producers — the in-marrying spouses — by the corporate descent group, or its head. Coontz and Henderson do not believe that patrilocality, where it occurred, developed out of any confrontation between men and women or was necessarily instituted in order to oppress women and appropriate their labour.

However, they list a number of features of patrilocality which, they argue, allowed the potential inequalities of the kin corporate mode of production to develop more rapidly than alternative methods of circulating labour (for example, matrilocality). And they argue that the resultant worsening of women's position was forcibly maintained, first by lineage heads and later by the state.

For Chevillard and Leconte, then, the emergence of male dominance, achieved by an overthrow of the older matrilocal system, inaugurates a new mode of production. They hold that there was a decisive rupture with the first egalitarian societies (which tended to be matrilocal and matrilineal). This rupture created a new mode of production based on the exploitation of the female labour force (with the understanding that a certain number of attempts were probably made before the new mode of production emerged in all its characteristics). Coontz and Henderson, by contrast, stress the development from within the communal society of a new mode of production based on kin corporate property and the circulation of labour through marriage. In their view, male dominance develops more gradually, after the rise of a new mode of production, out of the dynamics of labour, ownership, and exchange in kin corporate societies, matrilocal or patrilocal.

No final resolution of these differences appears likely. Proponents of the first approach can point to the prevalence of myths about a violent overthrow of women by men, suggesting that these myths represent historical memories of such events; proponents of the second would stress the actual variability in women's status among kin corporate societies, suggesting that an evolutionary continuum is involved. Even the same phenomenon can be interpreted in diametrically opposed ways. Chevillard and Leconte point to the contradictions of matrilineal virilocal societies (where descent is reckoned through the female line but residence is with the husband's maternal relatives) as evidence for the forcible imposition of patrilocality. Such societies are too illogical and contradictory to have arisen naturally, they argue: "These complexities are, as we will see, the sign that patrilocality doesn't just evolve of its own accord, but that it intervenes as a radical rupture in societies that must formerly have been constituted on the basis of matrilineality and of matrilocality."

Coontz and Henderson, conversely, hold that the contradictions of matrilineal virilocal societies testify to their transitional nature. The shift to virilocality, they argue, may take place gradually within a formerly matrilineal, matrilocal society, creating conflicts between the individuating tendencies of virilocal residence and the collective practices of matrilineal structures and ideology.

Despite their differences over the origins of male dominance and the character of early social formations, both sets of authors identify a category of pre-state society in which the primary forms of oppression are those of sex and age. They differ, however, over how to characterize the subordination of women in such societies. Though they are describing the same objective phenomenon — the appropriation of women's products — Chevillard and Leconte describe this as class oppression, while Coontz and Henderson call it sex oppression. Chevillard and Leconte prefer to treat women as an oppressed class because this stresses the permanence of women's exclusion from control over the means of production; Coontz and Henderson prefer the term oppressed sex because this leaves more room for analysis of what they consider to be significant variations in the status and interests of women according to their age and marital status.

This difference is purely semantic in discussions of kin corporate societies; it becomes significant, however, in relating the oppression of women to that of other social groups once kin corporate society gives way to a society stratified along other socioeconomic lines. Chevillard and Leconte think that socioeconomic class is modelled upon and derives from the subordination of women. Coontz and Henderson think that in post-kin corporate Societies women are divided by class as well as united in a common experience of subordination to males.

According to Coontz and Henderson, the original contradiction in virilocal kin corporate societies is between, on the one hand, men and women of the corporate property-owning group, and, on the other hand, the women who marry in. The subordination of women as a sex is the outcome of social processes whereby patrilocal lineages begin to exercise control over the labour and reproductive power of in-marrying wives. Older women as well as men benefit from this labour, even though for most women the benefits come at the cost of having had to experience an earlier stage of oppression as a wife. Coontz and Henderson see women as having contradictory interests as owners in one kin corporation and producers in another. In this analysis, the growth of socioeconomic stratification may exacerbate these contradictory interests, even though women as a sex may remain inferior to men. For in early class societies, they argue, aristocratic women may exercise significant power over both men and women of the lower class, even if they remain permanent juniors in relation to male members of the aristocracy, Upper and lower class women may therefore be divided in their interests and their consciousness, at the same time that sexual oppression may disguise some of the common interests of men and women within the lower class.

For Chevillard and Leconte, on the other hand, the contradiction is between some men and all women as a social group. There are no contradictory interests among women in either kin corporate or aristocratic class society. Aristocratic women do not share the socio-economic status of aristocratic men, as they do not have independent access to the means of production and may even be reduced to slave or lower class status if they offend against male prerogatives. The interests of upper class women are not at all antagonistic to those of lower class men or women, but do conflict directly with those of upper class men. Like high ranking servants, aristocratic women are artificially attached to the class of their husband or father, while in fact they belong to the dominated classes of society, even if they are not conscious of this.

Again, this is probably not a difference that can be settled. It is a question of analytical emphasis. Clearly, the difference has implications for the analysis of the role of upper class women in any feminist or class struggle, but since upper class women constitute only a minority of the female population, both analyses still affirm the interconnections between the "woman question" and the class struggle.

1. Robert Ardrey, African Genesis , New York 1961, p. 36. See also, Sherwood Washburn and Irven DeVore, Baboon Social Organization (film), 1963; Washburn and Chet Lancaster, "The Evolution of Hunting," in Robert Lee and DeVore eds., Man the Hunter , Chicago 1968; Desmond Morris, The Naked Ape , London 1968; Desmond Morris, The Human Zoo , London 1969; Lionel Tiger, Men in Groups , New York 1969; Konrad Lorenz, On Aggression , New York 1966,

2. Lila Leibowitz, Females, Males, Families: A Biosocial Approach , North Scituate, Mass. 1978; Ruby Rohrlich-Leavitt, Barbara Sykes and Elizabeth Weatherford, "Aboriginal Women: Male and Female Anthropological Perspectives," in Rayna Reiter ed., Toward an Anthropology of Women , New York 1975.

3. David Pilbeam, "An Idea We Could Live Without: The Naked Ape" in Ashley Montagu ed., Man and Aggression , New York 1973, pp. 110–21.

4. Nancy Tanner and Adrienne Zihlman, "Women in Evolution: Part 1", in Signs , no. 1, 1976, pp. 585-604.

5. Thelma E. Rowell, "The Concept of Social Dominance," in Behavioral Biology HI, 1974, pp. 131—54; Pilbeam, pp. 114—15. 8.

6. Jane Lancaster, Primate Behavior and the Emergence of Human Culture , New York 1975; Leibowitz, Females, Males, Families ; M. Kay Martin and Barbara Voorhies, Female of the Species , New York 1975; W. C. McGrew, "The Female Chimpanzee as a Human Evolutionary Prototype," in Frances Dahlberg ed., Woman the Gatherer , New Haven 1981, pp. 35-74; Nancy Tanner, On Becoming Human , Cambridge 1981.

7. Ruth Bleier, "Myths of the Biological Inferiority of Women," University of Michigan Papers in Women's Studies no. 2, Ann Arbor 1976, p. 50; Thelma E. Rowell, "The Concept of Social Dominance," p. 131.

8. Leibowitz, Females, Males, Families .

9. Emily Hahn, On the Side of the Apes , New York 1971,

10. Edward O. Wilson, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis , Cambridge, Mass. 1975; On Human Nature , Cambridge, Mass. 1978; Charles J. Lumsden and Edward O. Wilson, Genes, Mind and Culture: The Evolutionary Process , Cambridge, Mass. 1981; David Barash, Sociobiology and Behavior , New York 1982; Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene , New York 1976.

11. Wilson, Sociobiology , ch, 2. 12. Edward O. Wilson, "Human Decency is Animal," New York Times Magazine , 12 October 1975.

13. Stephen Jay Gould, Ever Since Darwin , New York 1977; The Mismeasurement of Man , New York 1981.

14. Richard Lewontin, interview, Dollars and Sense , December 1978, p.9. 15. Gould, Ever Since Darwin . 16. B. J. Williams, "Have We a Darwin of Biocultural Evolution?,"  American Anthropologist 84, 1982, p. 849.

17. Richard Burian, "A Methodological Critique of Sociobiology," in Arthur Caplin, ed. The Sociobiology Debate , New York 1978, pp. 376-95.

18. Marshall D. Sahlins, The use and Abuse of Biology , Ann Arbor 1976.

19. Charles J. Lumsden and Edward O. Wilson, Genes, Mind and Culture; Promethean Fire: Reflections on the Origins of Mind , Cambridge, Mass. 1983.

20. Stephen Jay Gould, "Genes on the Brain," New York Review of Books , June 983.

21. Williams; Burian; Gould, Mismeasurement of Man ; Gould, "Genes on the Brain."

22. Burian.

23. Richard Lewontin, "The Corpse in the Elevator," New York Review of Books , January 1983.

24. Gould, "Genes on the Brain."

25. Williams.

26. Burian.

27. Gould, Ever Since Darwin ; Science for the People: Sociobiology Study Group, "Sociobiology - Another Biological Determinism," in BioScience 26, 3, pp. 182-90; Stuart Hampshire, "The Illusion of Sociobiology," New York Review of Books , October 1978.

28. Lila Leibowitz, "Perspectives on the Evolution of Sex Differences," in Reiter, Toward an Anthropology of Women ; Leibowitz, Females, Males, Families .

29. Ann Oakley, Sex, Gender and Society , New York 1972, pp. 128-49. 30. Paula Webster, "Matriarchy: A Vision of Power," in Reiter, pp. 141-156. 31. Irene Frieze, Jacquelinne Parson, Paula Johnson, Dian Ruble and Gail Zelman, Women and Sex Roles: A Social Psychological Perspective , New York 1978; Ruth Lowe and Miriam Hubbard, Genes and Gender Two , New York 1979; Eleanor Maccoby and Carol Jacklin, The Psychology of Sex Differences , Stanford 1974; Marie Richmond-Abbott, "Early Socialization of the American Female," in Richmond-Abbott ed. The American Woman: Her Past, Her Present and Her Future , New York 1979. For a critical review of recent theories about differences in male and female brains, see Freda Salzman, "Are Sex Roles Biologically Determined?"  Science for the People 9, 1977, pp. 27-33; Joseph Alper, "Sex Differences in Brain Asymmetry," Feminist Studies 11, 1985, pp. 7-37.

32. Maccoby and Jacklin.

33, Robert Rose, Thomas Gordon and Irwin Bernstein, "Plasma Testosterone Levels in the Male Rhesus: Influences of Sexual and Social Stimuli," in Science 178, pp. 643-45; Rowell, The Concept of Social Dominance ; Maccoby and Jacklin, p. 274.

34. Ruby Rohrlich-Leavitt, "Peaceable Primates and Gentle People," in Barbara Watson ed., Women's Studies: The Social Realities , New York 1976.

35. Margaret Mead, Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies , New York 1963.

36, Lewontin, "The Corpse in the Elevator," p. 34; Steven Rose ed., Against Biological Determinism , New York 1982; Rose ed., Towards a Liberatory Biology , New York 1982.

37. Beier; Frieze et al. p. 85. 38, Oakley, p. 26; Carol Tavris and Carole Otis, The Longest War: Sex Differences in Perspective , New York 1977; Frieze et al., p. 88.

39. Rose, Gordon arid Bernstein. 40, New York Times , 11 September 1974. 41. Stanley Schacter and Jerome Singer, "Cognitive, Social and Physiological Determinants of Emotional State," in Psychological Review , no. 69, pp. 379-99.

42. Beach, 1974, quoted in Bleier, 1976, p. 48.

43. R. R. Sears, E. E. Maccoby and H. Levin, Patterns of Child Rearing , Evanston 1957.

44. Letty Pogrebin, Growing up Free , New York 1980, pp. 123-8; C. A. Deavey, P. A. Katz and S. R. Zalk, "Baby X: The Effect of Gender Labels on Adult Response to Infants," in Sex Roles , no. 2, 1975, pp. 103-11.

45. Oakley, p. 164.

46. H. R. Hays, The Dangerous Sex: The Myth of Feminine Evil , New York 1964; Wolfgang Lederer, The Fear of Women , New York 1968.

47. Elizabeth Faithorn, "The Concept of Pollution Among the Kafe of the Papua New Guinea Highlands," in Reiter; Evelyn Reed, Women's Evolution , New York 1975, pp. 95-101.

48. Elizabeth Zelman, "Pollution and Power,: in Dorothy McGuigan, New Research on Women and Sex Roles , Ann Arbor 1976.

49. Edward Harper, "Fear and the Status of Women," in Southwestern Journal of Anthropology , no. 25, 1959; pp. 81-95; Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger , London 1966.

50. Sherry Ortner and Harriet Whitehead eds., Sexual Meanings: The Cultural Construction of Gender and Sexuality , Cambridge 1981, p. 20.

51. Nancy Chodorow, "Family Structure and Feminine Personality," in Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere eds., Women, Culture and Society , Stanford 1974, pp. 43-66; Chodorow, The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Reproduction of Mothering , Berkeley 1978.

52. Sherry Ortner, "Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?," in Rosaldo and Lamphere, pp. 67-88,

53. Rosaldo, Women, "Culture and Society: An Overview," in Rosaldo and Lamphere, pp. 17-42.

54. Ortner and Whitehead, pp. 7-8.

55. Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God , New York 1962, 1964; James Melaart, Catal Huyuk: A Neolithic Town in Anatolia , New York 1967; Eleanor Leacock and Jill Nash,"Ideologies of Sex: Archetypes and Stereotypes," in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences , no. 285, 1977, pp. 618-45; Peggy Sanday, Female Power and Male Dominance . Cambridge 1981.

56. Carol MacCormack, "Proto-Social to Adult: A Sherbro Transformation," in Carol MacCormack and Marilyn Strathern, eds., Nature, Culture and Gender , Cambridge 1980, pp. 95-118.

57, Maurice Godelier, "Modes of Production, Kinship and Demographic Structures," in Maurice Bloch ed., Marxist Analysis and Social Anthropology , New York 1975. w

58. Marilyn Strathern, "No Nature, No Culture: The Hagan Case," in MacCormack and Strathern, pp. 174-222.

59. Leacock and Nash; MacCormack and Strathern.

60. Eleanor Leacock, Myths of Male Dominance , New York 1981; Nicera Suderkasa, "Female Employment and Family Organization in West Africa," in Yugan Judith Brown, Iroquois Women: An Ethnohistoric Note , in Reiter.

61. Robert Lowie, "Political Organization Among the Australian Aborigines" in Ronald Cohen and John Middleton eds., Comparative Political Systems , New York 1967; Marshall Sahlins, Stone Age Economics , Chicago 1972.

62. Ortner, "Is Female to Male," pp. 67-88.

63. Denise Paulme, Women of Tropical Africa , Berkeley 1960, p. 7.

64. B. H. Quain, The Iroquois , in Margaret Mead ed., Cooperation and Competition Among Primitive Peoples , Boston 1961, p. 277.

65. Karla Poewe, Matrilineal Ideology , London 1981.

66. Stratherra.

67. William Divale and Marvin Harris, "Population, Warfare and the Male Supremacist Complex," in American Anthropologis t no. 78, 1976, pp. 521-38.

68. Ibid., p. 521.

69. Napoleon Chagnon, "Yanomamo: The True People," National Geographic 150, 1976, p. 213; Shelton Davis and Robert Mathews, The Geological Imperative , Cambridge 1976.

70. Dorothy Lee, Freedom and Culture , Englewood Cliffs 1959.

71. Eleanor Leacock, "Class, Commodity, and the Status of Women," in R. Leavitt, ed., Women Cross-Culturally , The Hague 1975, pp. 601-18.

72. Gerhard Lenski and Jean Lenski, Human Societies , New York 1974, p. 138.

73. Gordon V. Childe, What Happened in History , Harmondsworth 1942; Julian Steward, The Theory of Culture Change , Urbana 1955; Robert M. C. Adams, The Evolution of Urban Society , Chicago 1966.

