Inevitability of Patriarchy - Why The Biological Difference Between Men and Women Always Produces Male Domination by Steven Goldberg

INEVITABILITY OF
MX
the biological
difference between
men and women always
produces male domination
BY STEVEN GOLDBERG
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$6.95
THE INEVITABILITY OF
PATRIARCHY
by Steven Goldberg
m
This intricate, rigorously reasoned, inevitably
controversial book advances the theory that
because of human physiology, males always
have dominated, still do dominate, and always
will dominate in their relationships with
women, and in society at large.
in the family,
While other works have assumed that biology
is relevant to sexually differentiated institu-
tions, this is the first that attempts to demon-

strate why and how sexual physiology sets
limitations on social possibility. Beginning with

a simple biological fact —
a difference between
the male and female hormonal systems Steven —
Goldberg develops a theory that demonstrates
why this biological difference is, and must be,
manifested in social life and why every society
associates leadership and high-status roles with
males, why every society associates authority
in male-female relationships with males, and
why socialization always conforms to this.
Steven Goldberg, who teaches sociology at
the City College of New York, draws upon ex-
tensive knowledge of his own discipline as well
as of biology, anthropology, and, among other
things, feminist literature to present a theory
that is as provocative as it is difficult to refute.
He is not, however, a polemicist for a certain

(continued on back flap)
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WILLIAM MORROW & COMPANY, INC.

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The
INEVITABILITY
of
PATRIARCHY
by Steven Goldberg
William Morrow & Company, Inc.
New York 1973

Copyright © 1973 by Steven Goldberg
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced

or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechani-
cal, including photocopying, recording or by any information
storage and retrieval system, without permission in writ-
ing from the Publisher. Inquiries should be addressed to
William Morrow and Company, Inc., 105 Madison Ave.,
New York, N.Y. 10016.
Printed in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 73-7385
ISBN 0-688-00175-0
1 2 3 4 5 77 76 75 74 73
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Preface
Perhaps any preface is, by its nature, superfluous. Certainly

the points I make in this preface will be seen as self-evident
by those readers whose vocation or avocation has brought them
in constant contact with theory. However, while it is to such
readers that this book is primarily addressed, I suspect that the

nature of the subject matter is such that it will be read by a
number of other readers who do not usually find theory re-
warding enough to justify the energies that must be expended
if one is to follow the line of reasoning invoked and the
documentation such reasoning necessitates. It is to these read-
ers that this preface is addressed.
This work is a theory. A theory, which for our purposes
we may define as a systematic network of interconnected hy-
potheses that offer a general explanation of specific observa-
tions, is at once the most vulnerable and the most persuasive
of all types of explanation. Both a theory's vulnerability and
its persuasiveness are derived from theory's three components
of logical integrity, observation, and relevance to the elements
of reality that the theory claims to explain. Since the one most
sacred precept of science is that nature is never illogical, and
since a theory is a scientific explanation of nature, one need
only demonstrate that a given theory contains fallacious rea-
soning and he has, ipso facto, destroyed the theory. Since a
theory's basic purpose is to explain reality, one need only
demonstrate that a given theory misrepresents observations or
presents inaccurate or subjectively selected facts and he has,
ipso facto, destroyed the theory. If one cannot demonstrate
Preface
that a given theory contains fallacy or that it misrepresents

reality, he can nonetheless severely damage the ability of the
theory to persuade by demonstrating that the theory makes

predictions, either explicitly or implicitly, that observation
demonstrates to be incorrect. And even if he cannot do this,
still he can severely weaken a theory's ability to persuade by

demonstrating that an alternative theory that explains the
same observations, the same elements of reality, has an equal
probability of correctness.
A theory is vulnerable for all these reasons, and it is
persuasive, when it survives these challenges, for the same

reasons. If a theory maintains its logical integrity, if it is
accurate in its presentation of observation and factual state-

ment, if it makes no prediction that proves incorrect, and if
it is the only available or most reasonable logical explanation

of the reality it claims to explain, then it must take prece-
dence over any available alternative theory. Even under these
conditions the theory has not been proven correct —no theory
is ever proven correct —but its probability of correctness must
be acknowledged to be greater than that of the less reasonable
theory, far greater than that of the theory that is based on
false observation or inaccurate factual statements, and infi-
nitely greater than that of the theory that is internally illogical

or that makes incorrect predictions (and which, therefore,
could not be correct).
The theorist's position is a particularly vulnerable one be-
cause he must lay all his cards on the table; his position is
particularly persuasive because, if his cards are the highest on

the table, no external factor, no attempt to bluff through a
weak hand with a show of strong conviction, can enable a
weaker position to succeed when a stronger position exists.
Perhaps every reader will agree with all of this in the ab-
stract, but we all have a way of denying in the reality what
we acknowledge in the abstract when the abstract truth con-
flicts with wish. I write all of this because I am well aware
Preface
that this theory reaches conclusions that many readers will

find most unpalatable. I have taken great care to make ex-
plicit all of the facts and observations that underpin the

theory presented here, and the reasoning that binds these.
If I have been selective or inaccurate or if my reasoning is
faulty, if I have ignored some society whose institutions would

cast doubt on the theory presented here or if such a society
should come to exist, then the theory presented here is worth-
less. But if the reader agrees to examine the evidence I pre-
sent, much of which I suspect he will find surprising and,
I hope, interesting, if he agrees to follow the reasoning I
invoke until he uncovers a fallacy of any sort, then I would

hope that he would weigh this theory against all the alterna-
tive theories that attempt to explain the same elements of

reality. I believe I can demonstrate that all alternative theo-
ries are either internally contradictory or disprovable with
the evidence provided by anthropological investigation. But
even if the reader finds in favor of one of the alternative
theories he will be far better off for having done so on the
grounds discussed here than he is if he accepts the alternative
theory merely on the basis of its ability to provide psycho-
logical or ideological rationalization.
As long as I am presuming to suggest the way in which

this book should be approached, I might make an additional
point: No doubt the tone of this book will strike some
readers as being exceedingly strong. The tone is strong, cer-
tainly stronger than one finds in most scholarly writing and
even stronger than one usually finds in theoretical essays
(though there is a tradition of reasoned passion in such es-
says). It is important, therefore, to emphasize that I invoke
this tone only when I focus on either logical contradiction or
a misrepresentation of empirical data that could not possibly
be defended as being merely alternative interpretation. In

scholarly writing there is, of course, much disagreement, but
such disagreement is derived from differing paradigms and
Preface
differing interpretation; rarely does one find logical contra-
diction (which in itself disproves the analysis to which it is
central) or a presentation of evidence that is blatantly dis-

honest. I hope that the reader will note that I reserve the
strong tone for such contradiction and dishonesty in the al-
ternative theories I discuss. Tempting as it would be to expose
the inadequacy of the innumerable peripheral and theoret-

ically unnecessary fallacies, misstatements, and excesses that
invariably marble presentation of theory grounded in ide-
ology, I discuss only the central assumptions on which the

theories I criticize are founded. Nature makes a deal with
the theorist; she'll give you a lift only if you'll go her way.
I cannot see how any theorist can react to an attempt to deny
this deal, an attempt to invoke illogic in the service of the
good, with a tone any less strong than that which I invoke.
Lastly, I should mention that it will become clear to the
reader that the word "inevitability" is used in the title of
this book in the everyday sense ("It is an inevitability that
there will always be leaders and followers") and not in the
rigid (though, strictly speaking, correct) deductive sense

("It is an inevitability that in our mathematical system two
plus two will always equal four").
10
Acknowledgments
This work would not exist were it not for the aid and advice of a
great number of individuals, who are, unfortunately, too numerous
to acknowledge individually. A few who were particularly helpful
on questions concerning current biological research are mentioned

in the introduction to Chapter Three. In addition to these scholars
I am particularly grateful to the following:

Elizabeth Mayers, Alan Goldberg, Lorin and Margo Hollander,
and Pamela Joseph for aid and support at every stage but mostly
for their being Liz and Alan and Lorin and Margo and Pam.
Jack Winter, Helen Hacker, and Alice Harris for devoting
more time than I had a right to ask for in offering point-by-point
criticisms of this entire book. As is the case with the other indi-
viduals acknowledged here, these three disagreed at many points
with my analysis, and it should not be inferred that they neces-
sarily agree with any specific point or conclusion.
Ibti Arafat, Michael Cooperstein, Joan Downs, Paul Filmer,
Ann Graham, Helen Hans, Hilary Harding, Ian Joseph, Emily
Levine, Michael Mayers, Fay Robin, and Graham Whitehead for
the conversation that often proved the most fertile soil for new
ideas.
Peter Carstens, Lewis Feuer, Irving Howe, Noel Iverson, Irving

Kristol, Robert Martinson, Douglas Pullman, Edward Sagarin,
Charles Winick, and Betty Yorburg for aid, encouragement, and
helpful suggestions.
Rabbi Robert Gordis for his rendering of my dedicatory line,
"May the answer to the final question lead him finally home to
peace."
James Landis of William Morrow for courage and reason in an
industry not noted for these qualities.
Steven Goldberg
New York, 1972
11
—
Contents
Preface
PARTI
Section One:
Preliminary Anthropological
and Biological Considerations 21
Chapter One: A Question and Some Ground Rules 23

The Question of Male and Female — Superiority and
Inferiority
Chapter Two : Anthropology and the Limits of Societal

Variation 29
Mode of Investigation —The Universality of Patri-
archy —MaleDominance Defined and Discovered

The Male Dominance Male Attain-
Universality of —
ment of High-Status Roles and Positions Two Hy- —
potheses Tested —
The Feminist Assumption The —
Evolutionary Fallacy —The "Prehistoric Matriarchies"
and the "Amazons" —The Meaning of Universality
The Relevance of Cultural Variation
Chapter Three: The Hormonal Factor 74

Introductory —The Dangers of
Note Anal-Biological
ogy— Human Hermaphrodites —Testosterone and Ag-
— Human Aggression—The
gression of Irrelevance
Exceptions
13
Contents
Section Two:
The Theory of the Inevitability of Patriarchy 101
Chapter Four: Male Aggression and the Attainment
of Power, Authority, and Status 103
If Male Aggression Were the Only Difference . .
.
Aggression and Attainment — Conforma-

Socialization's
tion to Biological Reality — Discrimination

— of a Sort
Fifty-One Percent of the Vote "Oppression"
Chapter Five: The Societal Manifestations of Male

Aggression 115
Why —The Mbuti
All Societies Differentiate the Sexes
Pygmies —Modern Societies—The Limits of Possibil-
ity — Social Exaggeration of —

the Biological Patriarchy
in Industrial and "Revolutionary" —A Di-
Societies
gression: Race and Sex
PART II
Section Three:
Objections and Implications 131
Chapter Six: The Inadequacy of a Nonbiological Ex-

planation 133
—
The Weight of the Evidence The Environmentalist's
—
Dilemma The Future in Feminist Theory and in
Reality — Psychobiological Limitations on Human Mal-
leability
Chapter Seven: Confusion and Fallacy in the Feminist

Analysis 158
—
The Necessity of Theory Four Fallacies Vulgarized —
—
Marxism The Failure to Ask "Why" A Digression: —
The Obscurantism of an Inadequate Analysis
14
—
Contents
Section Four:
Maleness, Cognitive Aptitudes,
Performance, and Genius 185
Chapter Eight: Possible Sexual Differentiation in Cog-
nitive Aptitudes 187
Introductory Note in Anticipation of the Deluge
Sexual Differences in Types of Cognition: Is Biology
— Some Theoretical Problems with
Irrelevant? a Totally
Nonbiological Explanation — The Hormonal of Basis

— Feminist Research—Mas-
Differentiated Intelligence
culineLogic — An Environmentalist Objection
Chapter Nine: High Genius in the Arts and Sciences
The Relevance of Male Biology 211
The Question of Genius
PART III
Section Five:
Male and Female 221
Chapter Ten: Male and Female 223
Epilogue 230
Addendum
Some Additional Comments on the Universality of
Male Dominance 237
Index 246
15
Numquam naturam mos vinceret;
est enim ea semper invicta . . .
-Cicero, Tusculanae Disputationes, 5.27.78

PARTI
Section One
Preliminary
Anthropological
and Biological
Considerations
Chapter One
A Question and Some Ground

Rules
The Question of Male and Female

Perhaps at the core of our certainty there are only questions.
We can tolerate our lives and our societies can endure be-
cause we are rarely forced to encounter the uncertainty that
underlies so many of our beliefs. But to acknowledge the
unrest we feelwhen such uncertainty is exposed is not to
prove that our beliefs were necessarily founded on incorrect
assumptions. The introduction of doubt serves a powerful
function, but it is one of raising questions, not of providing
answers. That is the job of those for whom ideas are central
to existence; if such people are rendered no less uncomfort-
able than anyone else when their most basic assumptions are
challenged, at least they are forced to remember why society
tolerates them at all. At this point they must leave the se-
curity of the esoteric studies with which they had been pre-
occupied so that they might reconsider the questions that are
integral not only to those esoteric studies but to the beliefs
and practices of all mankind.
Until recently no one had even questioned the assumptions
from which had flowed our conceptions of man and woman.
We had, until recently, tended to accept masculinity and
femininity and male and female functions as somehow spring-
ing from our male and female natures and were satisfied to
allow the strength of our beliefs to compensate for the depth
of our ignorance. If for no other reason than this, the bi-
23
Preliminary Anthropological and Biological Considerations
ologist, the anthropologist, the psychologist, and the sociol-
ogist are in the debt of the new feminist movement. 1 For if
there is any single question that is at the center of all artistic
and most scientific thought (to say nothing of our daily lives)
it is this : what are men and women and to what degree must
male-female differences be manifested in societal expectations,
values, and institutions? It is to this question that I addressed
myself and it is from the answers that I found that the theory
that is presented here has developed.
Superiority and Inferiority

It seems that there is a human penchant for perceiving
differences in subjective terms. This is understandable, and
perhaps necessary for daily life, but it is the bane of science.
The scientist may observe the attitudes of others in an at-
tempt to explain these attitudes, but if he allows his subjective

attitudes to color his work, then his work will be worthless.
Therefore it is necessary to bear in mind throughout this
essay that at no point am I intimating that science can ever

lead one to the general conclusion that one sex is superior or
inferior to the other. It is as meaningless to say that one sex
is superior to the other as it is to say that one society is su-
perior to another, and it is meaningless for the same reason:

a general judgment of superiority or inferiority has meaning
only in the context of one's personal value system. It is not
surprising that one's appraisal of superiority will usually re-
flect one's sex or society, but, for whatever reasons, some will
should be emphasized that when I refer to "feminists" I refer to

1 It
those theoristswho propose an environmentalist analysis of sexually differ-

entiated behavior and institutions and who deny the determinativeness of
sexual biology to individual behavior and social institutions. However,
those who would dismiss these theoretical considerations in order to con-
centrate on pragmatic political and economic policies might note the dis-
cussion in Chapter Seven. All political policy is predicated on one or
another conception of the nature of men and women and any political
policy making incorrect assumptions that ignore behaviorally relevant
innate sexual differences will, if such differences exist, be doomed to
failure.
24
A Question and Some Ground Rules
view the other sex or another society as superior. In neither
case are we dealing with science. We can, however, speak of
superiority in a specific area. Men have a "superiority" in

height and women are superior at singing the upper register.
American society is superior to that of the Mbuti Pygmy in
the ability to produce consumer goods, while Mbuti society

is superior to American society in the ability to inculcate
hunting skills in its members. Scientific objectivity is lost
only if one says that men are superior in general or that the
United States is superior in general, for to do this one must
subjectively select a set of criteria.
The overwhelming number of men and women in every
society realize this intuitively. Anthropologists have written

at length of the areas in which women are unquestionably
superior to men. It is on these abilities that the world's
women have eternally based their joy just as men have em-
phasized their singular abilities and identified with their man-
hood. Indeed, while an essay on patriarchy must emphasize
the factors that are emphasized here, and while societies
would be patriarchal even if women were nothing more than

less-aggressive men forced into feminine behavior as response
to the fact of male aggression, the likelihood is overwhelming
that, whether we are referring to woman's response to male
aggression or to the emotions underlying woman's universal
role as life creator and life sustainer, feminine behavior and
the institutions that are related to this behavior are as in-
evitable as patriarchy and are inevitable for the same reasons.
Perhaps one who wished to examine not patriarchy and male
dominance but woman's universal role of creator and keeper
of society's emotional resources could invoke a line of rea-
soning complementing that introduced below. The author
of such an examination could invoke a line of reasoning
identical to that used in this book and could demonstrate that
women will inevitably hold the powers necessary for incul-
cating emotionality in the members of every society and, to
25
a great extent, determining the very kind of people a society

is to produce.
Even if one deals only within the context of "power" (in
male-female and familial relationships), neither male domi-
nance nor the other male characteristics we shall discuss
necessarily imply that male aggression is more effective than
feminine behavior. Male dominance does not necessarily mean

that males will achieve their goals more often than females
will achieve theirs if we limit ourselves to dyadic (two-person,
in this case, male-female) and familial relationships. (The
factor that engenders political patriarchy does render impos-
sible a political authority system not ruled by men, for rea-
sons that we shall soon examine.) One could make an

interesting case that, on a dyadic or familial level, women
are more successful at utilizing feminine abilities to achieve
their goals than men are at utilizing masculine abilities to
achieve theirs. Indeed, the women of every society possess
the emotional skills necessary to "get around" men and to
"get their way" despite the male's superior aggression. How-

ever, a woman's feeling that she must "get around" a man
(who is acknowledged by individual emotions and societal
values to have authority) we

is, as shall see momentarily, a
hallmark of male dominance. Some sociologists have defined

power in these terms and have suggested that —even in so-
cieties and subcultures such as the Shtetl that maintain a high

degree of male dominance —women are more powerful in
familial and dyadic situations than are the men in whom

authority is invested. The line of reasoning supporting this
hypothesis would not necessarily conflict with any statement

in this book. Such an analysis might conclude that even
though the women of every society acknowledge the au-
thority of the male even on a dyadic level, they get their
way more often than not by utilizing their feminine ability
to "get around" men. An analysis of dyadic or familial groups

that sees the "real" power as controlled by women's superior
26
A Question and Some Ground Rules
emotional powers is the virtual opposite of the analysis of

the environmentalists, behaviorists, and feminists. For such
an analysis emphasizes the positive, power-engendering as-
pects of femininity and implies that the reduction in fe?ninine
behavior desired by the feminists would force women to deal
with men on male terms and that this ivould inevitably lead
to a reduction in women 's real poiver. The feminist who
denies the biological basis of femininity, the necessity of
femininity as the only defense against male aggression, and
the likelihood that femininity is women's greatest strength
for attaining dyadic or familial power is left with the con-
clusion that the women of every society have acted in a
feminine way out of stupidity. I think not. Though an analy-
sis emphasizing the informal, real power of femininity might
take on Strindbergian overtones, it could proceed without

theoretical contradiction or obvious factual inaccuracy. This
cannot be said of the feminist line of reasoning, which we
shall discuss.
I appreciate that one who defines those qualities and roles

which are associated with the male as somehow better than
those which are associated with the female will find no solace
in the inherent impossibility of the scientist ever declaring
one sex superior to the other. I realize too that, because this
book concentrates on patriarchy and male dominance, one

who reads it through feminist eyes will feel that the book is
biased in a male direction and will react negatively. This is
unavoidable because we are focusing on the very areas em-

phasized by the feminists. If a woman feels that it is better
to be relatively tall and muscular than relatively short and
elastic, she will ignore the evidence presented by the biologist
who demonstrates that height and muscularity will be asso-
ciated with the man whether she likes it or not. The feminist
can argue that when a society is endangered the women "get"
the men to risk their lives while they remain safely at home,
and she can argue that the woman's longevity is superior to
27
the male's dominance. But if she believes that it is preferable

to have one's sex associated with authority and leadership
rather than with the creation of life, then she is doomed to
perpetual disappointment. To make judgments of what is
good and what is bad, what should be and what should not
be, is without the realm of science; science can never validate
or invalidate subjective appraisals. Science speaks only of
what is and what, within the limits of mathematical prob-
ability, must be.
28
Chapter Two
Anthropology and the

Limits of Societal Variation
Mode of Investigation
Reassessment of formerly unquestioned assumptions chal-
lenges the ability of any single discipline's modes of in-
quiry; the body of analytic methods which has grown by

successfully dealing with investigation of one large area of
reality is often taxed when forced to deal with another. This
situation obtains to some extent when the sociologist attempts
to investigate the nature of patriarchy and male dominance
and is faced with the strong possibility that these may be
inevitable social manifestations of human biology. For in
nearly all his investigations the sociologist deals with social
behavior which falls within the limits of biological possibility
and he is rarely forced to examine the limits of human possi-
bility or the forces that set such limits. In his study of politi-
cal behavior, for example, the sociologist has always assumed

that leadership in any society will be male dominated and he
has concentrated on developing the methods of inquiry neces-
sary for investigation within that theoretical framework. As
a result, in our investigation of patriarchy, we will have to
utilize the methods and findings of a number of disciplines.
It is important to emphasize that this is not a sociological,

anthropological, or economic analysis per se. It is a theory
that attempts to demonstrate the limitations imposed on social
possibility and the impossibility of a society's failing to con-

form its institutions to these limitations. Within the limita-
29
tions considerable variation is possible. A sociological,
anthropological, or economic analysis would attempt to de-
scribe and explain the configurations of factors that differ

from one society to another in order to discover the differ-
ing etiologies of differing institutions in terms of methods of
socialization, the social meanings attached to behavior by in-
dividuals, economic necessities, the structures of various sys-
tems within various social systems and the connections be-

tween them, and all the other considerations which are the
concern of the sociologist, the anthropologist, and the econ-
omist. The theory presented here is important to these sorts
of analyses in that — if this theory of limits is correct —any
analysis that hypothesizes elements that fall outside the limits
of possibility described here, or that contains the implication
that such elements could exist in a real society, would have
to be wrong. Since every society that has ever existed falls
within the limits described by this theory, no analysis of any

particular society is demonstrated to be incorrect by this
theory. Furthermore, if the theory presented herein is correct

it demonstrates that no theoretical analysis which limits itself
to the sociological, cultural anthropological, or economic

level can ever hope to explain the causation of the behavior
and institutions we shall discuss.
The Universality of Patriarchy

The and male dominance used
definitions of patriarchy in
this book, while they are similar to the orthodox anthro-
pological definitions, will be meant to connote no more than
is stated here. Patriarchy is any system of organization (po-
litical, economic, religious, or social) that associates authority
and leadership primarily with males and in which males fill
the vast majority of authority and leadership positions. 2 Pa-

2 In order to avoid the confusion that could arise from the fact that
the terms patriarchy and matriarchy are used in a number of ways, it is
necessary here to enumerate the alternative definitions. None of the
definitions is inherently superior to the others, though agreement would
30
Anthropology and the Limits of Societal Variation
triarchy refers only to suprafamilial levels of organization;

authority in familial and dyadic relationships is described by
the term male dominance. Patriarchy is universal. For all the
variety different societies have demonstrated in developing

different types of political, economic, religious, and social
systems, there has never been a society that has failed to
be convenient. One is free to favor any of the alternative pairs of defini-

tions as long as he appreciates that the terms will then be irrelevant to
this book so that he will be forced to appropriate or invent other terms
to substitute for patriarchy and matriarchy as I use the terms. The point
is that authority and leadership are, and always have been, associated with
the male in every society, and it is to this that I refer when I say that
patriarchy is universal and that there has never been a matriarchy. The
British and some American anthropologists use the terms patriarchate
and matriarchate where I use the terms patriarchy and matriarchy, and all
agree that there has never been a matriarchate. They use patriarchy and
matriarchy to refer to lineage and residence: a matriarchy is a society
which is both matrilineal and matrilocal. It is this usage, combined with
the mistaken belief that there have been prehistoric matriarchies and
Amazonian societies (discussed below), which accounts for the wide-
spread misconception that there have been societies which have failed to
associate suprafamilial authority with the male. In matrilineal-matrilocal
societies, as in all others, authority,even within the family, is associated
with the male, though occasionally with the mother's brother, rather than
with the father. Sociologists often use patriarchy and matriarchy to refer
to various aspects of familial authority. As we shall see, the ethnographic
evidence demonstrates that, even if we use the terms in this sense, there
has never been a matriarchy. The press occasionally uses the term Black
matriarchy to describe a situation in which certain economic factors (such
as welfare regulations which prohibit welfare for families in which the
male lives in the household) force a minority of black women to assume
authority in the home. This situation is not matriarchy in the sense we
use the term (Black political and religious leaders are nearly always male)
nor is it even female familial dominance; the term jemale dominance
would have meaning only if the family included a male adult but vested
authority in the female. Obviously if there is no male in the household,
authority will have to be vested in a female. The question we are dealing
with is why no society or group anywhere ever associates authority with
a female when an equivalent male is available. Finally, the term gynecocracy
has occasionally been used to describe an
(imaginary) society in which
government run by women. None of the above uses of patriarchy
is
should be confused with the term male dominance, as I use it. Male
dominance refers to the feeling of men and women that the male's will
dominates the female's. It may be related to patriarchy in any number of
ways (depending on which way one uses patriarchy), but it is not the same
as patriarchy.
31
associate authority and leadership in these areas with men.

No anthropologist contests the fact that patriarchy is uni-
versal. Indeed, of all social institutions there is probably none
whose universality is so totally agreed upon. While I think
it fair to say that most anthropologists consider the family,
marriage, and the incest taboo universal —and believe that,
while it is easy to imagine societies without one or more of
these institutions, no real society could survive without
them —with each of these institutions anthropologists debate
problems of definition and borderline cases. There is not, nor
has there ever been, any society that even remotely failed to
associate authority and leadership in suprafamilial areas with
the male. 3
There have of course been queens in a small number of
societies, but the existence of patriarchy even in such societies
is demonstrated by the fact that — as in England —queens rule
in such societies only when there is no equivalent man avail-
able (just as there have been a few societies in which the

royal families have ignored their societies' incest taboos in
order to maintain the purity of the blood line). There have
been "Queen Mothers" in a few African societies, but, while
such "Queen Mothers" did have a measure of autonomy de-
nied other women in their societies and some authority in
secondary areas, in every case they were subordinate to a male

king or chief in whom the society vested highest authority.
There have even been three cases of women attaining the
highest positions of authority in democracies (Israel, India,
and Ceylon), though in the latter two instances the woman
was the daughter and the widow, respectively, of a revered
man and it is hardly likely that either would have otherwise

attained power. The point of importance, however, is that
even in such societies authority has continued to be over-
whelmingly associated with the male and the overwhelming
3 We will discuss the alleged "prehistoric matriarchies" and "Amazons"

later.
32
number of positions of leadership have been filled by men.

In Israel, for example, the other eighteen ministerial positions
are filled by men and the proportion of men at each level of
the hierarchy of political authority is roughly the same as it is
in the United States, Sweden, Cuba, Communist China, and

the Soviet Union. 4
Male Dominance Defined and Discovered

Male dominance refers to the jeeling acknowledged by the
emotions of both men and women that the woman's will is
somehow subordinate to the male's and that general authority

in dyadic and familial relationships, in whatever terms a par-
ticular society defines authority, ultimately resides in the male.
I realize that this is not the most graceful way of defining

male dominance, but it is the most accurate. As was the case
with patriarchy, male dominance is universal; no society has
ever failed to conform its expectations of men and women,

and the social roles relevant to these expectations, to the feel-
ing of men and women that it is the male who "takes the
lead." This book will attempt to demonstrate that every so-
ciety' accepts the existence of these feelings, and conforms to

their existence by socializing children accordingly, because
5
every society must.
4
See "Patriarchy in Industrial and 'Revolutionary' societies," p. 124.
5
For the sake of convenience I occasionally will use the term male
dominance to refer not merely to the feelings of the members of a society,
but also to those dyadic and familial institutions in which these feelings
are manifested. Thus when I speak of one society's exhibiting more male
dominance than another I mean that the society's institutions emphasize
or utilize these feelings more than do those of another. Furthermore, it
should be noted here that male dominance does not refer to male aggres-
sion on an absolute scale. One might be tempted to introduce the hy-
pothesis that differing social conditions have resulted in the women of
one society becoming more aggressive than the men of another. Such
a hypothesis would be dubious because in every society it is the males
who are the soldiers so that it would be "aggression"
difficult to define
in such a way that the women of any society could be
argued to be
more aggressive than the men of any other (see "Human
Aggression,"
p. 91); more importantly, however, such a hypothesis would be irrele-
33
For all but a very few societies the presence of male dom-
inance is apparent from the customs of deference so well
documented by the anthropologists. It is important to bear
in mind, however, that dominance and deference refer to the
feelings that come into play in male-female and familial rela-
tionships. Anthropologists tend to discuss such feelings in

terms of their manifestations in customs of deference because,
among other reasons, the inconcreteness of feelings makes it
difficult to deal with them in any other way. This is as op-
posed to patriarchy, which can be easily denned and demon-

strated in terms of the overwhelming number of males who
fill authority positions in every society. For nearly all societies
customs of deference reflect the male and female feelings

relevant to male dominance and authority, and there is no
difficulty introduced by discussing dominance in terms of its
manifestation in customs rather than the more abstract emo-

tions that underpin these customs. Emphasizing that domi-
nance and deference refer not to the customs but to the feel-
ings is important only when one is examining the ten or

twelve "chivalrous" societies, in which women seem to re-
ceive deference, or American society, in which customs of
deference are minimal when compared to those of virtually
any other society. Examination of the ethnographic materials

on these "chivalrous" societies demonstrates that chivalrous
male deference is seen in these societies not as a reversal of
male dominance but as a complement to feminine fragility.
In American society, for example, a man's holding a door for
a woman is seen as a symbolic gesture acknowledging not
female authority but masculine strength; a man's walking
nearer to the curb acknowledges not the female's dominance
but the male's feeling that the woman is to be protected.
We can observe the feelings of male dominance most
vant. Dominance and dejerence are relative terms that refer to the feelings
and institutions relevant to dyadic and familial relationships in a single
societal context.
34
clearly during an argument, because it is in times of conflict
that the emotional acknowledgment of male authority comes

into male and female consciousness. Most of the time, when
men and women are performing different roles which they
and their society define as male and female roles, there is no
conflict, and feelings of authority will not come into play. It
is only when there is conflict that this feeling will be apparent

to the male, who utilizes it, and to the female, who must get
around it.
The voluminous writings of the feminists attest to the fact

that, despite the virtual absence of customs of deference in
American society, the feelings and emotional expectations that
underpin the customs of every other society affect our be-
havior as surely as these feelings affect the behavior of the
men and women of every other society. Thus the author of
the feminist essay complains that she feels that she has some-
how lost an argument with her husband, that somehow she
was wrong, even when she knows intellectually that hers was
the better argument, that she was right, and that her husband
was being emotionally dishonest. Thus the feminist novelist
objects to the fact that it is somehow the male who "takes the
lead" in endless numbers of situations as varied as crossing
streets and choosing friends. The husband tends to "tell"
("my husband told me to take the TV to the repair shop")
while the wife tends to "ask" ("my wife asked me to take
the TV to the repair shop") . To be sure, women do, as these
novelists acknowledge, have a great deal of power in that
they make decisions in many areas, but it is the feeling that
the husband lets them make such decisions (that he delegates
authority, that he "allows") that annoys the feminist and that
is the evidence of the presence of male dominance. Likewise
the feminist points out that nearly all women (and men)
associate authority with the father, save those few who be-
grudge their fathers their refusal to invoke male authority.
Our acceptance of the feminist's description of her feelings
35
and observations does not require that we attach a judgment

to these feelings and observations or that we accept her as-
sumption that this manifestation of sexual difference has its
roots only in social factors.

