Comments on: Woman the Hunter?

By: Jane Derry

Jane Derry — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 01:13:43 +0000

I believe the book was called, Women; The Superior Sex.
Tianca

By: Jane Derry

Jane Derry — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 00:51:20 +0000

There was a very enlightening book I read in my Psychology class that talked about women being the stronger of the species of human. Can’t remember the name of the book right now, but it was chock full of historically backed up facts about men and women from all cultures back in history. It is a fact that women were made for the long run, men for strength and the short run. Women were proven out to be the primary hunters, and better at it, than men, because they are made that way. (This book was written by a man, by the way, and caused quite a stir at the time!)

Seems that throughout history the women would go out and hunt, and the men stayed home watching the kids. He ate the food, he didn’t hunt it. This is also proven out in wildlife! The women were in charge, always, of feeding the kids, so she hunted and gathered when she couldn’t hunt. Amazon women is only one example, he gave hundreds of examples of this. The women, if they wanted to eat, had to hunt, because the men didn’t or wouldn’t. That’s just how it was, and is, for that matter.

Point of fact; HOW MANY MEN ACTUALLY FEED THE KIDS NOW? Very few can claim to do this. Visit a grocery store and keep count of how many shoppers are women and men. The result will be that the women get the food, unless the man is single and taking care of the food himself. The rule now is, men won’t shop unless they absolutely have to. So the women do it. (using shopping for food as the modern form of ‘hunting’.)

If you will also notice, women do the cooking as well. There are some excellent male cooks, but usually only if they can make money at it. At home they let or make the women cook. That’s just how it is. I’m stating the facts, not trying to skew them to suit my purpose.

While we are at it, how many men actually clean up after the meal, or clean house, or watch the kids?

Women do it all, because throughout history we have had to. If we didn’t do it, it certainly didn’t get done!!! Men have made us strong by insisting it wasn’t their place to do this kind of work. Note the comment, the woman’s place is in the home, barefoot and pregnant, etc. THIS HAS MADE US STRONG.

So if the men want to blame someone because women are strong, they should look in the mirror! They made us strong, so don’t complain about it. Enjoy it!!

Tianca

By: Neil

Neil — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 16:40:13 +0000

The use of sticks as tools – to reach fruit on thin branches, or to attack rivals or predators – would provide evolutionary pressure for freeing the hands by developing bipedalism. The use of weapons in the nature of spears would also have facilitated venturing into the grasslands where predators would otherwise present extreme risks to tree-loving apes.

By: iratecat

iratecat — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 07:02:58 +0000

“Austrlain”?

By: QrazyQat

QrazyQat — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 20:46:14 +0000

I mean, those younger males that have been observed to do it, are they just going to quit using tools as they grow older? Why on Earth would they; wouldn’t that be just stupid?

You’ll have to ask the chimps “why?” but in fact this is what they tend to do with other forms of tool use. All forms of tool making and tool use by chimps are far more commonly done by females. The reason suggested by Linton, Tanner, and Zihlman was that females have more nutritional stress due to having and caring for kids, and that males just don’t have to use tools to get enough of the harder to get, generally higher fat, foods that tools are used to obtain. It’s a matter of why do it if you don’t have to? Trying to save time or be more productive, have more free time? To do what? Scratch more? Stop thinking like a western human and start thinking like a chimp.

By: Claud Bramblett

Claud Bramblett — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 17:59:58 +0000

I don’t know about Senegal, but in East Africa we would be as likely to find a poisonous snake as a galago in a tree hollow. It would be very adaptive to explore with a stick rather than a hand!

By: korax

korax — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 01:45:24 +0000

http://genetics.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371%2Fjournal.pgen.0030007 Human/Chimp split may have occured only 4 million yrs ago

By: Christian Conrad

Christian Conrad — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 00:05:24 +0000

This behaviour being so much less spread among adult males, the most conservative and least likely-to-change-their-ways individuals (Hey, our cousins the chimps are really so much like us, aren’t they?) would seem to indicate that this is something they — the species — have only recently learned; as in the last couple of years. I mean, those younger males that have been observed to do it, are they just going to quit using tools as they grow older? Why on Earth would they; wouldn’t that be just stupid?

And if they’ve only learned to use spears in the last couple of years, then the place they most likely learned it from is, from us, from Man. And given that they’ve had tens of thousands of years to do so already — years where one would have thought the likelihood of learning from us would be much greater than now, seeing as how we do so much less of our hunting-for-subsistence with spears nowadays — my guess is the specific people they learned from are anthro–oops, sorry, aperopologists deliberately trying to create the sensational news we are commenting on here.

(Yeah, so call me a cynic, be my guest.)

By: QrazyQat

QrazyQat — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 21:49:27 +0000

Duh, realised that much later; I was editing the latter part of the post and forgot to go back and stick the link in. Here's the link: Aquatic Ape Theory: Sink or Swim? This is my site on the "aquatic ape" idea.

By: Carl Zimmer

Carl Zimmer — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 04:54:34 +0000

Qrazy Qat: You said, “which I’ve documented here.” But there was no link.

By: QrazyQat

QrazyQat — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 01:23:32 +0000

In all that tiresome Man The Mighty Hunter stuff by Ardrey and Morris, to whatever degree some of it might be true, I don’t recall any mention of women being the logical inventors of weaving and pottery so they’d have some way of carrying all those roots and nuts…. Elaine Morgan has an interesting alternative and is a lot more fun to read.

Elaine Morgan alternative is BS for a variety of reasons (which I’ve documented here)

But there was actual, accurate, and interesting alternative, and it did change the way things were thought about (although the principles have never gotten the kind of credit I think they deserve). This discovery further cements the ideas of the “Woman the Gatherer” model regarding females and tool use. And idea, BTW, that dates back now 35 years, to Sally Linton’s paper with that title (she was a grad student at the time, I believe) and carried through the work (1974 and later) of Nancy Tanner and Adrienne Zihlman (who I see has been quoted re the story in some of the news pieces). BTW, the paper that got Sally Linton thinking was Richard Lee’s paper about the !Kung in the book, “Man the Hunter”. Sort of ironic, the title, but Lee’s paper was not male-biased stuff.

By: Doug

Doug — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 12:44:48 +0000

Herodotus writes of a nation of female warriors known as Amazons. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazons Although unlikely, perhaps this is a distinct species of chimpanzees as are bonobos. Chimpanzee http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimpanzee Bonobo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonobo