Inherent War Between the Sexes.

[timeparticle]

We may speak of love between men and women, often. But what about hate and anger?

Most of us might agree that at some level there is a war going on between men and women, even at subtle levels. This war is not just battle of wits, but a battle for dominance. This war is inherent in all of us. It may be covert, and suppressed, but it seems to be part of our interaction with each other. It is our base point for dominating the other.

The war isn't bad, it just is...

What would happen if the war escalated, though? What might happen if the world of men toppled from imbalance and disease? Would women become biologically dominant? What if they became taller and stronger than men through a great and somewhat sudden biological shift due to the need for human survival? Could women take over? Could men handle it?

If this biological shift took place, would the war between the sexes continue? Would men fight to reclaim their position as the dominant force in the culture?

This is the study of the war between men and women... revisited....

[timeparticle]

Sometimes fighting between men and women can be fun and entertaining. Many science fiction and fantasy stories are of a strong female figure saving mankind from great evil.

What sort of disaster to the human race would have to happen for such a biological shift to occur? Has a shift in dominance between the sexes occurred in other species?

Does the pendulum swing back and forth over thousands of years shifting the dominant roles, creating a balance in nature that is not revealed to us, yet?

[timeparticle]

The Bonobos may have had a biological shift in favor of the females of that species..

The Bonobos, sometimes called pygmy chimpanzees, have been promoted as having a peaceful, matriarchal society.

This finding, whether true or not, has been used to argue for significant changes to human society.

On the bonobo theme, the following is from an article in the New Zealand Listener, March 22 1997, pp.28-29

...

1. Recent scientific developments prove beyond reasonable doubt that man came from the same ancestor as the other apes.

2. The societies of chimpanzees (to whom we are extremely closely genetically linked) and other apes suffer from demonic male violence.

3. Human males perform many of the same demonic, violent acts as chimpanzees.

4. Bonobo apes have expunged male violence from their society.

5. They have been able to do this because the females bond with each other and the males do not co-operate with each other.

6. Had humans developed from bonobos instead of an earlier primate, there would be no demonic males.

7. The only hope for humans to rid themselves of demonic violence is to hand over power to women.

The term "demonic males" is used in the title of a book, Richard Wrangham and Dale Peterson (1996) Demonic males : apes and the origins of human violence, Boston : Houghton Mifflin. The book aims to show that bonobos are different from other apes (including humans), presenting them as some sort of ideal:

Bonobos ... offer a vision of animals unlike any that we have been familiar with in the past. They have evolved ways to reduce violence that permeate their entire society.

... a strange species that wasn't even known seventy years ago and wasn't watched until twenty-two years ago.

The authors' observations are value-loaded and possibly coloured by their favourable opinion.

They describe bonobo behaviour as follows:

On female-female alliances which appear to be used to prevent dominance by the larger males:

... the bonds among females come not from kinship but from experience. In other words, the newly arrived adolescent must work to develop her support network ... What do her friendly interactions with the senior female consist of? Partly it's the ordinary social life of primates, sitting close and grooming each other. But in addition ... she has sex with the older female ... It looks as though the adolescent's development of a bond with a senior female is her passport into a network of support and security.

[Among bonobos] The possessor of the food was almost always an adult female. Bystanders surrounded her, some begging by stretching out a hand or touching her mouth. Males would display in the vicinity by breaking off branches and charging about, or they would hang about at the edge of feeding clusters. They would be nice to the young, all of whom had free access to the food. Not permitted to enter the cluster themselves, the males could do little aside from steal scraps from the infants ... The image of female-controlled food distribution with waiting and "parasitizing" males at the margin is dramatically different from the typical feeding clusters of chimpanzees, in which an adult male holds an animal carcass while others beg for a portion. Chimpanzee possessors share both with their fellow hunters, usually other males, and with females."

The bonobos have an abundant food source and no major enemies besides man. As a result, they have not had to rely on males for hunting and defence. It has therefore been possible for females to attain a more dominant position. They have done this through banding together against the males, using force where necessary. They have a firmly set hierarchy, resulting in few challenges. Sex is used to create and identify alliances, possibly as suggested in some human prison populations. Care for the young of others is possibly more in deference to the status of the mother than from concern for the young.

If this contains a relevant lesson for humans, it might be that a secure society in apparent plenty may be more susceptible to female domination. The end result may be a rigid society, more closely representing a totalitarian state than a democracy which can accommodate dissent and change. Those of lower status may be tolerated on the fringes of the society, and controlled, sometimes violently, by group pressure if they attempt to assert themselves.

However, it may be that a bonobo community is only viable for small populations. Also, information on human lesbian couples does not support the hypothesis that human female relationships will be peaceful.

[labelwench]

From the pages of history:
Amazons
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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For other uses, see Amazon (disambiguation).