It should be reiterated that I am not rejecting the possi-
bility that in dyadic relationships women using female means
may attain their ends more often than do men using male
means (either universally or in some societies, perhaps the
chivalrous ones), nor am I denying the obvious fact that,
whatever qualities one considers masculine or feminine, every

member of each sex will occasionally exhibit the behavior of
the other. I am saying only that every society recognizes a
particular emotional difference between men and women, that
this difference always works in the same direction (i.e., no
society's members feel that it is the ivoman who "allows"),
and that every society associates authority in all areas that are
not specifically delegated to women with men. 6 In other
6 The different meanings of male dominance, male authority, and power

should be Male dominance refers to a
clear. feeling acknowledged by both
male and female emotions. Male authority refers to society's associating
general authority in dyadic relationships with the male. Both male dom-
inance and male authority are universal. In every society authority is
delegated to women in a number of areas; there is no conflict as long as
each sex stays in its own area. When there is conflict, the feelings of male
dominance will always come into play and general male authority will
sometimes be invoked in some societies and will always be invoked in
others. Power is the ability to influence the actions of others and to attain
one's end. Women in dyadic situations often have the power advantage,
but this advantage does not flow from their invoking authority and it is
attained by overcoming the feelings of male dominance through feminine
means, intelligence, etc. The importance of these distinctions is apparent
when we examine Robert O. Blood and Donald M. Wolfe's seminal study
of dyadic power in America, Husbands and Wives (New York: Free Press,
I960). For this study 731 wives in Detroit were interviewed. After as-
sessing dyadic power in eight areas of decision making (decisions con-
cerning husband's job, family car, insurance, vacation, house, wife's
work, family doctor, and food), the authors conclude that, while husbands
do maintain a significant power advantage overall and a complete ad-
vantage in decisions relevant to their jobs, all in all we can say that the
American family is roughly equalitarian rather than "patriarchal." This
is an important point if one is, like the authors, interested primarily in
power, but its meaning is not clear. The increasing degree to which women
36
words, the male strength and aggressiveness and the female

gentleness and endurance portrayed in our novels and movies
mirror not merely our society's view of the emotional natures
of men and women, but the views of every society that has
ever existed.
For our purposes, one's attitude toward male dominance is
irrelevant; it does not matter whether the reader enjoys the

idea that the male dominates and protects the female or de-
tests it. The point being made here is that, as we shall see
momentarily, the men and women of every society feel this

way and acknowledge this feeling in the society's institutions.
The question that is of theoretical importance is why this is
the case and why, if male dominance is not conformation to
some element that is either suprasocial or inherent in the very
nature of society, does no society reverse this or fail to mani-
fest sexual dominance at all? As we shall see, it is virtually
share in the decisions that the authors examine may well, as we shall see,
represent a male abdication of the husband-father role in favor of supra-
familial pursuits, a delegation of familial authority; this would seem to
be indicated by the authors' finding that, of all wives, wives in wife-
dominant marriages (marriages in which wives have the power advantage
in these decisions) are the least satisfied with their marriages. The feel-
ings of male dominance of which we speak in this book, while they are
always present and while they invest all male-female interaction, become
manifest only when there is conflict. Most of the time, when men are
dealing with decisions that the society sees as "male" and women with
those that society sees as "female," there is That women
no conflict.
make the decisions relevant to choice of family doctor or what to serve
for dinner in no way represents an absence of the feelings of male
dominance. Male dominance will manifest itself, in the feelings of husband
and wife, in this area only if, for example, a wife insists on serving a
food that the husband does not like. If conflict ensues the feelings relevant
to male dominance will come into play. The wife may well end up get-
ting her way, but it will be through her "feminine" approach which gets
around her (and her husband's) feelings that authority resides in the male
and not because either she or her husband failed to experience the feel-
ings of male dominance. That the equalitarianism that Blood and Wolfe
find is irrelevant to the feminist analysis is apparent for two reasons. First,
authority in the household is scarcely the prime feminist goal. Second,
where the authors see equalitarianism, the feminists see male dominance.
Both the authors and the feminists are correct; the former are looking
at decision making and the latter at male dominance and its manifestations.
37
impossible to answer this question without invoking the evi-

dence presented in Chapter Three unless one accepts a num-
ber of assumptions that are logically possible but absurd.
One might be tempted to argue that either patriarchy or
male dominance has its roots in some suprasocial element or
in some element that is inherent in the nature of society, but
that, since either of these institutions might inevitably gen-
erate the other, we need not assume that both flow directly
from the suprasocial or inherent-societal element. Thus one
might argue that either a suprasocial or inherent-societal ele-
ment generates patriarchy and that, since political authority
will be associated with males, authority in dyadic relationships

will be associated with the male through a filter-down pro-
cess; this view would still see male dominance as inevitable,
but not as a direct result of the suprasocial or inherent-societal

element. Or one might see male dominance as a result of a
suprasocial or inherent-societal element, but argue that pa-

triarchy is a generalization of male dominance. Neither of
these lines of reasoning is very persuasive. The evidence we
shall discuss in Chapter Three, a great deal of primate re-
search that we shall not discuss in this book, and our ob-
servation of small, isolated societies with minimal political
differentiation all lead to the conclusion that there would be
male dominance even if there were no political stratification.
The argument that male dominance is a direct result of a
suprasocial or inherent-societal element but that patriarchy is
merely a generalization of male dominance which may be

inevitable but which does not flow directly from a suprasocial
or inherent-societal element is equally unconvincing for nu-
merous reasons we shall discuss throughout the book. In
short: we shall see that both patriarchy and male dominance
are direct results of a suprasocial element and that one need
not refer to patriarchy to demonstrate the inevitability of male
dominance or to male dominance to demonstrate the inevita-
bility of patriarchy (or male attainment).
38
,
:
The Universality of Male Dominance

Cross-cultural compilations of ethnographic materials demon-
strate the universality of male dominance with the same con-
clusiveness with which they demonstrate the universality of
patriarchy. While the greater subtleties of definition and dis-
covery have led some of the anthropologists who have au-
thored cross-cultural compilations to use slightly qualified
terms ("universality for all intents and purposes") when re-
ferring to the universality of male dominance, this scientific

tentativeness does not indicate a belief that there is any so-
ciety in which the members do not demonstrate the feelings

relevant to male dominance or in which authority in dyadic
and familial relationships is not associated with the male.

With one exception, all of the authors indicate quite definitely
that there is no exception to male dominance (as we define
7
it)-
The exception is Dr. William Stephens. Dr. Stephens does

not deal directly with male dominance, but with authority in
specific areas relevant to the household and the rearing of
children. However, even if we accept Dr. Stephens's focus,
the universality of male dominance and its acknowledgment
in the expectations and customs of the men and women of
every society is not brought into question. Dr. Stephens sug-
gests five possible exceptions to universality (in his terms)
the Tchambuli (which is the society for which the strongest
case can be made and the one we will look at more closely)
the people of Modjokuto (Java), the Berbers, the Jivaro,
and the Nama Hottentot. Recourse to the original materials
7 For extended discussion of the anthropological data relevant to the

universality ofmale dominance, the reader might wish to consult: Gerald
Leslie, The Family in Social Context (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1967) ;M. F. NimkofT, Comparative Family Systems (Boston:
Houghton-Mifflin, 1965); Ira L. Reiss, The Family System in America
(New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1971); and William N.
Stephens, The Family in Cross-Cultural Perspective (New York: Holt,
Rinehart, and Winston, 1963).
39
on which Dr. Stephens bases his assessment does indeed sup-
port Dr. Stephens's contention these societies delegate to

women a certain authority in specific matters concerning the
home and children, but by no stretch of the imagination
could the men and women of these societies be said to fail
to demonstrate the feelings relevant to male dominance. In
every case the same ethnographic study that is used to support
the assessment of "exception" explicitly states this. For exam-
ple: the study of Modjokuto that is used to support the con-
tention that these Javanese people comprise an exception
states that the father "is expected to be, above all, patient
and dignified (sabar) with his wife and children; he should
lead them with a gentle though firm hand. . .
." 8
Similar acknowledgments of the presence of male domi-

nance can be found in every ethnographic study invoked by
any author as demonstrating the absence of male dominance
in any particular society. For example, one often hears the
claim that Lewis Henry Morgan's work on the Iroquois dem-
onstrated that, while patriarchy in Iroquois society is apparent
from the fact that women were not permitted to fill positions
of leadership, the Iroquois did fail to manifest male domi-
nance. That this was not the case is clear when Morgan writes
"The Indian regarded women as the inferior, the dependent,
and the servant of man, and from nurturance and habit, she
9
actually considered herself to be so."
In the addendum the reader will find similar ethnographic
quotations on every alleged societal exception. The point is
not that male dominance necessitates that women consider

themselves inferior (while this may be the case with the
Iroquois it is not with many other societies) and certainly it
is not that male dominance is attributable to only "nurturance

and habit." We shall discuss causation later. Here I am in-
8 Hildred Geertz, The Javanese Family (New York: Free Press, 1961),
p. 107.
9 Lewis Henry Morgan, League of the Ho-De-No-Sau-Nee or Iroquois
(New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1901), p. 315.
40
terested merely in noting the universality not only of male

and female feelings of male dominance, but the universality
of the institutionalization of these feelings in the formal value
system of societies. Even if one wishes to emphasize women's
ability to get around the formal system he still must admit
that the universality of societal acknowledgment of male
dominance demands an explanation.
Moreover, whatever can be said about any alleged societal
exception to the universality of male dominance can also be

said about American society. Indeed, it is doubtful whether
any other society delegates to women the authority even in
the home that American society delegates and, in any case,
the demand of the feminist is hardly that American society
should increase women's authority and responsibility in the
home. In our society men show chivalrous deference to
women (by standing when a women enters the room, for
example), acknowledge female authority in most decisions
concerning the household to such an extent that many women
complain that the American male has abdicated his role as
father in order to concentrate on suprafamilial pursuits, give

women equal rights in selecting the leaders of the society and
equal rights to attain leadership, and, with a few exceptions
which are of primarily symbolic importance, equal rights of
ownership and participation in economic life. Moreover, with
the exception of land ownership in certain matrilineal socie-
ties — a female ownership that does not lessen male control of
suprafamilial or dyadic situations —no society gives to women
authority in any area in which she is not given authority in the
United States.
It will not be necessary to review the materials on each of

Dr. Stephens's societies in order to make the point that he
has not discovered any exception to male dominance as we
use the term here (though the reader who desires to do so
will find the relevant material in the Addendum). In speak-
ing of wives in American society Dr. Stephens states that,
41
"If there are any exceptional societies (in which each family
may freely choose — or fight it out— to determine who does
10
what) our own
, society probably comes as close as any" and
that, "In the allocation of power and privilege, our society
compared with other societies — treats its wives most gener-
ously." n The feminist who wishes to demonstrate that male
10 All references to Dr. Stephens's work refer to Stephens, op. cit., pp.
300-306.
11 Two interesting points emerge when we examine those societies in
which there is a relatively low degree of male dominance. The first is

one that we would expect if we view dyadic relationships in the terms
of this book: women in these societies are successful because they utilize
"feminine" counter the societal expectations which conform
abilities to
to male aggression or, to use Dr. Stephens's words, "In the face of . . .
[the male power advantage] ... a wife —

if she wishes to fight back
must employ characteristically female weapons." The second point of in-

terest is that a low degree of male dominance seems to occur when there
is a strong societal emphasis on some suprafamilial male function. This
is not to say that societies that emphasize some such factor will neces-
sarily demonstrate a relatively low male dominance (i.e., will give the
women authority in certain familial areas, Dr. Stephens's "exceptions"),
but that societies which do demonstrate a relatively low male dominance,
which do give women authority in these familial areas, will place an un-
usually strong emphasis on some suprafamilial area. For example, the
male obsession with work and career in the United States has been docu-
mented by sociologists since Weber; the Jivaro male sees warriorship as
the purpose of life. Perhaps this implies that a relatively low degree of
familial male dominance and authority may result from a society's seeing
the paternal role as not contributing to high status and a resulting male
lack of interest in the paternal role. This is analogous to a situation we
will observe shortly; when a suprafamilial position is given high status
by a society, men will use their aggression to attain the position. When
it is given low status, men will attempt to attain other (high status) posi-
tions. This would explain the fact that the relatively low degree of
familial male dominance in the American family is correlated with a
moderately high degree of patriarchy in the political and economic
areas. We might expect that a decrease in the strength of the work ethic
and a resulting increase in the American male's interest in the paternal role
may result in an increase in familial male authority. This increase will
result from the male's using his aggression in the familial area he had
formerly ignored in favor of his work. In other words, it is likely that
the increased emphasis on women's filling suprafamilial roles, and the de-
emphasis of maternal roles urged by the feminists, may combine with a
weakening of the male work ethic not to increase women's authority in
suprafamilial areas (where the positions of authority will be attained by
male aggression as they have in every society even those without a—
strong emphasis on suprafamilial male functions), but only to increase
the degree of male dominance at home.
42
dominance is not universal need not even mention Stephens,

but if she does not she is left with only cross-cultural com-
pilations that do not offer even a hint of an exception so
that she must find an exception on her own and this, we shall
see, she will not be able to do. If the feminist does invoke
one of Dr. Stephens's societies as an exception to the uni-
versality of male dominance she faces not only the fact that
none of these societies are exceptions (see the Addendum),
but that, as Dr. Stephens's words indicate, she must invoke
the United States (because none of Dr. Stephens's societies
manifest male dominance any less ) . But if the feminist does
this her cause is lost at once: to invoke the United States as
an exception is to assert that this .society does not have male
dominance and to admit the incorrectness of the central fem-
inist premise. Since she will obviously not want to do this,
she must acknowledge that none of Dr. Stephens's societies

fail to acknowledge male dominance.
It is worthwhile to consider briefly the Tchambuli of
New Guinea not only because this society is the one of Dr.
Stephens's societies for which the strongest case (as a society
not acknowledging male dominance) can be made, but be-
cause a number of popular writers have repeated Margaret
Mead's questionable conclusions to her study of the Tcham-
buli without repeating her qualifying statements. While Dr.
Mead did not claim that the Tchambuli failed to acknowl-
edge male dominance, she did imply that sex roles and
sexual temperament for these people were so different from
the roles and temperaments exhibited in every other society
that the study caused something of an uproar. 12 The excellent
ethnographic data Dr. Mead presents enables the careful
reader to see that Dr. Mead's conclusions concerning the
plasticity of sex roles do not follow from the observations
she describes. For example: Dr. Mead points out that the
12 See Margaret Mead's Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive So-

cieties (New York: William Morrow, 1935).
43
Tchambuli boy's initiation consisted of the boy's killing a
victim and hanging the head in the ceremonial house as a

trophy; it is difficult to see this as indication of "male
femininity." Indeed, in response to one of her critics Dr.
Mead wrote, "Nowhere do I suggest that I have found any
material which disproves the existence of sex differences.
. . . This study was not concerned with whether there are
or are not actual and universal differences between the sexes,
13
either quantitative or qualitative."
Male Attainment of High-Status Roles

and Positions
Occasionally one who attempts to deny the universality of
male dominance will mimic those who claim the existence
of a matriarchy: he will not actually name a society whose
institutions do not acknowledge male dominance but will
merely make vague reference to unnamed societies. He knows
that, if he were to be specific, reference to the ethnographic
materials on the society he named would show that, while

it was perhaps matrilineal or matrilocal, the society's insti-
tutions conformed to patriarchy and male dominance as much

as, or more than, do ours.
More often, however, he invokes societies such as the
Bamendas, the Hopi, the Iroquois, the Mbuti Pygmies, the
13 Letter, The American Anthropologist, 39:558-561 (July-September,

1937). The who
wishes further evidence that Dr. Mead's implica-
reader
tion (that the Tchambuli sex roles do not conform to the limits demon-
strated by every other society) is supported only by her own choice of
adjectives and not at all by the data she presents should consult the fol-
lowing analyses of Sex and Temperament: Jessie Bernard, "Observation
and Generalization in Cultural Anthropology," The American Journal of
Sociology, 50:284-291 (January, 1945); Richard Thurnwald, "Oceania
and Africa," The American Anthropologist, 38:663-667 (October-Decem-
ber, 1936); Victor Barnouw, Culture and Personality (Homewood, 111.:
Dorsey Press, 1963), pp. 85-91; and Marvin Harris's brief criticism in
The Rise of Anthropological Theory (New York: Crowell, 1968), pp. 413-
414.
44
Nayar, certain Philippine groups, the people of the Kibbutz,

or even the fictitious Amazons. 14 These alleged exceptions
are merely societies that associate with women tasks or
j mictions that we associate with men. These are not excep-
tions to the universality of male dominance, for — in addition
to the fact that dominance-deference refers to the feelings

of men and women in every society that authority resides in
the male, feelings that are reflected in the expectations of

male and female behavior in every society —male dominance
in no way precludes the possibility that any task or function
which we (as uninvolved outsiders) may choose to empha-
size can be seen to be served by women in one society or
another. As was the case with customs of deference, what

is important here is the attitudes of the members of the
society in question. In every society, whatever the particular
tasks performed by women, the members feel that women
do "women's tasks" (as defined by the particular society)
either because only women are biologically capable of the
tasks or because men serve functions that are more crucial
to the society's survival. Every society gives higher status to
male roles than to the nonmaternal roles of females. To put

it another, and I believe more illuminating, way: in every
society males attain the high-status (nonmaternal) roles and
positions and perform the high-status tasks, whatever those
tasks are.
Margaret Mead has written:
In every known human society, the male's need for

achievement can be recognized. Men may cook, or
weave or dress dolls or hunt hummingbirds, hut if such
activities are appropriate occupations of men, then the
whole society, men and women alike, votes them as
important. When the same occupations are performed
14 For a more extended discussion of alleged exceptions to male

dominance see the Addendum.
45
by ivomen, they are regarded as less important. 1 * [Em-

phasis added]
A woman who is older, wealthier, from a higher class or

"better" family, more more educated than a
intelligent, or
particular male may be given authority over that male and

perhaps she may even feel dominance over him, but she
will have less status and authority than an equivalent male
and she will feel deference toward him. Thus in some so-
cieties the older woman whose husband has died rules the
family, and the presence of an educated, wealthy woman will
make the less wealthy and educated male experience feelings
of insecurity. But ivhatever variable one chooses, authority,
status, and dominance within each stratum rest with the male
in contacts with equivalent females.
Men do not merely fill most of the roles in high-status
areas, they also fill the high-status roles in low-status areas.

The higher the level of power, authority, status, prestige,
or position —whether the area be economic, occupational,
political, or religious— the higher the percentage of males.
Thus the percentage of women in the work force in the
United States has risen by 75 percent since 1900, but the
percentage of women in the high-status area of medicine
has declined during this period. In the Soviet Union, where
medicine has a far lower status than it does in the United
States, the majority of all doctors are women, but as one
ascends from the level of practical medicine to the levels of
authority the percentage of males rises until, at the top,
males constitute the overwhelming majority. 16
15 Margaret Mead, Male and Female (New York: William Morrow,

1949), p. 168. As we shall see, one need not postulate a male "need to
achieve" any greater than that of the female to explain why men attain
the high-status roles in every society; the male aggression advantage
(discussed in the next chapter) is enough to explain why high-status roles
and positions are always attained primarily by men and why every society
associates its (nonmaternal) high-status roles with men.
16 See William
J. Goode, World Revolution and Family Patterns (New
York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1963), pp. 57-66.
46
Of all the tasks one might think of or choose to empha-

size, virtually every one, with the exception of those related
to protection, fighting, and political authority, is associated
with women in one society or another, 17
but in every society
it is the roles filled by men that are given high status. None
of this, of course, denies that in every society it is women
who are responsible for the care and rearing of the young,
the single most important function served in any society or
in nature itself. Just as patriarchy, male dominance, and male
attainment of high-status roles and positions are universal, so
is the association of nurturance and emotional socialization
with the woman universal, and these female roles are, in
some societies, given the highest of status.
Two Hypotheses Tested

18
There are two major works which, while their purpose
was to test other theoretical constructs, shed considerable
light on universal societal manifestations of sex differences.
While each of these works called into question certain

aspects of the theory it was testing, both indicate the cor-
17 While there are no exceptions in these three spheres (every society's

military and leadership functions are served primarily by men),it should
be noted for the record that in the mid-nineteenth century the army of
Dahomey included a corps of female warriors (different authors estimate
their percentage of the total number of warriors as being between 5 and
15 percent) and that at one time Iroquoian women served a vital political
function in selecting male leaders (though women were not permitted to
lead).
18 The
interested reader might wish to consult: Bronislaw Malinow-
ski. Sex and Repression in Savage Society (New York: Harcourt,
Brace and World, 1927), and Morris Zelditch, "Role Differentiation in
the Nuclear Family: A Comparative Study," in Talcott Parsons and
Robert F. Bales, eds., Family, Socialization, and Interaction Process (New
York: Free Press, 1955). Dr. Zelditch's definition of "instrumental role"
differs in some respects from our definition of "male dominance." As a
result he lists the Manus (alone among fifty-six societies) as giving the
father a slightly less instrumental role than the mother. That this does
not indicate that the Manus male is not dominant is apparent when Zelditch
writes (p. 337): "Father holds the authority in the family, but it is
through the mother evidently that he disciplines the child that is he —
disciplines the mother and she is responsible for the child's behavior."
47
rectness of the description of sexual role distinctions dis-

cussed here. Bronislaw Malinowski's study of the Trobriand
Islanders suggested that Freud, in explaining the son's rage,
had overemphasized the importance of the father's role as
sexual mate of the mother, and underemphasized the im-

portance of his role as powerful constrictor of the son's
freedom and autonomy. In Freud's Vienna, as in most so-
cieties, both of these roles were played by the father. Among

the people Malinowski studied, however, the mother's
brother played the authoritarian role to his sister's son and
he, not the son's biological father was, according to Malinow-
ski, the recipient of the son's rage. Likewise, a theory of
Talcott Parsons suggested that all possible societies will give
to the father an "instrumental" role (solves tasks of the
society at large, serves as source of authority and discipline,
receives respect and hostility) and to the mother an "ex-

pressive" role (is source of care and guardian of emotional
development, acts as receiver of warmth). Morris Zelditch
found that in ten of a sample of fifty-six societies the instru-
mental role was played by a male other than the father
(though even in these the father seemed relatively "instru-
mental" and the mother relatively "expressive"). The Freud-

Malinowski "debate" and the Parsons-Zelditch works are
still the subject of much argument, and I apologize for the
oversimplification. I raise all of this only to indicate that,
whatever other disagreements these theorists may have, their

data has led them all to the conclusion that, if a male is
included in the family, the dominant role will be played

by a male — even when it is not played by the father. 19 Is it
19 It should be noted that I am not at any point in this chapter saying

that every society includes a male in the family unit. I think that this is
the case, but does not matter for our purposes if there exist societies
it
in which the family consists of only the mother-child dyad. My point

is only that if a male is included in the family, authority will be asso-
ciated with him by both male and female feelings and societal expectation.
Male dominance can manifest itself only when males and females come
48
not likely that there is some underlying imperative associat-
ing authority with the male if even matrilineal and matri-

local societies pass over the obvious selection of the mother
as authority figure to give this role to the mother's brother?
The Feminist Assumption

The view of man and woman in society that implicitly under-
lies all of the arguments of the feminists is this: there is
nothing inherent in the nature of human beings or of society

that necessitates that any role or task (save those requiring
great strength or the ability to give birth) be associated with
20
one sex or the other; there is no natural order of things
is no adult male in the family unit then, obviously,

into contact. If there
there will beno male dominance. If a role does not give males high status
or some other reward (or if a high-status role is one for which males are
at a biological disadvantage) then the role will not attract males and,
since there be no males, there will be no male dominance. One
will
need not even look to a society with a dyadic family; both a number
of matrilineal societies and American society indicate that when male
time and energies are devoted to the pursuit of suprafamilial status the
role of familial disciplinarian (the familial authority role) will, in prac-
tice, be delegated to the mother, who will fill this role in addition to her
expressive role; in the matrifocal family type which marks such societies
the male familial role may be relatively unimportant, but male dominance
will nonetheless be manifested whenever males and females do meet; it
will be manifested both in the individuals' feelings and the society's ex-
pectations. I make this point in response to R. T. Smith's suggestion that
the family in British Guiana begins as a nuclear family, but soon de-
velops into just the mother-child dyad. For reasons too numerous to go
into here I do not consider Dr. Smith's illuminating study a refutation
of the argument that a permanent, stable society must be built of a family
consisting of at least mother, child, and one adult male, but even if one
did accept the possibility of a society's family system being based on only
the mother-child dyad such a society would cast no doubt on the uni-
versality of male dominance
male-female encounters and relationships.
in
See R. T. Smith, The Negro Family in British Guiana: Family Structure
and Social Status in the Villages (London: Kegan Paul, 1956).
20 "It is time that we realized that the whole structure
of male and fe-
male personality is entirely imposed by social conditioning. All the pos-
sible traits of human personality have in this conditioning been arbitrarily
assigned into two categories; thus aggression is masculine, passivity
feminine. . .
."
[Emphasis added]. (Kate Millett, Barnard Alumnae, Spring,
1970, p. 28.) This statement expresses the assumption which underpins all
of Dr. Millett's Sexual Politics (New York: Doubleday, 1970). In the
49
four hundred pages of Sexual Politics Dr. Millett offers only four bits of
evidence in support of this crucial assumption: (l) Dr. Millett quotes Dr.
Robert definitional distinction between biological "sex" and
Stoller's
societal "gender" and leaves the strong impression that Dr. Stoller be-
lieves that "sex" need not be relevant to behavior. The true flavor of Dr.
Stoller's thesis is better summarized by Dr. Stoller himself a few pages
past the point where Dr. Millett stopped quoting: "A sex-linked genetic
biological tendency towards masculinity in males and femininity in females
works silently but effectively from fetal existence on, being overlaid
after birth by the effects of environment, influences working more or
less in harmony to produce a preponderance of masculinity in men and
femininity in women." [Robert Stoller, Sex and Gender (New York:
Science House, 1968), p. 74.] The point here is not whether Dr. Stoller
is correct in his assessment, but that, if scientists are in the kind of dis-
agreement over the importance of sexual biology to behavior which Dr.

