In Cultures Where Women Have A Lot of Power, Men Have A Lot Of Sex
The self-interested reason that men ought to support greater equality
There are many cultures in the world that strongly believe in the balance between men and women. In most of these, there are ostensible roles for each, although they very often aren’t strictly adhered to. The idea that one gender should rule another makes no sense to them because their societies operate by supporting and complementing each other, to mutual benefit.
For example, anthropologist Peggy Reeves Sanday says that among the Minangkabau of West Sumatra, “Neither male nor female rule is possible because of [their] belief that decision-making should be by consensus.” When she kept asking people which sex ruled, she was finally told that she was asking the wrong question.(1)
Although you might rightly say that men don’t rule women in the US, at least not in the same way that they did a mere 50 years ago, men still occupy most of the positions of power in government, industry, and society as a whole here. There are more Fortune 500 CEOs named John than there are women and despite some recent improvements in representation, there are no governmental bodies that even approach 50% women. By contrast, in 2017 in Rwanda, there were 49 women in the lower house of parliament, which is more than half of its 80 seats, and 10 women in the upper house of parliament consisting of 26 seats.
The current power discrepancy in the US is largely due to the fact that it really wasn’t very long ago that men were considered to be the overt leaders, in both society and the family. Other than Cornell, which was founded on the principle of inclusive education, no other Ivy League schools admitted women until well into the 1970s and Columbia only began admitting women in 1982. It was also the 1970s before major law firms would even interview women and 1978 before there was a law forbidding firing a woman for becoming pregnant (although this practice still continues in more subtle ways). Women couldn’t get a home loan or a credit card in their own name until the 70s either.
In contrast, in many of these other cultures that have a greater history of cooperation, men often appear to hold political power, but it is actually shared or is tempered in some other way. For example, property passes from mother to daughter among the Minangkabau, and it is considered to be the world’s largest matrilineal society, despite adhering in some other ways to more traditional Islamic tenets. Although they are not sexually promiscuous, it is still a culture that is in many ways kinder and gentler to men due to being a more cooperative rather than hierarchical society.
“While we in the West glorify male dominance and competition,” Sanday says, “the Minangkabau glorify their mythical Queen Mother and cooperation.” She reports that “males and females relate more like partners for the common good than like competitors ruled by egocentric self-interest,” and that as with bonobo social groups, women’s prestige increases with age and “accrues to those who promote good relations….” (2)
The Na (Mosuo) of China are very sexually liberated by Western standards and have what are euphemistically called “walking marriages”. Two people often form a type of de facto couple, but they never live together and it is only expected to last for as long as it makes the partners happy. Everyone lives in the house of their mother or grandmother and each individual’s autonomy is considered to be almost a sacred thing, with jealousy or possessiveness an unacceptable affront to that. If it is displayed, it is met with ridicule and scorn.
As travel writer, Cynthia Barnes, says about the Mosuo “Lugu Lake, I think, is not so much a kingdom of women as a kingdom of family — albeit one blessedly free of politicians and preachers extolling “family values.” There’s no such thing as a “broken home,” no sociologists wringing their hands over “single mothers,” no economic devastation or shame and stigma when parents part.” (3)
“As with bonobos, where female coalitions are the ultimate social authority and individual females need not fear the larger males, human societies in which women are “sassy and confident,” as Barnes described the Mosuo girls — free to express their minds and sexuality without fear of shame or persecution — tend to be far more comfortable places for most men than societies ruled by a male elite.” (4)
In his book, Anxious Pleasures: The Sexual Lives of an Amazonian People, anthropologist Thomas Gregor reports that on his most recent visit to the Mehinaku, “the thirty-seven adults were conducting approximately 88 extramarital affairs.” The figure is inexact, he tells us, because “opinions vary within the village as to who is having a genuine affair, and who is engaging in an occasional liaison.” After some back-of-the-envelope calculating, Gregor concludes, “The villagers’ taste for extramarital liaisons is limited primarily by social barriers, such as the incest taboo, and only secondarily by personal preference. In short, village men and women tend to have relations with each other unless they are specifically prohibited from doing so by the rules of their culture.”
Band hunter-gatherer tribes are not necessarily matrilineal, but they do often share power and decision-making in both overt and subtle ways. The more that the tribe hunts big game, the more power over women men in those tribes seem to have. But those who work together, such as the Agta tribes of the Philippines who hunt wild boar using dogs and the Juǀʼhoansi ǃKung, where women generally collect plant foods and water, providing 60%–80% of the group’s sustenance, while men hunt, have fairly egalitarian communities. The gender roles they have are not strict and people do all jobs as needed with little or no shame.
Societies where women have a lot of autonomy and share in authority tend to be very male-friendly, tolerant, relaxed, and sex-positive. This may have been overlooked in the past because it was just assumed that a culture full of happy, contented males means it is because they are wielding patriarchal power, even though this wasn’t the case. But all current matrilineal cultures, of which there are 6, are not reverse patriarchies, with social stratification that disadvantages men. Instead, they are cultures that believe in male/female balance and in the sharing of power and responsibilities.
And even for the cultures that are not matrilineal, if the well-being of the community is in the hands of the entire band or tribe, both men and women tend to consider themselves to be acting in support of each other and the larger group. Men in these communities are not stressed out from constant hierarchical competition, and they enjoy the benefits of living in more relaxed communities that quite often are more sexually free than patriarchal ones.
Men in traditionally patriarchal societies don’t seem to realize that having a culture based in domination and control, not just of women, but of anyone who might be vying for your social position, is detrimental to actual happiness and freedom. It’s the antithesis of sex-positive and helping to create a more open and cooperative society would actually benefit them on a variety of levels.
If US men want to have better lives and more sex, they should start making sure that women have more equal access to power, wealth, status, and autonomy. That is the secret sauce right there, as evidence by cultures around the world.
© 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.
(1) Ryan, Christopher. Sex at Dawn (pp. 149–150). Harper Perennial. Kindle Edition.
(2) http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-05/uop-imm050902.php.
(3) The Oldest Living Mosuo Woman Tells (Almost) All
(4) Ryan, Christopher. Sex at Dawn (p. 150). Harper Perennial. Kindle Edition.