74. Meiaart.

75. Ester Boserup, The Conditions of Agricultural Growth , Chicago 1965.

76. Divale and Harris, p. 531.

77. Carol Ember, "The Relative Decline in Women's Contribution to Agriculture with Intensification," in American Anthropologist , no. 85, 1983, pp. 285.

78. Stephanie Coontz, "Insult and Injury: Growing Old in America" in Coontz and Frank eds., Life in Capitalist America , New York 1975; Leo Simmons, The Position of the Aged in Primitive Society , New Haven 1946.

79. Seymour Parker and Hilda Parker, "The Myth of Male Superiority: Rise and Demise," American Anthropologist , no. 81, pp. 289-309.

80. George P. Murdock and Caterina Provost, "Factors In the Division of Labor by Sex: A Cross-Cultural Analysis," in Ethnology , no. 12, 1973.

81, Parker and Parker, p. 293. 

82. Frances Dahlberg, Woman the Gatherer , New Haven 1981.

83. Richard Lee, The !Kung San: Men, Women and Work in a Foraging Society , Cambridge 1979; Patricia Draper, "Kung Women: Contrasts in Foraging and Sedentary Contexts," in Reiter, 1975, pp. 77-109.

84. Ortner and Whitehead, p. 16.

85. Naomi Quinn, "Anthropological Studies on Women's Status" in Annual Review of Anthropology , no. 6, 1977, p. 183; Susan Rogers, "Woman's Place: A Critical Review of Anthropological Theory," in Comparative Studies in Society and History , 20, 1978, pp. 143-7.

86. Annette Weiner, Women of Value, Men of Renown: New Perspectives on Trobriand Exchange , Austin 1976; Quinn, p. 184; Rogers, p. 185; Rohrlich-Leavitt, Sykes and Weatherford.

87. Rogers, p. 146.

88. Rosaldo, "Women, Culture and Society."

89. Suderkasa, p. 61.

90. Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, The Harmless People , New York 1959, pp. 31-5

91. Karen Sacks, "State Bias and Women's Status," in American Anthropologist , no. 78, 1976, pp. 131-54,

92. Suderkasa, p.52; Colin Turnbull, "Mbuti Womanhood," in Francis Dahlberg, p. 219.

93. Lee, 1979, p. 40.

94. Irving Goldman, 'Status Rivalry and Cultural Evolution in Polynesia', in Cohen and Middleton eds.; Eleanor Leacock, Women, Power and Authority', in Leela Dube, Eleanor Leacock and Shirley Ardener eds., Visibility and Power: Essays on Women in Society and Development, Delhi forthcoming,

95. Kay Martin, "South American Foragers: A Case Study in Devolution," in American Anthropologist , no. 71, 1969.

96. Leacock, "Women, Power and Authority."

97. Ester Boserup, Woman's Role in Economic Development , New York 1970; Leacock, Myths of Male Dominance ; Rogers, p. 158; Rayna Rapp Reiter, "The Search for Origins: Unravelling the Threads of Gender Hierarchy," in Critique of Anthropology , no. 3, 1977, pp. 13-14; Peggy Sanday, Female Power and Male Dominance , Cambridge 1981; Judith Van Allen, "'Sitting on a Man': Colonialism and the Lost Political Institutions of Igbo Women," in Canadian Journal of African Studies , no. 10, 1972.

98. Turnbull, p. 206.

99. John Nance, The Gentle Tasaday , New York 1975, p. 24.

100. Sanday, pp. 15-34.

101. Quinn, p. 186.

102. Robert Briffault, The Mothers , London 1952; Johan Jacob Bachoven, Myth, Religion and Mother-Right , Princeton 1967; Helen Diner, Mothers and Amazons , New York 1965; Reed; George Thompson, The Prehistoric Aegean , London 1965.

103. Friedrich Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State , New York 1972.

104. Sarah Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity , New York 1975.

105. Gordon V. Childe, Social Evolution , London 1951, pp. 64-5.

106. C. Fuehr-Lobban, "A Marxist Reappraisal of the Matriarchate" in Current Anthropology , no. 20, 1979, pp. 341-8.

107. Reiter, "The Search for Origins."

108. Sanday; Leacock, "Women, Power and Authority."

109. Sanday, p. 248. 

110. Ibid., p. 90.

111. Ibid., p. 9.

112, Ibid., pp. 185-6.

113. Ibid., p. 179.

114. Ibid., p. 69.

115. Ibid., p. 170

116. Ibid., p. 116.

117. Audrey Richards, "Some Types of Family Structure Amongst the Central Bantu" in A. R. Radcliffe-Brown and O. Forde, eds. African Systems of Kinship and Marriage , London 1950; Richards, Land, Labour, and Diet in North Rhodesia , London 1940.

118. Sahlins, Stone Age Economics .

119. Sanday, pp. 102-3.

120. Leacock, "The Montagnais Hunting Territory and the Fur Trade," American Anthropologist , 78, 1954.

121. Leacock, 1957; "Women's Status in Egalitarian Society," Current Anthropology , 19, 1978, pp. 247-75.

122. Engels.

123. Mona Etienne and Eleanor Leacock, eds., Women and Colonization , New York 1980.

124. Leacock, "Women, Power and Authority."

126. Morton Fried, The Evolution of Political Society , New York 1967.

The Social Origins of Private Life

by Stephanie Coontz

Women's Work, Men's Property

Contributions by Nicole Chevillard, Sébastien Leconte, Lila Leibowitz and Monique Saliou

Edited by Stephanie Coontz and Peta Henderson

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by Michèle Barrett

Foreword by Kathi Weeks

Women, Resistance and Revolution

by Sheila Rowbotham

Woman's Estate

by Juliet Mitchell

The Anti-Social Family

by Michèle Barrett and Mary McIntosh

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by Catherine Hoskyns

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Essay on Male Dominant Society

Students are often asked to write an essay on Male Dominant Society in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

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100 Words Essay on Male Dominant Society

Understanding male dominant society.

A male dominant society, or patriarchy, is where men hold primary power. They lead in roles of political leadership, moral authority, and control over property.

The Historical Context

Historically, most societies were male-dominated. Men were warriors, hunters, and leaders. Women’s roles were limited to home and family care.

Impacts of Male Dominance

Male dominance can lead to gender inequality. It often restricts women’s rights and opportunities. This can limit societal growth as it underutilizes half of its potential.

Changing Times

Today, many societies are challenging male dominance. There’s a global push for gender equality, which is crucial for balanced societal development.

250 Words Essay on Male Dominant Society

Introduction, the roots of male dominance.

Male dominance can be traced back to primitive societies where physical strength was crucial for survival. Men, being physically stronger, were naturally assigned roles that required physical prowess. This physical dominance gradually translated into social and cultural dominance, forming the basis of a patriarchal society.

The Manifestations of Male Dominance

In a male-dominant society, gender roles are strictly defined. Men are perceived as breadwinners, decision-makers, and protectors, while women are often relegated to roles of caregivers and homemakers. Such societal constructs limit the opportunities available to women, stifling their potential and reinforcing male dominance.

Consequences of Male Dominance

The consequences of male dominance are far-reaching, affecting both individual and societal growth. It perpetuates gender inequality, hampers women’s progress, and leads to a skewed power dynamic that can breed discrimination and violence against women.

The dismantling of male dominance and the establishment of a more egalitarian society requires a collective effort. It begins with challenging traditional gender roles and promoting gender equality at all levels. Education, legislation, and cultural transformation are key to achieving this goal, ensuring a society where both genders can thrive equally.

500 Words Essay on Male Dominant Society

Introduction: understanding male dominance.

The concept of male dominance is deeply entrenched in many societies around the globe. It represents the power hierarchy where men are considered superior to women, leading to a patriarchal society. This essay aims to delve into the roots and implications of a male-dominant society, and the potential ways to challenge and transform it.

Implications of Male Dominance

Male dominance has far-reaching implications. It perpetuates gender inequality, leading to women being underrepresented in political, economic, and social spheres. It also reinforces harmful stereotypes and norms, such as the belief that women are inherently weak or that men cannot express emotions. These stereotypes not only limit individual potential but also contribute to systemic issues like gender-based violence and wage disparity.

Male Dominance in Contemporary Society

Despite advancements towards gender equality, male dominance persists in modern societies. One manifestation is the gender wage gap, where women are paid less than men for the same work. Similarly, women are underrepresented in leadership roles. For instance, as of 2021, only 7.4% of Fortune 500 companies are led by female CEOs. This underrepresentation extends to politics, with women making up less than a quarter of all national parliamentarians worldwide.

Challenging Male Dominance

Conclusion: towards a gender-equal society.

While male dominance is a deeply ingrained societal issue, it is not insurmountable. Through education, legal reform, and societal change, we can challenge and transform male-dominant structures. As we strive towards a gender-equal society, it is crucial to remember that equality benefits everyone, fostering healthier, more prosperous, and more equitable societies for all.

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The origins of sexism: How men came to rule 12,000 years ago

Human societies weren’t always male-dominated. The switch came when we became farmers – and that suggests ways to roll back towards a more equal system

By Anil Ananthaswamy and Kate Douglas

18 April 2018

Harriet Lee Merrion

THE vast majority of cultures are patriarchies, where men are more likely than women to hold positions of social, economic and political power. So it is tempting to assume that this is the natural state of affairs, perhaps because men are, on average, stronger than women. But a study of humanity’s roots suggests this answer is too simple.

Chimpanzees are not a proxy for our ancestors – they have been evolving since our two family trees split between 7 and 10 million years ago – but their social structures can tell us something about the conditions that male dominance thrives in. Common chimpanzee groups are manifestly patriarchal. Males are vicious towards females, they take their food, forcibly copulate with females that are ovulating and even kill them merely for spending time away from the group.

Special report: The origins of sexism

The imbalance of power between men and women is being hotly debated. but no one benefits from a patriarchal society, so how did we get here, and where should we go next.

Males also spend their lives in the group they were born into, whereas females leave at adolescence. As a result, males in a group are more closely related to each other than the females. And because relatives tend to help one another, they have an advantage.

The same is true in human societies: in places where women move to live with their husband’s family, men tend to have more power and privilege. Patrilocal residence, as it is called, is associated with patriarchy, says anthropologist and primatologist Sarah Hrdy at the University of California at Davis.

For most of our history, we have been hunter-gatherers, and patrilocal residence is not the norm among modern hunter-gatherer societies. Instead, either partner may move to live with the “in-laws”, or a couple may relocate away from both their families. According to Hrdy, a degree of egalitarianism is built into these systems. If they reflect what prehistoric hunter-gatherers did, women in those early societies would have had the choice of support from the group they grew up with, or the option to move away from oppression.

According to one school of thought, things changed around 12,000 years ago. With the advent of agriculture and homesteading, people began settling down . They acquired resources to defend, and power shifted to the physically stronger males. Fathers, sons, uncles and grandfathers began living near each other, property was passed down the male line, and female autonomy was eroded. As a result, the argument goes, patriarchy emerged.

This origin story is supported by a study published in 2004. Researchers at the Sapienza University of Rome, Italy, studied mitochondrial DNA (inherited from mothers) and genetic markers on the Y chromosome (inherited from fathers) in 40 populations from sub-Saharan Africa. This suggested that women in hunter-gatherer populations, such as the !Kung and Hadza, were more likely to remain with their mothers after marriage than women from food-producing populations. It was the reverse for men, suggesting that agriculture is indeed correlated with patrilocal societies.

“It’s tempting to assume male dominance is the natural state of human society. It isn’t”

In righting things, solidarity is crucial, says Amy Parish at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. She studies bonobo societies, which are patrilocal but female-dominated. Females weigh 15 per cent less than males – similarly to humans and chimps – yet Parish says they have the upper hand because they cooperate and form alliances. She sees a parallel with feminist movements: “The goal is to behave with unrelated females as if they are your sisters.”

It’s not as easy as it seems (see “ Why the patriarchy isn’t good for men and how to fix it ”). “The #MeToo movement is about female cooperation,” says Hrdy, “but getting cooperation among non-kin is difficult.” Competitive instincts can prevail, or events can cause cooperation to fall apart – for instance in times of war, Hrdy says. “Women start to look out for the safety of their own children and their husbands.” She worries that conflict could erode gains from recent decades. “None of this stuff is certain,” she says. “It’s what I tell my daughters: don’t take any of this that you have now for granted.”

Restoring and strengthening equality will require effort on multiple fronts, she says. If patriarchy originated in sedentary social structures that formalised male ownership and inheritance, then laws that give women the right to own property in their own name, for instance, can help.

But such laws exist in many 21st century societies – so why does the patriarchy persist? Ultimately, real change will only come when societies embody the values espoused by the laws, argues Lise Eliot, a neuroscientist at the Rosalind Franklin University in Chicago: “The laws are the first step, the internalised values come later.”

This article appeared in print under the headline “The Origins of the Patriarchy”

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• THE BIG IDEA

A man’s world? Not according to biology or history.

For proof, we can look to the many matrilineal societies dotted all over the world. In some regions, these traditions may date back thousands of years.

The philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah once asked why some people feel the need to believe in a more equal past to picture a more equal future.

Many of us look at the stranglehold that gender-based oppression has on our societies and wonder if there was a time when men didn’t have this much power, when femininity and masculinity didn’t mean what they do now. When we search for powerful women in ancient history, when we try to identify precedents for equality in the distant past, perhaps we also betray our longing for an alternative in a world in which we fear there may be none.

Read more about t he truth behind Egypt’s female pharaohs and their power.

Patriarchy—giving all power and authority to the father—can sometimes seem like a vast conspiracy stretching into deep time. The word itself has become devastatingly monolithic, encompassing all the ways in which the world’s women, girls, and nonbinary people are abused and unfairly treated, from domestic violence and rape to the gender pay gap and moral double standards. The sheer scale of it feels out of our control. But how old and how universal is it really?  

Male domination is not universal. There are many matrilineal societies, organized through mothers rather than fathers, dotted all over the world.

Historians, anthropologists, archaeologists, and feminists have been fascinated by this question—and as a science journalist, I’ve been preoccupied with it for years. In 1973 sociologist Steven Goldberg published The Inevitability of Patriarchy, a book arguing that fundamental biological differences between men and women run so deep that in every iteration of human society, a patriarchal system would always win out. Whichever way the pie was cut, men—in his view naturally more powerful and aggressive—would end up with the bigger slice.

Learn about the best and worst countries to be a woman.

The problem with this is, male domination isn’t universal. There are many matrilineal societies—organized through mothers rather than fathers, with name and property passed from mother to daughter—around the world. In some regions, matrilineal traditions are thought to date back thousands of years.

For decades Western scholars have invented theories to explain why these societies exist. Some claim that matriliny survives only among hunter-gatherers or simple agriculturists, not in large-scale societies. Others say it works best when men are often away at war, leaving women in charge at home. Still others argue that matriliny ends as soon as people start keeping cattle, because men want to control these resources— linking patriarchy to property and land.

Read how women are stepping up to remake Rwanda.

Always, though, matrilineal societies are framed as unusual cases, “beset by special strains, as fragile and rare, possibly even doomed to extinction,” as Washington State University anthropologist Linda Stone puts it. In academic circles, the problem is known as the matrilineal puzzle. Patriliny, on the other hand, is seen to need no explanation. It just is.

When matriliny thrived in India

In 2019 researchers at Vanderbilt University attempted to solve this puzzle, analyzing matrilineal communities to see if they did have anything in common. Globally 590 societies were known to be traditionally patrilineal, 362 were bilateral, meaning they acknowledged descent through both parents, and another 160 were recognized as matrilineal. Biologist Nicole Creanza, who worked on the research, says the team tested popular theories about matriliny like those above—but none held true in every case.