Millett claims they are, one would think that she would not find it neces-
sary to misrepresent the views of a scientist who does believe that sexual
biology is crucial. (2) Dr. Millett includes a footnote that refers the reader
to a Rockefeller University publication that is only tangentially relevant
to this issue. (3)There is an out-of-context quotation from a work of Dr.
John Money. We need not examine this here because we will see shortly
that it is Dr. Money's own work, more than that of any other scientist
working with humans (as opposed to experimental animals), which indi-
cates the crucial importance of sex hormones to behavior. (4) Finally, Dr.
Millett states that "the best medical research points to the conclusion that
sexual stereotypes have no bases in biology." As we shall see, this state-
ment is absolutely indefensible unless one defines stereotype not in the
terms of probability that the biologist uses but in terms so rigid that the
point becomes irrelevant and unless one defines best medical research as
"research which points to the conclusion that sexual stereotypes have
no bases in biology." (This assumes that there is some medical research
pointing in this direction; my
investigations have uncovered none.) If
anyone presented a an uncontroversial area to a graduate depart-
thesis in
ment in the social sciences or the physical sciences and attempted to get
away with this kind of intellectual dishonesty he would receive ridicule
rather than a Ph.D. in literature from Columbia University. When Dr.
Millett is not energetically planting fallacies among the wild inaccuracies
she is dressing discarded conspiratorial and evolutionary theory in drag
and presenting it as new. Her entire analysis is predicated on the belief
that stating a disagreeable fact or argument in derisive terms results in
alteration of the fact or refutation of the argument. Much of Dr. Millett's
book consists of an analysis of D. H. Lawrence and other male authors.
I would not presume to question the accuracy of Dr. Millett's presenta-
tion of these authors' representations of women. One wonders, however,

whether Dr. Millett intends to imply that these views of women are
representative of those held by nearly all male authors (or nearly all
men). If not, then why are they relevant? One could "prove" oppression
of the whale by using only Moby Dick as evidence. If these representa-
tions of women are invoked as representative of those of nearly all male
authors, then why do so many of those very individuals who are ac-
knowledged to see most deeply into the nature of things all see the same
50
—
decreeing that dyadic and social authority must be associated

with men, nor is there any reason why it must be men who
rule in every society. Patriarchy, matriarchy, and "equiarchy"
are all equally possible and —while every society may invoke
"the natural order of things" to justify its particular system
all the expectations we have of men and women are cultur-
ally determined and have nothing to do with any sort of
basic male or female nature. 21
There is nothing internally contradictory in such a hypoth-
esis; indeed, it is an ideal place from which to begin an
empirical investigation into the nature of man, woman, and
society. However, the feminist does not use this as a heuristic
first step but unquestioningly accepts it as true. She attempts

to explain the universality of patriarchy and male dominance
in the economic terms of Engels's work on the family and
thing? Dr. Millett realized that these questions would arise and this is
why she has gone to such lengths to confuse and misrepresent the relevant
biological and anthropological evidence.
21 The best presentation of the feminist assumption is unquestionably
John Stuart Mill's The Subjection of Women. As an impassioned plea for
women's rights Mill's essay is both moving and illuminating. As an at-
tempt to explain the etiology of sexually differentiated behavior and insti-
tutions it is indefensible. One is tempted, given the fact that the author of
the essay was Mill, to ascribe its inadequacies to the fact that little of the
relevant anthropological evidence, and none of the relevant hormonal evi-
dence, was available at the time. But the weakness of Mill's analysis is
attributable evenmore to the fallacious reasoning that his preconceived

conclusions demanded. For example, Mill argues that we can have no
conception of the limits of possibility imposed by innate sexual differ-
ences, or even of whether such limits exist, because no society has been
composed of one sex; thus he does not even attempt to explain why the
conceptions of male and female held by his society are not reversed in any
other society. Similarly Mill attempts to dismiss the possibility of the
determinativeness of innate sexual differences by invoking the irrelevant
fact that slave owners defended slavery with the invocation of physiological
racial differences thatdo not exist; this fact is correct, of course, but it
castsno more doubt on the likelihood that innate sexual differences are
determinative to sexual differences in behavior and institutions than it
does on the certainty that physiology is determinative to the ability to
give birth. Mill's reasoning has been accepted without question by mod-
ern feminist writers. We shall examine this reasoning at length through-
out this book.
51
attempts to demonstrate that patriarchy is not inevitable by

invoking theories hypothesizing the existence of ancient ma-
While Engels's The Origin of the Family, Private
triarchies.
Property and the State may have a certain tangential validity

when one is exploring certain economic junctions of the
family in certain societies, it is regarded by virtually all
anthropologists as worthless as a description of the causes

of the family's existence; like other social-evolutionary the-
ories, it fails to explain the universality of patriarchy and
the near or complete universality of the family in a world
of thousands of (formerly) isolated, unconnected societies
that demonstrate nearly every conceivably possible configura-

tion of religious, economic, and familial systems at nearly
every conceivably possible stage of development. Moreover,

it forces the development of every society onto a single
continuum of linear evolution when in reality there are a
great many lines of social evolution.
The Evolutionary Fallacy

Before this century the dearth of ethnographic studies en-
abled some theorists to maintain the contention that all
societies developed along a single evolutionary line. This

belief in universal societal evolution, particularly when it
confused the economic functions that an institution came to

play with the institution's cause (the factor that necessitated
the institution ) , made at least vaguely credible the argument
that those institutions which had existed "all through history"
owed their existence to economic and temporary social ne-
cessities and that they would decay when economic and

technological change rendered them anachronistic. Some evo-
lutionary theory could not pass even the test of internal
logicality. For example, theories postulating that before
males learned of their biological importance to conception
there was a "matriarchal stage" of history were unable to
52
,
explain what force enabled men, once they learned of their

own biological role, to "take over." Since women automati-
cally know of their importance, the males' discovery of the
mechanisms of conception should enable them merely to
come to share power equally if knowledge of biological role
is determinative. However, while there would seem no rea-
son to attach any relevance of paternity to patriarchy once

one is forced to invoke some other factor, it must be admitted
that one could, logically if not credibly, argue that knowl-
edge of biological importance is a precondition for the
attainment of power, but that once this precondition is met
then some other factor — say physical strength —becomes de-
terminative. As long as there was little relevant ethnographic
data the question of evolution was forced to remain on this
theoretical level. Evolutionary theory was not doomed until
ethnographic studies demonstrated that every institution was
either, like slavery, absent from some societies and therefore
not evolutionarily necessary (unless one invokes an unre-
corded antecedent stage that had the institution for every
society — in which case evolutionary theory is not theory, but
metaphysics) or, if universal, like patriarchy, found even
when the alleged cause was absent.The ethnographers
found a number of societies in which males did not know
of their biological importance yet which were as patriarchal
This demonstrates beyond question that
as all other societies.
knowledge of paternity has nothing to do with patriarchy.
There are other problems with social evolutionary theory:
unless a particular characteristic is all that one is attempting
to explain (in which case the term evolution is grandiose;
one can legitimately say that a literate society is more ad-
vanced than a primitive one if he specifies that he is dis-
cussing only urbanization and not implying that urbanization

is a sign of advancement on some general evolutionary scale)
evolutionary theory is by its very nature ethnocentric and
53
often racist. For the decision as to which factor to consider

the measure of advancement is subjective —with the possible
exception of the factor of survival, in which case all sur-
viving societies are equal. It is not accidental that few evolu-

tionary theorists saw any society but their own as the most
advanced. Perhaps one would defend this by saying that the
ability to propose evolutionary theory is the measure of ad-
vancement, but this criterion is most obviously based in the
value system of the theorist. Lastly, it should be noted that

the power of social evolutionary theory to convince is not
increased when we observe that primates demonstrate be-
havior that seems not unlike that which we refer to as male
dominance and that certain institutions have made mock-
eries of every political attempt to change them and every
theoretical attempt to explain their etiologies in the terms
of environment and economic function.
The "Prehistoric Matriarchies" and the

"Amazons"
Likewise, before this century, theories that hypothesized a
matriarchal form of society that prevailed at "an earlier stage
of history" made a certain, if tortuous, sense until findings
gathered in the past fifty years both failed to uncover a

single shred of evidence that such matriarchies had ever ex-
isted and demonstrated the inability of all such theories to
deal with reality. One constructs imaginary elements only

when such an hypothesized reality helps to better explain
an observed reality. For example, it made sense to hypothe-
size a male "aggressive instinct" (before the discovery of the
male hormone) because this made possible an explanation

of an observed reality (men rule in every society) that was
more plausible and logically tighter than any theory that
preceded it. There is no reason whatsoever to hypothesize
the existence of an as yet undiscovered matriarchy. Observa-
tion of empirical reality not only gives no reason to construct
54
such an hypothesis but indicates with virtual certainty that

this hypothesis would be incorrect. 22
For the reasons we have discussed it is not surprising that,

until their recent resurrection by feminists, the totally dis-
credited matriarchal and evolutionary theories of Lafitau,
Bachofen, Ward, McLennan, and BrifTault (and a host of

popularizations of their theories by Helen Diner and others)
have long been buried beneath a well-deserved obscurity.
There is no reason to detail yet once again the nearly innu-
merable factual errors and logical fallacies that are specific
to each of these works; suffice it to say that they all share
the contradictions and empirical disproof we have discussed

and to reiterate Panos Bardis's observation that "... these
theories were soon rejected by all social scientists."
^
This is not to say that matriarchal myths and legends have
not served valid exaggerative and metaphorical purposes for
writers from the time of Homer, Diodorus, Herodotus, and
Plutarch to that of Robert Graves. As literary devices they
have often been used with devastating effect to ridicule the
22 I have consulted the original ethnographic materials on every society
I have ever seen alleged by anyone to represent a matriarchy, female

dominance, or the association of high-status, nonmaternal roles with
women. Like the authors of the compilations cited in this chapter, I have
found no society that represents any of these (see the Addendum). Further-
more, I believe that the evidence advanced in Chapter Three renders the
concept of matriarchy and an absence of male dominance as absurd as the
possibility that there was a society that associated childbirth with males.
But it must be admitted that one cannot prove that matriarchy or anything
else has never existed. If one wants to demonstrate that there has never
been a centaur he can merely invoke the realities of physiology and evo-
lution to indicate the biological improbability of a centaur's ever having
existed and demonstrate that the evidence alleging the past existence of a
centaur is worthless. If the reader insists on maintaining a belief in a
once-existent matriarchical society all we can do is demand from him
some evidence more convincing than his desire for there to have been one.
23 Panos Bardis, "Synopsis and Evaluation of Theories Concerning
Family Evolution," Social Science, 38:50 (January, 1963). Interested

readers might further consult virtually any introductory text in anthro-
pological theory and M. F. Ashley Montagu's introduction to Marriage
Past and Present: A Debate Between Robert Briffault and Bronislaw Mali-
—
nowski (Boston: Porter Sargent, 1956 the debate took place in 1931).
55
men of societies in which male dominance was institutional-

ized less than in that of the authors. As myth they may well
reflect the most basic male fears; every infant does indeed
live in a matriarchy. As symbol they represent the matrilineal
society in which the woman does "carry the throne" that
will hold succeeding generations of men. But as anthropo-
logical descriptions of real societies these are total nonsense.
When such descriptions are not so metaphysical as to be
unfalsifiable, they prove, without exception, to be totally
fantastical.
It is these myths and legends that provide the "evidence"

advanced in a number of books that imply the former ex-
istence of matriarchies for the (usually unstated) purpose
of casting doubt on any biological explanation of sexual
differentiation in social institutions. 24 The authors of these
books rarely, of course, name
a society that was not patri-
archal orwhose institutions did not conform to male domi-

nance. They are aware that when they do, mere reference
to any history book, to say nothing of the original source
materials which these authors avoid as if they were con-
taminated, would immediately demonstrate that the specified
24 As we our discussion of cultural variation, serious Marxist

shall see in
scholars like Kathleen Gough have acknowledged
that no matriarchy has
ever existed. While such anthropologists place far greater emphasis on the
economic factor than I do, there is no direct conflict between their work
and the theory presented here; they do not maintain that there has ever
been a society that lacked patriarchy, male dominance, or male attainment
of high-status suprafamilial roles and positions. I am bothering to discuss
the presentations of works alleging the former existence of matriarchies
not because they deserve discussion on their intellectual merit —
they are
—
uniformly inaccurate and incompetently done but because they are oc-
casionally invoked by laymen. The works are: Elizabeth Gould Davis,
The First Sex (New York: Putnam, 1971); Helen Diner, Mothers and
Amazons (New York: Julian Press, a 1965 translation of a work originally
published around 1930); M. and M. Vaerting, Dominant Sex (London:
Doran, 1923); Nancy Reeves, Womankind (Chicago: Aldine, 1971);
Evelyn Reed, Is Biology Woman's Destiny? (New York: Pathfinder
Press, 1972); Phyllis Chesler, Woman and Madness (New York: Double-
day, 1972), and Emanuel Kanter, The Amazons (Chicago: Charles Kent,
1926).
56
society was ruled by men, that expectations and institutions
conformed to male dominance, and that males attained the
high-status, nonmaternal roles. Instead these authors advance

evidence so selective that it would be dishonest were it not
so ineptly handled. A marriage contract from one society is
advanced along with a female holiday from a second and

a goddess from a third. Using myths, one could as well imply
the existence of a society of centaurs. With this approach one
need not even select evidence from more than one society;
the story of "Jack and the Beanstalk" and the celebration of
Mother's Day would be enough to "prove" that America
is a society ruled by giant women.
There is a problem with these books that is even more
serious than their totally uncritical mixtures of myth and
isolated facts about real societies. They do not make even
theoretical sense. This enables us to avoid the necessity of
demonstrating the inadequacy of the empirical evidence pro-
vided by each individual book. The arguments advanced
in these books are, often without the awareness of the au-
thors, predicated on the assumptions that underpin Engels's
fallacious and empirically disprovable evolutionary theory.
There are three assumptions that are implicit in Engels's anal-
ysis and if any one of the three is incorrect then Engels's

analysis is incorrect. The assumptions are that matrilineality
precedes and must precede patrilineality, that the transforma-
tion from matrilineality to patrilineality is engendered by
the advent of private property and class differentiation, and
that the early stages of societal development are not merely
matrilineal, but matriarchal. The matrilineality we find in
various matrilineal societies is alleged to be not only a resi-
due of an earlier matrilineality, but of an earlier matriarchal
stage. This matriarchal stage is pictured by some as a reversal

of patriarchy and by others as an equalitarian situation in
which women received high status. We have seen that the
first version is simply incorrect; there is no evidence that at
57
any time there has ever been any society in which men did
not rule and there is great reason, as we shall see, to believe
that none could have ever existed. The second version is
not necessarily incorrect (as long as it asserts merely that

women received high status and does not imply that the
universals we discuss in this book were not present), but
it is irrelevant to patriarchy, male dominance, and male attain-
ment of high-status, nonmaternal roles. We shall see that
it is true that certain matrilineal societies do give women

very high status by giving very high status to roles that men
are incapable of playing. This is of far greater significance
to those who would deemphasize the female role than it is
to our discussion of institutions for which the status given

to female roles is irrelevant. The ideological component of
this reasoning can be seen when we reflect on the fact that,
rather than invoking a matrilineal society that does at least
give women high status by giving their female roles high
status, these authors continue to invoke Lewis Henry Mor-
gan's Iroquois as a roughly equalitarian society despite the
fact that, as we have seen, Morgan states that not only do
the Iroquois prohibit women from ruling, but that they also
consider them "servants."
Some of these authors have not even considered the ethno-
graphic materials that are available; if they had they would
have seen the absurdity of looking to our antecedent societies
for a matriarchy when none can be found among the thou-

sands of societies to which we are not related and which
are at "earlier stages of development" (whatever the yard-
stick) than those invoked and invented by these authors.
The authors would not have even had to refer to the original
ethnographic studies. George Murdock's definitive cross-
cultural analysis, Social Structure, 2 * exposes the three assump-

tions of Engels as not merely unjustified by the evidence,
25 See George Murdock, Social Structure (New York: Free Press, 1949),
pp. 184-207.
58
but as inarguably incorrect. Murdock demonstrates that there
are a great number of patrilineal societies for which there

is no evidence that patrilineality was preceded by matri-
lineality; in other words even an evolutionary theory of
lineage that does not imply a concomitant evolution of some
second variable is refuted by the evidence. More importantly,
matrilineality is not dependent on any other variable; such
dependence is what gives meaning to Engels's evolutionary
theory. Matrilineality is found in thriving societies with

highly developed rights of private property, with elaborate
stratification systems, with extensive political integration, and
even with systems of feudal land tenure. Matrilineality is also
the lineage system in societies in which these institutions are
absent or as minimally developed as possible. All of this can
be said of patrilineality also. Most crucial, of course, is the
fact that no change in any direction of any variable renders

any society significantly less patriarchal than any other society.
The fact that none of the alleged Amazonian societies has
ever existed has been demonstrated by a number of anthro-

pologists, 26 but it is nonetheless interesting to examine the
26 "Since the Amazons never existed, but are a mythical group first
mentioned by Herodotus and soon doubted by Strabo, their social organi-
zation need not further detain us, except perhaps as an enduring example
of the will to believe." (Montagu, op. cit., p. 88.) "The fabled Amazon
—
women are just that a fable. Even in societies which are organized about
women, in societies which follow matrilineal descent and inheritance and
matrilocal residence, power tends to be held by males in the female line-
age. Power is usually held by the mother's brother from the viewpoint of
ego, by the maternal uncle. Male dominance, or at least a tendency
towards it, appears to be one of those basic features of human existence
that culture cannot completely contradict. A minority of societies are
organized around female lineage, but even among them, power, status,
and property tend to be held by males." (Leslie, op. cit., p. 52.) Marvin
Harris (Culture, Man, and Nature, New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1971)
writes: (p. 328) ". certainly there was never any matrilineal 'stage'
. .
in this general evolution of culture.The basic reason for this is that men
have always been politically and economically dominant over women. . . .
Despite the persistent popular notion that the presence of matrilineal

descent groups reflects the political or economic domination of men by
women, it is the men in these societies no less than in patrilineal societies
59
internal logic of a report of the discovery of "the first
Amazons" that recently appeared in a popular magazine. 27

On the evidence of a few ideograms, a photographer devel-
oped a theory of the existence of an all-woman lesbian
society that existed long ago in the wilds of Brazil. The
society was supposed to have perpetuated itself by periodi-
cally raiding neighboring tribes, mating with captured males,
and killing all the males and all male offspring. This is not
taken seriously by any anthropologist, but let us for the mo-
ment imagine that this "society" did exist. If it is advanced as
evidence for the possibility of a nonpatriarchal society, cer-

tain questions arise. Why did these women have to hide in
caves? Why did they not merely attain positions of authority

in the societies from which they came in the same manner
as men have done in every society? More generally, we might
ask all those who claim that there has ever been a matriarchy
or an Amazonian society of any type why they are unable
to provide a single example from ethnographic materials
that include societies of virtually every conceivable type at
virtually every conceivable stage along virtually every con-
ceivable line of development; if socialization explains why
who the corporate kin group's productive and reproductive re-

control
sources," and (p. 582) "Matriarchy has never existed," and (p. 585)
". . anthropology lends no support to the view that there are no in-
.
nate differences between males and females." Lastly we should note that
Kathleen Gough, a leading anthropologist who certainly looks favorably
upon the feminist movement, has written: ". . . matriliny does not in-
volve 'matriarchy' or female dominance, either in the home or in society,
as Engels tended to believe. Matriarchy, as the reverse of patriarchy, has
in fact almost certainly never existed men predominate as heads of
. . .
households, lineages and communities in matrilineal as in patrilineal

societies, and women experience greater or less authority from their
mother's brothers, elder brothers, or even their grown sons. Some degree
of male dominance has, in fact, been universal to date in human society,
although matrilineal systems are usually kinder to women." "An Anthro-
—
pologist Looks at Engels," in Nona Glazer Malbin and Helen Youngelson
Waehrer, eds., Women in a Man-Made World (Chicago: Rand McNally,
1972), p. 115.
27 Time, December 27, 1971, p. 54.
60
societies are patriarchal there should be any number of so-
cieties in which leadership and authority are associated with

women, and one should not be forced to invoke examples
of nonpatriarchal societies that exist only in myth and lit-
28
erature.
The Meaning of Universality

An institution is universal if it plays a crucial role in every
society of which we have any knowledge; the total number

of such societies is between approximately twelve hundred
(societies that were relatively isolated from other societies
and that have been studied directly by anthropologists) and

over four thousand (groups that are definitely known to
exist, or to have existed, but that have not been studied

directly by anthropologists). An institution is not universal
if there is (or ever has been) a single society that does not
have (or at one time did not have) the institution. Univer-
sality need not, indeed usually does not, mean that every
individual in every society exhibits the behavior that leads
to (or is generated by), and which is regulated by, the insti-
tution. Marriage is a universal institution (if we leave for

the anthropologists to worry about the one or two societies
that some see as exceptions), even though some members

28 One may,
perhaps, speak meaningfully of "masculine" and "feminine"
societies or "masculine" and "feminine" periods in a particular society's
development if he uses these merely as relative terms and speaks of rela-
tively aggressive values as "masculine" and relatively nurturant values as
"feminine." We
will come close to doing this in Chapter Five when we
discuss the factors that determine the extent to which male aggression
is manifested in any given society. But such relative terms are applicable
only within the limits described in this book. No society was ever so
"feminine" that authority and dominance were not associated with males
and no society was ever so "masculine" that child-rearing was primarily
the responsibility of males (except, as with the Marquesan Islanders, who
practiced female infanticide, when there was a great shortage of women).
Some historians, using this terminology, have referred to societies which
would be "feminine" as "matriarchies." Since they do not imply that
the societies were not patriarchies (in my terms) or that they did not
exhibit male dominance, this does not conflict with the analysis pre-
sented here.
61
of every society remain unmarried. Universality means that

the general population of every society predicates its behav-
ior and expectations on the universal institution. It means
that thousands of "experiments" for which we could have
imagined a great number of other results all turned out the
same way.
Let me make it clear that I am not implying that be-
cause an institution is universal it is necessarily inevitable.
There are different reasons for universality, and by no means
do all imply inevitability. Perhaps the most obvious reason
for universality, and the one for which no reasonable argu-
ment for inevitability could be made, is technological igno-
rance or economic scarcity; certainly no one would argue that
because no society has a two-hour work week such a work
week could never be achieved by any society. However, while
universality can never, by itself, prove inevitability, there are
times when it combines with other evidence to strongly sug-
gest inevitability. The inevitability may flow from the nature
of society in general, as opposed to the particular nature
of a particular society, or from the very nature of human
biology. An example of the former is the incest taboo. One
can imagine a society in which parent-child incest is a com-
mon form of sexual activity, but what we know about the
effects of incest on social structure has led us to the con-
clusion that these effects alone would preclude the survival
of such a society even though it is logically and (let us agree
for argument's sake) biologically possible that such a society
could survive. Even when we deal with the most basic type
of limitation on societal possibility, the limitations imposed
by human physiology, universality alone does not prove in-
evitability. One would not say that in every future society
(composed of men and women who are biologically con-
stituted as they are now and disregarding for now the
possibility of new forms of childbirth) women will be the
ones to give birth because they have always been the child-
62
bearers in ever)- society in the past, but here the biological

factor is so apparent that the implication of inevitability
that is inherent in universality cannot reasonably be ques-
tioned. Universality indicates that there has never been an
exception (which would, of course, immediately disprove
inevitability). Given the seemingly unlimited plasticity of
human beings and the seemingly endless variety of their
societal institutions, the universality of an institution alerts
the objective investigator to the possibility that there is an

underlying factor engendering universality and that, if this
factor is inseparable from the general nature of society or

of human biology, the institution, or some equivalent insti-
tutional channel for meeting the requirements of this factor,
may be inevitable. If there were no biological evidence

relevant to patriarchy, male dominance, and male attainment,
then one might argue that the inevitability of these institu-
tions was merely a fairly likely probability. I suspect that
the anthropologist, who is impressed by the cultural diversity
he finds and is more impressed when he finds an institution
that is capable of overriding this diversity, would tend to
believe strongly that there is an as yet undiscovered factor
that makes these institutions universal. The analysis that
explains these institutions in terms of the specific social values
of each specific society, while it is fairly satisfactory if one
has only a single society or a few related societies to study
(though even for a single society the etiology and purpose
of the institution must be explained), loses its persuasive
powers as more and more unrelated societies with unrelated,
highly varied value systems all demonstrate only one of a
number of logically possible institutional alternatives. We
sociologists on the other hand, who more often concern
ourselves with societies in the Western tradition and who,
I believe, too often see ourselves as having a vested interest
in a totally environmental approach to social reality, would
hold out more strongly for an explanation that did not imply
63
inevitability. But universality is only one element of the evi-

dence to be presented for the line of reasoning that sees
patriarchy, male dominance, and male attainment as inevi-
table. It is important because it demonstrates that there has

been no exception to disprove the inevitability of these insti-
tutions, because it points the way to other sorts of evidence
that may explain such universality and may indicate reasons

for inevitability, because universality represents an astonish-
ing regularity in a world of variation, and because it is for
the explanation of such regularity that the scientist searches.
For the cultural anthropologist nothing is lost when an
admirable scientific conservatism leads him to describe in
slightly qualified terms the universality of a universal insti-
tution. However, I am advancing the hypothesis that patri-
archy, male dominance, and male attainment are inevitable,
and it is important to emphasize that the conservatism of

some anthropologists does not indicate their belief that there
are any clear exceptions to total universality. Throughout
this book I accept the assertion that one need find only one
societal exception to the universality of an institution to
prove that not only is the institution not inevitable, but
that its presence in all other societies is not related to bio-
logical factors. I do this to increase the tightness of the
theory and I am able to do this because there is not a single
exception to the universality of patriarchy, male attainment,
and male dominance. It is worth mentioning, however, that
it is quite possible that there are a number of secondary and
tertiary biological factors that will nearly always be mani-
fested in a particular institution but that may be overridden
in rare situations when complemented by extreme institu-
tions that act as counterpoise only at the cost of introducing

tension into the system by unusual suppression of the bio-
logical or that may be overridden only by rendering the com-
ponents of the system very different from the components
of nearly all other social systems. For example, polyandry
64
(marriage consisting of a woman and more than one man)

is the primary form of marriage in only about one-tenth of
1 percent of all societies. In all or virtually all of these
societies (the evidence is unclear and the methodological
problems are complex) female infanticide is widely prac-
more adult men than there are adult
ticed so that there are
women. Therefore, while the existence of a single society
in which polyandry is the primary form of marriage does
prove that it is not inevitable that every society must be

monogamous or polygynous, it does not prove that the fact
that polygyny is common while polyandry is rare is un-
related to biological factors.
The Relevance of Cultural Variation

All social scientists agree that there are both unchanging
preconditions that must be met by any society that is to
survive and also great variations from one society to another.

Whether a social scientist is more impressed by similarities
or variations is, perhaps, a reflection of his personality, a

question of whether he sees the glass as half empty or half
full. If he sees the glass as half empty, he will be sustained
by the fact that no society has ever failed to develop games;
if he sees the glass as half full, he will stand in awe of the
wonderfully varied types of games the members of different
societies have developed. If he sees the glass as half empty,
he will note that man's emotions and the biological mate-
rials that underlie them have changed only very slightly, if
at all, since our species first evolved. If he sees the glass as

half full, he will devote his attentions to the ingenuity so-
cieties have demonstrated in developing the various insti-
tutional mechanisms for satisfying the emotional needs of

the societies' members. The reality is that the glass contains
water equal to half its capacity; the correctness of an analysis

is threatened only when one who views the glass as half
empty (or half full) argues that the glass is less than (or
65
more than) half full. This is what many social scientists do

when discussing the institutions we discuss in this book.
The nature of sociology is such that the sociologist often
sees the glass as half full and emphasizes variation among
societies; he analyzes variations in social and economic con-
texts in an attempt to explain cross-cultural variations rele-
vant to particular institutions. He might, for example, study

women's roles in America and India in order to discover the
differing etiologies of differing roles and the differing mech-

anisms that sustain these roles. This approach is fertile be-
cause the differences proposed in the analysis of these two

societies is justified by real differences they attempt to ex-
plain. There is the danger, however, that this customary
sociological perspective may lead to overemphasizing the
variation that is found from society to society, to seeing the
glass as more than half full. Indeed, many sociologists who

are not aware of the universality of patriarchy, male domi-
nance, and male attainment invoke cultural variation as
"proof" that these institutions could not be inevitable. There

is no such cultural variation.
As we have seen, when patriarchy is considered, there is
virtually no variation at all. The number of women in posi-

tions of leadership and authority varies, as we shall see, from
zero to perhaps 6 or 7 percent as one spans the entire range
of all human societies including, it should be noted, those
societies in which women comprise half the work force.
Calculation of the exact upper figure depends on how far
down from the top one considers "leadership" and whether
one includes appointed positions of leadership such as cabi-
net members. In any case, the point is abundantly clear: no
society fails to associate suprafamilial authority with males
or fails to fill its authority positions with males. There is
even some empirical and, if the theory presented here is cor-

rect, strong theoretical evidence that modernization (speciali-
zation, division of labor, bureaucratization, and the removal
66
of hereditary barriers to mobility) limits the possibility of
female attainment of leadership positions, even within the

slight variation that is possible, by giving freest play to male
aggression.
Likewise, there is very little variation among societies in
the degree to which males attain the nonmaternal roles that

are given high status (whatever the particular roles given
high status in any particular society). If male attainment of
nonmaternal, nonleadership roles is, in a few societies, not
as apparent as male attainment of leadership roles, it is be-
cause, as we shall see in our discussion of the Mbuti, such
societies have few such roles to attain.
Since we have defined "male dominance" in terms of the

feeling of a society's men and women that an element of
general authority resides in the male and since we have seen
that the ethnographic studies of every society that has ever
been observed explicitly state that these feelings were pres-
ent, there is literally no variation at all. If we consider
variation in the degree to which such feelings are manifested
in dyadic and familial institutions, we are threatened with
becoming mired in subjective considerations concerning
which aspects to emphasize. I have suggested (Footnote
Eleven) that the degree to which male dominance will be
manifested will be lowest when a society's males are most
preoccupied with suprafamilial pursuits. Even in such so-
cieties authority within the family will be invested in the
male (usually the father, but the mother's brother in the case
of some matrilineal-matrilocal societies), but male disinterest
and female ability to "get around" males by "feminine
means" will serve to give women a great deal of real power,
though not authority, within the family. Apart from the ob-
servation that male dominance will be least manifested in
dyadic and familial institutions when a suprafamilial area is
given high status and the paternal role low status, about all
we can say about variation from society to society in the de-
67
gree to which male dominance is manifested in dyadic and

familial institutions is this: Male dominance is present in
every society. The societies that least manifest male domi-
nance are the United States and a few matrilineal societies. If
one considers male dominance in the United States extreme,

then he must agree that there is very little variation in the
degree to which different societies manifest male dominance
(relative to the logically possible variation), because nearly
all other societies manifest it to a greater degree. He cannot

argue that, within the variation that we do find, industrializa-
tion necessarily decreases the manifestations of male domi-

nance, because the other two or three societies (besides the
United States ) that least manifest male dominance are primi-
tive societies. While it is true that modernization has tended
to reduce the manifestation of male dominance in the past
two centuries in America, it would no doubt increase male

dominance in a matrilineal-matrilocal primitive society whose
starting point is low male dominance.
We are now able to consider a point that is not only cen-
tral to the question of alleged cultural variation and to the
evolutionary fallacies we shall discuss momentarily, but one
that enables us to avoid endless and needless confusion. This
is the confusion that is engendered by the phrase status of
women, a phrase we shall attempt to avoid in this book.
Confusion develops because this term is used to include two

or more factors that are not only not necessarily positively
correlated, but which, if the suggestions offered above and
in Footnote Eleven are correct, will often be inversely cor-
related. Some authors use this phrase to refer to rights and
find that there is a great deal of variation from society to
society in the rights given to women; some societies give

women virtually no rights at all while in modern societies
such as America women have virtual equality of rights. The
feminist may abhor the few remaining laws that differentiate
between the sexes, but surely she will admit that such laws
68
are not a major cause of the disparity in the numbers of men

and women in positions of power and that they are not the
primary focus of her criticism of contemporary society. If she
will not admit this, then she will have to admit that passage
of an equal rights amendment would satisfy all her criticisms.
If all authors referred to rights when they used the phrase
status of a omen, then there would be no problem; we could
admit that there is great variation here, but that such variation
is irrelevant to this book because it has no bearing on patri-
archy, male dominance, or male attainment.
However, a number of anthropologists have suggested that
the "status of women" is highest in certain, though by no

means all, matrilineal-matrilocal societies. Here these anthro-
pologists refer to the respect given to women. If we focus
on respect, we see, once again, that variation from society
to society is very great. But once again this is irrelevant to
our purposes because the great respect given to women does
not reduce the degree of patriarchy, male dominance, or male
attainment of high-status suprafamilial positions; this respect
reflects the high status of maternal and female lineage-
related roles and is perfectly congruent with the suggestion
that male dominance will be somewhat subdued in societies
in which male time and energies are directed toward supra-
familial pursuits to an unusual degree. In these societies men
are typically outsiders in the matrilineal household, and in-
teraction between the sexes is far less frequent than in our
society. When these societies give high status to women's
female roles, women's position is, in a very real sense, quite
strong. Women are given great respect and a considerable
degree of familial power. It is important to note, however,
that such respect and familial power is made possible by the
male suprafamilial orientation and emotional detachment
from the family. Women have few suprafamilial rights, pa-
triarchy is as strong as in any other society, males attain all
the suprafamilial high-status positions, and male dominance,
69
while it may be somewhat subdued because of the male's

"visitor" status and the infrequency of male-female encoun-
ters, is unmistakably present in both the feelings of men and
women and the formal expectations of the society.
The reader can no doubt already see the confusion that
ensues when one uses the phrase status of women to include
even two discrete factors, rights and respect. Women receive

great respect in certain matrilineal societies that give them
few rights; the respect derives from the fact that they fill
high-status roles which men are incapable of playing and

for which male aggression is useless. (There is nothing in
the theory presented here that precludes the possibility that
a society will give higher status to female roles which men
are incapable of filling than to the roles which males attain.
Women receive equality of rights in societies in which they

compete with men and in which the female roles men are
incapable of playing are given relatively low respect. In both
societies female attainment of high-status, suprafamilial po-
sitions is insignificant, so which society gives women "higher
status"?
Were this the limit of the confusion engendered by the
phrase status of women, the problem would be irrelevant to
the universal institutions we discuss; we could merely sug-
gest that those authors who are interested in the rights or
the respect granted women discard the confusing phrase and
specify the variable they wish to discuss. However, the prob-
lem is more serious than this. Some Marxist anthropologists
acknowledge that there has never been a matriarchy, but,
invoking variations of Engels's reasoning, imply that there
were once societies in which women's position was far higher
than it has been in any of the thousands of societies that
have existed since the dawn of history. 29 It is not clear from
29 See Kathleen Gough, op. cit., pp. 107-118, and Eleanor Burke Lea-
cock's introduction to Engels's The Origin of the Family, Private Property,
and the State (New York: International Publishers, 1972), pp. 7-67.
70
these authors' writings exactly what these authors believe

the prehistoric societies were like. If all that they mean is
that these societies were like the matrilineal societies we

have just discussed, then there is no necessary conflict be-
tween the theory presented here and their works; for if we

are willing to admit that such societies now exist we lose
nothing by admitting that they did long ago also. The prob-
lem derives from these authors' implication, quite possibly
an unintended implication, that these societies did not mani-
fest male attainment of high-status, nonmaternal roles and
positions or male dominance. This implication is not only
incorrect, but it leaves the impression that matrilineal socie-
ties are somehow closer to the feminist ideal than are the
modern industrial societies in which we live. A nonfeminist
woman might well prefer life in a matrilineal society, but
such a society is a feminist's nightmare. A technological so-
ciety that was matrilineal could not develop for a number
of reasons, but if one did exist and did resemble the "pre-
historic matrilineal societies" or contemporary matrilineal
societies, it would differ most notably from our society in
the total separation of male and female roles and the pro-
hibitions against women even entering the areas from which
men derived their status, in the impossibility of women's
attaining status in any way but through maternal and lineage-
related roles, and in the lesser degree to which men would
even think about women. It is true that male dominance
would be somewhat diminished, but only to the extent that
males were absent from the family setting. This setting would
still be dominated by a male, though the male might be the
mother's brother. This might all be satisfactory for the
woman who did not care that the society manifested patri-
archy, male attainment, and male dominance because it gave
her female roles high status, but it would be dreadful for the
woman who sees women's value in terms of the suprafamilial
high-status roles and positions that males attain.
71
The real lesson to be learned from societies that give

women equality of rights and from those that give women
great respect is twofold: A. Males attain the positions of
authority and high status no matter what the rights given
women, and B. A reduction of the status given to the roles
only a woman can fill forces women who desire status to
compete for status in areas in which male aggression is a
precondition for attainment while it reduces the respect
given to women. As we shall see, this means that a reduc-
tion of the status given to the roles only a woman can play
changes a woman's situation from one in which women
cannot lose to one in which women cannot win. The mean-
ing this holds for the feminist movement and its attempt to
improve women's situation by deemphasizing the roles that
men are incapable of playing are manifold.
In every strata of every society the status of women is
derived in part from the status accorded the roles only a

woman can play and in part from the status of the husband
or, in the few polyandrous societies, the primary husband.
The highest-status women in every society derive their high
status from their husbands (or, in a few cases, their sons).
There is, of course, much more variation within a society in

male status and in the status derived by women from male
status than there is in the status derived women from the
by
roles only women can play (i.e., a janitor's wife derives
much lower status from her husband than does a doctor's
wife, but the janitor's wife derives as much status from the
roles only she can play as does the doctor's wife — the amount
of status so derived being determined by the amount of
status her particular society gives to the roles only a woman
can play ) . Thus a decrease in the status accorded the roles
only a woman can play will result in a situation in which:
(a) There will be a net loss of status accorded women; (b)
Males will, for all the reasons we shall discuss, continue to
be the attainers of status and positions of authority; (c) The
72
—
wives of such attainers (whose feminine abilities are pri-
marily responsible for their attaining the marital positions

from which they derive high status) will continue to be the
highest-status females; and, (d) Other women will see their
status lowered to the degree that the status accorded the roles
only a woman can play is lowered.
In any case: Numerous anthropologists, sociologists, psy-
chologists, and even psychoanalysts have attempted to invoke
cultural variation to reject the possibility of a biological basis
of the universal institutions we discuss. These scholars are

free to invoke cultural variation as refutation of a biological
explanation of institutions that do vary and they are free
to argue that the theory proposed here is incorrect, so that
there could someday exist a society that failed to manifest

one of the universal institutions. But if they attempt to in-
voke variation among societies that exist or have existed
or if they attempt to invoke the real variation that exists on
the superficial level of tasks performed in order to counter
the implications of an analysis based on the absence of varia-
tion found on the deeper level of the association of sex and
status —then they are, to be quite blunt, ignoring the evi-
dence and they are wrong. By focusing on patriarchy, male
dominance, and male attainment of high-status suprafamilial
roles and positions, three criteria that avoid the confusion
engendered by vague and misleading paradigms like "the
status of women," we discover that there is not now, nor
has there ever been, any variation large enough to cast the
slightest doubt on the universality of these institutions or
on the possibility that they represent three inevitable mani-
festations of biological sexual differentiation. This book is,
in essence, an attempt to discover why these three institutions

are universal and to assess the possibility of their being in-
evitable.
73
Chapter Three
The Hormonal Factor
Introductory Note:
This chapter is not, by any stretch of the imagina-
tion, meant to be a definitive discussion of the
hormonal basis of sex-associated behavior. Even
were I qualified to undertake such a task, the
nearly infinite complexity of this subject would
preclude detailed discussion within the confines
of a single chapter. My purpose in this chapter is
merely to demonstrate that the hormonal evidence

fully justifies our hypothesizing the determinative
(to patriarchy, male attainment, and male domi-

nance) biological difference between males and
females in "aggression" (as operationally defined
in this chapter) which the anthropological evi-
dence forces us to hypothesize. The ability of the
institutions we have discussed to manifest them-

selves whatever the environmental and social con-
text of a society would justify our hypothesizing

innate sexual differences relevant to these institu-
tions even if there were no hormonal evidence at
all. Likewise, I believe that the hormonal evidence

presented here is so strong that it would be ex-
tremely persuasive in explaining the presence of
patriarchy, male dominance, and male attainment
in our society even if we had no cross-cultural
evidence at all. All that is necessary for the theory
74
The Hormonal Factor
of limits advanced in this book is that there be

a hormonal factor which gives males a greater
capacity for aggression; this is an advantage in
that the capacity can be invoked in any area for
which it iv ill lead to success. This is all that is
meant by reference to the "biological"; there is
no implication in this book that there exists a
"male need to lead or dominate," a male "aggres-

sive instinct" which generates any sorts of ideas
or behavior, a "killer instinct," a male "bonding

factor," a "territorial imperative," or any other
innate or "natural" factor which directs or pat-
terns thoughts or behavior. Whether such factors
exist or not is irrelevant here.
Likewise, the fact that there may also be en-

vironmental elements involved in the etiology of
sexual behavior or "aggression" is irrelevant un-
less one can demonstrate that the hormonal factor
conforms to the environmental factor. If the en-
vironmental elements merely conform to the limits

set by the hormonal elements then the sexual
directions determined by the hormonal elements
are irreversible and the institutions that conform
to these directions are, if this theory is correct,
inevitable. This is not to deny that there are ele-

ments of interaction, but, if the theory presented
here is correct, these can be seen to be as insignifi-
cant to the development of the institutions dis-

cussed as fetal nutrition is to the difference in
physical strength between the sexes or to the insti-
tutions that conform to this difference. (See "Hu-
man Aggression," p. 91, and "The Irrelevance of
Exceptions," p. 94.")
Needless to say, I could not possibly have pre-
pared this chapter without the advice of biochem-
75
ists, biologists, endocrinologists, and psychologists

who are, unfortunately, too numerous to acknowl-
edge individually. I am particularly grateful, how-
ever, to Drs. Frank Beach, David Blizard, David
Edwards, Bruce McEwen, John Money, and Geof-
frey Raisman. If any errors are contained in the
chapter they are, of course, mine. Because much
of the evidence included here is based on recent
and exceedingly complex research, there are no
doubt instances where some who specialize in the
disciplines discussed would have worded a sen-
tence differently or would have made a distinction
which —while irrelevant to the points being made
here —would be necessary in other contexts. For
example: when discussing hormonal factors rele-
vant to universal institutions I occasionally use

the word environment as virtually synonymous
with socialization, even though I am aware that
special environmental conditions such as malnu-
trition, shock, hormone therapy, or fetal trauma
are neither heredity nor socialization. These are
crucial for some areas of study, but are obviously
irrelevant to the discussion of differences in sexual
behavior and of institutions that are universal
(except insofar as environment affects biological
adaptation, and this is discussed in Chapter Six).
The Dangers of Biological Analogy

As the reader must have suspected, the theory of the in-
evitability of patriarchy rests on a foundation of biological
reasoning. For the universality of patriarchy and male domi-
nance offers only circumstantial evidence of patriarchal in-
evitability and, though circumstantial evidence is often

sufficient for conviction, for the case to be airtight direct
76
The Hormonal Factor
evidence is needed. The total refusal of many sociologists
to consider biological evidence is a result of not only the
"vested interest" mentioned above nor the feeling on the left

that biological considerations are implicitly "racist" but also
a reaction to early sociological theorists' reliance on absurd
analogies to nature and to the horrors that have been per-
petrated in the name of nature. In order to justify slavery,
for example, some theorists had hypothesized a biological
element that made slavery inevitable despite the fact that the
large number of societies that did not have slavery indicated
that such a hypothesis was not only uncalled for but obviously
incorrect.
Racists do not, of course, care about biological truth, and

the early sociologists lived in a time when knowledge of bio-
logical fact was relatively nonexistent. So if the sociological
reluctance to consider biological evidence is overreactive, the
points made by the sociologists are not without considerable
merit. References to nature and teleological arguments about
what God had in mind are intellectually worse than worth-
less, and nature exceeds the Bible in its potential for episte-
mological misuse. While it is true that in all the primates
that even vaguely resemble man, probably in all the less
related primates (see Footnote Thirty-Six), and perhaps even
in all the other mammalian species (see the discussion of the
hamster, below ) , the males are more aggressive than the fe-
males, it would make no difference to the line of reasoning

used in this book if only for humans was the male more
aggressive than the female and in all the other species aggres-
sion was primarily a female quality. Aggression is not asso-
ciated with the male because there is a universal law that
says that the males of every species must be more aggressive
than the females. Each species' biology develops in accord
with environmental necessity. While the biological association
of aggression with the male serves obvious survival functions,
77
and while it would not be likely that this would be left out of
a species unless the species developed under very extraordi-
nary environmental conditions, there is no reason to dismiss
the possibility that a unique environmental situation could

engender even in a mammalian species a biochemistry in
which the neural effects of the hormones were the opposite
of those in man. We should no more expect this to have a
bearing on the effects of human biology on temperament and
behavior than we should be surprised to learn that men can-
not fly after we learn that birds have wings. When I say that
patriarchy and male attainment are inevitable for biological
reasons I mean only that human biology precludes the possi-
bility of a human social system whose authority system is
not dominated by males and in which male aggression is not

manifested in dominance and attainment of positions of status
and power. Therefore, while evidence provided by primate
studies would no doubt provide considerable additional sup-
port for the theory advanced here, 30 such evidence is unneces-
sary and — so that we may avoid the criticisms that such
evidence invariably elicits — it will play no part in the line of
reasoning developed here. Likewise, it will not be necessary to

invoke the well-documented studies of the feminizing effects
of castration on primates (including man) and on other mam-

mals.
Human Hermaphrodites
It should not be necessary to say that there have not been
planned experiments in which hormones of the other sex have
30 For example:Harry F. Harlow and Stephen J. Suomi have demon-

strated that monkeys reared in isolation will, when brought together, ex-
hibit the play behavior expected of normal monkeys; male play behavior
is far more aggressive than female play behavior (as is the case with
human children). Since the monkeys were reared in isolation they could
not have learned this mode of behavior from other monkeys. The indi-
cation is very strong that the aggressive play is a behavioral manifestation
of See Harry Harlow and Stephen J. Suomi,
innate male aggression.
"Social Recovery by Isolation-Reared Monkeys," Proceedings of the Na-
tional Academy of Science, 68:1534-1538 (July, 1971).
78
The Hormonal Factor
been introduced into normal human embryos or fetuses. Such

experimentation would not be ethical, but biological accident
has provided the researcher in this area with the hermaphro-
dite. Ironically, until a very few years ago hermaphrodites
provided the strongest argument for the totally environmental
theory of sex-role development; for there was a type of
hermaphrodite who is sex-chromosomally male but who is
born without external male genitalia. Such hermaphrodites

are often raised as girls and develop into normal, though
infertile, women. This seems strong evidence indeed that
biology is unimportant to the development of sexual tempera-
ment and behavior. However, research in the past few years,
John Money of Johns Hopkins, has

particularly that of Dr.
demonstrated beyond question that such hermaphrodites do
not merely lack male genitals; they also never have received
the hormonal stimulation of the brain by the male hormone,
which all normal males receive fetally and (later again) in
puberty. The masculinization of the fetal brain is programmed
by the testes (which develop on instruction from an XY
chromosomal program ) . If a mistake causes a break in the
chain so that fetal testes do not develop, as is the case with
the genetic male hermaphrodites who lack external male
genitals, there will be no masculinization of the brain (no
generation of testosterone, the male hormone) and it will be
possible to raise the genetic male as a female. In other words,
the genetic male hermaphrodite with female external genital
morphology can be raised as a female and will have no dis-
cordance from sexual pathways in the brain. It would not be

possible to raise a normal male in this way.
We need not attempt to negotiate the complexities of
hermaphroditism and ambiguity of sexual development here.
The issue which is relevant to this book is not gender identity
per se and certainly not the gender identity of rare individuals
in whom hormonal development conflicts with chromosomal
sex. It would not matter, to this theory, if, in individuals
79
whose physiological development is ambiguous, socialization

is determinative to gender identity and behavior; the fact
that hermaphroditic females can grow facial hair does not
change the fact that normal women cannot be socialized to
grow facial hair. It does not matter, to this theory, that a
chromosomal male can be exogenously hormonalized to a
female gender identity (and vice versa); indeed, this can
serve only to indicate the importance of hormones. Most im-

portantly, it would not even matter, to this theory, if a
normal male could be socialized to a female gender identity
(or vice versa). All questions of gender identity are irrele-
vant to this theory. All that is relevant here is one aspect
("aggression") of the differentiated behavior which is as-
sociated with the differentiated hormonalization of normal

males and normal females. As we shall see, we need not
even define or describe the aspect which is associated more
with the hormonalization of the normal male than with the
hormonalization of the normal female; we need merely give
this aspect the operational designation "aggression" and pro-
ceed in the attempt to demonstrate that only the explanation
which invokes this factor is capable of reasonably explaining,
without contradiction by its own internal logic or disproof

by the ethnographic evidence, the universality of the social
institutions we have discussed. The reader might have pre-
ferred my using, instead of "aggression," terms meaning
"political dominance behavior," "status attainment behavior,"
and "dyadic dominance behavior"; however, while it is quite
true that the behavior which leads to political dominance,
status attainment, and dyadic dominance is associated with
male hormonalization —whatever the relevance of the hor-
monalization — (i.e., those who attain political and dyadic
dominance and status in every society have male hor-
monal systems), my using such terms would have im-
plied that male hormonalization directly engenders these
types of behavior and, while this is quite likely the
80
The Hormonal Factor
case, we do not have the right to assume this and this need
not be the case for this theory to be correct. The mere
presence of a male-female difference in physiologically en-
gendered, but physiologically undirected, "aggression" is all
that is necessary for this theory.

Thus the following paragraphs from Dr. Money's works
are presented not for the light they shed on individuals
whose physiological development is ambiguous or for the
light they shed on normal individuals' gender identity per se.
The paragraphs are presented for the light they shed on the
hormonal development of normal males and normal females
and to demonstrate that the hormonal evidence does not give
us the right to deny the possible relevance of hormones to
the one and only aspect ("aggression") of behavior for
which there need be a male-female difference in order to
explain the universality of the social institutions we have
discussed. The only biological hypothesis included in this
book states that those individuals whose male anatomy leads
to a social identification as "male" have hormonal systems
which generate a greater capacity for "aggression" (or a
lower threshold for the release of "aggression" for our —
is the same thing) than those individuals whose
purposes this
female anatomy leads to a social identification as "female"
and that socialization and institutions conform to the reality
of hormonal sexual differentiation and to the statistical reality
of the "aggression advantage" which males derive from their

hormonal systems. All questions of gender identity per se
are irrelevant to this book since, in every society, virtually
every individual will have congruence in social gender iden-

tity, individual gender identity, anatomy, and hormonal sys-
tem. This point is important because a number of authors, in
attempting to demonstrate the irrelevance of hormonal dif-
ferentiation to the institutions we discuss, have focused on
the irrelevant question of gender identity rather than on the
differing behavior which is associated with the differing
81
hormonal systems of normal males and females. In the next

section we shall discuss evidence which suggests not merely
that it is possible that sexual differences in "aggression" are
related to sexual hormonal differences, but that the male
hormone does give the male a greater capacity for "aggres-
sion" (or a lower threshold at which "aggression" is re-
leased ) . While the purpose of this book is not to attempt to

describe the forms of behavior which are subsumed under
the hypothetical "aggression," but only to demonstrate that
sexual hormonal differences render certain institutions and
certain directions of socialization inevitable, the evidence ad-
vanced in the next section and the discussion in the section
titled "Human Aggression" and Footnotes 32 and 40 are
quite suggestive of forms of behavior in which "aggression"
is manifested.
Dr. Money writes:
Gender identity in adulthood is the end product not of

an either-or determinism of heredity versus environ-
ment, but of the genetic code in serial interaction with
environment. From the time of conception, the genetic
code unfolds itself in interaction, first with the intra-
uterine environment, then the perinatal environment, the

family environment, and eventually the more extended
social, biological, and inanimate ecological environment.
Interactionism is a key principle, but an even more basic
key is the principle of serial sequence of interaction.

Serial interactionism means that interaction between
the genetic code and its environment, at a critical or
sensitive developmental period in an individual's exis-
tence, from conception to death, may leave a permanent
ineradicable residue upon which all else is subsequently
built. This residue may be so indelible or insistent in its
influence as to resemble the potency of the genetic code

itself. Moreover, such indelibility or insistence may be
82
The Hormonal Factor
residual to what has traditionally been referred to as
learning — in which case learning should be referred to
as imprinting, in recognition of the persistence and dur-

31
ability of its influence.
The sequence begins with the dimorphism of the genetic

code as manifested in the XX and XY chromosomal
dimorphism. From the genetic code, sexual dimorphism
is translated into the dimorphism of embryonic differ-
entiation of the gonads, which, through their hormonal

secretion, in turn differentially regulate the dimorphism
of first the internal reproductive structures and then the
external genitalia. At the same time in embryonic life,
gonadal secretion dimorphically regulates the differen-

tiation of structures in the brain, specifically the hypo-
thalamus, that in turn will regulate the sex-related
functioning of the pituitary. In all probability gonadal
secretion at this same time also dimorphically regulates
other structures of the brain that will eventually be in-
volved in the regulation of certain aspects of sexually
dimorphic behavior, namely, those aspects that are phy-
letically widely distributed (like motherly attentiveness
newborn or 32> 33
to the coital postures and movement) .
31
John Money, "Matched Pairs of Hermaphrodites: Behavioral Biology
of Sexual Differentiation from Chromosomes to Gender Identity," in
Engineering and Science (California Institute of Technology), 33:34, 1970.
Special Issue: Biological Bases of Human Behavior.
32 John Money, "Sexually Dimorphic Behavior, Normal and Abnormal,"
Environmental Influences on Genetic Expression: Biological and Be-
havioral Aspects of Sexual Differentiation (Fogerty International Center
Proceedings No. 2, U.S. Government Printing Office), 1971, p. 209. Be-
cause Dr. Money does not use the term "aggression" as I do, and because
I use the term to refer to unspecified (for the purposes of this theory)
dimorphic behavior, it is difficult to relate his work to this theory. I would
think it relevant, however, that Dr. Money does describe certain types
of behavior that are associated with pathological hormonalization which
would seem related to sexual differences in "aggression" as I use the
term. For example, Dr. Money finds that fetally androgenized genetic fe-
males who are not additionally androgenized postnatally demonstrate
83
what Dr. Money terms "tomboyism." Dr. Money states that the hallmark
of tomboyism is a "high level of physical energy expenditure, especially
in vigorous outdoor play, games, and sports commonly considered the
prerogative of boys." These individuals were socialized as girls. Dr. Money
mentions that these individuals were no more "aggressive" than normal
girls in picking fights with playmates and that the correct variables to
describe gender-dimorphic behavior are more likely dominance assertion
and striving for position in the dominance hierarchy of childhood. These,
rather than anything having to do with picking fights or gender identity
per se, are the types of behavior which would seem relevant to "aggres-
sion" as used in my
paradigm. Dr. Money points out that these androgen-
ized girls "male" toys (cars, guns) to "female" toys (dolls),
preferred
lacked the enthusiasm for motherhood which marked the control group
with which they were compared, and demonstrated a greater interest in
career and lesser interest in marriage than the control group. It should be
noted that these individuals were not, as are normal males, further
androgenized postnatally. Dr. Money writes: "The most likely hypothesis to
explain the various features of tomboyism in fetally masculinized genetic
females is that their tomboyism is a sequel to the masculinizing effect on
the fetal brain." I do not advance this as evidence for the correctness of
the theory presented here because I do not include in the theory an at-
tempt to describe the behavior which I subsume under the hypothesized
"aggression" which is greater (or more easily released) in males than in
females I mention all this only to point out that Dr. Money's work does
;
not cast doubt on the relevance of hormonal sexual differentiation to the

institutions whose universality I am attempting to explain. Indeed, to
the extent that this evidence is relevant at all, it suggests that, while
hormonal masculinization of the genetic female does not necessarily lead
to a male gender identity, it can lead to certain types of behavior which
are associated more with normal male hormonalization than with normal
female hormonalization. It is such behavior, behavior which is included
in my term "aggression," and not gender identity per se, which is relevant
to this book. See John Money and Anke A. Ehrhardt, Man and Woman,
Boy and Girl (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972),
pp. 98-103.
33 In an attempt to counter the implication that fetal hormonalization
isdeterminative to gender identity, Jessie Bernard {Women and the Public

Interest[Chicago: Aldine-Atherton, 1971], pp. 17-18), has prepared a
matrix based on the case studies in Stoller's book {op. cit). After examin-
ing Stoller's cases in terms of genetic sex, internal anatomy, external
anatomy, gender assignment, and gender identity, Dr. Bernard concludes
that there is an ". independence of gender identity from either
. .
heredity or anatomy." The conclusion that flows from Dr. Bernard's

material is just the opposite of this; excluding the category of individuals
for whom all variables save gender identity were female, we see that a
male gender identity never developed in the absence of fetal male hormon-
alization, but that it did develop even when a fetally masculinized male
was socialized as a female. (Technically, of course, accidental fetal hor-
monalization of a female is not "heredity," but the implication for the
development of gender identity in normal humans is that hereditary male
hormonalization is determinative to male gender identity.) The one
84
The Hormonal Factor
Testosterone and Aggression

Only human biology is relevant to aggression: vague refer-
ence to other species is fraught with potential for abuse.

