[AGTRT-BA1] What we can learn about masculinity and femininity from hunters and gatherers

Laurens Buijs
Amsterdam Gender Theory Research Team

This article first appeared on The Correspondent website on Nov. 16, 2021

Forget Mars, Venus and Jordan Peterson. Men also have a feminine side, and women also have a masculine side. Indeed, the science saying that we survived as a species precisely because of smaller gender differences and equal roles is increasingly convincing.

Structure of this blog

1. Introduction
2. No, nature does not just have sex for reproduction
3. No, not only men hunted, and not only women cared
4. Only when possession was introduced did humans want to possess
5. We need to acknowledge our androgynous core

1. Introduction

Last summer, 14-year-old Frédérique was abused by a group of peers. The reason: she did not want to answer the question of whether she is a boy or a girl. Barely two weeks later, 18-year-old Lars quit as a cashier at the Jumbo because his boss wouldn’t let him paint his nails. And less than a week after that, Amsterdam artist Rikkert van Huisstede received a storm of outrage on social media for wearing a dress while participating in De Slimste Mens.

More than ever, traditional ideas of masculinity and feminity are challenged. Gender and sexuality are increasingly seen as fluid. That this is considered sensitive in society is evidenced not only by the violence faced by people like Frédérique, Lars and Rikkert. It is also evidenced by a considerably polarized public debate on the topic. And that is a shame, because that limits all of us, even the majority who do not engage in this debate.

I went in search of the necessary nuance: what is the state of science when it comes to gender? More and more research shows that humans are at their core androgynous: every man is also feminine, and every woman is also masculine. That makes gender fluidity relevant to everyone, whether we ourselves are LGBT or cisgender heterosexual.

2. No, nature does not have sex only for reproduction

Early evolutionary theories are laced with traditional gender views. For example, Charles Darwin wrote in 1871, “The man is bolder, more combative and energetic than the woman, and he has a more inventive mind”.

Darwin’s theory was soon widely used to substantiate that heterosexuality is natural and normal. Reproductive success determined who survived. But over the years, evolutionary biologists have begun to see more and more cracks in traditional thinking about male and female.

In 1999, biologist Bruce Bagemihl criticized the heteronormative glasses through which biologists have traditionally viewed the animal kingdom. Mating behavior between two animals of the same sex has been frequently observed by peers for decades, but dismissed as a “mistake” or something that happened when conspecifics of the opposite sex were not available.

Bagemihl records exuberant sexuality and gender diversity in more than 450 species, which he charts in detail, through observations, photographs and drawings. According to him, the great sexual diversity in the animal kingdom is not an exception, but a fundamental part of evolution. This diversity creates the possibility for endlessly complex social connections and relationships.

Evolutionary biologist Joan Roughgarden also elaborates on Bagemihl’s argument in 2004. According to Roughgarden – a trans woman herself and inspired in her work by her personal experiences – Darwin’s idea of sexuality would revolve too much around procreation. Roughgarden observed that sexuality in animals often has a variety of social functions, such as bonding and communication through the exchange of physical pleasure. She therefore suggested replacing the concept of “sexual selection” with “social selection”.

Roughgarden initially received little acclaim. On the contrary, her colleagues undertook all sorts of attempts to falsify her theory. But after the tenth printing of her now widely cited book, the outlook is different. Although her concept of social selection is still not widely adopted, much less stereotypical assumptions are now made about male and female roles in sexual selection. Also, mating behavior between animals is no longer captured solely in terms of competition, and there is increasing attention to the importance of cooperation, altruism and empathy in animal sexual relationships (see also AGTRT-BA2).

Biologist Dennis Bramble publishes a landmark paper in Nature in 2004 on the survival of Homo sapiens on the African savannah. In this, he coins the “endurance running hypothesis.

The race hunting method requires complex cooperation between groups of hunters, with strategic division of roles, where everything comes down to endurance

What distinguishes humans and their ancestors from other primates, Bramble argues, is our ability to run: a hunting method in which prey animals are pursued for as long as necessary until they can be overpowered by exhaustion. This tactic requires complex cooperation between groups of hunters, with strategic role assignment, where everything comes down to endurance. According to Bramble, this hunting method was so central to our survival on the savanna that it left a distinct mark on our physiological development.