One factor that did seem to affect a society’s move away from matriliny, says Creanza, was “when populations had property, not in terms of land but movable, transmissible wealth, where if your offspring inherited this thing that you have, they would be potentially better off.” But even this wasn’t consistent. Each society was just too complicated to reduce to simple factors, be they biological, environmental, or anything else. “As far in as you can zoom,” she says, “you can find more and more complexity.”

In the 16th century B.C., three queens led Egypt against Hyksos invaders and won.

Anthropologists insist there are no female-led matriarchies, if by matriarchy we mean the direct opposite of patriarchy. In his 1680 text Patriarcha, the English political theorist Sir Robert Filmer defined patriarchy as the natural rule of a father over his family and a king over his state. But what we usually see in matrilineal societies is women and men sharing power. Even if significant authority lies with brothers or uncles, it’s often authority that depends upon circumstances, or diffuse power more than absolute.

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What characterizes matrilineal societies, as Stone has written, is “considerable variation” in “authority, power, and influence among both males and females.” There would have been even more variation in the past. In prehistory, social norms were constantly moving. What can appear from one point of view to be an instability resolving itself—a shift from matriliny to patriliny, for instance—may from another point of view be a move from one relatively stable state to another, Creanza explains.

Everywhere, people have always pushed for their societies to be structured differently, for the oppressed to have more freedoms or privileges. “Anyone, given half a chance, will prefer equality and justice to inequality and injustice,” writes political theorist Anne Phillips. “Subservience does not, on the whole, come naturally to people.”

Why the raised fist is a global symbol of fighting oppression.

Nowhere do women defer to men without struggle. For centuries, from the United States to Iran, they’ve fought for more rights and privileges.

Sociologist Goldberg’s argument was that if a pattern of behavior is universal, it probably has a biological basis, and that given how little political power women have, they must feel themselves to be naturally subordinate. But as Phillips explains, nowhere do women defer to men without struggle. For centuries, from the United States to Iran, they’ve fought for more rights and privileges. Viewed this way, we might ask why matrilineal societies are still thought of as unusually unstable. Globally, impassioned movements for gender equality—sometimes tipping into violent protest—indicate that patriarchy is not as stable as it seems either. Perhaps the real matrilineal puzzle isn’t the existence of some female-focused societies but the bizarre preponderance of male-focused ones.

The roots of International Women’s Day are more radical than you think.

“I consider the oppression of women to be a system,” sociologist Christine Delphy says. “An institution which exists today cannot be explained by the simple fact that it existed in the past...even if this past is recent.”

If we resign ourselves to accepting our lot as part of who we are by nature, we give up on understanding how it might have come about. When we settle the case for patriarchy on something as simple as biological difference, even though the evidence points to a reality that’s far more complex and contingent, we lose the capacity to recognize just how fragile it might be. We stop asking how inequality works or the ways in which it is being reinvented.

Around the world, this is how women are taking charge of their future.

The most dangerous part of any form of human oppression is that it can make people believe that there are no alternatives. We see this in the old fallacies of race , caste, and class. The question for any theory of male domination is why this one form of inequality should be treated as the exception.

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Savoir/agir 2013/4 selected articles, examining male dominance, its ambiguities, and costs, the value and challenges of studying a sensitive area.

• By Christine Guionnet

Translated and edited by Cadenza Academic Translations Translator: Hayley Wood, Editor: Faye Winsor, Senior editor: Mark Mellor

Pages 45 to 50

Journal article

• [1] This article was directly inspired by two key sources: first, an oral presentation of the work Boys Don’t Cry! Les coûts de la domination masculine , ed. Delphine Dulong, Christine Guionnet, and Érik Neveu (Rennes: PUR, 2012), delivered jointly with Érik Neveu at the AFS (Association Française de Sociologie, the French Sociology Association) congress in Nantes on September 4, 2013, in the semiplenary session led by Annie Collovald, “Apprendre à dominer ou les coûts de la domination”; and second, by my introduction to Boys Don’t Cry , “Pourquoi réfléchir aux coûts de la masculinité?”
• [2] On this topic see Christine Guionnet, “Faut-il introduire une réflexion sur le genre au lycée?,” in La Science au présent 2013 (Paris: Encyclopedia Universalis , 2013), 151–55.
• [3] Caroline New, “Oppressed and Oppressors? The Systematic Mistreatment of Men,” Sociology 35, no. 3 (2001): 729–48; here 729.
• [4] Symposium organized by Delphine Dulong, Christine Guionnet, Sandrine Lévèque, Frédérique Matonti, and Érik Neveu (CRAPE-CRPS).
• [5] “How can you work in the field of gender studies and at the same time seriously ask whether ‘the costs of male homosexuality, for example, are [. . .] greater than those of female homosexuality,’ or if, because of gender parity, young men are ‘forced to give up their place to women,’” the letter asked, taking up some of the questions asked in the symposium’s call for papers. Translator’s note: Our translation. Unless otherwise stated, all translations of cited foreign language material in this article are our own.
• [6] Norbert Elias, The Court Society in The Collected Works of Norbert Elias, Volume 2, trans. Edmund Jephcott, ed. Stephen Mennell (Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2006).
• [7] As Tocqueville himself—parliamentary representative for La Manche from 1839 to 1852—makes clear in his correspondence, nineteenth-century gentlefolk also had to agree to submit “to that kind of servitude” represented by electoral competition, by going to meet their voters in person, and seeking to compensate them and secure their loyalty by offering various personal or general services (for example by speaking with the authorities to obtain a voter an honor, position, promotion, or grant for building a hospice or drinking trough). On this subject, see in particular Christine Guionnet, L’apprentissage de la politique moderne: Les élections municipales sous la monarchie de Juillet (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1997), and “Un vote résigné et sans signification politique? Comportements électoraux paysans dans la première moitié du XIX siècle,” Politix 37 (1997): 137–54.
• [8] Pierre Bourdieu, The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field , trans. Susan Emmanuel (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995), 11.
• [9] New, “Oppressed and Oppressors?,” 729. See also Warren Farrell, The Myth of Male Power: Why Men are the Disposable Sex (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993).
• [10] See for example Alain Corbin et al. ’s A History of Virility , trans. Keith Cohen (New York: Columbia University, 2016).
• [11] Heidi Hartmann, “The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism: Towards a More Progressive Union,” in Women and Revolution: A Discussion of the Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism , ed. Lydia Sargent (Boston, MA: South End Press, 1981), 1–41, cited in New, “Oppressed and Oppressors?,” 729.
• [12] The recurrent features of these normative models include: taking care to clearly differentiate oneself from the female (not crying, not being weak, emotional, sensitive, a wimp, etc.), the pursuit of success, performance (being strong, brave, competitive, aggressive, and ambitious, in order to gain forms of recognition, particularly in a professional, sexual, and sporting sense), self-affirmation, and the ability to impose one’s authority. And the propagators of this “hegemonic” masculinity are for the most part both multiple and powerful vectors for the socialization of gender identities: family, school, the army, the media, culture, medical professionals, peer relationships, and numerous other vectors that contribute to maintaining this powerful normative model of masculinity.
• [13] In reference to the debate “La virilité mise à mâle” (with François de Singly, Nicolas Renahy, Anne-Marie Sohn, and Georges Vigarello), as part of the Amphis du MAGE held at the Sorbonne on September 26, 2013, I should specify that here I understand masculinity as a social gender role—i.e., as the place of men at work, in politics, family, etc., and male/female relations in all of these areas—and virility as a set of social representations linked to certain traits and/or qualities attributed to men (strength, bravery, violence, performance, not displaying emotion, sensitivity, and so on).
• [14] This concept, proposed in a seminal 1991 publication by legal scholar Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw—to describe the overlapping discriminations of which some women are the victims (in Crenshaw’s article, female victims of domestic violence)—makes it possible to examine the way in which gender relations typically interact with other variables linked to each individual’s social identity (class, generation, markers of ethnicity or nationality, level of education, religion, and so on).
• [15] American psychologists have distinguished between two concepts, with the first corresponding more to a cultural given and the second to an individual given: on the one hand “male role norms”—cultural injunctions made to men by a given society to conform to a model of behavior identified as male; and on the other hand the concept of “masculinity ideology,” which corresponds to the internalization of these cultural norms by each individual. This internalization can vary depending on the individual’s lived experience, immediate environment, social milieu, and so on. See Eric S. Mankowski, and Kenneth I. Maton, “A Community Psychology of Men and Masculinity: Historical and Conceptual Review,” American Journal of Community Psychology 45 (2010): 73–86; here 74.
• [16] On Grand Theft Auto V , see Christine Guionnet, “GTA 5: refuge pour ‘machos frustrés’?,” Cerveau & Psycho 60 (November–December 2013).

1 In recent years, a large number of “masculinist” movements have sprung up in English-speaking countries and in French-speaking Canada, calling loudly for the defense of a men’s cause “in crisis.” Among the proponents are divorced fathers demanding custody of their children and men’s groups that aim to restore declining virility, coupled with a proliferation of activist websites.  [1] While these movements have also developed in France, gender studies are regularly criticized there as involving a form of discourse that is more ideological than academic, for blurring young people’s identity markers, and for encouraging the transgression of traditional sexual and marital norms. Examples include the negative reaction of many Catholic and conservative political circles to the introduction of gender issues into biology textbooks aimed at sixteen and seventeen-year-olds, and a series of protests calling for the upholding of supposedly “natural” traditional gender identities and relations.  [2]

2 These recent developments prompt us to pursue gender studies outside an activist and essentialist discourse and, in particular, to look at the discourse of complaint concerning the pain of masculinity. Where does this discourse on a crisis of male identity come from, when in reality men generally hold dominant positions (with privileged access to, for example, top salaries and careers, elite education, and the sports with the greatest media following)? What can we learn from gender studies in this area? While the forms of male dominance over women have been examined at length, few studies have considered the effort, concessions, and costs required to maintain a largely hegemonic social position. As Caroline New observed in 2001, “sociologists of gender hardly ever discuss the possibility that men are oppressed on the same dimension as women, i.e. in respect of gender relations.”  [3] Why the silence on this subject? What can an examination of the ambiguities and costs of male dominance contribute to our understanding?

Studying a sensitive area

3 Looking at the “failures” of dominance, or the hardships to which the dominant are themselves subject, is no easy undertaking and often arouses misgivings and suspicion. The small number of investigations in France that have tackled this issue is testament to this, as is the reaction of a feminist organization to the announcement of a symposium to be held at Sciences Po Rennes in 2010 on the costs of male dominance,  [4] which argued that the call for papers adopted “the anti-feminist argument that consists of accusing women, and in particular feminists, of the (supposed) misfortunes of men.”  [5] The study of issues related to the political work that the dominant undertake to achieve their hold over others has however already opened up avenues of possible inquiry for research into male dominance. For example, in his work The Court Society, Norbert Elias draws attention to the price that had to be paid to maintain dominance: symbolically submitting to the game of court life, agreeing to play the game of endless rivalries, and tirelessly courting the king, the leading figure around whom vertical and horizontal ties of dependency were woven.  [6] In addition, studies of the political dominance of nineteenth-century gentlefolk have shown that this was not based solely on economic dependency, but also on a traditional, charismatic legitimacy constantly maintained by a set of practices, services rendered by the gentlefolk, and strategies specifically designed to ensure them the continued support of their fellow citizens, such as supporting schools, donating to charity, giving gifts, repairing the church roof, and getting someone out of conscription.  [7] Some in a dominant position have also refused to dominate (see the work of Christian Topalov), and Bourdieu’s analysis of Flaubert’s Sentimental Education talks of those “heirs with stories” who, like the novel’s protagonist Frédéric, refuse “if not to inherit, at least to be inherited by their inheritance.”  [8] These examples illustrate the value of examining the ambiguities of the processes of dominance, and also invite us to consider the other side of the coin of male dominance and the price that has to be paid to maintain it, i.e., what it costs to continue to see oneself as, or be seen as, conforming to the norms of hegemonic masculinity. The subject of fierce struggles between opposing activist groups, male dominance is indisputably a highly sensitive area. The masculinist discourse seems to have quickly gained prominence, while women and feminists have had to invest a great deal of time and energy fighting many battles on various fronts to make the “women’s cause” heard—and even then it still remains a cause that has never been fully established and is always at risk of being undermined, stigmatized, or ignored.

4 In 2001, Caroline New highlighted the growing power of masculinism, noting that “Almost all of those who now describe men as oppressed are part of the anti-feminist backlash, who deny the oppression of women and even see women, especially feminists, as oppressors of men.”  [9] Beyond national borders, masculinist activists share a claim that the battle of the sexes has led to abuse and to a dire situation for men, rather than to growing gender equality. They believe women have won too many rights and freedoms and have become unmanageable. Yet even if this sensitive area must be approached with care, examining male dominance through the lens of its ambiguities and the costs to men can be enlightening, including for our understanding of how and under what conditions legitimate norms of masculinity and virility are reappropriated, and how and under what conditions these norms can change.

The upsides and downsides of male dominance

5 Men’s studies, which initially developed in English-speaking universities in the late 1990s, have sought to revisit the idea of a universal masculinity by examining its development over time and the place it has held in society and culture. Several studies highlight the extent to which images of masculinity have evolved over time, in line with major political events (such as the French Revolution and wars), socioeconomic changes (for example the mass entry of women into the workplace, or the growth in unemployment), and a slow reconfiguration of gender relations (such as a more equal vision of the couple).  [10] Heidi Hartmann emphasizes the need to historicize perspectives on the patriarchy in order to avoid taking a universal, unchanging view,  [11] while Australian researcher Demetrakis Demetriou calls for consideration of the changes, variations, and multiple sources for models of hegemonic masculinity. He also highlights the existence of a “hegemonic bloc” of norms that, by adapting to social changes, invariably contribute to reproducing a patriarchal social order.  [12] Demetriou suggests that men are not definitively the dominant: male power is neither established, nor wholly coherent and unified, but features contradictions and forms of heterogeneity, and a patriarchally organized society can only survive if it constantly adapts. Finally, as New suggests, the existence of an overall, domineering system of oppression is conceivable, without necessarily presuming this to be a zero-sum game pitting a homogeneous group that only benefits against a group of victims that only experiences harm. It is possible to imagine that some individuals belonging to the generic overall beneficiary group may also suffer certain costs linked to the existence of this hegemony. Instead of leading us to minimize its importance, deconstructing male dominance helps us to better understand its inner workings and recognize that it is based on unequal relations between men.

6 Similarly, reflecting on the costs of male dominance requires us to look at how normative prescriptions are received by different individuals. After establishing the normative power of models of masculinity and virility, we still need to understand how men react to these models, as well as the differing extent to which they are exposed to and internalize such injunctions.  [13] In psychology, English-speaking researchers distinguish between the normative model and the more or less complete, more or less faithful, and more or less acquiescent internalization of this model by individuals. But it is the social sciences that pay attention to the different ways legitimate norms are assimilated, and take into account the different social factors that define a dominant or dominated position (as the concept of intersectionality invites us to do in gender analyses  [14] ). In effect, just as we cannot ignore the existence of inequality among women, with some being more privileged than others (such as women in important, stable professional positions compared to women who are unemployed or in underpaid, precarious employment), some men may be placed in dominated positions (as laborers, low-level service employees, or job seekers) and in situations with complex or even contradictory identity-based injunctions (as is the case for men working in typically female-dominated professions). As such, not only do all men not have access to the same resources with which to confront stereotypes of masculinity and virility, but lower conformity to the expectations imposed can generate identity-based malaise that varies in scale between individuals, depending on the way in which they internalize gendered norms, their “male ideology,”  [15] and the social space in which they circulate (for example their occupation, or their socioprofessional and cultural background).

7 There are therefore several possible avenues of inquiry when it comes to the costs of masculinity: the discourse surrounding the costs to which men are subject; the discourse of complaint, be it individual or expressed through activism (for example, the masculinist discourse that uses activism to promote the idea that men are subject to costs due to the change or even reversal in male–female power relations); sociological observation of the measurable costs suffered by “the weak among the strong” (such as gay men and young, low-skilled, unemployed men in disadvantaged neighborhoods); examining the price that men have to pay for belonging to the category of “dominant males” and for “living up to” social representations of masculinity; and the costs suffered by women due to risky male behaviors. And all of these aspects require analysis across all areas of social life, including politics (for example by considering the impact of French gender parity law on young men, who may sometimes be forced to give up their place to women); work (unemployed men, etc.) and the economy; life as a family or a couple (the challenges of being a new dad); family upbringing and school education (learning how to become “a real” man); sexuality; and the media (how have models of the ideal man changed?).

8 All those seeking greater equality and equity between individuals, regardless of their identity and sexual orientation, therefore need to consider the other side of the coin of male dominance. Not crying, not fearing pain, being tough, not being scared, being “a big eater” and “a big drinker,” performing sexually and in accordance with the norm (i.e., being heterosexual), being able to take care of and provide for one’s family: none of these injunctions are self-evident, but instead result from cultural stereotypes that can be challenged and can change. These injunctions vary and may come into conflict with one another over time and in different social environments: some men may now want to spend more time with their children, but are then faced with the social injunction to have a career and work hard. . . and then struggle to take this step. Social representations change very slowly and, beyond the phenomenal success of the video game Grand Theft Auto V , which showcases an extremely violent form of hyper-virility, any assessment of the “objective” costs linked to the norms of hegemonic masculinity highlights the importance of considering such questions from an academic perspective. Road accidents, suicide, lung cancer, cirrhosis, cardiovascular disease, and violent behaviors—such as homicide—are statistically much more common among men than women: this significantly limits their life expectancy and tends to have a negative impact on the women around these men as they attempt to conform to often unattainable stereotypes of masculinity and virility.  [16]

Cite this article

• GUIONNET Christine ,
• Guionnet Christine ,
• Guionnet C. ,

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It’s a Man’s World: The Effect of Traditional Masculinity on Gender Equality

Public and international discourse on the debate for gender equality focuses on the oppression of women, as it rightly should. However, the influence that traditional male stereotypes have on the perpetuation of gender inequality, at a transnational scale, also needs to be addressed. This essay asks how do male stereotypes affect the manner in which males engage with gender equality? By encouraging males to analyse their socially constructed gender profiles, it is possible to educate them on how their social roles may impact gender equality. This will involve analysing the entrenchment of traditional male stereotypes in society and their consequent impact on women. Firstly, the essay will establish that male stereotypes operate within a larger structure of the gender paradigm. Then, it will define gender equality and its various interpretations. This will then lead the essay to discuss the trajectory of the progress towards gender equality and why males must be viewed as fundamental actors. Certain masculinities preserve and promote the inequalities experienced between men and women, and, in order to achieve gender equality, they must be dismantled.

When analysing male stereotypes, in the context of gender equality, it is important to recognise that they do not operate in isolation. Male stereotypes, or masculinities , function ‘… as an aspect of a larger structure’. [1] This structure is gender . Gender denotes the social phenomenon of distinguishing males and females based on a set of identity traits. The gendering of the sexes produces and sustains socially constructed differences. [2] Men and women are constructed to behave and interact in ways that perpetuate their gendered identities. However, there is a vital distinction at work here, one that will underpin this essay — the difference between sex and gender. Although this difference is highly contentious and widely contested, it will inform the essay’s discussion of gender equality. Sex and gender are classifications for differentiating between men and women. Sex, in contrast to gender, refers to the determination made based upon scientifically accepted biological criteria. The distinction of sex can be made through the classification of ‘… genitalia at birth or chromosomal typing before birth’. [3]

The terms gender and sex are often understood to be the same thing and used interchangeably. [4] However, this only serves to conflate biological anatomy with socially constructed identities. The problem with this misconception is that in societies, such as those in the West, it is assumed that the reproductive function of males and females is a sufficient basis for prescribing psychological and behavioural characteristics onto members of society. [5] In response to this, Peterson and Runyan assert that:

‘… gender should be understood as a social, not physiological, construction: Femininity and masculinity, the terms that denote one’s gender, refer to a complex set of characteristics and behaviours prescribed for a particular sex by society and learned through the socialisation process’. [6]

In other words, society, not biology, confines males and females to particular masculine and feminine character profiles. This means that gender is not fixed. Christian states that ‘… it is perfectly feasible for gender to change while biological sex remains the same’. [7] Gender should be considered an adjustable and fluid concept, as opposed to the more static disposition of biology.

According to Freud, the human subject has always been sexed , and that despite the biological differences, males and females have become particular social subjects. [8] The biological individual can be viewed as a blank canvas upon which gendered identities are projected and performed through socialisation. Therefore, the supposed differences between men and women are accentuated through the legitimisation of social stereotypes. These stereotypes, presented as inherent, are influenced by the social environment to which one is subjected. Male and female gender profiles are normalised to the extent that they appear natural, biological. Freud, who pioneered early psychoanalysis of the unconscious, was able to examine the ‘… continuity between normal and neurotic mental life, the concepts of repression and the unconscious, and the metal process to be ‘read’ through dreams, jokes, slips of the tongue and symptoms’. [9]

His work provided much needed insight into understanding inherent and normative views of gender identities. By definition, psychoanalytic theory aims to deconstruct what is explicitly or unintentionally communicated to illuminate the latent ‘… fantasies, anxieties, and desires of the speaking subject’. [10] In relation to gender, psychoanalysis stresses that our biology is experienced within culture, not nature, and ‘… that the effect of culture is to transform and channel biology and instinct in particular ways’. [11] Thus, the psychological differences between males and females are mostly, if not entirely, socially constructed.

This view, however, is not universally shared. In his paper titled, Feminism Against Science , Goldberg argues that the cognitive and behavioural differences between men and women are established through their respective physiologies, and that society and gender are a reflection of biological realities. [12] Moir and Jessel also advocate for biological determinism, arguing that to proclaim that men and women ‘… are the same in aptitude, skill, or behaviour is to build a society based on a biological and scientific lie’, and that biological reality reveals a comparative relationship of sexual asymmetry. [13] The argument raised by Goldberg, Moir, and Jessel is allegedly based on solid scientific findings. The ethos offered by ‘science’ is easy to succumb to. However, these ‘findings’ and results are often filtered and manipulated to strengthen the author’s argument. In her book, Sex Differences in Cognitive Abilities , Halpern contends that throughout her study, the most important lesson she learnt was that ‘… researchers, like the rest of us, maintain a particular world view that they use in interpreting research findings’. [14] So when analysis arguments about gender, nothing should be unquestioningly accepts as irrefutable, scientific fact.

Discussions about gender are often adjacent to discussions that attempt to determine the intellectual capacities of either sex. Debates of this nature were generated in the late nineteenth century, when it was determined, with scientific vindication, that the challenges and complexities of academia were deemed too overwhelming for the female mind. [15] This attempt to distinguish sex difference on the basis of physiology is one found in evolutionary theory. The theory argues that men and women ‘… pursue distinctive strategies to achieve reproductive effectiveness, with sometimes significant divergence’. [16] This view reduces human existence to the reproductive function. It supports the idea that the only factor of sexual differentiation that needs to be considered is the reproductive process. [17] The pursuit of survival is thus contingent upon successful reproduction, which creates a lineage of evolution for both men and women. Wilson, a Darwinist evolutionary theorist argues in his book, The Great Sex Divide , that for individuals who ‘… perform their sex role more successfully, their genes would have superior survival value, and so we would expect progressive differentiation of physical and mental equipment as parallel evolutionary developments’. [18] That is to say, human evolution is based on the propensity of an individual to fulfil their biological function. Therefore, sex differences are of vital importance to survival. Wilson also contends that the differences between men and women ‘… are observed, fairly universally, regardless of species or culture, time or place’. [19] This kind of argument lies at the very centre of gender inequality. Differentiation can unintentionally, and intentionally, cultivate a culture of discrimination. In categorising the differences between two subjects, one is automatically participating in a process of judgment. This judgment can manifest as a destructive bias or a positive comparison.

Sex difference has been biologically substantiated, and, in some cases, justified in the development of evolution. However, some argue that males and females are increasingly similar than different. For example, Epstein, in her book Deceptive Distinctions , maintains that distinctions based on gender identities serve more harm than good, and that attempts to divide the sexes based on intelligence present dysfunctional consequences for society. [20] In many ways, the argument returns to the age-old question: Are women mentally inferior to men? Some scholars argue in the affirmative, that men and women exhibit asymmetrical cognitive capabilities. However, scholars such as Seligman answer in the negative: ‘no, [women] are not. Data are now being laid on the table that show that, on average, men and women are equal in mental ability’. [21] Since the late nineteenth-century, research has studied sex difference across a plethora of psychological planes, such as mental abilities, attitudes, interest, personality traits, and emotions. Moreover, Connell, like Seligman, states that ‘… sex differences, on almost every psychological trait measured, are either non-existent or fairly small’. [22]

Across many social and academic spheres, the question of who is the smarter sex is deemed unanswerable. Given the tendency of researchers to favour a sex, most concede then that men and women are ‘even’ [23] Researchers are gendered subjects, conditioned by sociocultural gender constructs. They may support the superiority of a particular sex, which in turn, is deliberately or intuitively reflected in their respective research. This is why psychoanalysis ‘… does not assume the existence of an a priori “self” or “ego”’, but asserts that personal identity is contingent upon social conditioning. [24] Researchers do not operate, nor conduct their research, in isolation of reality. They are thus influenced by universal social discourses such as race, gender, and class. Absolute scientific objectivity is a standard difficult to uphold. Halpern warns of the existence of researchers that allow their bias for either sex to direct their study outcomes, such as Rushton and Jenson who ‘… steadfastly maintain that women are less intelligent than men’. [25] Views such as this intensify the gender divide by supporting the notion of male dominance, which further solidifies gender disparities. As Gaitanidis states, the conditions, which produce gender identities, are not quasi-universal; sociocultural and historical forces intrude in our lives to shape our personal identities. [26] Therefore, favouring certain data can be a symptom of cultural influences, such as gendered sex roles.

Sex difference has been largely debunked, or at the very least, considered inconclusive. The general consensus is that neither sex is psychologically superior. The emphasis is rather on the socialisation of difference, where the male and female gender constructs are influenced by worldviews, perceived norms and the unconscious. The variation of positions on sex difference indicates how pervasive the gender paradigm is, and how even purportedly objective areas of study, like science, can be skewed to perpetuate the idea of male intellectual dominance. The revolutionary work of feminists and social constructivists over the past four decades has highlighted the impact and influence of gender constructs on sociocultural life and knowledge. [27] Kimmel summarises the scale and influence of gender as an organising principle of society by stating, ‘virtually every society known to us is founded upon assumptions of gender difference and the politics of gender inequality’. [28] This point becomes foundational when answering the question of how traditional masculinity affects the manner in which men engage with gender equality. At this juncture, the essay needs to address this question.

Debates about gender equality refer to the asymmetrical power balance experienced between men and women due to differences in their gendered identities. [29] On this, Peterson and Runyan contend that:

‘… the social construction of gender is actually a system of power that not only divides men and women as masculine and feminine but typically also places men and masculinity above women and femininity and operates to value more highly those institutions and practices that are male dominated and/or representative of masculine traits and styles’. [30]

This is a contemporary analysis of modern gender constructs and the relations between the sexes, yet the idea of gender equality has been a major international principle of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. [31] Despite this, Grossman and McClain argue that progress towards achieving gender equality have failed to substantially materialise, and that there still exists ‘… a stark gap between formal commitments to the equal rights and responsibilities of men and women and against discrimination and subordination based on sex the gendered realities of women’s lives’. [32]

The term ‘gender equality’, when deconstructed in isolation, unveils fundamental problems. Some argue the term is a paradox; gender is a system based on difference, and thus could never transform into a state of equivalence. [33] Parvikko frames equality ‘… as a concept which obscures differences’, and states that in contemporary liberal political thought, equality and difference are incommensurate. [34] Such difficulties in the application of the term have resulted in some people proclaiming that gender equality should be considered a discourse rather than a fixed term. This approach is much more constructive, as it recognises gender equality as a fluid concept that responds to the unique requirements of specific contexts. [35] Gender equality has many variants and interpretations, such as formal substantive equality. [36] This essay will consider equality as a system that facilitates equal opportunity. As echoed by men and women across all continents, in the World Development Report conducted by The World Bank, gender equality was seen to encompass three key elements: ‘the accumulation of endowments (education, health, and physical assets); the use of those endowments to take up economic opportunity and generate incomes; and the application of those endowments to take actions, or agency , affecting individual and household well-being’. [37] This is not an exhaustive list of what constitutes gender equality, but it provides a solid foundation for what it should entail. With this in mind, the essay will now discuss the relationship between masculinity and gender equality.

Gender is an organising principle of social life, and change towards equality will require exceptional institutional and gender identity reform. [38] Realising gender equality is strongly weighted on the contribution of males, because ‘… the very gender inequalities in economic assets, political power, cultural authority, and means of coercion that gender reform intend to change (ultimately) mean that men control most of the resources required to implement women’s claims for justice’. [39] In Australia, men make up the overwhelming majority of key decision-makers. In 2012, women comprised only 26.5% of Federal Parliament, and in the private sector constituted approximately 10% of company board members and 24.7% of managers. [40] Thus, men are an essential enabler for gender reform. Masculinities and male stereotypes must be studied and deconstructed in order to effect change in how men relate to women.

Stereotypes, or gender profiles, play an important role in the discussion of gender equality. They attribute certain characteristics to whole segments of society with the intention of presenting perception as truth. [41] In relation to gender, stereotypes form the basis of how society believes men and women should act. The scale to which gender stereotypes impact society is articulated by Epstein who argues:

‘no aspect of social life — whether the gathering of crops, the ritual of religion, the formal dinner party, or the organisation of government — is free from the dichotomous thinking that casts the world in categories of “male” and “female”‘. [42]

Gender stereotypes are inherently political; they can be used as tools for manipulating power relations between men and women. They are naturalised within society through a process of reproduction and maintenance. To this end, gender stereotypes become ‘… self-fulfilling: if we expect certain behaviours, we may act in ways that in fact create and reinforce such behaviours’. [43]

Masculinities, as is the case with femininities for women, are socially constructed gender profiles under which men are categorised. However, they are not created equal. For men, there is ‘… a culturally preferred version that is held up as the model against which we [men] are to measure ourselves’. [44] The dominant model to which men must aspire is what Connell describes as hegemonic masculinity. It is a location within the male gender hierarchy that occupies the hegemonic, or top position. [45] However, hegemonic masculinity is not a fixed position, and occupying the position is contestable. Masculinity can be viewed as a social order that lends analysis and structure from Gramsci’s notion of class relations. As such, hegemonic masculinity retains the dominant position of social life, while other masculinities, such as homosexual masculinity, [46] and women are subordinated. [47] The current, and historical, occupier of this hegemonic position is traditional masculinity, which:

‘… refers to the stereotypical twentieth-century male-chauvinist outlook and activities resulting from the kinds of gender socialisation conventionally seen as appropriate to males in Western societies since at least the late Victorian times’. [48]

An example of how gender stereotypes are cultivated in society, and how hegemonic masculinity is highly valued, is in New Zealand where some schools are pressured to employ male teachers. The rationale for this is to preserve boys’ masculinity through the appointment of ‘real men’ teachers who exhibit characteristics consistent with hegemonic masculinity. [49]

Men who exhibit the traits of traditional masculinity are considered to possess hegemonic masculinity. In order to aspire to this social classification, there is a particular set of core features that a man must demonstrate. These include: power/strength, rationality, heterosexuality, risk-taking, dominance, leadership, control, and repression of emotions. [50] Given that identities, and indeed gender profiles, must be defined, reconstructed, and performed, it is argued that the construction of masculine identities by men is a conscious attempt to maintain their power within the gender hierarchy. [51] This may be true in some cases, however, to apply this universally is problematic. New contends that while ‘men are frequently the agents of the oppression of women, and in many cases benefit from it, their interests in the gender order are not pre-given but constructed by and within it’. [52] To achieve gender equality, it must be recognised that hegemonic masculinities can be altered, or even replaced, through the socialisation process from which they are initially constructed.