However, there is one area of inquiry that falls between etio-
logical data and the direct study of human biology; this is
the experimental study of animals that resemble humans in
the physiology of the system being studied. Those who cate-
gorically dismiss the possibility of the relevance to humans

of such research should ignore this section. I trust that the
discussion of hermaphroditism is sufficient to convince them

of the importance of hormones to sex-associated behavior in
humans. Other readers might consider, however, that nearly
all medical research proceeds in this way and that knowledge
of human physiology is often made possible by what we learn
about animal physiology.
The hormonal etiology of aggression is exceedingly com-
plex. It is a gross oversimplification, at best, to speak merely
in terms of hormone levels. The male hormone is not, in
itself, "aggressive." The biological aggression of which we
shall speak is a function of an interaction between the fetally
prepared central nervous system and the later presence of

endogenous testosterone. This explains the possibility of the
rare exceptional species in which the effect of testosterone in
the male isthe reverse of that in humans and in which the

female is more aggressive than the male. It is by no means
clear that there are any such exceptions at all among mam-
mals. Certainly there are none in the species closely related
to man. It has been suggested that the golden hamster is the
excluded category must contain an error, for the claim that a male gender
identity developswhen a normal female is socialized as a female implies
that the male gender identity in this case has no cause at all; this is not
possible. What this category most strongly indicates is that socialization
is not determinative to gender identity. It is possible that some rare
psychological factors proved capable of overriding both heredity and
socialization for this category, but it would seem more likely that there
was an undetected fetal hormonalization.
85
single experimental exception to the development of sexual

differences in aggression outlined here, 34 but this has recently
been brought into question. 35 Even if the female hamster is
more aggressive than the male, this does not indicate an un-
warranted selectivity on our part when we consider the mouse,
the rat, and all the other animals for which aggression is
associated primarily with the male, as analogues of the human

male and exclude the hamster. For, unlike the mouse, rat,
and other experimental animals, the hamster female is also

larger than the male. This would seem a good indication that
the entire CNS (Central Nervous System ) -hormonal develop-
ment of the hamster is the reverse of that in the other
experimental animals so that, if one wants to consider the
hamster, rather than the other animals, as analogous in its
development to humans, he must indicate not only that the

human female is more aggressive than the human male but
also that she is larger. 36
34 C. H. Phoenix, et "Sexual Differentiation as a Function of

al.,
Androgenic Stimulation," Reproduction and Sexual Be-

in Perspectives in
havior, M. Diamond, ed. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1969),
pp. 33-49.
35 Leonore Tiefer, "Gonadal Hormones and Mating Behavior in the
Adult Golden Hamster," Hormones and Behavior, 1:189-202 (1970). If
Dr. Tiefer's suggestion is correct and the hamster differs only in mating
behavior but not in fighting, then our discussion of hamsters is irrelevant
and there are no genuine exceptions at all.
36 Not coincidentally, this is exactly the situation one finds when he
searches for a primate exception to male aggression. While none of the
three primate species for which it has been suggested that the males are
not more aggressive than the females are even vaguely homologous (in-
deed, these are among the primates furthest removed from man), species
Saguinus, Aotus, and Callicebus have been suggested as exceptions to the
association of aggression with the male in all primates. As with the
hamster, this is quite likely to be an incorrect assumption that because the
male of these species behaves in a "female" way in some other areas he is
less aggressive than the female. In these three species, and in these three
species alone, the male does play a dominant role in caring for the young
(though the female, of course, suckles the young). This does not neces-
sarily imply that even for these species fighting is not primarily male
behavior [see Adolph Schultz, The Life of Primates (New York: Universe
Books, 1971)]. But, for argument's sake, let us assume that these species
do represent exceptions. If they have taken evolutionary paths somewhat
86
The Hormonal Factor
With all this in mind, I refer the reader to a number of

experiments that indicate beyond a shadow of a doubt that,
at least among rats, mice, and many other mammals, testos-
terone is related not only to sexual differentiation but to ag-

gression itself. In paired tests, females treated with exogenous
testosterone during the crucial neonatal period will develop
an aggression as adults, if appropriately hormonally treated
as adults, equal to that of the male who receives neonatal
testosterone stimulation of the CNS endogenously from his
own testis. Females treated with androgen on the tenth day
following birth will, as adults, demonstrate an aggression,
dominance, propensity for fighting, and willingness to fight
greater than that of the normal female, but less than that of
neonatally treated females or normal males. Neonatal experi-
divergent from the paths taken by all other primates, if they differ from
the other primates as the hamster differs from the other experimental ani-
mals, if the etiology of CNS-generated aggression for these species differs
from that in all other primates as that of the hamster differs from that of
the other experimental animals, in short, if we have a right to consider
these three species as not homologous with respect to aggression while
we consider all the other primates as homologous (as we consider the
hamster homologous while the other experimental animals are ac-
as not
cepted as homologous), then we might expect that, as was the case with
the hamster, for these three species, but for none of the others, the female
would be larger than the male. This is precisely the case. Of the thirty-
two species of primates listed by Napier, only for Saguinus and Aotus is
the female larger than the male. No Callicebus female has been measured,
but, because Callicebus is so closely related to Saguinus and Aotus, it is
fair to assume that this holds for Callicebus also. [See J. R. Napier, A
Handbook of Living Primates (New York: Academic Press, 1967).] Even
though I am not including primate evidence in the line of reasoning I
use in this book, this point is worth making. Those who would deny the
relevance of primate studies to an understanding of human aggression
often imply that those who advance primate evidence pick and choose
their subject species in order to support their case for a biological basis
for male aggression and the implication this may hold for humans. I have
tried to show that this criticism is without merit. Even if we assume that
the females of the three primate species mentioned are more aggressive
than the males, even if we do not consider them so little homologous as to
be irrelevant, even then we see that there is complete justification for con-
sidering the sexual differentiation in aggression for these three species as
not analogous to that of man while we consider the differentiation found
in all other primates as analogous to that found in man.
87
ments, particularly a series by David Edwards, demonstrate

that testosterone does not create the neural mechanisms for
aggression (if it did, the female would be totally incapable
of aggression and would be passive rather than merely less

aggressive than the male), but that such fetal or neonatal
stimulation affects the ultimate sensitivity of the CNS to
androgenic stimulation later in life, thereby rendering the
postpuberal male more capable of aggression and more ag-
gressive than the female. Dr. Edwards concludes that:
. . . the commonly observed male-female dimorphism,

with respect to fighting in mice, has as its basis, the fact
that males develop with testes and females do not. In
the male, early testicular secretions probably effect some

change in brain mechanisms for aggression such that
most adult male pairs will fight in the presence of
endogeneous or exogeneous testosterone. In females this
change is not effected due to the absence of testes and

correlated testicular secretions.
In addition, there appears to be a critical period for
the androgen influenced organization of a neural sub-
strate for aggression. This period may be tentatively
characterized as a period of time, in the development of
the mouse, during which endogeneous or exogeneous
androgen stimulation will enhance adult sensitivity to
androgens with respect to the arousal of the tendency to

display aggression. Furthermore, the data indicate that
the period of development during which androgen stim-
ulation will produce maximal sensitivity in the adult
occurs in the first few postnatal days of development.

Androgen stimulation before or after this optimal period
will enhance adult sensitivity to androgens but to a lesser
extent. 37
37 David A. Edwards, "Early Androgen Stimulation and Aggressive

Behavior in Male and Female Mice," Physiology and Behavior, 4:338
88
.
The Hormonal Factor
Dr. Edwards's findings and those of other behavioral bi-
ologists, endocrinologists, developmental psychologists, and

researchers in related fields demonstrated with a high degree
of certainty that sexual differences in aggression are a func-
tion of testosterone and the hormonalization of the fetal brain.
The specific morphological changes in the CNS engendered

by this hormonalization, however, had never been seen and
could be only inferred"some change in brain mechanisms" )
(
Recently, however, Drs. Geoffrey Raisman and Pauline M.

Field of Oxford's Department of Human Anatomy photo-
graphed the preoptic area of the male and female central
nervous systems and demonstrated that in this area, which is
known to be crucial to sexual behavior, there is an extensive

sexual dimorphism; the sexes differ in the distribution of
synapses on the dendritic spines. Having seen that testosterone
was directly related to aggression and that the central nervous
systems of the sexes differ morphologically in an area of the

brain necessary for male behavior, all that was needed was a
direct demonstration that it was testosterone that effected the
morphological changes. That testosterone is the determining
factor here has been inferentially demonstrated many times
in the past dozen years, as we have seen. Direct evidence has
been provided only in the past year — at the Conference on
the Neurobiology of the Amygdala in Bar Harbor, at which
(1969). There is an abundance of evidence leading to the con-

such
clusion that sexual hormonalization is determinative to CNS development
and to aggressive behavior that it is possible here to give merely a

sampling; these will lead the interested reader to hundreds of similar
studies. General discussions of the relevant research can be found in:
Richard E. Whalen, "Differentiation of the Neural Mechanisms Which
Control Gonadotropin Secretion and Sexual Behavior," in Diamond, op.
at., pp. 303-340, and the contribution of C. H. Phoenix, R. W. Goy, and
W. Young to Neuroendocrinology : Volume II, L. Martini and W. F.
Ganong, eds. (New York: Academic Press, 1967), pp. 163-196. Somewhat
dated, but more accessible to the general reader are Seymour Levine's
"Sex Differences in the Brain" and Alan Fisher's "Chemical Stimulation
of the Brain," both in Psychobiology (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman
and Co., 1967). The journal Hormones and Behavior provides the am-
bitious reader with over a hundred similar studies.
89
Dr. Raisman delivered his findings that testosterone does

generate specifiable morphological sexual dimorphism in the
brain. 38
To be sure, the Raisman-Field photographs were not of

human beings and, certainly, there is much that science has
yet to learn about the exact manner in which sexual differ-
ences in the arrangement of the central nervous system are

manifested in differences in aggression. Moreover, there are
many ways of viewing the factor that I term a "male- female
difference in the capacity for aggression" (but this is irrele-
vant for our purposes because all such paradigms, whatever

the other differences between them, acknowledge a physio-
logically based difference between men and women com-
parable to what I term a "male-female difference in the
capacity for aggression"). Nonetheless, it is simply prepos-
terous to attempt, as have many feminists, to paint the over-
whelming evidence that testosterone is crucial to aggression
as mere isolated findings that have no apparent significance
to sexual differences in behavior. Only the most fanatic purist
or the behaviorist for whom such a conclusion would be

intolerable would deny us the right to suspect strongly that
the same central nervous system differences found in experi-
mental animals will be found in the brains of men and
women within ten years. Those who now refuse to admit the
persuasiveness of the considerable evidence provided by the
hermaphrodite and the voluminous amounts of evidence pro-
vided by the studies of experimental animals will continue
to do so when our knowledge of hormones has doubled or
tripled. Nonetheless, even at this point the tightening web
of evidence allows no escape from the conclusion that human
sexual differences in aggression are strongly related to irre-
38 Geoffrey Raisman and Pauline M. Field, "Sexual Dimorphism in

the Preoptic Area of the Rat," Science, 731-733 (August 20, 1971). As I
write, the findings that Dr. Raisman delivered at Bar Harbor have not yet
been published. They no doubt will have been by the time the reader
reads this.
90
The Hormonal Factor
versible differences in the central nervous systems of men

and women that are generated before birth. 39
Human Aggression
Aggression in human beings is not, of course, as easily de-
scribed as it is in rats, but for our purposes this fact offers
no difficulty; this book does not purport to describe the spe-
cific nature of human social aggression, but merely to demon-

strate that the hormonal differences between men and women
will inevitably manifest themselves in certain societal institu-
tions. I use aggression only as a convenient hypothetical term,
a nexus which flows from hormones and to which certain
societal institutions conform. The reader is free to substitute
the X factor, male behavior, or any other term that represents
an element that flows from specifiable hormonal factors and
that determines the limits of specifiable social institutions
(patriarchy, male dominance, and male attainment of high-
status roles and positions ) . Likewise, the reader is free to
perceive the reality I refer to as a "male-female difference in
the capacity for aggression" as a difference in the level of the
threshold at which "aggressive" and "dominance" behavior
is released. (In one respect the paradigm which envisions a
sexual difference in threshold is superior to the paradigm
which sees a difference in capacity: one might suggest that
the ferocity with which a mother defends her endangered
infant demonstrates that the female has a capacity for aggres-
sion equal to that of the male. I do not think that such
behavior is "aggression" in any meaningful sense, but even
if it is the same thing as aggression such female behavior
demonstrates only that the environmental threat to her child
39 While the evidence

not as extensive as that demonstrating the
is
effects of testosterone on aggression, there

is considerable evidence that
estrogen ("the female hormone") reduces aggression (i.e., increases sub-

mission behavior). See: Murray S. Work and Hilliard Rogers, "Effect of
Estrogen Level on Food-Seeking Dominance Among Male Rats," Journal
of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, 79:3 (1972).
91
is sufficient to reach the high threshold at which a female's

aggression is released. We would then ask why, if there is
no physiological difference between males and females that

is relevant to aggression, male aggression is released at a
much lower level, i.e., why does a much less threatening
stimulus release male aggression so much more easily?) In
any case, all that is necessary for the theory presented here is
that there is a physiologically generated difference between

males and females which engenders in males, to a greater
degree or more easily than in females, the behavior to which
the social institutions we discuss conform.
This is not, as it might seem at quick glance, tautological,
because each of the two elements (the biological and the
social) is specified, defined, and described without reference
to the other. Thus I use aggression as one might use strength
in an explanation of why young boys are socialized toward
boxing prowess and young girls away from it. Greater adult
male muscularity engenders greater male "strength," which
makes the male a better boxer than the female, so that it is
inevitable that boxing champions will be men, boxing will

be associated with men, and small children will be socialized
accordingly. Similarly, it will be argued, the male hormonal
system engenders a greater male "aggression" that results
in a male superiority at attaining roles and positions given
high status (except when men are biologically incapable of
playing a role) so that it is inevitable that positions and
roles of leadership and status will be attained by men, and
small children will be socialized accordingly.
In other words, for the line of reasoning used in this essay
we need know nothing at all about "aggression" itself.
40
No
40 Some physiologists speak of different, but related, types of aggres-

sion with different, but connected or overlapping physiological bases
(i.e., sexual dominance, aggression as response to fear, male aggression
against other males, etc.). Aggression is thus used as a general term com-
parable to consumptory behavior, a general term under which are sub-
sumed different types of behavior (eating, drinking), which have different,
92
The Hormonal Factor
one can doubt that women are capable of aggression and

some have even argued that "female aggression" is quanti-
tatively equal to "male aggression." For our purposes it would

not matter if this were true. Likewise it does not matter if
one perceives aggression to be a continually generated force

or a potential that manifests itself only in response to en-
vironmental stimuli. For even if one perceives aggression
altogether differently from the way I do, such differences are
irrelevant to the reasoning I use as long as he sees "male

aggression" as different from "female aggression" in either
quantity or kind. What is crucial here is that men and women
differ in their hormonal systems and that every society demon-
strates patriarchy, male dominance, and male attainment. The
thesis put forth here is that the hormonal renders the social
inevitable. One may believe that "female aggression" is quan-

titatively equal to "male aggression"; but then, unless he is
to argue that the hormonal differences have nothing to do

with the social differences which case he must explain the
( in
universality of patriarchy in some other convincing way and,

as we shall see, he cannot do this) he must admit that "male
,
aggression" differs from "female aggression" in either quan-

tity or kind because the former always leads to patriarchy and
the latter has never led to matriarchy.
It is possible that using the term aggression, rather than
a neutral term, risks confusion. Trusting that those readers
who are primarily interested in the tightness of the theory
presented here will keep in mind the limited definition, I
use aggression because it seems quite likely that many of the
but connected or overlapping, physiological mechanisms. This approach

undoubtedly mirrors the complexity of human aggression far more ac-
curately than does our use of aggression; quite possibly as more is learned
about the types of behavior we are subsuming under the term aggression
the general term will be discarded. As long as males and females differ
in the specific physiological mechanisms, however, all that is said in this
chapter will remain valid and accurate. For more on
approach see: this
The Physiology of Aggression and Defeat, Eleftheriou, Basil, and John
P. Scott, eds. (New York-London: Plenum Press, 1971).
93
specific aspects of social "aggression" are known. Readers

who are interested in specific aspects of aggression (or — in
the terms I use — specific correlates of aggression ) are strongly

advised to consult Judith Bardwick's excellent Psychology of
Women. 41 Dr. Bardwick discusses the findings of physiolo-
gists, biochemists, and psychologists who have studied the
behavior of infants from birth (when explanations of be-
havior in terms of socialization make no sense) to thirteen
months. Such research has already indicated sexual differences
in activity, cardiac deceleration (a measure of attention),
sensitivity, fixation on visual stimuli, and figure-ground dif-
ferentiation. If one desires to be more speculative he might

consider the possibility that adult male aggression manifests
itself in the satisfaction of many needs: dominance behavior,
competitiveness, a single-minded — at times virtually obses-
sive — endurance directed at attaining some goal in the larger
society outside the family, a desire for control and power,
and many other impositions of will on environment. But
again I emphasize that we need know nothing at all about
aggression for our purposes here.
The Irrelevance of Exceptions

Whenever a biologist speaks of men and women he is speak-
ing in virtually absolute terms. For all intents and purposes
every human being begins life as either a genetic male or a
genetic female. When a biologist speaks of masculine and
feminine characteristics he is almost always speaking in the
statistical terms of probability. When one deals with prob-
ability of any sort he expects exceptions. The biological
nature of height is not brought into question by the fact
that some women are taller than some men or by the fact that
within-sex differences in height are much greater than the
between-sex differences in height. Few genetic females
41 New York: Harper and Row, 1971.
94
The Hormonal Factor
have testosterone levels approaching that which would be

normal for a male; a woman whose testosterone level is even
half that of a normal male displays undeniable signs of hir-
42
suteness and general virilization. But even if 10 percent of
all women had higher testosterone levels than 10 percent
of all men one would not be led to the conclusion that the
parameters of hormone distribution by sex are irrelevant any
more than he would say that the fact that there are some
six-foot women and five-foot men disproves the biological
nature of human height. Exceptions are expected in situations
where probability is the determinative factor; they in no way
lessen the inevitability of biological probabilities manifesting
themselves (unless, of course, there are so many exceptions
that correlations between factors fall below the level of sta-
tistical significance). It is on the observation of such mani-
festations of biological probability that both biologists and
all other members of any society base their conceptions of
reality. We speak of men being taller than women because
we observe that most men are taller than most women. This
would all seem too obvious even to mention, but so many
authors have pointed to exceptions to male-female differences
in attempts to deny the importance of biology that it is worth
introducing this point here.
Thus: even if one could demonstrate that certain extreme
environments could lower the male adult's testosterone level
to that of the normal female, this fact would be irrelevant to
the theory advanced in this book unless one wanted to ad-
vance the absurd hypothesis that the reason that virtually all
men in every society have higher testosterone levels than vir-

tually all women is that some environmental factor, rather
42 The
concentration of plasma testosterone in young adult males ranges
from 0.44 to 0.96 meg. per 100 ml. (mean 0.65 meg. per 100 ml.) and the
concentration in women varies from 0.034 to 0.101 meg. per 100 ml.
(mean 0.054 meg. per 100 ml.). Textbook of Medicine, Paul B. Beeson
and Walsh McDermott, eds. (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders Co., 1971),
p. 1805.
95
than genetic biological differentiation, explains the male's

higher testosterone level. It behooves one who would advance
such an hypothesis to specify the environmental factor which
serves to limit the testosterone level of virtually all women.
We shall see in Chapter Six that there is no universal environ-
mental factor which can reasonably be thought to be capable
of doing this. The difference between male and female testos-
terone levels is much greater than the difference between male
and female muscularity and there are far fewer women whose
testosterone level surpasses that of even a few men than there
are women whose muscularity surpasses the muscularity of
even a few men; yet even when discussing muscularity, and
even when considering the fact that environmental and social
factors unquestionably can increase the sexual disparity in
muscularity, no one argues that biology is not the primary
factor generating sexual differences in muscularity or denies
that men are more muscular than women even in those so-
cieties in which women do far heavier physical work than

do men.
The question of exceptions becomes more important when
we consider that social aggression (aggression defined in any
way other than that in this book — i.e., operationally) is not
a function of only biological factors but of specific social
and unique psychological factors as well. These will no doubt
engender in some women a social aggression greater than
that found some men. Likewise, we would expect that

in
such nonbiological factors will render some men perhaps —

some of those who commit violent crimes more socially —
aggressive than any other men and all women. Because social
aggression and dominance are the results of both hormonal
and social-psychological factors 43 every society will have a
43 While elements of aggression will render some

the nonbiological
women more some men, such elements will far more
aggressive than
often increase the disparity in aggression between the sexes. This is be-
cause the "nonbiological" elements of aggression are not unrelated to the
biological elements. Perhaps when biological aggression meets environ-
96
—
The Hormonal Factor
minority of women who are more aggressive than the average

man and a minority of men who are less aggressive than
the average woman. 44
When a particularly aggressive woman
and a particularly unaggressive man form a dyadic relation-
ship, such an exceptional relationship may be dominated by
the female even to the point where both the man and woman
feel that authority resides in the female. There is nothing
inherently dysfunctional in such a relationship viewed in the
abstract, but such a relationship will be the exception in
every society (because most men are more aggressive than
mental resistance there is a feedback process and the biological mechanisms

for aggression are further irritated. For example, because the male is more
aggressive the frustration that results when his biological aggression is
thwarted by social sanctions will be greater than the frustration of the

female (whose original aggression is less so that her frustration is less).
The greater frustration of the male will engender in him a greater in-
crease in aggression than the frustration of the woman's aggressiveness
will engender in her. Therefore, in most cases the real aggression disparity
between men and women will be even greater than that necessitated by
biological factors viewed in the abstract. I think that the correctness of
this analysis is indicated by the fact that the prison population of every
—
society no matter what the particular values of any specific society
is overwhelmingly male. I am not saying here that criminality, a social
concept, is inherited, but that individuals may, and the sexes certainly
do, differ in the biological component of the aggression that is a precon-
dition for many types of crime. If the male's aggression advantage is rele-
vant to male success in so many other areas, why should we doubt that it
is relevant to criminality ? This sort of analysis serves the positive function
of focusing our attention on the necessarily restrictive function of society.

Without serving this function, among others, no society could survive
and without society our species could not survive.
44 Within one sex (i.e., if we are speaking just of
men or just of
—
women) where differences in hormonal levels are quite small and where,
possibly, all members are above or below a threshold past which an in-
crease in testosterone no longer engenders an increase in aggression
the importance of the social-psychological component of aggression is far
greater than the importance of this factor in a comparison of the two
sexes with their differing fetal preparations, their differing CNS structures,
and their differing adult testosterone levels. Thus, aggression can be com-
pared to boxing prowess. One can sufficiently explain between-sex differ-
ence here by pointing out that one sex has passed the threshold of physical
strength that is a precondition of boxing competence. Nearly all men
have physical strength above this threshold; hardly any women do. How-
ever, within one sex the crucial factor will not be pure physical strength,
but other components of boxing prowess (skill, courage, endurance, etc.).
97
most women in every society ) . Such relationships will always

face problems because the expectations of the society — ex-
pectations which are part of the socialization of every in-
dividual, including those in such relationships —conform to
the reality of male aggression and must so conform (for
reasons we shall soon examine).
Aggression is comparable to physical strength in that it is
affected by both sexual-genetic and cultural factors. However,

men maintain physical superiority even in societies
just as in
which women do heavier physical labor, so, statistically, is
the male's advantage in aggression insurmountable. In the

last century there was an impressive minority of individuals
for whom unique factors engendered a denial that there was
any biological "sex drive"; there was no less probability that
they could have brought about a society in which there were

no institutions for channeling human sexual emotions than
there is of the minority of women who are more aggressive
than the average man bringing about a nonpatriarchal society.
Furthermore, as we shall see in Section Two, the overall male
"advantage" in aggression would render patriarchy and male
dominance inevitable even if we did not consider the possi-
bility that their physiologies give men and women different
and complementary propensities (which lead them in differ-
ent, noncompetitive directions). The male hormonal system

gives men a head start (in terms of probabilities) that enables
them to better deal with those elements of the societal en-
vironment for which aggression leads to success. This "head
start" will manifest itself in all institutions that utilize aggres-
sion and in the sexual expectations that the society attaches

to those institutions. It is theoretically possible, of course,
that this head start could be overcome, even for whole soci-
eties, by an overwhelming environmental situation; this is
true of any biological difference that is manifested in prob-

abilities rather than absolutes. Even the male physical strength
advantage could be reduced or eliminated if all the world's
98
The Hormonal Factor
women performed hours of calisthenics each day while men

remained sedentary. Here we see the difficulty with the at-
tempt to invoke "interaction" and "feedback" in order to
dismiss the determinative importance of sexual biological
differentiation to social reality. We shall discuss this point at
length below; here we need point out only that male strength,
and all other sexual biological differences, are modified or
exaggerated by cultural factors; however, few would argue
that because of this a society could develop in which physical
strength was not associated with men or in which males
did not attain those rewards for which physical strength
is a precondition. One can argue that a society need not re-
ward physical strength at all, but he cannot argue, for all the
reasons given in this book, that a society could develop in
which male aggression did not lead to attainment.
It may be true that men and women are similar in more

ways than they are different, but they do differ in those bio-
logical areas that are relevant to aggression and dominance.

The nature of probability is such that even minute differences,
reverberating through large numbers of cases, inevitably mani-
fest themselves. It is understandable that many would like
to emphasize exceptions in order to dismiss biological con-
siderations as being of little importance when compared to

social factors, but there is no more reason for doing so than
there is for assuming that the successful celibate or suicide
disproves the inevitable necessity of any society's providing
channels for the "sex drive" or the will to live. At the very
least, biological considerations would seem sufficient to ren-
der forever impossible a nonpatriarchal society. Societies are

composed of large numbers of individuals and biology deals
in inexorable probabilities to which all social systems must
conform.
99
Section Two
The Theory
of the
Inevitability
of Patriarchy
Chapter Four
Male Aggression and the Attainment

of Power, Authority, and Status
// Male Aggression Were the Only Difference . . .
Having discussed the universality of patriarchy, male domi-

nance, and male attainment of high-status roles and the bio-
logical factors that are relevant to these universals, we are
now prepared to examine the mechanisms that require these
biological factors to be manifested in these social institutions.
In discussing these mechanisms we shall proceed as if the
only inherent difference between men and women were their
different hormonal systems, which leads to an inherent aggres-
sion advantage for the male. This does not imply that I doubt
that there are positive female biological forces underlying the
woman's extraordinary sensitivity and emotional powers or
the mother's attentiveness to her infant and her protective re-
action to her infant's vulnerability. Eleanor Maccoby has
suggested that "if you try to divide child training among
males and females we might find out that females need to
do and males don't." 45
it Such biological imperatives would
have enormous significance in the development of male and
female roles. Every society must care for its young and, if the
need to care for and protect the young is greater in the fe-
male than the male, would be reflected in the social ex-
this
pectations of men and women. If one accepts this female
45 Eleanor E. Maccoby, "Woman's Intellect," in The Potential of

Women, Seymour M. Farber and Roger H. Wilson, eds. (New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1963), p. 44.
103
The Theory of the Inevitability of Patriarchy
biological factor, he could utilize it to explain the universal
sex-role differences I explain by differences in aggression and

could use the same lines of reasoning I do without men-
tioning aggression. Likewise it is not unlikely that the
neural factors underlying the male's sexual dominance come
into play in social contacts between men and women; there
may even be a female desire for men to dominate ("take the
lead") that is a secondary manifestation of the neural factors
directly relevant to female sexuality. Biological evidence in-
dicates that there is a strong possibility that such dominance

and submission factors exist in male and female physiologies,
but, since such factors need not exist for the theory presented
here to be correct, we will assume that they do not exist.
If they do exist, of course, the theory presented here can

be only strengthened.
Quite possibly all of these factors lead to the universal
institutions we have discussed. Aggression, however, is the
only sexual difference that we can explain with direct (as
opposed to convincing, hut hypothetical) biological evidence.
Nothing is lost because the inevitable social manifestations

of sexual differences in aggression are sufficient to explain
the inevitability of patriarchy, male dominance, and male
attainment of high-status roles. If the other biological di-
rectives do exist we have an example of a situation in which

a factor (hormonal aggression) is sufficient to describe a
reality (institutionalized sex differences), but not necessary.
Maternal attentiveness, a male need to dominate, or a female
desire for male political dominance would be sufficient even
if there were no hormonal aggression differences, but none
of these need exist for the theory proposed here to be correct.
Therefore, we are assuming throughout this chapter that
there are no differences betiveen men and women except in
the hormonal system that renders the man more aggressive.
This alone would explain patriarchy, male dominance, and
104
Male Aggression, the Attainment of Power, Authority, and Status
male attainment of high-status roles; for the male hormonal

system gives men an insuperable "head start" toward attain-
ing those roles which any society associates with leadership
or high status as long as the roles are not ones that males
are biologically incapable of filling.
Aggression and Attainment

In other words, I believe that in the past we have been look-
ing in the wrong direction for the answer to the question of
why every society rewards male roles with higher status than
it does female roles ( even when the male tasks in one society
are the female tasks in another). While it is true that men
are always in the positions of authority from which status
tends to be defined, male roles are not given high status pri-
marily because men fill these roles; men fill these roles be-
cause their biological aggression "advantage" can be mani-
fested in any non-child related area rewarded by high status
in any society. (Again: the line of reasoning used in this book

demonstrates only that the biological factors we discuss would
make the social institutions we discuss inevitable and does
not preclude the existence of other forces also leading in the
same direction; there may be a biologically based tendency
for women to prefer male leadership, but there need not be
for male attainment of leadership and high-status roles to be
inevitable.) As we shall see, this aggression "advantage" can
be most manifested and can most enable men to reap status
rewards not in those relatively homogeneous, collectivist
primitive societies in which both male and female must play

similar economic roles if the society is to survive or in the
monarchy (which guarantees an occasional female leader);
this biological factor will be given freest play in the complex,
relatively individualistic, bureaucratic, democratic society
which, of necessity, must emphasize organizational authority
and in which social mobility is relatively free of traditional
105
barriers to advancement. There were more female heads of

state in the first two-thirds of the sixteenth century than in
the first two-thirds of the twentieth.
The mechanisms involved here are easily seen if we exam-
ine any roles that males have attained by channeling their
aggression toward such attainment. We will assume for now
that equivalent women could perform the tasks of roles as
well as men if they could attain the roles. 46 Here we can
speak of the corporation president, the union leader, the
governor, the chairman of an association, or any other role
or position for which aggression is a precondition for attain-
ment. Now the environmentalist and the feminist will say
that the fact that all such roles are nearly always filled by
men is attributable not to male aggression but to the fact that
women have not been allowed to enter the competitive race

to attain these positions, that they have been told that these
positions are in male areas, and that girls are socialized away
from competing with boys in general. Women are socialized
in this way, but again we must ask why. If innate male aggres-
sion has nothing to do with male attainment of positions of
authority and status in the political, academic, scientific, or
financial spheres, if aggression has nothing to do with the
reasons why every society socializes girls away from those
areas which are given high status and away from competition
in general, then why is it never the girls in any society who
46 I assume this for the present in order to demonstrate that these will
be male roles even if women can perform these roles as well as men
when they can attain them. It should be pointed out, however, that the
line between attainment and performance is not always clear in a bureau-
cratic society or in leadership in any society; much of the performance
of an executive or leader concerns his ability to maintain the authority
which his position gives him. Therefore, it is possible that the greater
innate male aggression, particularly when opposed to the lesser innate
female aggression, leads to performance by the male which is superior to
that of the female. This does not, of course, mean that the male at any
level of the hierarchy has an advantage over the exceptional woman who
was aggressive enough to attain a comparable position, but it might indi-
cate that men in general have an innate advantage over women in general
which is relevant to the performance of bureaucratic and leadership roles.
106
are socialized toward these areas, why is it never the non-

biological roles played by women that have high status, why
is it always boys who are told to compete, and why do women
never "force" men into the low-status, nonmaternal roles that
women play in every society?

