Does Violence Against Women Have A Biological Foundation?

Or is it a function of living in a patriarchal dominance hierarchy?

It was recently suggested to me in the comments of one of my other stories that violence against women has origins related to mating instincts. “All cultural narratives have a biological basis,” said the commenter, a woman. First of all, I don’t think that's so, and although sexual coercion and forced mating do take place in the animal kingdom, I’m still not sold on that notion for humans. Here’s why:

We’ve only had patriarchal societies for the past 10 thousand years or less. Before that most cultures were matrilineal, meaning that family line was traced through mothers and not fathers. Of course, men want to perpetuate their genes and that reproductive drive is an extremely strong one. In fact, human penises are shaped so as to displace any other sperm that might be in a woman’s vaginal tract, where it would otherwise remain viable for up to 48 hours. But does that automatically translate to a desire to perpetuate one's genetics to the extent that a man would resort to violent acts such as rape? And does other violence against women stem from that desire to control the reproductive process? I don’t believe so.

Prior to about 10K years ago, humans lived in fairly egalitarian tribes and communities where this kind of aggressive behavior that we currently have in our society was not tolerated. Although access to mates/women is one of the biggest causes of violence in current hunter-gatherer societies in modern times, many of these tribes have an active reverse hierarchy that is designed to keep disruptive people/men in check. Problematic or overly aggressive men are shamed, banished and in extreme cases even executed. The family of the condemned is often the one to undertake the execution. This keeps balance and harmony in the tribe.

One highly unusual expression of this flexibility occurs in egalitarian societies (Boehm 1993). There individuals who otherwise would be subordinated are clever enough to form a large and united political coalition, and they do so for the express purpose of keeping the strong from dominating the weak. Because the united subordinates are constantly putting down the more assertive alpha types in their midst, egalitarianism is in effect a bizarre type of political hierarchy: the weak combine forces to actively dominate the strong. My thesis is that they must continue such domination if they are to remain autonomous and equal, and prehistorically we shall see that they appear to have done so very predictably as long as hunting bands remained mobile.

Boehm, Christopher (1999–11–30T22:58:59). Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior . Harvard University Press. Kindle Edition.

Boehm is the current head of the Jane Goodall Research Center and has compared our behavior to our primate cousins. In Hierarchy in the Forest he noted that the great apes with which we share a common ancestor are notably hierarchical. “But before twelve-thousand years ago, humans basically were egalitarian (Knauft 1991). They lived in what might be called societies of equals, with minimal political centralization, and no social classes.”

Based on our largely peaceful and egalitarian past up until 12K years ago, and what we know about the importance of social connection in all mammals, not just humans, I see current male predatory behavior as being primarily sociological in nature — a function of living in a dominance-based hierarchy such as patriarchy where men, in particular, must always be jousting for position in a pecking order and performing masculinity.

We have modern societies that are not patriarchal, and aside from many of them being matrilineal, they also have far less social stratification, which is a fundamental aspect of patriarchy. Their outlook on fatherhood and the importance of men contributing to and providing only for their biological descendants is very different. This indicates to me that a strictly Darwinian explanation is insufficient.

Partible paternity, where a woman mates with several men, who are then all considered partial fathers of the offspring, still takes place in lowland South America. “Among the Bari of Venezuela, many women, but not all, take lovers during their pregnancy. They later identify these men as secondary fathers of their children. In this case, “possession of a secondary father was associated with a heightened probability that a pregnancy would eventually produce an adult Bari individual.”

We also have several contemporary matrilineal societies, and in the case of the Na of China, fatherhood is essentially irrelevant. All children are raised in the homes of their mother’s matriarch (mother or grandmother) and they might not even know who their biological father is. Men help to raise the children of their sisters and cousins. This culture is over 2,000 years old, but it does not make any sense according to the theory that men will not waste resources on the offspring of genetic competitors. And yet men do that all the time — all over the world.

So to recap, for most of human history, we had social structures that actively held in check any aggressive male instincts (the kind of checks we still see in modern hunter-gatherers). And we also have modern matrilineal societies where men are valued as partners but do not have primacy, where the foundation of the society is not geared around them and their paternity is sometimes even considered irrelevant. And then we have cultures like the Bari where several men are considered to be the fathers of a child.

The biological drive to pass on your genes at any cost, even a violent one, are not born out in most human societies throughout history. Reproduction is undoubtedly a powerful drive, but if it were biologically a violently driven one, such a thing has largely been successfully suppressed for 97% of human history. And it continues to be suppressed in cultures that do not condone it. On the other hand, patriarchy is built around coercion, control, and inducing fear. It seems infinitely more logical to me that pervasive violence against women, including rape, is overwhelmingly a social problem.

© Copyright Elle Beau 2020 Elle Beau writes on Medium about sex, life, relationships, society, anthropology, spirituality, and love. If this story is appearing anywhere other than Medium.com, it appears without my consent and has been stolen.