Public and private engagement with gender equality is scarce among males, which often obscures the issue and manifests dismissive attitudes. One of the main issues regarding gender equality is that men do not comprehensively understand how traditional masculinities disadvantage women. Many men are unaware they exist within socially constructed gender structures that disenfranchise subordinated gender profiles, and therefore do not recognise a problem. [53] Thus, engaging in discussion about gender equality is often a pointless experience for men who find it challenging to appreciate how entrenched the issue is in society. Fortunately, attitudes, and the gender profiles they are associated with, are subject to social construction and transformation. Christian argues that:

‘sexist attitudes and actions are currently an integral part of the dominant masculinity, but if masculinities are socially constructed by and for each generation of males growing up, rather than genetically inherited, then masculinities can change and sexism can in principle be eradicated’. [54]

However, social construction and indeed, deconstruction, is contingent upon the participation of relevant stakeholders. The supportive involvement of all those affected by gender is required to effect gender equality. In other words, the global community as a whole.

Worldwide, Plan International found three general categories for men’s attitudes towards gender equality: those who recognise gender inequality and seek to address it — the smallest group; those who acknowledge gender inequality but are afraid that empowering girls will come at the expense of boys; and, those who either do not perceive an imbalance, or do not believe in equal rights — the largest group. [55] The significance of this research highlights the overwhelming percentage of men who do not recognise a problem, or do not believe in equal opportunity. These attitudes present a considerable hurdle in reaching gender equality, as they are taught to children and carried on through the generations. A research program commissioned by Plan of over 4,000 adolescent children in different countries including the United Kingdom (UK), Rwanda, and India, found that: 83% of boys and 87% of girls in India and 67% of girls and 71% of boys in Rwanda agree with the statement ‘changing diapers, giving kids a bath and feeding kids are the mother’s responsibility’. More than 60% of participants agreed that ‘if resources are scarce it is better to educate a boy instead of a girl’ and 65% of children in Rwanda and India agreed that ‘a woman should tolerate violence in order to keep her family together’. [56] While this research was conducted among a limited sample, it highlights the startling reality of gender inequality and the continuity of male dominance.

One of the major principles of traditional masculinity that harms gender equality is that women are fundamentally inferior to men. This view can be traced back to the Greek philosopher Aristotle, who based this claim on the principles of reason. He surmised that ‘masculinity was equated with the human rationality of men, and women were marked by sexuality, emotion, and their bodies’. [57] The notion that men are intellectually superior has already been disproved; however, what Aristotle articulates about women and their bodies remains relevant. According to the French feminist philosopher, Beauvoir, men consider humanity to be constructed in their image: ‘it is clear that in dreaming of himself as donor, liberator, redeemer, man still desires the subjection of women’. [58] This idea of male superiority and female inferiority is one that must be maintained by traditional masculinity if it is to occupy the hegemonic gender identity. Attitudes that stem from traditional masculinity, such as ‘… the notion that “real men” are tough and hard and that the only appropriate emotion for them to display is anger’, [59] present a significant barrier towards gender equality.

Due to the fact that traditional masculinity discourages the expression of emotion, men rarely discuss their feelings. Evidence of this is presented in the positive relationship between traditional masculinity and depression among male university students in the UK and United States. It was ‘… found that conformity to Western masculine norms in and of itself is a risk factor for developing depression’. [60] Men compound the issue of depression by aligning with traditional masculinity. Hanninen and Valkonen argue that the principles of masculinity inhibit the expression of weakness or emotional distress and the seeking of help to remedy it. [61] In addition, analysis into the individual accounts of men’s depression ‘… reveals how depression threatened a man’s masculine identity and how recovery presupposed reconstructing one’s self-image and masculinity’. [62] This identifies a lack of openness to change in traditional masculinity. In other words, traditional masculinity is not equipped to respond to challenges that threaten its integrity, such as depression (perceived as emotional weakness) and gender equality.

Changing or altering traditional masculinity should be more widely recognised as an important step towards realising gender equality. In light of this, some gender equality advocate groups around the world have identified the need to promote masculinities that are more conducive of change. MenEngage is a group for boys and men whose primary function is to advocate for equality between males and females. [63] To this end, they have identified that ‘… questioning men’s and women’s attitudes and expectations about gender roles is crucial to achieving gender equality’. Those who acknowledge the existence of gender equality, and seek to address it, agree that equality cannot progress without the contribution of males. [64] It is increasingly evident that the deconstruction of traditional masculinity presents a primary concern, as its uncompromising nature makes it less responsive to revolution. [65]

By encouraging males to become more open and discuss their masculinities, it is possible to educate them on how their social roles and responsibilities impact women. Developing male attitudes towards open acknowledgement of the gender profiles they operate within is an important step in reaching gender equality. The absence of such progress would only serve to maintain the ‘… disempowerment of girls and young women down the generations — and the restriction of boys and young men to traditional “male roles”’. [66] Efforts in this approach to gender equality have yielded that: according to the United Nations Population Fund, boys that grow up with positive male role models are found to be more critical towards negative gender stereotypes and inequalities; men who maintain a healthy engagement with their children are less inclined to be depressed, suicidal or violent; and, boys that have more engaging fathers are less inclined to exhibit risky sexual behaviour. [67] Latin American NGOs also found similar character traits in young men who supported gender equality. These similarities included: having a peer-group or group of friends that were more accepting of gender-equitable attitudes; having personally suffered the negative impacts of traditional masculinity such as domestic violence; and, having a positive adult role model that represented an alternative to traditional gender roles. [68] This indicates that positive, nurturing, and engaging character traits exhibited by males are constructive towards gender equality. Furthermore, this suggests that gender equality is achievable through the deconstruction of traditional masculinity as the hegemonic masculinity.

Male stereotypes affect the manner in which males engage with gender equality, and traditional masculinity acts as the dominant masculinity for men. Although different masculinities exist for men, the idea of traditional masculinity remains the most influential. Realising gender equality is difficult, because the fundamental characteristics exhibited by traditional masculinity defend against change. For global gender equality to progress, males must recognise themselves as fundamental actors and actively work to change the patriarchal structures, which benefit them to the exclusion of all others. Without the supportive contribution of males, gender equality is doomed to perpetuate existing power imbalances that favour traditional masculinity. To progress towards gender equality, efforts must be made to deconstruct traditional masculinity.

[1] R. W. Connell, Masculinities , 2 nd ed. (Australia: Allen & Unwin, 2005), p. 67.

[2] M. Hughs and P. Paxton, Women, Politics, and Power: A Global Perspective , 2 nd ed. (London: SAGE Publications, Inc., 2014), pp. 24-25.

[3] D. Zimmerman and C. West, ‘Doing Gender’, in A. Aronson and M.Kimmel (eds.), The Gendered Society Reader , 5 th ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), p. 122.

[4] V. S. Peterson and A. Runyan, Global Gender Issues (Oxford: Westview Press, 1993), p. 17.

[5] Zimmerman and West, op. cit. (2014), p. 122.

[6] Peterson and Runyan, op. cit. (1993), p. 17.

[7] H. Christian, The Making of Anti-Sexist Men (London: Routledge, 1994), p. 6.

[8] M. Gatens, Feminism and Philosophy: Perspectives on Difference and Equality (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991), p. 102.

[9] Connell, op. cit. (2005), pp. 8-9.

[10] D. Britzman, ‘Psychoanalytic Theory’, in Encyclopaedia of Curriculum Studies (Online: Sage Publications, Inc., 2010), p. 693.

[11] Gatens, op. cit. (1991), p. 103.

[12] S. Goldberg, ‘Feminism Against Science’, National Review, vol. 43, no. 21 (1991), p. 30.

[13] A. Moir and D. Jessel, Brain Sex: the real difference between men and women (London: Mandarin, 1997), p. 6.

[14] D. Halpern, Sex Differences in Cognitive Abilities, 4 th ed. (New York: Psychology Press, 2012), pp. 97-98.

[15] Connell, op. cit. (2005), p. 21.

[16] J. Ashfield, The Making of a Man: reclaiming masculinity and manhood in the light of reason, 2 nd ed. (Australia: Peacock Publications, 2004), p. 154.

[17] G. Wilson, The Great Sex Divide (Washington, D.C.: Scott-Townsend Publishers, 1992), p. 20.

[18] Ibid., p. 19.

[20] G. Sharwell, ‘Review of Deceptive Distinctions: Sex, Gender, and the Social Order by Cynthia Fuchs Epstein; A Woman’s Wage: Historical Meanings and Social Consequences by Alice Kessler-Harris’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences , vol. 517 (1991), p. 229.

[21] D. Seligman, ‘Gender Mender’, Forbes (41998), available online: http://www.forbes.com/forbes/1998/0406/6107072a.html (accessed 22 October 2013).

[22] Connell, op. cit. (2005), p. 21.

[23] Halpern, op. cit. (2012), p. 96.

[24] Gatens, op. cit. (1991), p. 100.

[25] Halpern, op. cit. (2012), p. 96.

[26] N. Gaitanidis, ‘Benign Masculinity and Critical Reason’, Psychotherapy and Politics International , vol. 10, no. 3 (2012), p. 220.

[27] M. Kimmel, ‘Introduction’, in A. Aronson and M. Kimmel (eds.), The Gendered Society Reader, 5 th ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), p. 1.

[28] Ibid, p. 2.

[29] World Bank, World Development Report 2012: Gender Equality and Development (Washington D.C.: The World Bank, 2012), p. 4.

[30] Peterson and Runyan, op. cit. (1993), p. 18.

[31] R. Connell, Confronting equality: gender, knowledge and global change (UK: Polity Press, 2011), p. 15.

[32] J. Grossman and L. McClain (eds.), Gender Equality: Dimensions of Women’s Equal Citizenship (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), p. 1.

[33] J. Flax, ‘Gender Equality’, in M. Horowitz (ed.), New Dictionary of the History of Ideas (Detroit: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2005), p. 701.

[34] T. Parvikko, ‘Conceptions of Gender Equality: Similarity and Difference’, in E. Meehan and S. Sevenhuijsen (eds.), Equality Politics and Gender (London: SAGE Publications, Inc., 1991), p. 36.

[35] C. Bacchi, ‘Review of Promblematizing “Gender Equality” by Magnusson, Eva, Malin Ronnblom and Harriet Silius, eds,’ Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research , vol. 17, no. 4 (2009), p. 304.

[36] Parvikko, op. cit. (1991), p. 48.

[37] World Bank, op. cit. (2012), p. 4.

[38] Connell, op. cit. (2011), p. 17.

[40] Department of Social Services, ‘Background Paper: ‘The role of men and boys in gender equality’ (2013), available online: http://www.fahcsia.gov.au/our-responsibilities/women/programs-services/international-engagement/united-nations-commission-on-the-status-of-women/background-paper-the-role-of-men-and-boys-in-gender-equality (accessed 21 October 2013).

[41] Peterson and Runyan, op. cit. (1994), p. 21.

[42] C. Epstein, Deceptive Distinctions (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988), p. 232.

[43] Peterson and Yunyan, op. cit. (1994), p. 22.

[44] Kimmel, op. cit. (2014), p. 4.

[45] Connell, op. cit. (2005), p. 76.

[46] Homosexual masculinity is considered to be a gender profile that is subordinated in relation to the hegemonic masculinity. — R. Connell, ‘A Very Straight Gay: Masculinity, Homosexual Experience, and the Dynamics of Gender’, American Sociological Review, vol. 57, no. 6 (1992), p. 735-737.

[47] Christian, op. cit. (1994), p. 7; and Connell, op. cit. (2005), p. 77.

[48] Christian, op. cit. (1994), p. 7.

[49] J. Clarke and P. Cushman, ‘Masculinities and Femininities: Student-Teachers Changing Perceptions of Gender Advantages and Disadvantages in the New Zealand Primary School Environment’, in J. Aston and E. Vasquez (eds.), Masculinity and Femininity: Stereotypes/myths, Psychology and Role of Culture (New York: Nova Science Publishers, Inc., 2013), p. 2.

[50] H. Mansfield, Manliness (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), p. 23; and Clarke and Cushman, op. cit. (2013), p. 2.

[51] D. Collison and J. Hearn. 1996. ‘”Men” at “work”: multiple masculinities/multiple workplaces’, in M. Mac an Ghaill (ed.), Understanding Masculinities: Social Relations and Cultural Arenas (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1996), p. 65.

[52] New as quoted in O. G. Holter, ‘Social Theories for Researching Men and Masculinities: Direct Gender Hierarchy and Structural Inequality’, in R.W. Connell, J. Hearn and M. Kimmel (eds.), Handbook of Studies on Men and Masculinities (Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications, Inc., 2005), p. 15.

[53] Department of Social Services, op. cit. (2013).

[54] Christian, op. cit. (1994), pp. 7-8.

[55] IRIN, ‘Gender Equality: Why involving men is crucial’ (2011), available online: http://www.irinnews.org/report/93870/gender-equality-why-involving-men-is-crucial (accessed 18 October 2013).

[56] Plan, Because I am a Girl: The State of the World’s Girls 2011 – So, what about boys? (Plan International, 2011), p. 3.

[57] J. Gardner, ‘Men, Masculinities, and Feminist Theory’, in R.W. Connell, J. Hearn and M. Kimmel (eds.), Handbook of Studies on Men and Masculinities (Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications, Inc., 2005), p. 36.

[58] S. de Beauvoir and H. Parshley (trans. ed.), The Second Sex (New York: Bantam Books, 1968), p. 172.

[59] Plan, op. cit. (2011), p. 4.

[60] J. Oliffe et al., 2010. ‘Masculinities and college men’s depression: Recursive relationships’, Health Sociology Review, vol. 19, no. 4 (2010), p. 466.

[61] V. Hanninen and J. Valkonen, ‘Narratives of Masculinity and Depression’, Men and Masculinities , vol. 16 (2012), p. 161.

[62] Ibid, pp. 161-162.

[63] MenEngage, ‘What we believe’ (2008), available online: http://www.menengage.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12:what-we-believe&catid=4:about-us&Itemid=10 (accessed 20 October 2013).

[65] Mansfield, op. cit. (2006), pp. 31-32.

[66] IRIN, op. cit. (2011).

[67] Plan, op. cit. (2012), p. 4.

[68] V. Fonseca et al., ‘Program H and Program M: Engaging young men and empowering young women to promote gender equality and health’ (2010), available online: http://www.promundo.org.br/en/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/OPASINGLES_WEB.pdf (accessed 21 October 2013).

— Written by: Aydon Edwards Written at: University of Queensland Written for: Dr. Samid Suliman Date written: November 2013

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Ending Male-Dominated Power Dynamics Underpinning Violence, Discrimination, in Everyone’s Interest, Secretary-General Tells Women’s Commission

Following are UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ remarks for the opening of the Commission on the Status of Women, in New York today:

It is wonderful to be here at the Commission on the Status of Women, one of the most dynamic intergovernmental bodies, at such a pivotal moment for the rights of women and girls.

Across the world, women are telling their stories and provoking important and necessary conversations — in villages and cities; in boardrooms and bedrooms; in the streets and in the corridors of power.  In Latin America, France, India, the Middle East, China and here in the United States…  From “MeToo” to “Time’s Up” to “The Time is Now”, women and girls are calling out abusive behaviour and discriminatory attitudes. 