These questions pose no problem if we acknowledge a
male aggression that enables men to attain any nonbiological

role given high status by any society. For one need merely
consider the result of a society's not socializing women away
from competitions with men, from its not directing girls
toward roles women
more capable of playing than are
are
men or roles with status low enough that men will not strive
for them. No doubt some women would be aggressive enough
to succeed in competitions with men and there would be con-
siderably more women in high-status positions than there are
now. But most women would lose in such competitive strug-

gles with men (because men have the aggression advantage)
and so most women would be forced to live adult lives as
failures in areas in society had ivanted them to suc-
which the
ceed. It is more than men, who would never allow
women, far
a situation in which girls were socialized in such a way that
the vast majority of them were doomed to adult lifetimes of
failure to live up to their own expectations. Now I have no
doubt that there is a biological factor that gives women the
desire to emphasize maternal and nurturance roles, but the
point here is that we can accept the feminist assumption that
there is no female propensity of this sort and still see that a
society must socialize women away from roles that men will
attain through their aggression. For if women did not develop
an alternative set of criteria for success their sense of their

own competence would suffer intolerably. It is undeniable
that the resulting different values and expectations that are
attached to men and women will tend to work against the
aggressive woman while they work for the man who is no
more aggressive. But this is the unavoidable result of the fact
107
The Theory of the Inevitability oj Patriarchy
that most men are more aggressive than most women so that
this woman, who is as aggressive as the average man, but more
aggressive than most women, is an exception. Furthermore,
even if the sense of competence of each sex did not necessi-
tate society's attaching to each sex values and expectations
based on those qualities possessed by each sex, observation
of the majority of each sex by the population would "auto-
matically" lead to these values and expectations being attached
to men and women.
Socialization's Conformation to Biological

Reality
Socialization is the process by which society prepares children
for adulthood. The way in which its goals conform to the
reality of biology is seen quite clearly when we consider the
method in which testosterone generates male aggression (tes-
tosterone's serially developing nature). Preadolescent boys

and girls have roughly equal testosterone levels, yet young
boys are far more aggressive than young girls. Eva Figes has
used this observation to dismiss incorrectly the possibility of
a hormone-aggression association. 47 Now it is quite probable
that the boy is more aggressive than the girl for a purely bio-
logical reason. We have seen that it is simplistic to speak
simply in terms of hormone levels and that there is evidence
of male-female differences in the behavior of infants shortly
after birth (when differential socialization is not a plausible
explanation of such differences ) . The fetal alteration of the
boy's brain by the testosterone that was generated by his
testes has probably left him far more sensitive to the ag-
gression-related properties of the testosterone that is present

during boyhood than the who did not receive such
girl,
alteration. But let us for the moment assume that this is not
the case. This does not at all reduce the importance of the
47 Eva Figes, Patriarchal Attitudes (Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett World,

1971), p. 8.
108
hormonal factor. For even if the boy is more aggressive than

the girl only because the society allows him to be, the boy's
socialization still flows from society's acknowledging biolog-
ical reality. Let us consider what would happen if girls have
the same innate aggression as boys and if a society did not
socialize girls away from aggressive competitions. Perhaps
half of the third-grade baseball team would be female. As
many girls as boys would frame their expectations in mascu-
line values and would develop not their feminine abil-
girls
ities but their masculine ones. During adolescence, however,
the same assertion of the male chromosomal program

that causes the boys to grow beards raises their testos-
terone level, and their potential for aggression, to a level

far above that of the adolescent woman. If society did not
teach young girls that beating boys at competitions was un-

feminine (behavior inappropriate for a woman), if it did
not socialize them away from the political and economic
areas in which aggression leads to attainment, these girls
would grow into adulthood with self-images based not on
succeeding in areas for which biology has left them better
prepared than men, but on competitions that most women
could not win. If women did not develop feminine qualities
as girls(assuming that such qualities do not spring automati-
cally from female biology) then they would be forced to
deal with the world in the aggressive terms of men. They
would lose every source of power their feminine abilities
now give them and they would gain nothing. (Likewise, if
there is a physiological difference between men and women

which generates dimorphic behavior in the feelings elicited
by an infant, social values and socialization will conform to
this fact. They will conform both because observation by
the population of men and women will preclude the de-
velopment of values which ignore the physiological differ-
ence and because, even if such values could develop, they

would make life intolerable for the vast majority of males,
109
who would feel the tension between social expectation and

the dearth of maternal feelings, and the vast majority of
females, whose physiologically generated feelings toward the
infant would be frustrated.
Discrimination of a Sort
If one is convinced that sexual biology gives the male an
advantage in aggression, competitiveness, and dominance, but
he does not believe that it engenders in men and women
different propensities, cognitive aptitudes, and modes of per-
ception, and if he considers it discrimination when male
aggression leads to attainment of position even when aggres-
sion is not relevant to the task to be performed, then the
unavoidable conclusion is that discrimination so denned is
unavoidable. Even if one is convinced from the discussion in

the following sections that the differing biological substrates
that underlie the mental apparatus of men and women do
engender different propensities, cognitive aptitudes, and
modes of perception, he will probably agree that the rele-
vance of this to male attainment of male roles is small when
compared to the importance of male biological aggression to
attainment. Innate tendencies to specific aptitudes would in-
dicate that at any given level of competence there will be

more men than women or vice versa (depending on the
qualities relevant to the task) and that the very best will,
in all probability, come from the sex whose potentials are

relevant to the task. Nonetheless, drastic sexual differences
in occupational and authority roles reflect male aggression
and society's acknowledgment of it far more than they do
differences in aptitudes, yet they are still inevitable.
In addition, even if artificial means were used to place
large numbers of women in authority positions, it is doubtful
that stability could be maintained. Even in our present male
bureaucracies problems arise whenever a subordinate is more
aggressive than his superior and, if the more aggressive execu-
110
tive is not allowed to rise in the bureaucracy, delicate psycho-

logical adjustments must be made. Such adjustments are also
necessary when a male bureaucrat has a female superior.

When such situations are rare exceptions adjustments can be
made without any great instability occurring, particularly if
the woman in the superior position complements her aggres-

sion with sensitivity and femininity. It would seem likely,
however, that if women shared equally in power at each level

of the bureaucracy, chaos would result for two reasons. Even
if we consider the bureaucracy as a closed system, the excess
of male aggression would soon manifest itself either in men
moving quickly up the hierarchy or in a male refusal to ac-
knowledge female authority. But a bureaucracy is not a closed
system, and the discrepancy between male dominance in pri-
vate life and bureaucratic female dominance ( from the point
of view of the male whose superior is a woman ) would soon
engender chaos. Consider that even the present minute minor-
ity of women in high authority positions expend enormous
amounts of energy trying not to project the commanding au-
thority that is seen as the mark of a good male executive. It
is true that the manner in which aggression is manifested
will be affected by the values of the society in general and
the nature of the field of competition in particular; aggres-
sion in an academic environment is camouflaged far more
than in the executive arena. While a desire for control and
power and a single-mindedness of purpose are no doubt rele-
vant, here aggression is not easily defined. One might inject

the theoretical argument that women could attain positions of
authority and leadership by countering the male's advantage
in aggression with feminine abilities. Perhaps, but the equiva-
lents of the executive positions in every area of suprafamilial
life in every society have been attained by men, and there

seems no reason to believe that, suddenly, feminine means
will be capable of neutralizing male aggression in these areas.
And, in any case, an emphasis on feminine abilities is hardly
111
what the feminists desire. All of this can be seen in a con-

more optimistic light, from the point of view of
siderably
most women, if one considers that the biological abilities
possessed only by women are complemented by biologically
generated propensities directing women to roles that can be
filled only by women. But it is still the same picture.
Fifty-One Percent of the Vote

Likewise, one who predicates political action on a belief that
a society is oppressive until half of the positions of authority
are filled by women faces the insuperable task of overcoming
a male dominance that has forced every political and eco-
nomic system to conform to it and that may be maintained
as much by the refusal of women to elect widespread female
leadership as by male aggression and ability. No doubt an
exceptional configuration of factors will someday result in a
woman's being elected president, but if one considers a so-
ciety "sexist" until it no longer associates authority primarily
with men and until a woman leader is no longer an exception,

then he must resign himself to the certainty that all societies
will be "sexist" forever. 48 Feminists make much of the fact

that women constitute a slight majority of voters but in doing
so make the assumption that it is possible to convince the
women who constitute this majority to elect equal female
leadership. This is a dubious assumption since the members
of a society will inevitably associate authority with males if
patriarchy and male dominance are biologically inevitable. It
would be even more dubious if there is an innate tendency
48 I grant that, since we have not hypothesized a direct male biological

need to lead (but only an aggression advantage that can be manifested in
this area), theoretically a situation could develop in which all leadership
were given low status so that men chose not to use their aggression to
attain positions of political leadership; in such a situation a nonpatriarchal
society could develop. It is inconceivable that such a situation could ever
develop, but if it did those who now complain that males fill the positions
of leadership would then complain that women did not attain whatever
roles males chose to attain by virtue of their superior aggression.
112
for women to favor men who "take the lead." However, pro-
ceeding from this assumption and assuming that the fem-
inists were successful, it is a sure bet that democracy —which
obviously is not biologically inevitable (not patriarchy, which
is) —would be eliminated as large numbers of males battled
for the relatively small numbers of positions of power from
which the rules that govern the battle are made. In any real
society, of course, women can have the crucial effect of mo-

bilizing political power to achieve particular goals and of
electing those men who are motivated by relatively more life-
sustaining values than other men just as mothers have the

crucial effect of coloring and humanizing the values of future
male leaders.
"Oppression"
All of this indicates that the theoretical model that conceives
of male success in attaining positions of status, authority, and
leadership as oppression of the female is incorrect if only
because it sees male aggressive energies as directed toward
females and sees the institutional mechanisms that flow
from the fact of male aggression as directed toward
"oppressing" women. In reality these male energies are di-
rected toward attainment of desired positions and toward

succeeding in whatever areas a particular society considers
important. The fact that women lose out in these competi-
tions, so that the sex-role expectations of a society would have
to become different for men and women even if they were
not different for other reasons, is an inevitable byproduct of
the reality of the male's aggression advantage and not the
cause, purpose, or primary function of it. In other words, men
who attain the more desired roles and positions do so because
they channel their aggression advantage toward such attain-
ment; whether the losers in such competitions are other men
or women is important only in that —because so few women
succeed in these competitions — the society will attach different
113
expectations to men and women (making it more difficult for

the exceptional, aggressive, woman to attain such positions
even when her aggression is equal to that of the average man )
Perhaps one could at least begin to defend a model that
stressed "oppression" if he dealt only with male dominance
in dyadic relationships; here male energies are directed to-
ward the female, but to call that which is inevitable "oppres-

sion" would seem to confuse more than clarify and, if one
feels that male dominance is "oppressive," this model offers
an illusory hope of change where there is no possibility of
change. Male dominance is the emotional resolution (felt by
both the man and the woman) of the difference between a
man and awoman in the biological factors relevant to aggres-
sion; male authority in dyadic relationships, and the socializa-
tion of boys and girls toward this male authority, is societal
conformation to this biological difference and a result of so-
ciety's attempting to most smoothly and effectively utilize this

difference. Note that all that I say in this paragraph — indeed,
in this book — accepts the feminist assumption that women
do not follow their own biologically generated imperatives,
which are eternally different from those of men. I do this
in an attempt to show the inadequacy of the feminist model

and not because it is less than ludicrous to suppose that
women do not hear their own drummer. This book does not
pretend to explain female behavior, but merely to show that
women would have to behave as they do if they were noth-
ing more than less aggressive men. If one reversed the
feminist model he could view the desire of the vast ma-
jority of women to have children as oppressing men by
succeeding in an area in which men are doomed by their
biology to fail. Such a theoretical model much
leaves to be
desired.
114
Chapter Five
The Societal Manifestations
of Male Aggression
Why All Societies Differentiate the Sexes

No society has ever failed to differentiate sex roles, and it
is inconceivable that any society could "view everyone as

an individual" if by this we mean that the society's value
system does not attach different expectations to men and
women and does not consider certain roles male and certain
roles female. This is why the feminist refusal to acknowledge
the importance of biological differences until all cultural-
environmental differences are removed is no more than an

evasive action. By ignoring the biological and refusing to
admit differences that every society must take into account
until there is a society that does not take into account such
differences, one could say that we will not know if the "sex
drive" has a biological component until a totally celibate
society develops. If there are biological elements that will
inevitably manifest themselves, then a society without sex-

role differentiation can never develop. We have seen that
a society without such differentiation is not even theoreti-
cally conceivable because the psychological effect on the
members of the society would be intolerable. This aspect
is probably unimportant since it is most likely that women
are led to performing the roles only they can play by their
own biological propensities. Furthermore, even if neither of
these elements came into play, social value systems would
still differentiate as they do now simply because for them
115
to do otherwise would require that men and women act in
identical ways and demonstrate identical temperaments; for
if men and women seem different (as they will if biological
differences engender differences in aggression, temperament,

ability, or propensity), then the members of the society will
"automatically" attach different expectations to them. Femi-

nist political analyses often unknowingly incorporate the
incorrect belief that a society's values and the roles they de-
lineate ensue from plans when in reality they represent the
observations of the members of the society. As is the case

with the white's perception of the black, what is observed
can be changed if the actions and temperament of those
being observed are determined by factors that can be changed.
The white's perception of the black as ignorant will con-
tinue to change as the black is allowed equal education and
economic equality; the values, roles, and expectations that
white society attaches to the black will become increasingly
similar to those it attaches to itself until a point is reached
where the black population's own self-image and own unique-
ness resist a further closing of the gap. Somewhat different
expectations will continue to be attached to blacks (as they
now are to all minorities) because the black view of the
superiority of those black institutions which remain will
engender behavior and attitudes different from those of the
majority. Unless a group is totally assimilated, it will always
be considered different, but it is not at all necessary that it
be considered, or consider itself, inferior.
Most of the world's women have never considered them-

selves inferior, but let us for the moment accept the implicit
feminist assumption that they should have. The path that
the blacks will follow is not open to women because the
factor underlying the universal view of women is not eco-
nomic or educational discrimination but a biological fact that
will manifest itself in, at the very least, a lack of aggression

that will be observed in every society and that will determine
116
The Societal Manifestations of Male Aggression
ever) 7
society's view of women. It is worth repeating that
it is not at all inevitable that the male roles in any society
be accorded more status than the roles that women are bio-
logically more capable of playing; the status given by the

society to these biological female roles is a function of many
factors that are outside the scope of this book. All that is
inevitable on a suprafamilial level is that biology requires
that certain aggressive roles be associated with the male and

that the leadership and high-status roles for which the woman
is not biologically better equipped (than the man) be at-
tained by men.
The behavioral manifestations of sexual biological differ-
ences are, to be sure, quantitatively and statistically, not
qualitatively and absolutely, different for the two sexes.
Women are no more totally without aggression than they

woman is less aggressive
are totally without height; not every
than every man any more than every woman is shorter than
every man. The quantitative becomes, and must become,
qualitative only when the members of a society develop ex-
pectations for men and women based on the male and female
biological realities they observe.
If humans were totally instinctive animals and if women
had no aggression potential at all, then there would be no
need to socialize men and women in masculine and feminine
directions. Since women are not without aggression it is
necessary, for the reasons we have discussed, that they be
socialized away from depending on aggression to attain their
ends. There is, however, another, equally important reason
why men and women are socialized in masculine and femi-
nine directions and this is the need for societal efficiency.
Men are not stronger and more aggressive than women
because men are trained to be soldiers, nor do women nurture
children because girls play with dolls. In these cases society
is doing more than merely conforming to biological neces-
sity; it is utilizing it. Because the initial masculine and femi-
117
The Theory of the Inevitability oj Patriarchy
nine directions are engendered only by sexual differences in

capacity and, perhaps, propensity and not by instinct, men
and women must learn the specific manner in which their
society functions. The male's aggression advantage and the
female's maternal feelings are not social in origin, but no
one is born knowing how to fire a rifle or change a diaper.
In other words, the purpose of a society's sexually differen-
tiated institutions and sexually differentiated socialization is
not to cause male and female qualities; physiology alone

would suffice for that. Societies conform their institutions and
socialization to the sexual directions set by physiological dif-
ferentiation, first because they must and second in order to
function most efficiently.
The members of a society are, of course, often unaware

of all this. Parents who when
chastise a daughter for fighting
they would not chastise a son may do so only because fight-

ing is "unladylike." They may not even be aware that in
so treating their daughter they are directing her toward suc-
cess as an adult and enabling her to deal from strength rather
than preparing her for consistent defeat. Nonetheless, the
social value that sees "fighting as unladylike" is the social
conformation to the biological fact of male aggression. There
are even cases where, for the psychological health of the
individual, societies must, through the parents as agents of
socialization, dissuade identification with a role even when
the individual could never attempt to play the role; young
boys are socialized away from identifying with the maternal
role even though they will never be able to give birth.
The Mbuti Pygmies

The process by which biological forces are manifested in
societal value systems is perhaps most clearly seen by exam-
ining a society in which biological sex differences are only
minimally exaggerated by the society's value system. Some
authors, having misconstrued Colin Turnbull's more popular
118
works on the Mbuti Pygmies, have stated that the Pygmies

fail to demonstrate male dominance or even sex-role differ-
entiation. Reference to Dr. Turnbull's definitive work on

the subject leaves no doubt that male dominance and patri-
archy do exist in the Pygmy's society. 49 Authority, when it
is invoked, is in the hands of the best hunter or an elder

male; disputes are settled by discussions of groups of men
(though women do play an advisory role); status is related
to hunting skill; most importantly, the molimo — the ritual

performed in times of great crisis — is the reserve only or
primarily of males. Nonetheless, it may conceivably be true
that sex role differentiation in suprafamilial areas is less
pronounced among the Pygmies than in any other society and

may well be not far above the minimal threshold necessi-
tated by the hormonal differences between men and women.
Before concluding that the degree of sex-role differentiation
demonstrated by the Pygmies is all that is required by the
biological factor, however, we must examine the effect of
biology on behavior in the contexts of different social-
environmental realities.
As I have said, the male advantage in biological aggression

is crucial to social sex roles not merely in terms of dominance
and deference, but in the channeling of aggression into any
area given high status by the society. This factor will be
present in every society, but will be least important in a
society, such as that of the Pygmies, where survival neces-
sitates that everyone, male and female, must fill more or less
the same economic role; when all must take part in the hunt
if the game is to be caught, the fact that a man holds the
net will not result in a great deal of extra status. Status for
the fittest is relatively unimportant when all must play the
same economic role if the society is to survive. However, if
49 See Colin M. Turnbull, The Mbuti Pygmies: An

Ethnographic Survey
(New York: The American Museum of Natural History Anthropological
Papers, Volume 50: Part 3, 1965).
119
a change in the environment brought about a situation in

which only half of the population was needed to partici-
pate in the hunt, we can be sure that would be men who

it
attained these roles, that male status would tend to increase,

and that sex-role differences would widen. Indeed, among
the Pygmies who are archers (as opposed to the net hunters
we are discussing) this is precisely the case. Moreover, if
only half the men were needed for the hunt the other men
would be freed to use their aggression for the attainment of
any nonmaternal roles that the society gave high status, even
those which could be performed as well by women. The
society would quickly come to "automatically" associate any
such role with men and men would not even need to use
their aggression to attain the role. The societywould begin
to socialize women away from the role and the role would
remain a male role until, for whatever reason, it lost status.
Then men would use their aggression in pursuing other roles
that had gained in status.
While in every society male aggression will tend to mani-

fest itself in dominance and authority, it can be least impor-
tant in a society, again such as that of the Pygmies, in which
the existence of small, fluid hunting bands results in a mini-
mal necessity of formal organization and authority. The
importance of biological factors is a function of social reali-
ties, so that sex-role differentiation greater than that of the
Pygmies is not necessarily artificial exaggeration, but is in-
evitable under conditions that enable such factors more easily
to manifest themselves or for which such factors have a

positive value for survival and success.
Modern Societies
Unlike Pygmy society, industrial societies in a modern world
cannot (no matter how much they would like to) limit the
effect of biological aggression on social values in a way that
an isolated forest people can. In an industrial society, mem-

120
bers do not all play the same economic role, nor are the vast
majority necessary for or capable of playing the highest status
roles. Diversity of economic roles and bureaucratic organiza-
tion are the very hallmarks of an industrial society. Where
the Pygmies have minimal formal organization, industrial
societies composed of millions of people must have economic-

role differentiation and formal organization if they are to
survive and function. In other words, where the Pygmy so-
ciety minimizes the effect of the male advantage in biological

aggression, the very nature of the modern, industrial society
forces such a society to give aggression relatively free play.
We cannot even say that the industrial society exaggerates
this aggression; given the nature of the economic and social
realities of such a society the minimal possible effects of this

biological factor will be very great in determining the degree
of sex-role differentiation. Furthermore, given the reality of
an industrializing world, the lovely, gentle societies, such as
that of the Pygmy, will not survive when challenged by so-
cieties whose methods of organization and whose methods of
channeling aggression into efficient authority systems render
them more efficient.
The Limits of Possibility

It should not be concluded from the above that within any
one society's history a relaxation of traditional barriers to
upward mobility will in every case engender an increase in
the importance of aggression or that there is an absolute
correlation between a society's economic situation or degree
of homogeneity and the degree to which it allows male ag-
gression to manifest itself in social institutions. As has been
true throughout this book, I am speaking only of the limits
of possibility within which a society must operate and the
biological forces that it must utilize or attempt to counteract.
Within these limits, of course, there is an enormous, but
not unlimited, range of possible alternatives, and this allows
121
for the diversity of societies that the anthropologist en-

counters. The degree to which any particular society limits
the manifestation of aggression in its value system (how
close it comes to the maximum possible reduction of sex
differentiation) in any area is a function not only of the
limits of possibility set by biology and the degree to which
the major institutions of that society utilize biological aggres-
sion, but also of a complex of values, traditions, and environ-
mental necessities that are more or less specific to that
particular society. Therefore, we should not be surprised
to learn that there are some primitive societies which empha-
size male aggression and in which women have extremely
low status. I am saying only that the degree to which a
society could limit the manifestation of male aggression in
attainment and the degree to which it could minimize sex-role

differentiation will be much greater if the society is a primi-
tive society than if it is a bureaucratic, industrial society. 50
The United States, in other words, could not limit the social
manifestations as much as a primitive society could (and the
Pygmies did )
50 Likewise, inbook I am speaking of a gross force (hormonal

this
on and greatly influences human behavior; certainly
reality) that sets limits
there are a multitude of social factors that are relevant in any specific
case. For example: in every society there will be many women who are
born into roles of higher status than any that most men can achieve,
though a man born into the same setting will attain roles through his
aggression that the woman will not. Because I am dealing here with a
gross force I may be guilty of using the terms role, status, and posi-
tion somewhat more loosely than would the sociologist whose work is
centered on these concepts. For example: when I speak of men's at-

taining a role I am not unaware that roles are often ascribed on birth
so that a particular man need not utilize his aggression to attain such
ascribed roles. However, when we consider why the society sees the role
in question as a male role, we see that male aggression explains this;
either the role can best be performed by men or the role will have high
status so that in the past men have attained the role and now it is auto-
matically associated with them. While subtleties of definition are of
crucial importance in many efforts to deal with roles, I do not think
that my use of these terms in any way lessens the rigor of the general
theory advanced here.
122
Social Exaggeration of the Biological

However, we can speak of a given society's exaggerating the
values relevant to male aggression even if we acknowledge
that the direction of those values is determined by the hor-
monal factor. Exaggeration could not be determined merely
by comparing the given society with another, for this would
force one to conclude that all societies save that of the Pygmy
exaggerate male aggression. To declare that a society's values
do so exaggerate we must compare the degree to which its
values reflect male aggression with the minimal degree that

would be possible for that sort of society. I think that all
would agree that, in all areas save those concerning abortion,

Japan's value system is more male-oriented than that of the
United States. Because, very roughly speaking, both Japan
and the United States are highly bureaucratized, democratic,
industrial societies with the same threshold of minimal pos-

sible male aggression, we might say that Japan exaggerates
male aggression in that its values reflect male authority more
than do those of the United States (and that this exaggera-
tion, therefore, must be owing not just to biology and the
general nature of industrial society but also to specific Japa-
nese values ) . One could likewise say that the United States
exaggerates male dominance in its value system (though not
as much as does Japan ) , but he must measure the degree of
exaggeration relative to a hypothetical minimum that de-
mands far greater manifestation of male aggression than
does a society such as that of the Pygmy. We could lower
the degree to which male aggression is present in American
society to the minimal level possible in an industrial society,
though this is not likely to happen. We could, theoretically,

lower it to the level found in Pygmy society if we were will-
ing to give up science, bureaucratic organization, industriali-
zation, and democracy (all those changes which tended to
raise the threshold of the possible minimal degree of sexual
123
differentiation and of the importance of aggression). But

even if we did this we would still find that there is an abso-
lute minimal threshold below which no society can even
theoretically limit the manifestation of male aggression in its
system. An institution cannot be eradicated by the eradication

of its economic functions if the institution's reason for being
is biological or even if, as with perhaps, the incest taboo,
it is necessitated not by biology, but by the basic nature of
society.
Patriarchy in Industrial and "Revolutionary"

Societies
Perhaps our emphasis on theory and on primitive societies
has led the reader to doubt the applicability of all that has
been said to modern industrial and "revolutionary" societies.
Such doubts are easily dispelled if we examine political lead-
ership in such societies.