Humans used survival strategies for which both female and male bodies were equipped. Men and women grew toward each other in this evolutionary process: in humans, men are relatively smaller and more feminine than in, for example, the great ape species and neanderthals. In other words, smaller differences between the sexes promoted flexibility and cooperation. Not strength and selfishness, but endurance, agility and cooperation in equal social structures, this is how our species survived (see also AGTRT-BA2).

3. No, not only men hunted, and not only women cared

Discoveries are also being made in anthropology, primatology and archaeology that show the binary heteronorm in a different light. For example, archaeologist Randall Haas makes a groundbreaking discovery in 2018.

In Peru, Haas and his research team uncover the nine-thousand-year-old tomb of a hunter. And as it turns out, that hunter is not a man, but a woman. Extraordinary, because until then archaeologists assumed that men in prehistoric times were hunters and women were gatherers. According to recounts of previously found graves, 30 to 50 percent of big game hunters in the Americas would have been biologically female.

Primatologist Carel van Schaik and historian Kai Michel kicked things up a notch in 2020 in a fist-thick public book on the origins of gender inequality. They describe how the alpha monopoly collapsed once humans began living in large groups on the savannah. In the new large living communities, dominant men could no longer monopolize women. A more complex mating system emerged in which the care role of the males changed. Whereas men initially provided only the minimal care necessary to secure their mating opportunities (“male care as mating effort”), on the savannah, men increasingly began to care for their own children (“male care as parental effort”).

The importance of reproduction increasingly gave way to the importance of development. Children needed to be prepared for their roles in an increasingly complex society. There was more investment in interaction between young and old, in learning and education. The suckling and childhood phases of humans became longer. Reproduction rates that are already very low in our closest great apes compared to other animals went down even further in humans.

Humans simply could no longer afford for only mothers to take care of children: more help with parenting meant that the child could be off the breast faster and a new baby could arrive sooner. Not hunting, fire or language is now considered the most important explanation for early man’s survival success, but the communal way children were raised. Natural selection thus occurred on caring, cooperative men.

What we consider normal in modern society – a child grows up in a family with a working father and a caring mother – was anything but normal among hunter-gatherers. There, children were raised by groups of adults, in which men also played an important caring role. There was no question of an upbringing with separate male and female role models.

4. Only when possession was introduced did humans want to possess

As such, a highly agile and flexible human species emerged on the savannah 300,000 years ago. Developments in gender relations were decisive here. Whereas many other primates survived by hierarchy between male and female, the survival strategy of humans consisted of increasingly horizontal cooperation between male and female. In this evolutionary process, the genders grew toward each other. Men developed more and more feminine traits, and women developed more and more masculine traits. Humanity became androgynous: physically, socially and psychologically. But how do we get to these stereotypes that men and women are fundamentally different?

Twelve thousand years ago, agriculture was invented (see also AGTRT-BA3). Ownership (of land, houses, food, and so on) made its appearance, and with it inequality and power differentials. Food had to be defended, borders had to be guarded. And man was given a different relationship to his environment and his peers.

During this “neolithic revolution,” roles were increasingly divided along gender lines. Men took on the physical tasks, while women turned to caring and parenting. They no longer lived together in large mobile groups, but increasingly in small family settings with a father, a mother and children. Thus was born the nuclear family, and with it the heteronorm.

The philosopher Charles Eisenstein has pointed out that this transition to agrarian society did not only lead to the strict separation of masculinity and femininity. Contradictions began to grow in all sorts of fields.

Object and subject, man and woman, body and mind, good and bad: they used to be seen as one

To begin with, humanity came to see itself and his culture as separate from nature. That one was chaotic and unpredictable. Civilized humans wanted to elevate themselves above (and, in the process, subjugate nature).

According to philosopher Bruno Latour, because of this separation between nature and culture, modern humans no longer have a sense of our close relationships with the natural and material world. Within this detached thinking about humans and his environment, all sorts of other oppositions could take root: object and subject, man and woman, body and mind, good and bad. Things were split that before were seen as one.

Where humanity’s goal was to elevate itself culturally and subjugate nature, our androgynous core was split into two parts that came into conflict with each other. Masculinity became dominant, femininity became submissive. Behold the ancient cultural foundation of heteronormative and patriarchal society, which feminists managed to put a dent in only a hundred years ago.