And let’s be clear the central question we face is a question of power.  Power is normally never given, power normally needs to be taken.  We live in a male-dominated world with a male-dominated culture.  And that is why the empowerment of women and girls is our common central objective. 

Centuries of patriarchy and discrimination have left a damaging legacy.  Sexist attitudes and stereotypes are widespread in Governments, the private sector, academia, the arts, science and technology, and even in civil society and international organizations like the United Nations.

Women are pioneering scientists and mathematicians — but they occupy less than 30 per cent of research and development jobs worldwide.  Women are accomplished artists, writers, musicians and film-makers.  But this year, 33 men took home Academy Awards, and only 6 women.  Women are gifted negotiators and communicators — but at the United Nations, the proportion of women ambassadors hovers around 20 per cent. 

It is only when we have changed statistics like these that we can truly say: we are in a new era for women and girls.

A girl born into poverty has a far higher chance of dropping out of school, marrying early, suffering complications during childbirth, experiencing violence, and passing this legacy on to her children.  Widows, indigenous women, women with disabilities and women who do not conform to gender norms face the greatest challenges of all.

By building equality, we give women a chance to fulfil their potential.  And we also build more stable societies.  Women’s participation in decision-making makes peace agreements stronger, societies more resilient and economies more vigorous.

Conversely, attacks on the fundamental rights of women and girls can be precursors to radicalization and violent extremism.

I thank everyone here for your efforts to bring together the United Nations, Governments, civil society and grassroots networks, to reach women and girls everywhere.  The theme of your gathering this year highlights rural women: a group that is particularly marginalized and may lack access to health care, education and technology.

But rural women are often the backbone of their families and communities, managing land and resources.  They may be experts on climate resilience and on sustainable development.

We often talk about empowering women.  When women are already taking action, we need to listen to them and to support them.

The Commission on the Status of Women is leading the way.  We are also proud of our strong partnership with the European Union on the Spotlight Initiative to end violence against women and girls.  We have already begun to build programmes that address femicide in Latin America — where women are killed on a daily basis with widespread impunity.

Preventing and ending violence against women and girls, and lifting up marginalized women, indigenous women, women in rural communities, and women refugees and migrants, will lift everyone and ensure that no one is left behind.  And this is essential to fulfilling the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development — our global pledge to eradicate poverty and to create a safer, more sustainable world on a healthy planet.

The United Nations has a responsibility to lead from the front and to set an example for the world.  Since I became Secretary-General, I have made a concerted effort to set change in motion.  We have already reached gender parity in the Senior Management Group for the first time.  As of last month, 23 women and 21 men are the top leadership of the United Nations organization.  My road map envisages gender parity at senior levels of our leadership by 2021 in all categories, and ultimately in 2028 across the board.

Women now fill one third of positions as heads and deputy heads of peacekeeping missions, still far behind our objective — it is the highest proportion ever, we are on track to meet our targets, but there is a long way to go and we need to do it together.

And I am completely committed to zero tolerance of sexual harassment and have set out plans to improve reporting and accountability.  We have now a helpline for victims, and we are creating a specialized investigation team for sexual harassment, able to provide women that are victims with the confidence in the Organization that unfortunately is still lacking.

One of my first steps was to launch an initiative to address sexual exploitation and abuse by those serving in the United Nations.  We are working with Governments and civil society to prevent and address these crimes and to support survivors.  I am determined to build on the progress we have already made.

But change must go beyond strategies and statistics.  I am committed to transforming the culture of the United Nations, to create an enabling environment for all.  And this is essential, if we are to give our strongest support to the women and girls of the world as they fight for their rights.

Progress for women and girls means changing the unequal power dynamics that underpin discrimination and violence.  This is not only the greatest human rights challenge of our time.  It is also in everyone’s interests.  Discrimination against women damages communities, organizations, companies, economies and societies.  That is why all men should support women’s rights and gender equality.  And that is why I consider myself a proud feminist.

The work of this Commission is vital to end the stereotypes and discrimination that limit women’s and girls’ opportunities.  From schools to offices, lecture halls and laboratories, in movies, advertising and the media, we need to make it clear:  Women’s abilities are limitless.  Women’s ambitions are infinite.

I urge you to continue to raise your voices for women’s equality, dignity and human rights.  Your work is essential to a more just and decent world for all.  And I am committed to doing my part.

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The social origins of male dominance

• Published: April 1979
• Volume 5 , pages 199–218, ( 1979 )

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• Jean Stockard 1 &
• Miriam M. Johnson 1  

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Writings in psychoanalytic theory and social science that discuss the basis of men's motive to dominate women are reviewed. Both men's fear and envy of women and men's tenuous masculine identity arise from the exclusive early mother-child tie. It is suggested that an important step in altering the development of the motive underlying male dominance would be to have men, as well as women, care for infants. The possibility of greater equality in the family and in the economy is discussed.

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Stockard, J., Johnson, M.M. The social origins of male dominance. Sex Roles 5 , 199–218 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00287931

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Wealth is not enough

Education is not enough, democracy is not enough, works cited.

The struggle for gender equality is a continuous process. The focus had shifted from industrialized nations to emerging economies because inequality had been linked to poverty and illiteracy. But studies made in the last few decades will show that gender inequality is still evident in the Western world, even in progressive societies like the United States. Thus, it is prudent to reconsider the root cause of gender inequality.

It can be argued that gender inequality is not the byproduct of poverty, ignorance, and non-democratic societies. The United States is a perfect example of a nation where women can become rich on their own effort. They have access to education.

They have the right to participate in a political process. But gender inequality is still existent in American universities, American offices, and American homes. Thus, inequality is not only due to social institutions but deeper social factors.

Poverty is the most common culprit associated with gender inequality. There is a evidence to support this view especially if one will look at poor countries in Asia, Africa and South America. In poor societies women have limited opportunities and therefore they are desperately dependent on men for sustenance and support.

But this framework is defective when used to examine gender inequality in wealthy societies like the UK, Canada, Australia, Japan and the United States. In rich countries women can have access to high-paying jobs and can build their own wealth but still struggle with the impact of gender inequality.

Western societies have resources that can be utilized to change the outlook of people. Nevertheless, a team of researchers discovered that there is “bias favoring men in performance evaluation and candidate selection” (Foschi & Valenzuela 1025). The bias against women is not rooted in an abstract concept. In fact, in most cases it is easy to understand why organizations prefer men over women.

According to one report “women continue to experience barriers and women who seek to combine childcare and paid work face many challenges” (Demaiter & Adams 50). It is therefore more cost-efficient to hire male workers than female workers. Consider the annual cost to the firm if the company is compelled to provide facilities for nursing mothers and to support other maternity needs.

In a heterosexual marriage where the wife earns more than the husband there is still gender inequality. The higher income does not provide her the ability to enjoy gender equality in that particular relationship. The results of a study aimed at heterosexual marriages wherein the wife earned significantly more than the husband provided interesting results.

In this study the researchers found out that “spouses work together to support the institutional-level expectation of men’s dominance in order to preserve marital harmony, and gendered expectations, such as men’s imperative to provide and women’s imperative to care, are re-worked at the interactional and individual levels to allow each spouse to construct a comfortable, conventional identity” (Tichenor 204).

In other words women are supposed to make adjustments to cater to the psychological needs of men. This is a blatant example of bias, but at the same time it reinforces the argument made earlier that those who fight for gender equality must go beyond the usual feminist rhetoric when it comes to the creation of an effective solution to inequality issues.

The second major reason for inequality is lack of access to public schools and universities (Andres & Adamuti-Trache 94). The logic of this argument is based on the idea that knowledge is power (Kane & Kyyro 710). Once again this argument is flawed when utilized in the analysis of Western societies wherein women are highly educated and yet victimized by men who believe that they have the right to dominate women.

The basic framework of the principle that male dominance is part of social institutions can be seen in the study of university students. In this particular study, researchers examined the sexual behavior of male and female students in a pre-sexual intercourse ritual. In this study researchers discovered that “the interactional dynamic is one in which men directly initiate, while women indirectly cool out unwanted approaches” (Ronen 373).

It is important to point out that these women are highly educated as evidenced by their access to top universities. But in this study it was made clear that they follow the dictates of men. Women enrolled in college campuses are intelligent and yet they cannot seem to break free from an invisible power that forces them to behave in a certain way.

In the study of fraternities in college campuses researchers were able to prove that “brothers treated women as subordinates and kept them at a distance” (Boswell & Spade 341). These women were enrolled in an institution for higher education and yet they are powerless when placed in an environment where men are leaders and they are followers.

These women are not only educated they also have access to pertinent literature with regards to gender inequality. Nevertheless, they are powerless to challenge the oppressive atmosphere found in fraternities and other social settings.

It has been argued in the past that a democratic society provides the atmosphere needed for women to break from the stranglehold of inequality. But it has been shown that even in democratic societies like the United States, Great Britain and Canada, inequality still persists. In these countries women are free to do what they want. For example they do not need to marry because they can own properties even without a husband.

They can run for the highest office in the land without a marriage license (Paxton, Kunovich & Hughes 204). But a study on never-married women revealed that “running out of time to marry and have children was an overriding issue in their lives” (Sharp & Ganong 841).

Other studies support this claim because when respondents were asked why they value marriage they remarked that the capability to bear children can strengthen a relationship (Green 399). It is interesting to note that although marriage is not needed to produce children, most women wanted to raise children with the help of a husband (Sharp & Ganong 841).

It is a surprise to find battered women in progressive societies where females have equal protection under the law. Broken ribs, split lip and other serious injuries that require hospitalization are not enough reasons for a woman to leave her husband (Anderson & Umberson 358). The struggle must continue and the fight must go on (Pelak 111).

But it is imperative to reconsider the excuses made in the aftermath of the failure to institute gender equality. The usual suspects are wealth distribution, access to education and the absence of basic human rights. This line of reasoning is only acceptable if gender inequality is limited to poor societies. But this is not a true statement.

There are enough evidence to prove that gender inequality is not the by-product of poverty, illiteracy and non-democratic societies. The simple reason is that gender inequality exists in affluent societies wherein women are free to do what they want, have access to education, and have the capacity to create wealth.

Women who have access to top tier education continue to behave in a passive manner even if intellectually they know that men cannot force them to do anything. Battered women are unable to flee and continue to live in a home with an abusive husband. Women who earn more than their husbands had to continually assure his husband that he is the leader of the family.

Therefore, inequality is rooted in social factors that are beyond the scope of economics, politics, and education. It seems that men are biologically equipped to make them think that they are superior to women. The evidence from numerous sociological studies seems to indicate that women prefer men to lead. Even if this is true, men do not have the right to dominate and abuse women. The struggle for gender equality must continue.

But society in general and women in particular must take a deeper look into the issue because even if they have education, freedom and wealth, the ultimate prize will still elude them. There is a need for a more focused information dissemination campaign so women can fully understand why they behave a certain way.

Anderson, Kristin and Debra Umberson. “Gendering Violence: Masculinity and Power in Men’s Account of Domestic Violence.” Gender & Society 15.3 (2001): 358-380. Print.

Andres, Lesley and Maria Adamuti-Trache. “You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby? Persistent Gender Inequality in University Enrolment and Completion in Canada, 1979-2004.” Canadian Public Policy 33.1 (2007): 93-116. Print.

Boswell, Ayres and Joan Spade. “Fraternities and Collegiate Rape Culture: Why are some Fraternities More Dangerous Places for Women?” Gender & Society 10.2 (1996): 133-147. Print.

Demaiter, Erin and Tracey Adams. “I Really Didn’t have any Problems with the Male- Female Thing Until…”: Successful Women’s Experience in IT Organizations.” Canadian Journal of Sociology 34.1 (2009): 31-53. Print.

Foschi, Martha and Jerilee Valenzuela. “Selecting Job Applicants: Effects from Gender, Self-Preservation, and Decision Type.” Social Science Research 37.1 (2007): 1022-1038. Print.

Green, Adam. “Queer Unions: Same-Sex Spouses Marrying Tradition and Innovation.” Canadian Journal of Sociology 35.3 (2010): 399-433. Print.

Kane, Emily and Else Kyyro. “For Whom Does Education Enlighten? Race, Gender, Education, and Beliefs about Social Inequality.” Gender & Society 15.5 (2001): 710-733. Print.

Paxton, Pamela, Sheri Kunovich and Melanie Hughes. “Gender in Politics.” The Annual Review of Sociology. 33.1 (2007): 263: 284. Print.

Pelak, Cynthia. “Women’s Collective Identity in Sports: A Case Study from Women’s Ice Hockey.” Gender & Society 16.1 (2002): 93-114. Print.

Ronen, Shelly. “Grinding on the Dance Floor: Gender Scripts and Sexualized Dancing at College Parties.” Gender & Society 24.3 (2010): 355-377. Print.

Sharp, Elizabeth and Lawrence Ganong. “Living in the Gray: Women’s Experiences of Missing the Marital Transition.” Journal of Marriage and Family 69 (2007): 831-844. Print.

Tichenor, Veronica. “Maintaining Men’s Dominance: Negotiating Identity and Power when She Earns More.” Sex Roles 53.4 (2005): 191:204. Print.

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Ross Douthat

Masculinity Is on the Ballot

By Ross Douthat

Opinion Columnist

Amid all the joy and positivity and the big, beautiful polling surges for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, the word has gone out: This election isn’t going to be a referendum on inflation, immigration or foreign policy anymore. It’s going to be a referendum on masculinity in America.

The choice is clear. On one side, there’s the enlightened maleness embodied by Harris’s vice-presidential pick and her husband, Doug Emhoff. These are the good progressive dads, Rebecca Traister of New York magazine writes , the “nice men of the left” who do guy things like coach football but also manifest liberal and feminist virtues — like being “happily deferential” and “unapologetically supportive of women’s rights” and “committed to partnership” in marriage and politics alike. Walz especially is being held up all over as a paragon of liberal dadhood: “A regular guy,” Mona Charen of The Bulwark writes , “at a time when the country needs reminding that being a regular guy is actually pretty great.”

Then there is the other model, the dark side of the Y chromosome: the toxic masculinity of Donald Trump, the anti-cat-lady conservatism of JD Vance, all of them wrapped together in a package that Zack Beauchamp of Vox describes as “neo-patriarchy.” This is a worldview, he writes, that may claim to allow for more female agency than the older patriarchy but really just wants a “reversal of the feminist revolution,” in which men finally get to be he-men again while their wives stay home and rear four to seven kids.

Most caricatures fasten on some aspect of reality, and the American right in the Trump era does indeed encompass frankly sexist ideas and influences — from Andrew Tate epigones looking for permission to be playboys to would-be patriarchs resentful that the women of America won’t cooperate.

But has liberalism perfected a model of modern masculinity while conservative culture slouches somewhere far behind? I’m skeptical, on three distinct grounds.

First, I would have thought that by now liberals would be hesitant about proclaiming the special personal virtues of the male feminist, the enlightened pro-choice dude. After Bill Clinton, Eliot Spitzer and Harvey Weinstein, after MeToo case studies too numerous to count, surely we can say that sleaze percolates on the left and right alike, that predators can exploit liberated mores as easily as traditional ones, that the “deferential” and “committed to partnership” guy can be subject to the same temptations as the conservative male breadwinner.