In the United States there are no women senators: women
constitute slightly more than 1 percent of the mayors of
cities of twenty-five thousand or more, less than 2 percent of
the policy makers in federal government, 3 percent of the
members of the House of Representatives, and 5 percent
of the members of the state legislatures. 51
Whatever the alleged changes in our society's view of
women, such changes have not been manifested in an in-
crease in political power. For all the brave words and
clenched fists, there are now 25 percent fewer women in
Congress than there were ten years ago. I do not attach any
particular significance to the decrease; the number of women
in power is so small that it is doubtful that this fluctuation
has any real meaning (though it is conceivable that a number
of individuals who would not have formerly hesitated to
vote for a woman candidate will hesitate once the focus is
on women and the authority implicit in leadership). In any
51 The New Republic, December 25, 1971, p. 6.
124
case, there has certainly been no increase. The number of

women in positions of power and leadership in the financial
and business world make the political statistics look like

equalization unless one considers ownership (rather than
executive power), where the hereditary nature of vast wealth
enables some women to rank with the wealthiest of men.
This is somewhat comparable to land ownership in some
matrilineal societies.
The political distribution of the sexes is no different in
any other society. Even if we consider societies in which

women constitute half of the labor force, even if we con-
sider societies with an ideological commitment to sexual
equalization in the hierarchies of authority, even if we con-
sider societies that have made sustained attempts to equalize
sexual distribution in government —even then we find the
same Sweden all thirteen
situation that obtains in America. In
of the ministers with portfolio are men. In Cuba twenty of

the twenty-one ministers and all fifteen members of the
Political Bureau and the Secretariate of the Communist party
are men. In Israel eighteen of the nineteeen cabinet ministers
are men. In Communist China, which has been committed to

equalization since the revolution, both members of the Stand-
ing Committee of the National People's Congress, all six
members of the State Council, all six heads of the General

Offices, and all seventy-two heads of the General Ministries
are men. All but one of the members of the Politboro are
men; the only exception is the wife of Mao Tse-tung. In the
Soviet Union, where even the theories of biology tend to
deny the relevance of biology to behavior, 96.9 percent of the
members of the Central Committee are men. 52 The failures
of the Kibbutzim and every other Utopian attempt to alter
52 The figures for Sweden, Cuba, Israel, and China were compiled from
listings The Europa Yearbook: 1971 (London: Europa Publications
in
Ltd., 1971) and The Far East and Australasia: 1971 (London: Europa
Publications Ltd., 1970). The figure for the Soviet Union is from N. T.
Dodge, Women in the Soviet Economy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press,
125
sex-role differentiation in this area serves merely to reinforce

the conclusions indicated here. 53
No doubt one can devise separate and different explana-
tions for each of these societies' failure to deviate from the
near total male superiority in attaining positions of political
authority. Each explanation could be set in the terms of the

particular social values and economic conditions of the par-
ticular society whose failure is being explained and in the
terms of the residual strength of the society's "patriarchal"
values (values that every society has) rather than in the terms
of an inevitable manifestation of biological reality. Let us
disregard the fact that viewing each society in only its spe-
cific terms tends to demonstrate not why equalization has
not been achieved, but why there has been any increase at
all in the number of women in authority positions (when
there was any increase at all). 54 For the far more important
point is that one who attempts to explain these failures in
1966), p. 214. No doubt by the time the reader reads this these figures
will need some updating, but the point they make will remain just as
strong.
53 There have been a number of subsocietal groups that have attempted
not only to explain reality in terms that assume that logic is the only
limiting factor on social possibility, but to implement this view by de-
veloping new "societies." Because logic is not the only limitation imposed
on social possibility, every such experiment had to fail completely or, like
the Kibbutz, fail in just those areas where the inexorable pull of sexual
and familial biological forces had eventually to overcome the initial thrust
of nationalistic, religious, ideological, or psychological forces that had
engendered the possibility of the temporary implementation of Utopian
ideas. This is not to say that particular social factors did not cause the de-
mise of any particular Utopian experiment before the biological factors
had a chance to come into play, but that eventual doom was as inherent
in these Utopian experiments as it was for the Shakers. Readers interested
in the failure of the Kibbutz to challenge successfully the universal sex-
role distinctions we have discussed might consult: Melford Spiro, "Is The
—
Family Universal The Israeli Case" (particularly the addendum), in The
Sociological Perspective, Scott McNall, ed. (Boston: Little, Brown and
Company, 1971) and A. I. Rabin's "Ideology and Reality in the Israeli
Kibbutz" in Sex Roles in a Changing Society, Georgene Seward and
Robert C. Williamson, eds. (New York: Random House, 1970).
54 For example, the devastation of the Soviet Union in World War II
created such a dearth of qualified people in every area that the competitive
aspects of the attainment of position were reduced.
126
—
this manner is in the position of one who attempts to explain

patriarchy in four thousand different societies with four thou-
sand different explanations, each in the particular terms of
the particular society rather than in the terms of one factor
capable of explaining all four thousand cases. As we shall
see in Section Three, this is absurd even if theoretically de-
fensible. The failure of these societies to alter political patri-
archy does not, of course, "prove" that patriarchy is inevitable

any more than the universality of patriarchy "proves" that
patriarchy is inevitable. Here I introduce this material on
the failures of these disparate societies with disparate eco-
nomic systems, value systems, and traditions only as pre-
sumptive evidence —very strong presumptive evidence, I
believe — that there is a biological factor that renders a
nonpatriarchal society impossible to achieve.
A Digression: Race and Sex

If the only relevance of the question of black-white genetic
differences in behaviorally important areas to the importance

of differences between men and women was the feminists'
constantly equating the two, it would not be necessary to
introduce the subject at all. For a middle-class white woman
to compare her environmental situation with that of a black
seems to me nothing short of criminally naive. However,
I have so often encountered the criticism that the evidence
supporting the contention that there are biological sex dif-
ferences (which will inevitably be manifested in male and
female behavior and in social institutions such as patriarchy)
is no different from —and no more likely to be correct than
the evidence relevant to racial differences that it is necessary
to demonstrate the differences between the two sets of evi-
dence here.
The evidence concerning race is based on a population that
is a small minority in one environmental context (the black
population in the United States). The conclusion that patri-
archy is inevitable is based on the evidence of all the societies
127
of all the men and women who have ever lived (i.e., every
society has been patriarchal ) One immediately sees the in-
.
validity of generalizing a black inability to attain power from

the dearth of black leaders in the United States when he looks
eastward and sees that nearly every black nation invests au-
thority in its black male leaders. 55 On the other hand we see
that every society without exception, no matter how different
their value systems from ours and from one another's, asso-
ciates dominance and political leadership with men. If one
asks "does that mean that if half the members of every
society were white and half were black and all societies were
ruled by whites (or all by blacks) then you would say that
one race was superior at attaining power for biological rea-
sons," the answer is, of course, yes. But even if all societies
had populations evenly divided between the races and even

if all societies were ruled by whites (or blacks), the evidence
supporting the existence of relevant genetic differences would
not be nearly as strong as it is for sexual differences; the
evidence for important biological differences between the
races would still be hypothetical (though very convincing).
No one is able to demonstrate directly any biological dif-
ferences between blacks and whites that could reasonably be
thought to be relevant to attaining power. The hormonal
differences between men and women have been demonstrated
beyond any doubt whatsoever and the relevance of hormones
to aggression has been demonstrated so strongly that even
if we had no cross-cultural evidence at all there would be no
doubt that the biological factor was relevant to the fact
that men rather than women attain positions of power.
55 One mightraise the objection that such societies do not have popu-
lations in which half the members are white. There is no reason to doubt
that if a number of disparate societies had populations in which each
race was equally represented some would be ruled by blacks, some by
whites, and, one would hope, most would not associate authority and
leadership with color. But if one does raise this objection with the un-
provable and undisprovable implication that white would always rule,
still he casts no doubt on the reality of sexual differences, but only on the
genetic similarity of the races,
128
PART II
Section Three
Objections
and
Implications
Chapter Six
The Inadequacy of a
Nonbiological Explanation
The Weight of the Evidence

Even if one is not totally convinced that patriarchy, male
dominance, and male attainment of high-status, nonmaternal
roles are inevitable, he must admit that the evidence provided
only by biology or only by anthropology would suggest that
this is an exceedingly strong possibility. When both sets of
evidence are taken together the argument for an environ-
mentalist analysis disintegrates and the biological hypothesis
becomes overwhelmingly compelling. One who then insists on
maintaining a belief in an environmentalist analysis whose
and empirical inadequacy is manifest while
internal illogic
demanding of the infinitely more probable biological hypothe-
sis a deductive conclusiveness that is precluded by the very
nature of science does not do so for scientific reasons. In all
of science there is no such thing as deductive conclusiveness,
the "proof" that the feminists demand. It is axiomatic that

science deals in probabilities and always acknowledges the
possibility that a future observation will demonstrate that
a theory is incorrect. A scientific theory can never be
"proven." Science always leaves open the possibility that to-
morrow a mountain will float into space or that we shall
discover a matriarchy. We have not "proven" that E = mc2

or that smoking leads to cancer. (The purist, therefore,
would be quite right in pointing out that we may not, tech-
nically, say that patriarchy, or gravity, is inevitable; I trust
133
Objections and Implications
that the reader understands that I have used the term

"inevitable" in the title of this book only in the sense
that one does when he says that it is inevitable that there
will be gravity tomorrow. ) This is why continuous empirical
verification is an integral part of the scientific method. But
the invocation of this aspect of science in order to dismiss
the overwhelming likelihood that patriarchy is inevitable is
scientifically untenable and can be explained only in the

emotional terms of desperation logic. Radical interpretation
should imply a better way of explaining what is observed,
not closing one's eyes so as not to observe. The overly emo-
tional analysis of an intellectual problem that forces people
to disregard observation can have only catastrophic results
for objective inquiry. That even a few academic intellectuals
have accepted the feminist analysis with its illogic and its
misrepresentation of fact is explicable only in the terms of

emotional necessity. It is intellectually defensible in no terms
56
at all.
The universality of patriarchy and male dominance, our

knowledge of the differing hormonal systems of men and
women, and the overwhelming evidence that there is a strong
relationship between the male hormone and aggression-

dominance combine to present a body of observation with
which the feminist analysis is not capable of dealing. It be-
hooves those who would deny the inevitability of patriarchy
to develop a theory that explains why the institutions we
have discussed have achieved universality. If they cannot,
56 The political ideologue never did care about ideas, logic, or the
integrity of intellectual pursuit. The layman who seeks rationalization for
emotional necessity has always embraced the most improbable explanation
for as long as it catered to his needs while he demanded of the unpalatable
theory a proof that the very nature of scientific theory precludes. The in-
tellectual dabbler has always reacted to the unfashionable with an in-
credulity based not on a discrepancy between the theory he encounters and
the theory's facts, logic, or relevance to the reality it explains, but on the
discrepancy between the theory and the ideology he espouses — an ideology
founded on wish and sustained by the mutually reinforcing ignorance of
its adherents.
134
The Inadequacy of a Nonbiological Explanation
then their theory must be consigned to whatever graveyard

it is in which are buried all those theories that have been
exposed as clever delusions by their inability to explain
reality, and we must accept the only theory that is logical,
consistent with reality, and plausible.

If logic were the only limitation on human possibility
then mathematical philosophy would be the only science and

empirical verification of theory would not constitute half of
the scientific process. The insoluble problem with the feminist
analysis, and, indeed, with all totally environmental explana-
tions, is not that they posit logical impossibilities or that
they are necessarily internally contradictory, but that they fail
in their explanations of empirical reality. There is rarely only
one logical theoretical explanation for an observed reality.
Because every behaviorally important biological sex difference

must be reflected in every society's value system, one will
always be able to say that men and women act the way they
do because their society tells them to. Because men are
biologically more aggressive, boys will be socialized toward
aggressive pursuits and girls will be told that it is unladylike
to attempt to attain goals through aggression. If one wants
to look for an institutional conformation (what we tell boys
and girls) to biological reality (the male hormonalization)
in order to consider the institution the cause of the behavior
(male aggression) that the institution may exaggerate but
that flows from the biological reality, then he will always
be able to do so. If he is aware that his explaining a thousand
virtually disparate observations with a thousand particular
explanations rather than with a single explanation (biological
male aggression) is a logical barbarism, if he is aware that
he must find some underlying factor that is comparable to
the biological factor, he will be able, through tortuous, but
not illogical, reasoning to develop a theory that makes no
reference to the biological factor. I have no idea what form
such a theory would take, but no doubt it could be developed.
135
For if one is willing to accept more and more convoluted

and irrelevant hypotheses he could even today adhere to
theories that posit the existence of phlogiston and ether and
ignore all of the theories of twentieth-century science that
explain reality so much more convincingly. His theory could
be as perfectly logical as it was totally absurd.
The Environmentalist's Dilemma

This is what one will be forced to do if he insists on adhering
to a totally environmental or economic theory of universal
patterns of sex-associated dominance behavior. For such a
theory cannot suggest a possible initiative of patterns that
invariably work in one direction that is nearly as logically and
theoretically compelling as that provided by demonstrable
evidence indicating a strong relationship between hormones
and behavior. Such environmental theory attempts to deal
with the biological evidence by ignoring it, thereby refusing
to acknowledge the determinative influence of sexual hor-
monal differences found not only in humans (with their
societal environment), but in the nonhuman mammals whose

endocrine systems are similar to man's and for whom a totally
nonhormonal explanation of behavior is patently ridiculous.
This denial of the biological factor takes the form of either
ignoring the universality of patriarchy, male dominance, and
male attainment and pretending that such universality does
not need explanation or of explaining such universality in en-
vironmental terms that are either, or both, internally illogical
or empirically disprovable.
My point is not that the boy is not socialized differently
from the girl or that such differential socialization does not
run very deep. I do not doubt those environmentalists who
claim that by the time an infant is three months old the
nature of the socialization it receives from its parents will
be determined by its sex; shortly after their births we dress
male infants in blue and female infants in pink. While it is
136
doubtful that this makes much difference to newborn infants,
it does show that differential socialization by the parents

begins at birth. But this simply indicates the strength and
importance of sexual hormonal reality and the necessity of
any society's socialization conforming to this reality. For the
environmentalist to demonstrate that biological reality does
not underlie the directions in which societies socialize the
young he must demonstrate not that socialization runs deep
but that it would be possible to socialize boys away from,
and girls toward, aggressive activities. No society has ever
57
done this. Nor could any society ever do this.
This is the environmentalist's dilemma: he faces the in-

superable task of explaining, without referring to either
masculine aggression or feminine propensity, how themen
of every society without exception manage to turn the women
into people the feminists find so distasteful while them-
selves attaining nearly all the positions of power and au-
thority and why no society fails to socialize young girls
57 A few behaviorists have generalized from experiments (which for
argument's sake we will assume were as successful as described) in which

behavior is altered through high-intensity conditioning and use this as
"evidence" that male and female behavior has only an environmental, and
not a biological, determinant. Now, besides being unable to explain what
element in the cultural environment of every society corresponds to this
conditioning, this analysis erroneously implies that because high-intensity
conditioning can force one to behave as if, even to think as if, he had no
"sexual drives," then these "drives" are not biological in nature. Indeed, we
know that some people have been forced to behave in this way not even
by high-intensity conditioning, but merely by the extremes of a Victorian
cultural environment. The real implication of the behaviorists' experi-
ments is not that sexual behavior is environmentally caused, but that, at
least even the most basic biological factors can be driven
theoretically,
inward if the conditioning
is extreme enough. It is difficult to imagine
—
how in a world in which we are incapable of even properly feeding most
of the population —
we would suddenly develop the tools and the com-
petence necessary for instituting total conditioning in any society. How-
ever, it is we would elect leaders who had the
not difficult to imagine that
requisite want to do so; we know that the leaders who
inhumanity to
would make the decisions on how such conditioning would be used
would be men whose aggression had enabled them to attain positions of
leadership.
137
away from aggressive He

must find a universal
areas.
cultural-environmental factor comparable to the biological

factor proposed here. This is the point that is always for-
gotten by those who would deny the determinativeness of
the biological factor or who would claim that this factor
is no longer relevant and that the institutions that cater to
it are no longer necessary. The biological explanation explains
universality where no other explanation can.
Perhaps the environmentalist will attempt to explain uni-
versality by invoking the mother's universal role, which pre-
cludes her devoting herself to nonmaternal endeavors. This
invocation of a biologically related role does overcome the
contradictions inherent in the explanation that is dependent
on societal values and socialization; since the maternal role
is universally associated with women, this explanation, by

sacrificing the dependence on socialization to explain patri-
archy, avoids the absurdity of invoking the differing social
values and economic factors of each society to explain patri-
archy in each society. It does satisfy those who would like
to believe that the maternal propensity and maternal atten-
tiveness to the young have only social origins (so that a

nonpatriarchal society could ensue from large numbers of
women deciding not to have children). The difficulty with
this line of reasoning is twofold: first and most importantly
it ignores the hormonal factor that would alone make patri-
archy inevitable even if large numbers of women did forsake

the maternal role. Second, an explanation of patriarchy in
terms of the woman's maternal role is virtually tautological
unless it specifies the aspect of this role that precludes female

attainment of power. It is true that in every society the
female plays a nurturant role relative to the male, but in

many societies women work harder at non-maternal labor
for longer hours than do men (hours which could, were it
not for the hormonal factor and the socialization which con-
forms to the presence of this factor, be spent attaining posi-
138
tions of authority), they take only a few days out of their
regular schedule to give birth, and leave most of the care-

taking of children to grandparents, other members of the
extended family, or older children. It could be argued that
the female maternal propensities detract from the mental
and emotional energy women can devote to suprafamilial
pursuits, but one could use this to imply the possible demise
of patriarchy only if he assumes that there is no biological
male aggression advantage (or that such aggression is irrel-
evant to attainment ) , that female maternal propensities have

no biological component, and some future time chil-
that at
dren will no longer be borne by women. Even if one makes
these assumptions, it is difficult, given the cross-cultural data,
to find an aspect of the maternal role that is not of such
minor importance in a number of societies that explanation
of patriarchy in those societies by invocation of this aspect

is completely unconvincing.
Similarly, one who wishes to emphasize the universal bio-
logical fact of the male's superior size and strength not only
ignores the more important (in between-sex comparisons)
hormonal evidence; he also faces the observation that there
seems no correlation (among males) between attainment of
high status and physical strength, but that there is an easily
observed correlation between such attainment and "aggres-

sion." This is implicitly acknowledged by the feminist when
she emphasizes the differing attitudes of men and women
toward work and aggression (and incorrectly ascribes such
attitudes purely to socialization ) . Indeed, the superior execu-
tive is described not as physically strong but as "aggressive."
Obviously male aggression has evolved hand in hand with
male physical size (just as the female hormonal system has
evolved hand in hand with female anatomy) . But even if we
discount the male's greater strength and size, male aggression
is still seen to be determinative. If we were to set up an
experimental one-generation society of the infant sons of
139
small parents and the infant daughters of large parents (so

that the females of this society were as large as the males),
we would still find that this society developed into a patri-

archy. If, however, we peopled our experimental society with
genetic male infants whose fetal masculinization had been
blocked and genetic female infants who had accidentally been
virilized in utero we would find that the genetic females
ruled, that authority was associated with them, that they
attained the positions of high status, that they were dominant
in dyadic relationships, and that socialization came to con-
form to all this.
The environmentalist might be tempted to invoke an ex-

planation of universal patriarchy and male dominance and
attainment based on the necessities of securing food, the
male's physical advantage at hunting and harvesting, or the
amount of time women have had to spend "at home" in
order to indicate that the factors relevant to patriarchy, while
once necessary, are now irrelevant. Such explanations are
incorrect on their face; there have been a great many primi-
tive societies with small populations for whom the securing
of food entailed only a few hours of labor a week. In some
of these this labor was done by women while the men per-
formed less strenuous tasks. None of these societies, however,
failed to associate authority with the male.
The Future in Feminist Theory and in Reality

With the exception of the few attempts we have mentioned,
feminists never offer specific alternatives to the analysis pre-
sented in this essay because they cannot. Nonetheless, femi-
nist predictions of the future invariably imply that there is
some nonbiological explanation or that the biological factor

is so weak that it can be overridden by an alteration in the
institutional environment. This implication is inherent in
the belief that biology may once have been determinative,
but no longer is, in the declaration that the world has changed
140
—
so much that the universal expectations of men and women

the universal conceptions of masculinity and femininity — are
no longer necessary, and in the prediction that there will
someday be a nonpatriarchal society. For these beliefs, dec-
larations, and predictions to be more than baseless assertions
supported by nothing other than their proponents' desire that
they be correct, it is necessary that the feminist demonstrate
not only that there will be great institutional changes in the
future, but that these changes are relevant not just to the
economic functions of patriarchy, but to the cause of patri-
archy. She must demonstrate that the changes will eliminate

or override the causal factor which engenders patriarchy and
to which our conceptions of masculinity and femininity con-
form. She can hardly do this if she cannot even offer a tenable
explanation of patriarchy as it exists and has existed in pres-
ent and past societies.

Since the factor that necessitates our conceptions of mas-
culinity and femininity is the reality of hormonal biology
and societies' conformation to it, since this conformation
serves the necessary function of making male and female
aspirations congruent with probability, and since female at-
tainment in any nonmaternal area is a function of male lack
of interest in that area, no change in the other functions of
sex roles can radically alter conceptions of masculinity and
femininity as they apply to political and dyadic authority and
to attainment of high-status positions. It is to be hoped that
future feminist research expands our knowledge of the mech-
anisms through which biological factors are manifested in
institutional reality, but it is folly to believe that new knowl-
edge will render the biological factor any less determinative;
our discovery of the mechanisms involved in societal con-
formation to the "sex drive" does not reduce the importance
of that "drive" to individual behavior or to the social institu-
tions that conform to the drive and that channel it.
If the feminist cannot provide us with even a theoretical
141
alternative to a patriarchal society, it is not likely that any

real society —any society limited not only by the limitations
inherent in society in general, but by the cultural realities of
a modern society — will develop an alternative. After all,
contemporary America is more like her antecedent society in
ancient Rome than she is like the contemporary societies of
the Bantu, Javanese, or Hottentot, and it is not likely that

any future America will be less like contemporary America
than these other societies are now. But even if a future
America is as different from the society we know as Hottentot
society is now, it will still be patriarchal.

None of this implies that there will not be great changes
in the future, but only that such changes will not be relevant
to the causes involved in the universal institutions discussed
herein. It is one thing to assert, perhaps correctly, that the

realities of increasing population and increasing technology
make social life less and less congruent with our biological
natures and quite another to assert, unquestionably incor-
rectly, that our biological natures are no longer determina-
tive to behavior and institution. It is one thing to point out
that the world is overpopulated and quite another to imply

that this will somehow lead to the demise of patriarchy. We
shall always need to propagate the species; if contraception
eradicates the overpopulation problem we will have the same
need to produce a next generation as did all the societies of
the past and it will still be women who give birth. Even if
there were developed an artificial substitute for the mother

(a likely probability), and even if women wanted this sub-
stitution to be made on a widespread social level (an unlikely

probability), patriarchy would exist unless biological adapta-
tion led to the disappearance of sexual hormonal differences.
For the hormonal differences in aggression alone would

necessitate patriarchy, male dominance, and male attainment
of status.
The clash between our biological natures and modern
142
society is very great and the potential for new forms of

neurosis is abundant. It is possible that bureaucratization and
overpopulation render our situation one in which the natural
flow of our male and female biological forces are, and must
be if we want the rewards of modernization, shunted in
harmful directions or turned neurotically inward. Before the
advent of roles and occupations that greatly limited the ex-
pression of individual aggression —expression that is still
necessary for the individual and that was formerly more nec-
essary for the society —before bureaucratization rendered in-
dividual feelings of autonomy impossible for all but those
at the top, before the unspeakable situation in which propa-
gation of the species can no longer be viewed as unalloyed
joy in every case, before all of these victories of moderniza-
tion the lives of men and women flowed more naturally from
the biological natures of the human species. To the hunter
and his wife or to the farmer and his wife the idea of sex-role
reversal is patently absurd; modern urban males and females
are no less biologically different, and these differences no
less limit social institutions, but the nature of urban life does
tend to camouflage the differences enough to enable them to
consider the absurd. It is conceivable that we are heading
into a world for which we are not biologically prepared. It
would not be the first time that this has happened to a species.
If the species is to survive, however, it will be because we
limit the institutions that could destroy us and not because our
biological natures will be overridden by new institutional
realities.
Let us descend to the level of the probable. There will be

changes in the next few centuries, indeed in the next few
decades; whether these are "revolutionary" or minor depends
again on whether one sees the glass as half full or half empty,
whether he emphasizes the biological reality to which social
reality conforms or the myriad variations possible within the

limitations imposed by the biological. There is no doubt that
143
the institutions of American society will soon accommodate

large numbers of women who no longer need devote their
entire lives to child rearing, just as have many societies that
needed virtually all of their women in the labor force. While

feminists often discuss this possibility in terms which assume
that every woman is capable of a career in nuclear physics
and that this is the option every woman should be able to
weigh against the emphasis on the home which would in-
evitably place limitations on the possibility of attainment in
such an area, the reality is that most individuals, male and

female, have average capabilities and average jobs. It is not
at all self-evident that most women would choose to devote
to such jobs, rather than to their families, the lifelong ex-
penditures of energies which men devote to their jobs and
which are necessary for attainment in most occupational
areas. It would seem likely that most American women will
gravitate toward the social area where there is the greatest
need and where they need not compete with men —both
because no one is now performing those functions and be-
cause this area (social workers, elementary school teachers,
etc.) does not have a particularly high status that would at-
tract male competition. No doubt there will be an increase

in the number of women in the lower authority positions
and perhaps an increase in the number of women in the
higher authority positions in low-status areas. If, for exam-
ple, day-care centers become a major factor in American life,
women will unquestionably fill the overwhelming number

of lower-level authority positions and perhaps the higher
ones. This generalization of motherhood will be possible be-
cause the area will have low status for males so that males
will not compete for the positions, because there are no
males now filling those roles, and, dare I leave my theoretical
position long enough to advance this point, because women
will desire these roles and will be better at filling them than
men would be. Any increase in the number of women in
144
high-status positions in high-status areas, however, will be

slight and "token." For this is the playing field where ag-
gression counts the most and here men will succeed at at-
taining the high positions of power, status, and authority as
they always have in every society.
Nothing I have written should be construed as implying
that modern women do not face the most serious of problems.
Increasing longevity, a lessened desire for large families, the
TV Dinner, and the fragility of the family in a frantic so-
ciety create a context in which the potential for female

anomie is very great. To an extent, the women's movement
has garnered what support it has because, like any social
movement, it is capable of replacing feelings of individual
meaninglessness with a feeling of group strength and belong-
ing. If I do not write at length of economic discrimination it
is not because such discrimination does not exist, but because,

important as this issue is, it is beyond the scope of this book.
If I have ignored the residual laws that discriminate between
the sexes it is because, whatever their symbolic importance,
such laws are obviously not the source of the energy that
engenders male attainment. The masculine nature of modern
industrial and bureaucratic society and the deemphasis of the
family creates problems of meaning for the woman that are
only marginally related to laws and other factors that are not
inevitable manifestations of male aggression. If the few re-
maining laws that differentiate between the sexes are re-
moved, time will make clear that such laws had merely
flowed from society's acknowledging sexual differences and
had not caused such differences. Passage of an equal rights
amendment will have little effect on either the inevitable
"discrimination" we discussed earlier or on discriminatory
attitudes.
The seriousness of the problems facing women in con-
temporary society may tempt us to ignore or even deny the

determinativeness of sexual differentiation, but we have no
145
justification whatsoever for doing so. It is an American trait
to believe that every problem has not merely a partial, rela-
tive solution that enables society to struggle through to the

next day, but a solution that is perfect in its ability to eradi-
cate the problem while maintaining perfect congruence with

ideological commitment. No doubt American society will
adapt to new realities by expanding those areas in which
women need neither remain in the home nor compete with
men. There are many possible paths, and I would not pretend
to the role of seer. We can be sure, however, that the future
will conform to the realities I discuss in this book.
Psychobiological Limitations on Human

Malleability
The possible dangers of overemphasizing the biological fac-
tor at the expense of purely cultural factors in any given
situation are manifest; any attribute of either sex in any par-
ticular society can be rationalized as an inevitable result of
biological predisposition. However, these dangers hardly
justify a denial of the determinative effect of biology in the
areas discussed in this book. Biology should never be used

as an excuse for discrimination. It can never give us the
right to judge any individual by the characteristics of the
group to which that individual belongs (a six-foot tall
woman is not shorter than a five-foot man and the fact

tall
that most women are shorter than most men does not affect
this fact). Biology can never justify refusing any particular
woman any option, but it does explain universal sexual dif-
ferences in behavior and institutions where cultural and
environmental explanations cannot. Survival, and not the
occupational aspiration of the recent college graduate, is the
one imperative of evolution. If the abilities, propensities, and
behavior necessary for childbirth were not built into women,
and if the aggression and physical qualities necessary for
protecting women were not built into men, we could not
146
have survived. Any explanation of male or female behavior

and the social institutions that conform to and channel such
behavior that ignores this fact does not deserve consideration.
The equation of human behavior is far too complex for
us ever to be able to speak of the relative importance of
heredity and environment, of nature and nurture, in terms
of percentage. To speak of the heredity-environment inter-
action in terms of heredity or environment is to describe sim-
plistically a marbleized reality in terms of striation; it is to

consider the horizon a function only of the sky or only of
the sea. However, the amorphous complexity of the heredity-
environment interaction does not affect the determinative
nature of the limitations imposed on possibility by the bio-
logical component of this interaction. Nurture must conform
to the limits set by nature. The biological forces that drive
us are directed, but they are not channeled; that is society's
job. We know that we are hungry and that we must eat, but
whether we get hungry three times a day or five times a day
will be determined in part by the number of meals considered
normal in our society and by the general supply of food;
pain is in part a function of expectation and to this extent
environment affects a feeling (hunger) that flows from

biology. No society, however, could ignore the biological
energies of its members. No social system could survive if
it did not acknowledge the limitations imposed by our bio-

logical natures. The members of a society might "decide"
that it is "normal" for humans to eat once a day or, as in
our society, three times a day. If, however, a society "decided"
that one eats only once a month the society would vanish
before the next full moon. Long before anyone starved, of
course, the biological energies of the society's members would
drive them to ignore or alter the institution of mealtimes in
their society. Such must be the case when a society attempts
to ignore biological reality. In other words, biology demands
only when it is scorned completely; most of the time it
147
persuades. Furthermore, societies in general are limited not

only by the biological needs of their members, but by pre-
conditions that are not required by individual survival, but
only by the general nature of society (i.e., individuals can
behave incestuously, but no society can allow widespread
parent-child incest and survive).
Over the evolutionary aeons environment has a partially
deterministic effect in that only those species whose biologies

can deal with the environment survive. But for a mammalian
species, and over a relatively small portion of evolutionary
time (certainly over a period as short as our mere six
thousand years of recorded history), evolution's effect on
physiology (feedback) will be small. Minor physiological
considerations such as skin color might be affected, but the
biochemical and anatomical sex differentiation that continues
to have for us the positive survival value it did for the pri-
mates which preceded us will be unaffected by environmental
change.
While it will always be true that heredity will set some
sort of limits of possibility on every species' interaction with
its environment and while it seems that sexual differentiation
(within every order of animal) has increased with each evo-
lutionary step, it is not inconceivable that changing environ-
mental requirements will slowly, over the long future,
engender a major reduction in hormonal differentiation.
However, the currently fashionable argument that indus-

trialization's rendering the male's muscular superiority ir-
relevant is initiating an evolution toward biological sameness

betrays an ignorance of the complexity of the male and
female biological systems, and the extent to which sexual
differentiation is diffused throughout those systems, so total
that one suspects we are dealing more with wishful fantasy
than with informed scientific prediction. This tendency to
simplism is surprising in a time when we are finally acknowl-
edging nature's complexity on an ecological level. The male
148
and female hormonal systems are responsible not merely for

the male's physical strength, but for myriad other inter-
related differences in anatomy, biochemistry, potential and
proclivity (including, perhaps, the sensitivity and emotional
powers that complement the biological roles of women and
that illuminate women whether they have children or not).
These differences are still necessary and would still be built
into us — for the imaginable future —even if they were not.
Even cloning would not reduce sexual differentiation.
Males are expendable and females are not; that alone

would have been reason enough for nature to select males to
serve the protective function. If aggression were associated
primarily with the female, protection would be her respon-
sibility and, given the vulnerable situation of homo sapiens,
our species would not have survived. If all but a handful
of males were killed while protecting females, the population
would be replaced by the next generation; the loss of a large
number of females would be disastrous for survival. One

might point out that we are no longer threatened by other
species (but only by the aggression that we no longer need),
or he might make the more questionable argument that bio-
logical invention will replace women as childbearers (and
assume that women would desire this). But even if such
considerations are correct and prophetic, physiological adapta-
tion to new environmental realities will take aeons, and until
then our institutions will conform to our differentiated
physiologies. Ending our excursion into fantasy, we might
consider the possibility that biological engineering could
eliminate sexual differentiation. Here two points are worth
remembering. First, it will be men who will be in the posi-
tions of power from which the decisions on how to use
such techniques are made. Second, there are many things
we are capable of doing that we choose not to do. Soon we
will be able to select the sex of a child before conception;
but the most primitive of primitive peoples had infanticide
149
at their disposal and could have decided to improve on

nature's equal distribution of the sexes. For some reason
none who thought that they could otherwise survive chose
to do so.
Long before the discoveries of empirical evidence indi-

cating the hormone-emotion-behavior association, Freud un-
derstood that the emotions he observed are rivers flowing
from biological sources to be channeled or blocked by cul-
tural canals or dams. His dictum on anatomy and destiny
now seems to enrage his critics, but — if destiny is seen in
terms of the certainty of social conformation to biological
probability — there is no doubt that he was right. It is not
surprising that we tend to overrate the malleability of man
and his social systems; in this century we have overcome the
physical limitations of our physiology through technology
and now we can fly higher than the birds, swim deeper than
the fish, and even move the rivers that the fish swim in.
The works of the greatest Greek scientists are now scientifi-
cally superfluous. But Sophocles is as relevant today as he

was in the times he wrote. We are what we are, and there
is not the slightest shred of evidence that our most basic
elements, the biologically based emotions that flow from our
male and female physiologies and that guide our behavior,
have changed significantly since man first walked the earth.
In all human history there is not a single example of a

social institution's having rendered any emotion irrelevant.
Culture may conceivably modify or exaggerate one emotion
in relation to the others; certainly it provides some of the
objects to which emotions are attached; in one society a
person may be envious of another's wealth while in a second
he is envious of his hunting ability. But by and large inno-
vation merely provides new channels for old emotions. If we
are to survive we must find new institutional channels for
our more lethal emotions; we will not end war by pretend-

ing that male aggression is caused only by social factors.
150
Aggression is inevitable, but its institutionalization in war

may not be. An institution like infanticide can easily be
eradicated; there is no biological factor rendering infanticide
inevitable (this is evident from the fact that very few
societies ever practiced infanticide) and as soon as other
methods of providing enough food are discovered a society
can abandon infanticide if it so chooses.