This persistence is what philosopher Judith Butler calls the “heteronormative matrix”. Oppressive norms about gender and sexuality are so fundamental and natural in our society that we cannot imagine life outside of them.

According to her, however, the differences between men and women are not fixed in our nature, but in persistent social roles that we still perform in a variety of everyday situations. Here, according to Butler, also lies the possibility of escape from the matrix: where roles are performed, improvisation can take place.

5. We need to acknowledge our androgynous core

This tour of recent insights from various fields ends with the understanding that the duality between male and female, masculine and feminine, gay and straight is not an accomplished natural fact. The opposite is true: human beings exist by the grace of cooperation. And for that, humans have needed gender fluidity. Our women are also masculine, and our men are also feminine: in this androgyny lies our exceptional survival success. So now, in our society full of polarized debate, what should we do with these (re)discoveries?

Currently, there is an emerging emancipation movement fighting for a society that criticizes strict gender roles and demands acceptance for fluidity. The fledgling new emancipation movement has the potential to grow into a major social revolution with consequences for all of us. Also for the people who until now saw themselves as the unproblematic and normal majority in the debate about gender and sexuality: the cisgender and straight people.

This emancipation movement must therefore be about remembering our ancient history with androgyny, and rediscovering the fluid and androgynous core that every human being carries within them, regardless of gender, sexual orientation or gender identity.

This requires an individual healing process in which science can provide guidance. For example, the decades-old work of Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung is currently undergoing a renaissance. He saw humans as intrinsically androgynous, in psychic distress from growing up in a culture that splits the individual (see also AGTRT-BF20).

To heal, the man would have to extract his feminine side (his Anima) and the woman her masculine side (her Animus) from the subconscious and then integrate it into the personality. Working to integrate the androgynous inner world Jung called shadow work, and he detailed this tough and complex process (see AGTRT-BA7).

It is precisely Jordan Peterson, the great critic of the new developments around gender, who has played an important role in popularizing Jung’s work and stirring up new enthusiasm about his mystical psychology. Is there not a golden opportunity here to counteract further polarization, by joining the very movement that Peterson started, and giving it a different direction? Jung’s work on shadow work and alchemy shows par excellence how toxic masculinity can be addressed, and how we can all find our way to an integrated androgynous inner world.

But beyond individual journeys of discovery, society as a whole has quite a bit of remedial work to do. That the debate between the often young advocates of gender fluidity and supporters of the status quo is conducted on the cutting edge does not help. Indeed, it is a waste if this agenda is formulated too narrowly. For example, the movement should not just be about recognizing new minority groups, such as non-binary people and pansexuals. Nor should it merely be about working out a new gender-neutral language, such as the gender pronouns they/them/their.

Too narrow a focus quickly leads to empty identity politics, and to alienation from the majority. Nor are recent insights about androgyny an attack on the gender distinction, or denying the fact that heterosexuals and cisgender people are in the majority. So it is important to emphasize to the majority that the movement is not coming to “take away” anything, but only to add something. Androgyny thrives best in mutual equality and in horizontal social structures.

Thus, addressing the vast material inequality on earth and protecting and building our fragile democracies are essential. This concerns us all, especially the majority who think they have nothing to do with this discussion (and feel alienated from it more than once by the focus on pronouns and forms of address). Before us all lies the task of healing the cleavages caused by 12,000 years of patriarchal oppression (see also AGTRT-BA4).

A nice final scientific hold for this brings us back to the hunter-gatherers after all. In their book The Dawn of Everything, the recently deceased anthropologist David Graeber and archaeologist David Wengrow turn the history of our ancestors on its head, convincingly showing that hunter-gatherers were anything but primitive. They were able to govern complex settlements and even sophisticated cities democratically and without top-down institutions. They too were already settling on a much larger scale than thought. They too knew the secrets of agriculture, but chose to apply it more modestly and to remain committed to equality with each other, and balance with nature.

Of course, now, in the anthropocene, we face different challenges than the hunter-gatherers. But they managed to overcome similar challenges millennials faced in many ways. Their secret? Giving all space to the intrinsically androgynous core of man. This makes us optimally agile and innovative. That secret is now again within our grasp.