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In fact this statement may even be under-emphasizing the control and absolute power that males wield across all levels of Chinese society. Of course, where their power initially comes from ... - - 3281 - 12 Freedom to be an individual is essential to the wellbeing of all people. However, this freedom to make one's own decisions, to do as one pleases, moreover, to be one's own person, is often prevented by societal determinism. The restrictions created by this problem of social injustice can ... - - 1364 - 5 The public often questions and regulates women's positions and opportunities in life. Society sees females as a minority that is not worthy of the same status of freedom and opportunity as males. Although the ideals of democracy attempt to provide equality, women's place in society is often ... - - 1267 - 5 Roles of the Sexes The submissive role of the female in a marriage or relationship is a common problem in many societies, including our own American society. This role has become so common that in fact it is now expected of the female. This goes as far back as the human race, to the ... - - 2236 - 9 : Role of Somewhere, The Dark Sheds Light "Never, never, never quit..." -Winston Churchill If women on this Earth had given up, they would be where they were in the time of Charlotte Brontë. , by Charlotte Brontë, tells the story of a woman on a lifetime journey, ... - - 4839 - 18 The representations of women within Emily Bronte's 'Wuthering Heights', are symbolic of a feminist outcry against the constraints of gender roles and a battle against patriarchal . This is evident within the reoccurring themes of entrapment and powerlessness. This essay will explore the ... - - 1846 - 7 "Never, never, never quit..." -Winston Churchill If women on this Earth had given up, they would be where they were in the time of Charlotte Bront�. Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bront�, tells the story of a woman on a lifetime journey, progressing on the path of acceptance, in searching of sympathy. ... - - 1350 - 5 1. Introduction William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” (1930) explores gender roles within the social classes in the antebellum South to a postbellum South. Men and women at that point of time in American history in the American South, in which the story is set, were embracing different ... - - 2578 - 10 Sweet Revenge The play by Susan Glaspell, Trifles, and Zora Neale Hurston�s story �Sweat� tell about a period in history when women were not treated equal to men, and women lived oppressed and lonely lives. Men dominated almost every aspect of their life and women were of little importance. ... - - 2127 - 8 Women’s Writing: The Power and the Passion "Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got." Janis Joplin In the last thirty years we have seen a real emergence, divergence and development of feminist writing. Like any writing we care to label or group together there are elements that ... - - 2171 - 8 Advertisements surround us in our everyday lives. Advertisements in the popular media such as on television, the radio, and in magazines, and newspapers affect our lives and make us want to buy the products being advertised. Companies may spend millions of dollars and months of planning on a small ... - - 1779 - 7 Throughout written history, women have experienced status subservient to the men they lived with. Generally, most cultures known to modern historians followed a standard pattern of males assigned the role of protector and provider while women were assigned roles of domestic servitude. Scholars ... - - 1671 - 7 The Socialization of Women in Politics In studying the origin and history of women subjugation in the society, a working knowledge of the dynamics of social institutions and elements that influence the people, their beliefs and thinking is essential for better understanding of this long-battled ... - - 541 - 2 Gender Roles in African Royal Art Gender roles are defined by a community in terms of social constructs based on shared meaning. There are a number of ways in which to view gender relationships, among them are language (verbal and non-verbal), political access, employment differences and art, ... - - 1825 - 7 From your perspective ( or female) how valid are the speculations offered by the author of �If Men Could Menstruate� A hypothesis on a hyperbole is the best description one can render onto this piece by Gloria Steinem. The ideas present in the essay �If Men could menstruate� are so drastic ... - - 907 - 4 The definition of ; Is the fact of being a man or having qualities considered typical of a man. I was stuck in that sentence that what is the qualities considered typical of a man. What is the quality of man, what is considered as a typical of a man? 1. Identities According to Victor, since ... - - 773 - 3 » » » » » » » » » » » » » » » » » » » » | | | Copyright © 2024 Essayworld. All rights reserved An official website of the United States government Here's how you know Official websites use .gov A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States. Secure .gov websites use HTTPS A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.   Facebook   Twitter   Linkedin   Digg   Reddit   Pinterest   Email Latest Earthquakes |    Chat Share Social Media   Complete female and male mitogenomes of the mucket mussel (Ortmanniana ligamentina) Data include fasta files of full mitochondrial sequence data for the male and female mitotypes of the mucket (Ortamannia ligamentina). These have been deposited in the NCBI database under BioSample Accession number SAMN39271813, SRA Accession number SRR27608898, and GenBank Accession numbers : PP103562 and PP103563. Citation Information Publication Year 2024 Title Complete female and male mitogenomes of the mucket mussel (Ortmanniana ligamentina) DOI Authors Katy E Klymus, Jason Coombs, Dannise Ruiz-Ramos, Aaron P. Maloy, M. Christopher Barnhart Product Type Data Release Record Source USGS Organization Columbia Environmental Research Center Rights Related Content Katy klymus, phd, research biologist. To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories . As a Teenager in Europe, I Went to Nudist Beaches All the Time. 30 Years Later, Would the Experience Be the Same? In July 2017, I wrote an article about toplessness for Vogue Italia. The director, actor, and political activist Lina Esco had emerged from the world of show business to question public nudity laws in the United States with 2014’s Free the Nipple . Her film took on a life of its own and, thanks to the endorsement from the likes of Miley Cyrus, Cara Delevingne, and Willow Smith, eventually developed into a whole political movement, particularly on social media where the hashtag #FreeTheNipple spread at lightning speed. The same year as that piece, actor Alyssa Milano tweeted “me too” and encouraged others who had been sexually assaulted to do the same, building on the movement activist Tarana Burke had created more than a decade earlier. The rest is history. In that Vogue article, I chatted with designer Alessandro Michele about a shared memory of our favorite topless beaches of our youth. Anywhere in Italy where water appeared—be it the hard-partying Riviera Romagnola, the traditionally chic Amalfi coast and Sorrento peninsula, the vertiginous cliffs and inlets of Italy’s continuation of the French Côte d’Azur or the towering volcanic rocks of Sicily’s mythological Riviera dei Ciclopi—one was bound to find bodies of all shapes and forms, naturally topless. In the ’90s, growing up in Italy, naked breasts were everywhere and nobody thought anything about it. “When we look at our childhood photos we recognize those imperfect breasts and those bodies, each with their own story. I think of the ‘un-beauty’ of that time and feel it is actually the ultimate beauty,” Michele told me. Indeed, I felt the same way. My relationship with toplessness was part of a very democratic cultural status quo. If every woman on the beaches of the Mediterranean—from the sexy girls tanning on the shoreline to the grandmothers eating spaghetti al pomodoro out of Tupperware containers under sun umbrellas—bore equally naked body parts, then somehow we were all on the same team. No hierarchies were established. In general, there was very little naked breast censorship. Free nipples appeared on magazine covers at newsstands, whether tabloids or art and fashion magazines. Breasts were so naturally part of the national conversation and aesthetic that Ilona Staller (also known as Cicciolina) and Moana Pozzi, two porn stars, cofounded a political party called the Love Party. I have a clear memory of my neighbor hanging their party’s banner out his window, featuring a topless Cicciolina winking. A lot has changed since those days, but also since that initial 2017 piece. There’s been a feminist revolution, a transformation of women’s fashion and gender politics, the absurd overturning of Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 rape conviction in New York, the intensely disturbing overturning of Roe v Wade and the current political battle over reproductive rights radiating from America and far beyond. One way or another, the female body is very much the site of political battles as much as it is of style and fashion tastes. And maybe for this reason naked breasts seem to populate runways and street style a lot more than they do beaches—it’s likely that being naked at a dinner party leaves more of a permanent mark than being naked on a glamorous shore. Naked “dressing” seems to be much more popular than naked “being.” It’s no coincidence that this year Saint Laurent, Chloé, Ferragamo, Tom Ford, Gucci, Ludovic de Saint Sernin, and Valentino all paid homage to sheer dressing in their collections, with lacy dresses, see-through tops, sheer silk hosiery fabric, and close-fitting silk dresses. The majority of Anthony Vaccarello’s fall 2024 collection was mostly transparent. And even off the runway, guests at the Saint Laurent show matched the mood. Olivia Wilde appeared in a stunning see-through dark bodysuit, Georgia May Jagger wore a sheer black halter top, Ebony Riley wore a breathtaking V-neck, and Elsa Hosk went for translucent polka dots. In some strange way, it feels as if the trends of the ’90s have swapped seats with those of today. When, in 1993, a 19-year-old Kate Moss wore her (now iconic) transparent, bronze-hued Liza Bruce lamé slip dress to Elite Model Agency’s Look of the Year Awards in London, I remember seeing her picture everywhere and feeling in awe of her daring and grace. I loved her simple sexy style, with her otherworldly smile, the hair tied back in a bun. That very slip has remained in the collective unconscious for decades, populating thousands of internet pages, but in remembering that night Moss admitted that the nude look was totally unintentional: “I had no idea why everyone was so excited—in the darkness of Corinne [Day’s] Soho flat, the dress was not see-through!” That’s to say that nude dressing was usually mostly casual and not intellectualized in the context of a larger movement. But today nudity feels loaded in different ways. In April, actor and author Julia Fox appeared in Los Angeles in a flesh-colored bra that featured hairy hyper-realist prints of breasts and nipples, and matching panties with a print of a sewn-up vagina and the words “closed” on it, as a form of feminist performance art. Breasts , an exhibition curated by Carolina Pasti, recently opened as part of the 60th Venice Biennale at Palazzo Franchetti and showcases works that span from painting and sculpture to photography and film, reflecting on themes of motherhood, empowerment, sexuality, body image, and illness. The show features work by Cindy Sherman, Robert Mapplethorpe, Louise Bourgeois, and an incredible painting by Bernardino Del Signoraccio of Madonna dell’Umiltà, circa 1460-1540. “It was fundamental for me to include a Madonna Lactans from a historical perspective. In this intimate representation, the Virgin reveals one breast while nurturing the child, the organic gesture emphasizing the profound bond between mother and child,” Pasti said when we spoke. Through her portrayal of breasts, she delves into the delicate balance of strength and vulnerability within the female form. I spoke to Pasti about my recent musings on naked breasts, which she shared in a deep way. I asked her whether she too noticed a disparity between nudity on beaches as opposed to the one on streets and runways, and she agreed. Her main concern today is around censorship. To Pasti, social media is still far too rigid around breast exposure and she plans to discuss this issue through a podcast that she will be launching in September, together with other topics such as motherhood, breastfeeding, sexuality, and breast cancer awareness. With summer at the door, it was my turn to see just how much of the new reread on transparency would apply to beach life. In the last few years, I noticed those beaches Michele and I reminisced about have grown more conservative and, despite being the daughter of unrepentant nudists and having a long track record of militant topless bathing, I myself have felt a bit more shy lately. Perhaps a woman in her 40s with two children is simply less prone to taking her top off, but my memories of youth are populated by visions of bare-chested mothers surveilling the coasts and shouting after their kids in the water. So when did we stop? And why? When did Michele’s era of “un-beauty” end? In order to get back in touch with my own naked breasts I decided to revisit the nudist beaches of my youth to see what had changed. On a warm day in May, I researched some local topless beaches around Rome and asked a friend to come with me. Two moms, plus our four children, two girls and two boys of the same ages. “Let’s make an experiment of this and see what happens,” I proposed. The kids all yawned, but my friend was up for it. These days to go topless, especially on urban beaches, you must visit properties that have an unspoken nudist tradition. One of these in Rome is the natural reserve beach at Capocotta, south of Ostia, but I felt a bit unsure revisiting those sands. In my memory, the Roman nudist beaches often equated to encounters with promiscuous strangers behind the dunes. I didn’t want to expose the kids, so, being that I am now a wise adult, I went ahead and picked a compromise. I found a nude-friendly beach on the banks of the Farfa River, in the rolling Sabina hills. We piled into my friend’s car and drove out. The kids were all whining about the experiment. “We don’t want to see naked mums!” they complained. “Can’t you just lie and say you went to a nudist beach?” We parked the car and walked across the medieval fairy-tale woods until we reached the path that ran along the river. All around us were huge trees and gigantic leaves. It had rained a lot recently and the vegetation had grown incredibly. We walked past the remains of a Roman road. The colors all around were bright green, the sky almost fluorescent blue. The kids got sidetracked by the presence of frogs. According to the indications, the beach was about a mile up the river. Halfway down the path, we bumped into a couple of young guys in fanny packs. I scanned them for signs of quintessential nudist attitude, but realized I actually had no idea what that was. I asked if we were headed in the right direction to go to “the beach”. They nodded and gave us a sly smile, which I immediately interpreted as a judgment about us as mothers, and more generally about our age, but I was ready to vindicate bare breasts against ageism. We reached a small pebbled beach, secluded and bordered by a huge trunk that separated it from the path. A group of girls was there, sharing headphones and listening to music. To my dismay they were all wearing the tops and bottoms of their bikinis. One of them was in a full-piece bathing suit and shorts. “See, they are all wearing bathing suits. Please don’t be the weird mums who don’t.” At this point, it was a matter of principle. My friend and I decided to take our bathing suits off completely, if only for a moment, and jumped into the river. The boys stayed on the beach with full clothes and shoes on, horrified. The girls went in behind us with their bathing suits. “Are you happy now? my son asked. “Did you prove your point?” I didn’t really know what my point actually was. I think a part of me wanted to feel entitled to those long-gone decades of naturalism. Whether this was an instinct, or as Pasti said, “an act that was simply tied to the individual freedom of each woman”, it was hard to tell. At this point in history, the two things didn’t seem to cancel each other out—in fact, the opposite. Taking off a bathing suit, at least for my generation who never had to fight for it, had unexpectedly turned into a radical move and maybe I wanted to be part of the new discourse. Also, the chances of me going out in a fully sheer top were slim these days, but on the beach it was different. I would always fight for an authentic topless experience. After our picnic on the river, we left determined to make our way—and without children—to the beaches of Capocotta. In truth, no part of me actually felt very subversive doing something I had been doing my whole life, but it still felt good. Once a free breast, always a free breast. This article was originally published on British Vogue . More Great Living Stories From Vogue Meghan Markle Is Returning to Television Is Art Deco Interior Design Roaring Back Into Style? Kate Middleton and Prince William Share a Never-Before-Seen Wedding Picture Sofia Richie Grainge Has Given Birth to Her First Child—And the Name Is… The 10 Best Spas in the World Never miss a Vogue moment and get unlimited digital access for just $2 $1 per month. Vogue Daily By signing up you agree to our User Agreement (including the class action waiver and arbitration provisions ), our Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement and to receive marketing and account-related emails from Vogue. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Samantha Putterman, PolitiFact Samantha Putterman, PolitiFact Leave your feedback Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/fact-checking-warnings-from-democrats-about-project-2025-and-donald-trump Fact-checking warnings from Democrats about Project 2025 and Donald Trump This fact check originally appeared on PolitiFact . Project 2025 has a starring role in this week’s Democratic National Convention. And it was front and center on Night 1. WATCH: Hauling large copy of Project 2025, Michigan state Sen. McMorrow speaks at 2024 DNC “This is Project 2025,” Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, D-Royal Oak, said as she laid a hardbound copy of the 900-page document on the lectern. “Over the next four nights, you are going to hear a lot about what is in this 900-page document. Why? Because this is the Republican blueprint for a second Trump term.” Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, has warned Americans about “Trump’s Project 2025” agenda — even though former President Donald Trump doesn’t claim the conservative presidential transition document. “Donald Trump wants to take our country backward,” Harris said July 23 in Milwaukee. “He and his extreme Project 2025 agenda will weaken the middle class. Like, we know we got to take this seriously, and can you believe they put that thing in writing?” Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Harris’ running mate, has joined in on the talking point. “Don’t believe (Trump) when he’s playing dumb about this Project 2025. He knows exactly what it’ll do,” Walz said Aug. 9 in Glendale, Arizona. Trump’s campaign has worked to build distance from the project, which the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, led with contributions from dozens of conservative groups. Much of the plan calls for extensive executive-branch overhauls and draws on both long-standing conservative principles, such as tax cuts, and more recent culture war issues. It lays out recommendations for disbanding the Commerce and Education departments, eliminating certain climate protections and consolidating more power to the president. Project 2025 offers a sweeping vision for a Republican-led executive branch, and some of its policies mirror Trump’s 2024 agenda, But Harris and her presidential campaign have at times gone too far in describing what the project calls for and how closely the plans overlap with Trump’s campaign. PolitiFact researched Harris’ warnings about how the plan would affect reproductive rights, federal entitlement programs and education, just as we did for President Joe Biden’s Project 2025 rhetoric. Here’s what the project does and doesn’t call for, and how it squares with Trump’s positions. Are Trump and Project 2025 connected? To distance himself from Project 2025 amid the Democratic attacks, Trump wrote on Truth Social that he “knows nothing” about it and has “no idea” who is in charge of it. (CNN identified at least 140 former advisers from the Trump administration who have been involved.) The Heritage Foundation sought contributions from more than 100 conservative organizations for its policy vision for the next Republican presidency, which was published in 2023. Project 2025 is now winding down some of its policy operations, and director Paul Dans, a former Trump administration official, is stepping down, The Washington Post reported July 30. Trump campaign managers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita denounced the document. WATCH: A look at the Project 2025 plan to reshape government and Trump’s links to its authors However, Project 2025 contributors include a number of high-ranking officials from Trump’s first administration, including former White House adviser Peter Navarro and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson. A recently released recording of Russell Vought, a Project 2025 author and the former director of Trump’s Office of Management and Budget, showed Vought saying Trump’s “very supportive of what we do.” He said Trump was only distancing himself because Democrats were making a bogeyman out of the document. Project 2025 wouldn’t ban abortion outright, but would curtail access The Harris campaign shared a graphic on X that claimed “Trump’s Project 2025 plan for workers” would “go after birth control and ban abortion nationwide.” The plan doesn’t call to ban abortion nationwide, though its recommendations could curtail some contraceptives and limit abortion access. What’s known about Trump’s abortion agenda neither lines up with Harris’ description nor Project 2025’s wish list. Project 2025 says the Department of Health and Human Services Department should “return to being known as the Department of Life by explicitly rejecting the notion that abortion is health care.” It recommends that the Food and Drug Administration reverse its 2000 approval of mifepristone, the first pill taken in a two-drug regimen for a medication abortion. Medication is the most common form of abortion in the U.S. — accounting for around 63 percent in 2023. If mifepristone were to remain approved, Project 2025 recommends new rules, such as cutting its use from 10 weeks into pregnancy to seven. It would have to be provided to patients in person — part of the group’s efforts to limit access to the drug by mail. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a legal challenge to mifepristone’s FDA approval over procedural grounds. WATCH: Trump’s plans for health care and reproductive rights if he returns to White House The manual also calls for the Justice Department to enforce the 1873 Comstock Act on mifepristone, which bans the mailing of “obscene” materials. Abortion access supporters fear that a strict interpretation of the law could go further to ban mailing the materials used in procedural abortions, such as surgical instruments and equipment. The plan proposes withholding federal money from states that don’t report to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention how many abortions take place within their borders. The plan also would prohibit abortion providers, such as Planned Parenthood, from receiving Medicaid funds. It also calls for the Department of Health and Human Services to ensure that the training of medical professionals, including doctors and nurses, omits abortion training. The document says some forms of emergency contraception — particularly Ella, a pill that can be taken within five days of unprotected sex to prevent pregnancy — should be excluded from no-cost coverage. The Affordable Care Act requires most private health insurers to cover recommended preventive services, which involves a range of birth control methods, including emergency contraception. Trump has recently said states should decide abortion regulations and that he wouldn’t block access to contraceptives. Trump said during his June 27 debate with Biden that he wouldn’t ban mifepristone after the Supreme Court “approved” it. But the court rejected the lawsuit based on standing, not the case’s merits. He has not weighed in on the Comstock Act or said whether he supports it being used to block abortion medication, or other kinds of abortions. Project 2025 doesn’t call for cutting Social Security, but proposes some changes to Medicare “When you read (Project 2025),” Harris told a crowd July 23 in Wisconsin, “you will see, Donald Trump intends to cut Social Security and Medicare.” The Project 2025 document does not call for Social Security cuts. None of its 10 references to Social Security addresses plans for cutting the program. Harris also misleads about Trump’s Social Security views. In his earlier campaigns and before he was a politician, Trump said about a half-dozen times that he’s open to major overhauls of Social Security, including cuts and privatization. More recently, in a March 2024 CNBC interview, Trump said of entitlement programs such as Social Security, “There’s a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting.” However, he quickly walked that statement back, and his CNBC comment stands at odds with essentially everything else Trump has said during the 2024 presidential campaign. Trump’s campaign website says that not “a single penny” should be cut from Social Security. We rated Harris’ claim that Trump intends to cut Social Security Mostly False. Project 2025 does propose changes to Medicare, including making Medicare Advantage, the private insurance offering in Medicare, the “default” enrollment option. Unlike Original Medicare, Medicare Advantage plans have provider networks and can also require prior authorization, meaning that the plan can approve or deny certain services. Original Medicare plans don’t have prior authorization requirements. The manual also calls for repealing health policies enacted under Biden, such as the Inflation Reduction Act. The law enabled Medicare to negotiate with drugmakers for the first time in history, and recently resulted in an agreement with drug companies to lower the prices of 10 expensive prescriptions for Medicare enrollees. Trump, however, has said repeatedly during the 2024 presidential campaign that he will not cut Medicare. Project 2025 would eliminate the Education Department, which Trump supports The Harris campaign said Project 2025 would “eliminate the U.S. Department of Education” — and that’s accurate. Project 2025 says federal education policy “should be limited and, ultimately, the federal Department of Education should be eliminated.” The plan scales back the federal government’s role in education policy and devolves the functions that remain to other agencies. Aside from eliminating the department, the project also proposes scrapping the Biden administration’s Title IX revision, which prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. It also would let states opt out of federal education programs and calls for passing a federal parents’ bill of rights similar to ones passed in some Republican-led state legislatures. Republicans, including Trump, have pledged to close the department, which gained its status in 1979 within Democratic President Jimmy Carter’s presidential Cabinet. In one of his Agenda 47 policy videos, Trump promised to close the department and “to send all education work and needs back to the states.” Eliminating the department would have to go through Congress. What Project 2025, Trump would do on overtime pay In the graphic, the Harris campaign says Project 2025 allows “employers to stop paying workers for overtime work.” The plan doesn’t call for banning overtime wages. It recommends changes to some Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, regulations and to overtime rules. Some changes, if enacted, could result in some people losing overtime protections, experts told us. The document proposes that the Labor Department maintain an overtime threshold “that does not punish businesses in lower-cost regions (e.g., the southeast United States).” This threshold is the amount of money executive, administrative or professional employees need to make for an employer to exempt them from overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act. In 2019, the Trump’s administration finalized a rule that expanded overtime pay eligibility to most salaried workers earning less than about $35,568, which it said made about 1.3 million more workers eligible for overtime pay. The Trump-era threshold is high enough to cover most line workers in lower-cost regions, Project 2025 said. The Biden administration raised that threshold to $43,888 beginning July 1, and that will rise to $58,656 on Jan. 1, 2025. That would grant overtime eligibility to about 4 million workers, the Labor Department said. It’s unclear how many workers Project 2025’s proposal to return to the Trump-era overtime threshold in some parts of the country would affect, but experts said some would presumably lose the right to overtime wages. Other overtime proposals in Project 2025’s plan include allowing some workers to choose to accumulate paid time off instead of overtime pay, or to work more hours in one week and fewer in the next, rather than receive overtime. Trump’s past with overtime pay is complicated. In 2016, the Obama administration said it would raise the overtime to salaried workers earning less than $47,476 a year, about double the exemption level set in 2004 of $23,660 a year. But when a judge blocked the Obama rule, the Trump administration didn’t challenge the court ruling. Instead it set its own overtime threshold, which raised the amount, but by less than Obama. Support Provided By: Learn more Educate your inbox Subscribe to Here’s the Deal, our politics newsletter for analysis you won’t find anywhere else. Thank you. Please check your inbox to confirm. Cast & crew User reviews My Hero Academia: You're Next Izuku Midoriya, a U.A. High School student who aspires to be the best hero he can be, confronts the villain who imitates the hero he once admired. Izuku Midoriya, a U.A. High School student who aspires to be the best hero he can be, confronts the villain who imitates the hero he once admired. Izuku Midoriya, a U.A. High School student who aspires to be the best hero he can be, confronts the villain who imitates the hero he once admired. Tensai Okamura Yôsuke Kuroda Kôhei Horikoshi Kaito Ishikawa Kenta Miyake 1 User review Shoto Todoroki Giulio Gandini Anna Scervino Katsuki Bakugo Ochaco Uraraka Izuku Midoriya All cast & crew Production, box office & more at IMDbPro More like this Did you know Trivia This is the final My Hero Academia movie, as the manga ended a few days after the film's release. Connections Spin-off from My Hero Academia (2016) User reviews 1 October 11, 2024 (United States) Official website 我的英雄學院劇場版：You're Next See more company credits at IMDbPro $19,003,869 Technical specs Runtime 1 hour 50 minutes Related news Contribute to this page. See more gaps Learn more about contributing More to explore Recently viewed. 120 COMMENTS "Explanations" of Male Dominance Male dominance seems to them a universal, if not inevitable, phenomenon that has been with us since the dawn of our species. The essay... Paperback. Add to cart $24.95 $19.96. Predictably, sociobiologists assume a biological/genetic basis for the division of labour by sex, male dominance, and the double standard. Essay on Male Dominant Society High-quality essay on the topic of "Male Dominant Society" for students in schools and colleges. The origins of sexism: How men came to rule 12,000 years ago The origins of sexism: How men came to rule 12,000 years ago. Human societies weren't always male-dominated. The switch came when we became farmers - and that suggests ways to roll back ... A man's world? Not according to biology or history. The problem with this is, male domination isn't universal. There are many matrilineal societies—organized through mothers rather than fathers, with name and property passed from mother to ... Examining Male Dominance in Today's World and Its Potential ... In the pursuit of understanding the dynamics of power and gender, a recurrent topic of discussion is the alleged male dominance in the world and its potential continuation in the future. Autonomy and Male Dominance Domination is effective, at least in part, because dominant in- dividuals use coercion or the threat of coercion to maintain their control. This essay focuses in particular on male dominance. Male dominance is global. Evolutionary psychologist Filicia Pratto writes, "There are no human societies in which women dominate men. Essay On Male Dominated Society Essay On Male Dominated Society. 865 Words4 Pages. As history has shown from time to time and again, almost every society in this world has been and continuously be a male-dominated one, with only less number of exception of very few cultures who did not have male-domination. Even though social organizations did not look down upon women in the ... The Patriarchs Unlike the male domination seen among chimpanzees, bonobo communities are more egalitarian and it is mothers who confer status to and protect their young. Examining male dominance, its ambiguities, and costs What can we learn from gender studies in this area? While the forms of male dominance over women have been examined at length, few studies have considered the effort, concessions, and costs required to maintain a largely hegemonic social position. Men's Gender Norms and Gender-Hierarchy-Legitimizing Ideologies: The Gender Norms and the Prevalence of Gender-Hierarchy-Legitimizing Ideologies The norms defining traditional masculinity are hegemonic, meaning that they legitimize and uphold men's privileged status in society and male dominance over women and subordinated masculinities, such as gay and racialized men [19, 20]. Central to the definition of the traditional male identity is the antifemininity ... Men's Dominance Over Women in Today's World Essay Despite major advances in democratic, political, economic and social aspects of life, male dominance over women is still rampant the world over. It's a Man's World: The Effect of Traditional Masculinity on Gender This will involve analysing the entrenchment of traditional male stereotypes in society and their consequent impact on women. Firstly, the essay will establish that male stereotypes operate within a larger structure of the gender paradigm. Then, it will define gender equality and its various interpretations. (PDF) Male Dominance Male dominance is defined as the submission of the male to the will of the female. The male can be dominant in any way. This includes physical, emotional, mentally, and even spiritual. In addition ... Sexuality and Male Dominance Where feminists differ is over the importance accorded to sexuality in understanding women's oppression. For many radical feminists, sexuality is at the heart of male domination; it is seen as the primary means by which men control women and maintain their power over women in society generally (Dworkin, 1981; MacKinnon, 1982; Coveney et al ... Domination and Objectification: Men's Motivation for Dominance Over Abstract In the present research, we examined the association between heterosexual men's motivation for dominance over women and their sexual objectification of women. We found that men's social dominance orientation (SDO) correlated with their tendency to sexually objectify women (Study 1). Essay On Male Dominance Essay On Male Dominance. Every female has had at least one experience in her life where she has experienced some form of male dominance. Unfortunately, I have felt the brunt of male dominance more than once in my life. Male dominance in almost every aspect of life in American Society causes a lot of issues for women. Ending Male-Dominated Power Dynamics Underpinning Violence Ending Male-Dominated Power Dynamics Underpinning Violence, Discrimination, in Everyone's Interest, Secretary-General Tells Women's Commission Following are UN Secretary-General António Guterres' remarks for the opening of the Commission on the Status of Women, in New York today: The social origins of male dominance Writings in psychoanalytic theory and social science that discuss the basis of men's motive to dominate women are reviewed. Both men's fear and envy of women and men's tenuous masculine identity arise from the exclusive early mother-child tie. It is suggested that an important step in altering the development of the motive underlying male dominance would be to have men, as well as women, care ... Gender Equality: Male Dominance Term Paper The basic framework of the principle that male dominance is part of social institutions can be seen in the study of university students. In this particular study, researchers examined the sexual behavior of male and female students in a pre-sexual intercourse ritual. Male Dominance In Sport Essay Male Dominance In Sport Essay. Sport contributes to gender, race and class inequalities and not very much work has been done to resolve the problem (Messner 1989). Talbot (2002:282) identify the neglect of scholarly articles to address the issue of sexual and structural prejudices, as well as discrimination (in the form of media biases ... Male Dominance Essays: Examples, Topics, & Outlines View our collection of male dominance essays. Find inspiration for topics, titles, outlines, & craft impactful male dominance papers. Read our male dominance papers today! Free Essays on Male Dominance Uk essays on masculinity. in existence of culturally normative ideal of male behavior that is characterized by tendency for male dominance. Proponents of hegemonic masculinity theory argue that hegemonic masculinity is not necessarily the most dominant form of expression in male although it is the most socially endorsed; always... Save Paper; 6 ... Opinion First, I would have thought that by now liberals would be hesitant about proclaiming the special personal virtues of the male feminist, the enlightened pro-choice dude. Male Dominance Essays Male Dominance Essays and Term Papers. Jane Eyre Role Of Male Dominan ... This male dominance goes as far back as the human race, to the ... Save Paper - Premium Paper - Words: 2236 - Pages: 9: Jane Eyre: Role of Male Dominance Somewhere, The Dark Sheds Light "Never, never, never quit..." -Winston Churchill If women on this Earth had given up ... Complete female and male mitogenomes of the mucket mussel (Ortmanniana Data include fasta files of full mitochondrial sequence data for the male and female mitotypes of the mucket (Ortamannia ligamentina). These have been deposited in the NCBI database under BioSample Accession number SAMN39271813, SRA Accession number SRR27608898, and GenBank Accession numbers : PP103562 and PP103563. As a Teenager in Europe, I Went to Nudist Beaches All the Time. 30 Indeed, I felt the same way. My relationship with toplessness was part of a very democratic cultural status quo. If every woman on the beaches of the Mediterranean—from the sexy girls tanning on ... Fact-checking warnings from Democrats about Project 2025 and ... Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, has warned Americans about "Trump's Project 2025" agenda — even though former President Donald Trump doesn't claim the ... Kolkata doctor's rape case: Parents remember daughter who was ... The doctor's death has sparked a nation-wide conversation on violence against women in India The rape and murder of a trainee doctor in India's Kolkata city earlier this month has sparked ... 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