Amazon preparing for the battle (Queen Antiope or Armed Venus), by Pierre-Eugène-Emile Hébert 1860 (National Gallery of Art, Washington DC)The Amazons , Ἀμαζόνες) are a nation of all-female warriors in Classical and Greek mythology, who were possibly historical.[1] Herodotus placed them in a region bordering Scythia in Sarmatia. Notable queens of the Amazons are Penthesilea, who participated in the Trojan War, and her sister Hippolyta, whose magical girdle was the object of one of the labours of Hercules. Amazonian raiders were often depicted in battle with Greek warriors in amazonomachies in classical art.

In Roman era historiography, there are various accounts of Amazon raids in Asia Minor. The Amazons become associated with various historical peoples throughout Late Antiquity. From the Early Modern period, their name has become a term for woman warriors in general.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazons

The link goes to the rest of the article and references.

An interesting topic, Timeparticle. Did you make any sidebets on how long it would take Labelwench to arrive?

[RascalPuff]

The Original Amazon Warrior Women
The so called ‘legend’ of the Amazon Woman Warriors does in fact originate in Central Asia and the Balkan/Ukraine steppes with some of the Cimmerian (not to be confused with ‘Sumerian’), Sarmatian and Parthian women volunteers who mastered warrior skills and chose to make military expeditions with their warrior husbands and/or brothers and fathers. Female warriors sometimes removed their right or left (internal) breast (by way of a scorching technique) to facilitate unrestricted archery skills, the alternative depending on whether the archer was right or left handed. Only one thing is more important to a horse archer than a composite bow with arrows, and that is his - or her - horse(s).

One out of three Scythian women’s burial tombs reveal that they were combat blooded horse warriors along with all able bodied Scythian men.
Let it be importantly noted here also, that female combat warriors are relatively rare otherwise, throughout all of known history; because it is the generalized duty of male warriors to serve and protect their women and children from war, and not employ them in or deliberately expose them to it, when not absolutely required to do otherwise. Obvious modern exceptions include Vietnam’s struggle for independence from China, Japan, France and the United States, as well as Israeli and Palestinian army requirements; due in each case of the military recruitment of women, to limited available manpower resources.

Women are not men. Witness the wisdom of their separation from men’s brute force competitions, in most competitive Olympic sports. The chemistry of male testesterone and female estrogen has much to do with it. To expect women to generally equal men in contests of brute force is to generally expect men to birth children for women. Today’s society is shot through and through with misunderstandings on the difference between male and female powers, effecting the continued oppression and disadvantage of women by men. Often in the name of so called ‘female liberation’.

‘The battle of the sexes’ is a brute force term invented and popularized by amok men and the women who are surrendered to them; foreordaining a conflict started by men: fought, won and lost by women, in five non-sequiturial words (‘The Battle Of The Sexes’)...

Excerpted from 'Nomads, Civilization & War': The Hinges of History
http://forums.delphiforums.com/subedai

[timeparticle]

An interesting topic, Timeparticle. Did you make any sidebets on how long it would take Labelwench to arrive?

I wondered what took you so long...

[Profpat]

ON and ON

[labelwench]

I wondered what took you so long...
__________________
Time uncovered brings new insights.

I hope you didn't lose too much money on your wager, my friend. Night shift, good sir. LW burns the midnight oil Friday through Monday. (Graveyard shift works on the 24 hour clock, Friday starts at 01:00 hrs.) That, and I wanted to discuss the topic with my peer review group at work.

One gentleman raised an interesting point:

Many young women of today are acting much more like men.

Competitive for employment opportunities.

Increasingly reluctant to commit to relationships.

Physical violence and the taking of life is more frequent.

What are you experiencing in your communities and countries?

Regards,

Labelwench

[labelwench]

She offered her Honour,

He honoured her offer,

And all night long

It was Honour and Offer.

[timeparticle]

[SIZE=4][U]
‘The battle of the sexes’ is a brute force term invented and popularized by amok men and the women who are surrendered to them; foreordaining a conflict started by men: fought, won and lost by women, in five non-sequiturial words (‘The Battle Of The Sexes’)...

Excerpted from 'Nomads, Civilization & War': The Hinges of History
http://forums.delphiforums.com/subedai

In my understanding, RP, is that it goes much deeper than that. The "War", not merely a battle, between the sexes is fought everyday amongst ourselves. We hide it, suppress it, covert it, not is it, ignore it, and pretend it's absent. We want sex, and we will put up with the war, to get it. One doesn't even need to be married to see it, although marriage is a never ending event of battle choice.

It's not that we oppose each other because of our differences, but because there is an inherent purpose to war. This war will only subside when a certain outcome is achieved. The war is fiery and hot, and like violent sex, it's repulsive and intoxicating, scary and erotic at the same time. One would have to have rock hard cold feelings not to be aware of it.

This biological shift, I refer to, will affect the most basic biological characteristics of our bodies... even the male and female hormone effects will alter. Testosterone will still be functioning in men, but with different affects on muscular size and strength.

Such a shift would only occur if the human race were in peril, dire peril. Species in the past have taken on new attributes to promote it's survival when under duress. The scenario I refer to would incorporate an extreme failure of men leading the human race to extinction. This would promote a biological shift away from the previous, failed way, to a new more productive way.

So, one cannot utilize the old models of the biology of men and women to predict the new models, after the shift. The Olympics may have a different look....