A Girl’s Place in the World
Worth mentioning here is the way in which the boy’s plight differs from the girl’s in almost every known society. Whatever the arrangements in regard to descent or ownership of property…the prestige values always attach to the occupations of men. —Margaret Mead, Sex and Temperament in Three
On the Nature of Patriarchy
By their very nature, it is said, women are the source of nearly all discord and litigation within the community. Through their ceaseless enticements to adultery, their notorious insensitivity to the sensible commands of father, husband, and brother, and their mindless passion for gossip and intrigue—in these and countless
Burying a Child
But looking back, always the spirit of joyousness rises before me as her emblem and characteristic: she seemed formed to live a life of happiness: her spirits were always held in check by her sensitiveness lest she should displease those she loved, & her tender love was never weary of
Explaining Monogamy to Vox
In the first episode of their new Netflix series, entitled Explained, the folks over at Vox set out to explain monogamy. Or at least, that is what the title (“Monogamy, Explained”) appeared to promise. But by the time it was over, very little seemed to have been explained. The central
The Complicated Legacy of Colonial Contact
“There is…no simple progression from “traditional” to “modern,” but a twisting, spasmodic, unmethodical movement which turns as often toward repossessing the emotions of the past as disowning them.” – Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures, 1973 Intercultural contact can be quite precarious. Interactions between different populations with diverse languages, cultural
Becoming a Man
“In the puberty rites, the novices are made aware of the sacred value of food and assume the adult condition; that is, they no longer depend on their mothers and on the labor of others for nourishment. Initiation, then, is equivalent to a revelation of the sacred, of death, sexuality,
The Behavioral Ecology of Male Violence
“Aggressive competition for access to mates is much more beneficial for human males than for females…” ~Georgiev et al. 1 Cranial remains of an individual likely killed through interpersonal violence 430,000 years ago. From ‘Lethal Interpersonal Violence in the Middle Pleistocene’ by Sala et al. PLOS One (2015). Understanding
Romanticizing the Hunter-Gatherer
O Man, to whatever country you belong and whatever your opinions, listen: here is your history as I believe I have read it, not in the books of your fellow men who are liars but in Nature which never lies. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, A Discourse on Inequality In 1966, at the