Unlike infanticide and (perhaps) war, patriarchy, male
dominance and male attainment are inseparable from the
physiological factors that engender them. About the furthest
a society can go in overriding the effects of male aggression
is the separation of male and female roles so that male ag-
gression is limited in its intrusion on female roles. And this
is, of course, exactly what every society has done. We have

seen that even when a society emphasizes "feminine" values
and abhors aggression, male aggression is still determinative
and that it is inconceivable that any society will again ap-
proach the "femininity" of Mbuti. But the problem for those
who would like to eradicate the determinativeness of male
aggression is far greater even than this. If the social is to
override the biological, they must develop a society not merely
with feminine values but with some mechanism for eradicat-
ing the connection of aggression to attainment of leadership
and status positions. Even if we ignore the fact that this must
be accomplished against the opposition of the males who hold
power, how would a society keep the most aggressive from
attaining power? A random selection of leaders? Convincing
the more aggressive that they do not want to lead (in which
case leadership must be given low status)?
Every society must have values and every society must value
some things more highly than others. In every society there
will be some members who are more favored by the social
structure or who are more endowed with the talents necessary
for attaining positions, status, prestige, wealth, or objects.
The latter will increase in importance as the former declines
151
in importance. Socialization by the society and observation by

the members of the society will inculcate in the society's mem-
bers a desire for those positions and things that the society
most highly values. 58 The more aggressive will tend to attain
these positions and things, particularly in a society that does
not have a rigid social structure. This will be true even in
the society with peaceful values. Aggression is determinative
to attainment of leadership and status and to dyadic domi-
nance not because a positive social value is placed on aggres-

sion, but because aggression is a quality that is a precondition
for attainment and dominance. In one respect the analogy
of aggression and attainment with strength and boxing prow-
ess is imperfect; a society that placed a high status on coop-
erativeness and a low status on competition might conceivably
outlaw boxing so that here the male strength advantage, while
still just as great, would be of less importance. But, since
there could be no society without values, at least some strati-
fication, and male-female interaction, it is inevitable that male

aggression will be determinative to attainment and dominance
even if a society's value system despised aggression in all its
forms.
In other words, while behavior is the interface of biology
and environment and while environment does channel bio-
logical energies, the social system is an element of the en-
vironment which is limited by the biological in such a way
that one cannot even imagine d. type of society in which
the male advantage in the capacity for aggression did not
lead to success in all areas for which aggression is a precon-
dition for success. In many cases the competition between
groups may engender a situation in which one group succeeds
58 I grant that I make certain assumptions here about human motivation

— Iassume that most individuals will tend to desire the positions and
things that their societies reward (and socialize them toward) but this —
would seem so self-evident and so congruent with every theory of moti-
vation I have ever heard that I cannot imagine that anyone will challenge
the assumption.
152
)
in withholding from the members of all other groups even

the possibility of attaining positions of authority; in such a
situation we are still dealing with a competition for a limited
number of desired positions (that is what stratification is),
but a situation in which one group has totally succeeded.

It is, of course, only in the "competition" between males
and females that one group has a definite biological ad-
vantage over the other in the capacity for aggression; in the
competition between all other groups no group has a bio-
logical advantage over the others and this is why there is
no variable besides sex which is always correlated with the

attainment of desired positions. (Wealth is usually, though
by no means always, associated with positions of authority,
but this is, in many cases, because wealth is a result of
authority. One can hardly argue that one's sex is a result of
his position of authority.
The only arguments leading to the conclusion that a society
could separate aggression and attainment that I can even

imagine rest on an assumption of the possibility of man's
behaving in what some might think of as a totally rational
way. This view would see man's rational mind, his cerebral
cortex, as capable of overriding the filter system, the hypothal-
amus, that invests all thought with emotion. It is true that

man has some capabilities in this area that other species do
not ( no one has ever heard of a chicken who was celibate for
moral reasons), but to expect that a large number of the
members of any society will ever be able to override emotions
would seem to me pure utopianism. Even ignoring the possi-
bility that the emotion-producing qualities of the hormones
affect the cortex directly and the fact that apes as well as man
have cerebral cortices, one might question whether we would
want to give primacy to rational man. It is true that if we
could do away with the emotions there would be little or no
need for many of the institutions of sexual differentiation
and the institutions that satisfy, channel, and control lust,
153
caring, and love. But without such emotions and the institu-
tions they engender, what would serve the purpose now served
by the will to live? Things would be easier, Utopia would be
possible, and life would be very boring. In any case, utopia
is the promised land of the ignorant; it is just as simple for

those who know nothing about human physiology to envision
societies whose institutions do not conform to physiological
reality as it is for those who know nothing about anthro-

pology to blithesomely predict the imminent demise of the
family and marriage without considering the myriad functions
59
that these two institutions serve in every society.
59 While it seems exceedingly likely that, given the "sex drive" and a
physiological imperative that binds the mother to her infant child, both
marriage and family are institutions that are inevitable for any society that
hopes to survive, I am not defending this view here. My point is that the
predictions one hears every day of the demise of these institutions not
only run counter to observation, but are grounded in an ignorance of the
myriad functions these institutions serve and the likelihood that no al-
ternative institutions, easy as they are to imagine, could in reality serve
these functions nearly as efficiently. One can imagine a totally promiscuous
society or a society in which the functions of status assignment, organiza-
tion, sexual regulation, and satisfaction of the need for deep emotional
attachment are served by alternate institutions, but the fact that no such
society has ever existed should at least give pause to all but those who are
so upset by the fact that the family can be related to neurosis that they
predict the evaporation of the family. The family possesses the ability to
generate neurosis precisely because it is the ubiquitous source of feelings,
feelings of caring and love which, as the young constantly and correctly
complain, are now so scarce. Both joy and neurosis grow only in deep
soil. The family, both as the primary source of love and the primary
source of socialization, is the primary source of "humanization." To hope
to rectify contemporary "dehumanization," which is perhaps more at-
tributable to the weakening of the family than to any other single factor,
by the eradication of the family is either Utopian (the dream of a communal
society, which no society's women have ever allowed) or ignorant (the
expectation that the bureaucratization of child rearing will reverse rather
than accelerate "dehumanization" —
the day-care center is about as likely
to be capable of inculcating, say, kindness as is the motor vehicle bureau).
In any case it is ridiculous to view the family from the point of view of
the individual if individual feelings accounted for the existence of the
;
family, then the institution of the family might not have developed in
the first place. But the family is a social institution and as such it gets
its meaning, possibly its very existence, from the social. Even if there is
no direct biological element responsible for the family (or at least the
mother-child dyad), even if individuals did not attach feelings to this
154
There was no doubt as much sex in Freud's Vienna as any-

where else; the denial of a particular emotion or of a set of
emotions by a segment of society will have little effect on the

institutions of society. Feminism is hardly the first world-view
to deny physiology and its inevitable social manifestations.
In the nineteenth century there were thousands of fundamen-
talists who denied innate sexuality and who dreamed of so-
cieties in which the manifestations of sexuality would be
limited solely to its procreative function. Interestingly, they
did not abhor innate human aggression, but termed someone
"aggressive" when they wanted to compliment him. The
feminist reverses this. At least in theory she enjoys the idea
of innate sexuality and sees only male aggression as unspeak-
able. But both fundamentalism and feminism are anchored
in the same futility of setting mind against body and both
are doomed to see their visions of Utopia destroyed by the
reality of human physiology. 60 For this physiology is irrel-
evant only to the ideology which abhors it, an ideology which

is incapable of explaining reality; it is determinative to the
reality itself.
institution "automatically" as a result of sustained contact with mother

and siblings, the family's social necessity would be transmitted through
the socialization process, using the parents as agent, to individual children
who would attach feelings to the institution of the family. The prediction
of the demise of the family even less likely to be correct than the pre-
is
diction of the demise of the state. But this is all rudimentary sociology.
60 The need to deny the importance of physiological factors to the be-
havior and institutions we have discussed has forced some to seek ways
of denying such importance which serve to demonstrate the disastrous ef-
fect ideological requirements can have on intellectual pursuit. In an essay
that has been reprinted in many feminist anthologies under various —
titles and in various versions: see for example, " 'Kinde, Kuche, Kirche
as Scientific Law: Psychology Constructs the Female," in Sisterhood Is

Powerful, Robin Morgan, ed. (New York: Random House, 1970) Naomi —
Weisstein presents us with a veritable catalog of the misstatements of
fact and the fallacious reasoning that are the hallmarks of the feminist
attempt to explain social reality. Dr. Weisstein proceeds on the assump-
tion that if one demonstrates that psychological and psychiatric tests are
incapable of discriminating between male and female subjects he has
demonstrated that there are not crucial psychological differences between
155
men and women. It is quite true that there are many psychological tests
that do not differentiate men from women in their results because they
measure one or more of the many areas in which men and women do not
differ. It is the areas in which men and women do differ that are of in-
terest to us, and no demonstration that they do not differ in other areas
is relevant, demonstrating that men and women do not differ in memory
does not indicate that they do not differ in abstract reasoning. As we

shall see there are many tests on which one sex does far better than the
other; the differences in male and female results on these tests cannot
be explained by bias on the part of the experimenter because the ques-
tions are of the multiple-choice type. If male and female answers to the
questions consistently differ, there must be some reason for their doing so.
Why they differ is a question we shall deal with below; differences in
test answers demonstrate only that they do differ. The most important
point, however, is this: even if it were true that no test was capable of
distinguishing between men and women, this fact would reflect only on
the value and capabilities of the tests, not on the presence or absence of
male-female differences. If Dr. Weisstein asks us to deny that men and
women are different in their biopsychological makeup simply because
psychological tests cannot reflect sexual differences she asks us to deny
not merely the evidence advanced in this book, not merely the observations
of the psychiatrists she quotes with derision, not merely the observations
of our own experience, not merely the observations of our greatest writers,
but the observations of every feminist author. For the feminist authors do
not deny the presence of a female world-view and female attitudes indeed ;
they give us lengthy descriptions of the female mind that differ from
those of the psychiatrists quoted by Dr. Weisstein not primarily in what
is seen, but in the opinion of what is seen and in the explanation of
the causation of what is seen. Where the psychiatrist admires nurturant

attitudes and behavior, which he sees from a female physio-
as flowing
logical substrate, the feminist authors submission engendered by
see a
social oppression. In the latter part of her essay Dr. Weisstein argues not
that there are no important male-female behavioral differences, but that
such differences are not universal and that the biological evidence is either
faulty or irrelevant. Dr. Weisstein invokes the finding of S. Schachter and
J. E. Singer that the effect of adrenaline on behavior is to an extent a func-
tion of suggestion, i.e., subjects treated with adrenaline will be euphoric or
fearful depending on the actions of others in the room. This is an interest-
ing and valuable fact about adrenaline, though it would seem that anyone
who has felt love and fear at different times would know that adrenaline
can attach itself to more than one emotion. Absurdity threatens only when
one attempts to transfer this insight into the nature of adrenaline to
other physiological materials. Would Dr. Weisstein have us believe that
insulin is as malleable in its effects? Is there any reason at all to believe
that the fetal stimulation of the male brain by fetal testicular testosterone
and the presence of high levels of testosterone in the adult male are merely
biological catalysts for social suggestion? And again the same question,
which invariably asserts itself: if one does so argue, why does no society
suggest female dominance to its members? That Dr. Weisstein is aware
of this theoretical problem is apparent from the fact that she claims that
156
Mafgaret Mead has discovered a number of societies in which male

dominance is not manifested in social institutions; we have seen that
Dr. Mead went out of her way to deny ever having said this and that,
in any case, it would not be true even if she had. Dr. Weisstein carries
her method to the primate level and invokes all the illogic we were
forced to deal with in Footnote Thirty-Six. She concludes that ". . since
.
primates are at present too stupid to change their social conditions by

themselves, the 'innateness' and 'fixedness' of their behavior is simply
unknown." As I have said, it would make no difference at all to the line
of reasoning I invoke if aggression in all nonhuman primates were asso-
ciated with the female or if it had not been shown that primate male
aggression manifests itself even when primates are raised in isolation
(thus removing the possibility that primate male aggression can be ex-
plained by socialization— see Footnote Thirty). But one cannot resist ask-
ing why, if there is no physiological basis to the differences in aggression
between primate males and females, half the groups of each species of pri-
mate are not led by females?
157
Chapter Seven
Confusion and
Fallacy in
the Feminist
Analysis
The Necessity of Theory

Falsity of assumption cannot be balanced by a doubling of
emotional investment. The biochemical realities that lie at
the core of all social situations involving men and women
cannot be eradicated by an assertion that one is not interested
in theory. All social and political theory is built on concep-
tions of the nature of man, and this is true even if the theorist
is unaware and confuses his ignorance with objectivity. When
one accepts the necessity of theory, as one does when he posits
alternative political, economic, or social systems, he must
begin not with a vision of what he would like reality to be
like, but with observation. He must accept and explain such
observation or convincingly demonstrate that such observation
is not trustworthy or that it is not inevitable. The concept of
the "inherent childishness" of the black man is criminally
nonsensical not because we like to believe that the black man
is born the equal of the white, but because observation of
this and other societies indicates that the behavior whites had
described as "childish" is not inherent or universal but a
particular response to a particular environmental situation.
Likewise, all those "inevitable" feminine characteristics that
158
Confusion and Fallacy in the Feminist Analysis
do turn out to be socially rather than biologically determined

can be exposed by anthropology. All one need do is discover
a single society in which a characteristic is clearly not asso-
ciated with women and he has, by this discovery, proved that

this characteristic is not inevitable. This has not been accom-
plished with patriarchy, male dominance, or male attainment
of high-status roles and positions. Since the feminist cannot
do this she must attempt to refute the determinativeness of
the hormonal factor on a theoretical level. Simply denying
that anatomy sets limits on destiny, no matter how often such
a denial is repeated or how derisive its tone, does not make
anatomy any less determinative to the limits of possible des-
tiny. It is pointless for the feminist to ignore the theoretical
in order to "concentrate on the political and the economic";
if the male hormonal system renders males more aggressive
than females and if aggression is an advantage for attain-
ment, then "ignoring the theoretical" is analogous to explain-

ing the dearth of women boxing champions by discussing
only economic and political discrimination against women
boxers. This analogy seems extreme not because there are
many more women in the highest positions of power and
attainment — there are not —but because the reader has no
emotional resistance to the acknowledgment of male physical
strength while he resists with all his energy the reality of the
male aggression advantage. If the political and economic sys-
tems do not conform to the limitations set by hormonal dif-
ferentiation, it is incumbent on the feminist to so demonstrate.
Four Fallacies
Our comparison of the feminist line of reasoning with that
of the fundamentalist is particularly illuminating when we
examine feminist attempts to explain away the anthropo-
logical and biological evidence we have examined. Virtually
every feminist theoretical argument could be as easily, and no
more absurdly, advanced to deny the existence or determina-
159
tiveness of those physiological sexual factors we loosely refer

to as the "sex drive" and to deny the inevitability of every
society's conforming its institutions to this drive. (Like the

capacity for aggression, the "sex drive" can be seen as
nothing more than a capacity which is activated by the stimuli
of environment, memory, or fantasy.) Since there is no
exception to the universality of societal conformation to
the "sex drive," one would have to argue that there are
many individuals who deny this drive in themselves, that

there are many men who are insecure enough to exaggerate
this drive in a constant attempt to prove its presence, that

there are nonsexual areas of desire in which physiology is
relevant only as capacity and not as tendency, that the uni-
versality of societal acknowledgment of the sex drive does

not "prove" that such acknowledgment is inevitable, that we
have not proven —and could never prove —with deductive
conclusiveness that this drive exists, that no society has ever
even tried to deny to a large number of its members in-
stitutional channels for this drive's satisfaction, that the so-
cialization of every society assumes the existence of this

drive, and that capitalists exploit this drive. This line of
reasoning differs from that of the feminist only in that the
feminist has no emotional barrier preventing her from seeing
the absurdity of the fundamentalist reasoning.
It is often suggested that we should ignore the illogic of
feminist analyses because such illogic represents merely the

"excesses" that must be expected of a social movement. I do
not think one has the right to ask even this of the theorist,
but the problem we deal with here is much more serious. For
the fallacies we discuss are not peripheral or unimpor-
tant, but are central to the entire feminist line of reasoning.
There are great differences among feminists in tone, in po-
litical approach, and in reasonableness; but all who do not

ignore the anthropological and biological evidence altogether
begin with the incorrect assumption that sexual hormonal
160
differences are irrelevant to behavior and institution, and all
attempt to compensate for this incorrect assumption by in-
voking one or more of four basic lines of fallacious reasoning.
This being the case, we need not dwell on each individual

feminist analysis. Since we have discussed (or will discuss in
this chapter) the internal contradictions that lie at the core of
the analyses of every feminist writer who has attempted to

deal with the anthropological and biological evidence, here a
cursor)' examination is sufficient to expose these four fallacies.
The first of these admits that the evidence is basically cor-
rect but argues that the existence of individuals who do not

conform to societal norms that are universal demonstrates that
such societal norms are not inevitable. We have discussed the
pointlessness of invoking the exception to disprove the in-
evitability of the rule, so here we might only reiterate that
reasoning would force one to argue that because
this line of
some members of every society will deny the sexual forces

within themselves and remain celibate, it is not inevitable that
every society must provide institutional channels for our spe-
cies' sexual needs. As we have seen, inevitability for the whole
not only need not, but usually will not, imply inevitability for
every individual if biological probability is a factor; the exis-
tence of some women who are taller than some men does not
lessen the fact that there is a biological reason why the men
of every society are taller than the women of their societies.
The second feminist fallacy involves one or more of vari-
ous lines of reasoning that assume that two entities that have
some aspects in common are, therefore, functionally identical;
this is the sort of reasoning that sees a man and a table as

identical because both have legs. Thus the crucial relevance
of male fetal hormonalization to aggressive behavior and to
social institutions that differentiate between the sexes is denied
because there are cyclical aspects to both male and female
biology. Thus the importance of those types of cognitive and
psychological tests that can discriminate between the sexes is
161
denied because other types of cognitive and psychological

tests cannot so discriminate. Thus the inevitability of quali-
tatively different forms of socialization of the sexes is denied
because sexual differences in the biological materials relevant
to aggression are quantitative (i.e., women are not without
testosterone nor are they passive; men, too, are vulnerable to
the cries of an infant — quantitative and continuous sex differ-
ences become qualitative and discrete only when they are

manifested in social conceptions). A number of feminists
have raised the point that we cannot tell the sex of a person
from his skeletal remains. 61 This is not true, but let us assume
61 Dr. Germaine Greer [The Female Eunuch (New York: McGraw-Hill,

1971)], something of a master at introducing irrelevant factors and
is
making it sound as if she were proving a point. Her attempt to disprove

biological considerations appears in her first paragraph.
Perhaps when we have learnt to read the DNA we will be able

to see what the information which is common to all members of
the female sex really is, but even then it will be a long and tedious
argument from biological data to behavior (p. 15).
To the reader who not knowledgeable in this area this sentence no

is
doubt sounds as if it means something. But let us once again use the
analogy of boxing. Dr. Greer's logic would force us to say that we will have
no idea whether biology is relevant to male superiority in boxing until
we learn to "read the DNA." When we learn to "read the DNA" we
will know how the male genetic —
"program's" direction that the male
will develop superior strength — is encoded in the genetic materials, but
we hardly need to "read the DNA" in order to know that it is so en-
coded. one considers the behavior of boxing and agrees that a certain
If
strength level is a precondition for boxing prowess, then the biological
element is apparent from the greater muscularity of the male; to see the
connection between sexual biology and behavior in this area one does
not need to "read the DNA." Likewise, we know the hormonal evidence
relevant to aggression. Nothing much will be added to our knowledge of
the importance of hormones to aggression when we can precisely describe
the genetic etiology of the hormonal development. The use of boxing as
behavior to which sexual biology is relevant also allows us to deal with
the attempt to dismiss biological considerations that emphasizes that
women as well as men produce testosterone (though of course in lesser
amounts and not in a context of a "masculinized" brain). Women also
have muscles (though smaller ones than males), and, just as women are
aggressive (though less so than males), so could they box. In both cases the
quantitative differences become qualitative when society conforms its
socialization practices to biological probability. While some women
could no doubt become better boxers than some men, society must, for
162
that it were. What difference would this make? To say that
male and female bones are identical hardly casts doubt on the
determinative effect of the male and female hormonal systems.
Similarly fallacious reasoning is involved when the feminist
points out that women perform roles in other societies that
are considered male roles in our society. Now we have seen

that in nearly every case this is because such roles have high
status in our society and low status in others so that in our
society men "use" their aggression to attain such roles while
in others they use their aggression to attain other (high-
status) roles. But let us assume that some roles (or qualities)
in our society are associated with the male for purely arbitrary
reasons and are not related to the factors we have spoken
about. Of what importance is this to the question of biological
differentiation? To focus on these aspects rather than on the
universality of patriarchy, male dominance, and male attain-
ment of high-status roles in order to deny the importance of

sexual differentiation is to mimic the lawyer who argues, "Cer-
tainly you have four witnesses who saw my client commit the
crime, but I have twelve who didn't."
This fallacy has been invoked to deny differences in tem-
perament between men and women; because our society's
association of emotional expressiveness and demonstrative-
ness with the female is reversed in other cultures, innate
sexual differences in temperament are denied. This does dem-
onstrate that it is not at all inevitable that the men of a society
be "less emotional" than the women, that the males be less
demonstrative in expressing their male emotions than women

are in expressing their female emotions, but it casts no doubt
on the possibility of innate differences in male and female
emotions.
reasons we have discussed, socialize women away from such behavior.

If it did not, if women attempted to attain their goals through force, they
would lose in almost every That Dr. Greer is aware of the theoreti-
case.
cal problems in her work apparent from the fact that whenever con-
is
tradiction threatens she abruptly ends the chapter.
163
The third fallacious method of rejecting distasteful evi-

dence is the invocation of a sophistic tool that one might call
"the fallacy of the glancing blow." In committing this fallacy,
one who cannot face the implications of a basically sound
theory, reasonable premise, or trustworthy observation, totally
dismisses such theory, premise, or observation by focusing
only on excesses and perverted uses and would have us believe
that such a glancing blow is lethal. These excesses and per-
verted uses are often quite real, and their exposure often quite
clever, but there is no more reason to reject the basic ideas
that lie behind them than there is to reject physics because
the predictive power of physics is less than absolute or be-

cause "physicists make bombs." This fallacy can be seen today
in many areas not related to feminism. Many reject the possi-
ble intellectual validity of psychoanalysis altogether merely

because the nature of mind and behavior precludes the attain-
ment of a level of certainty possible for the physical sciences
(thereby raising the real possibility that theoretical constructs
will become self-fulfilling prophecies). Others reject even
the possibility that homosexuality can be meaningfully de-
scribed as pathological simply because we now know that a
certain portion of the homosexual's unhappiness results not
from his homosexuality, but from societal ostracism. Still
others declare the entire concept of normality altogether mean-

ingless as a description of an individual's ability to deal with
his environment because a distorted definition of normality
may be used as a device for political oppression. This is not
to say that there can never be valid arguments for rejecting
psychoanalysis, accepting homosexuality as normal, or con-
sidering all behavior equally normal, but that such attacks
must strike at the heart's core to be fatal.
Thus today feminists ask us to dismiss the possibility that

hormonal differentiation is determinative to behavior and
institution merely because bogus biological arguments have
been invoked against women and other groups in the past.
164
As a result they refuse even to consider the hypothesis that

the differing hormonal systems of men and women might
reasonably be thought to result in differing propensities and
behavior merely because a hormone-behavior relationship has
never been "proved" with a certainty that the inductive ap-
proach of science can never, even theoretically, achieve. The
feminist rejection of scientific evidence usually takes the form
of branding any work that refers to hormones as "pseudo-
scientific," much as the present Vice-President will describe
any statement he dislikes as "pseudo-intellectual"; the femi-
nists usually demonstrate about as much understanding of

the scientific method as the Vice-President does of the intel-
lectual approach. Both tend to refer to any logic that they

cannot handle as "sophistry."
The glancing-blow evasion occasionally involves the invoca-
tion not of excesses but of an endless number of criticisms,
some of which may have a certain validity under certain cir-
cumstances, but which cast no doubt on the basic soundness of

that which is being criticized. Thus one invokes the fact that,
in certain types of research, there has been shown to be a
tendency for the researcher to overestimate the evidence sup-
porting the affirmation of an hypothesis; this has been in-
voked to dismiss the findings of anthropologists that patri-
archy is universal. This tendency is occasionally a meaningful

consideration when one deals with certain types of sophisti-
cated research, but is hardly relevant to patriarchy (which can
be demonstrated by merely counting the number of men and
women in positions of suprafamilial authority). In its crudest
state this use of "glancing blow" dismisses anthropological
evidence because "all the ethnographers have been men." The
point is not so much that this is not true, but that this criticism
betrays the ideological nature of the feminist's intellectual
approach. Only one whose commitment is totally to ideology
could seriously believe that any anthropologist would spend
two years in another culture and then lie about the per-
165
centages of men and women in authority positions. Further-
more, if an anthropologist were to lie, he would certainly lie
in the other direction; fame is the sure reward of any anthro-

pologist who discovers a society without patriarchy. This is
not to say that differing perspectives or mental sets of male

and female anthropologists cannot result in differing inter-
pretations of some of the exceedingly complex aspects of

social life, but it is nonsensical to argue that any anthropolo-
gist, male or female, would see matriarchy or female domi-
nance where none exists — and, indeed, no ethnographer ever
has.
Similarly, in challenging the theory presented here one

might attempt to exaggerate into the determinative factor such
methodological considerations as the difficulty of develop-

ing a precise description of the institutional manifestations of
male dominance, the lack of standardization in ethnographic
studies, the small size of Dr. Money's sample, and the dangers
that are always implicit in the generalization to the human
level of experimental studies of nonhuman animals. While
none of these criticisms is anywhere near lethal against the
evidence it attacks even in its own area, each does have a

partial validity. If the theory presented here rested on the
evidence of just one of these areas, then perhaps the chal-
lenge, while not overwhelming, would be worthy of serious
consideration. But to attempt to dismiss a theory that can
sacrifice the evidence of any of these areas without damaging
the evidence provided by the others, particularly when none
of these criticisms is lethal to even the evidence of the area
it attacks, is to commit the "fallacy of the glancing blow."
The fourth and most crucial of the feminist fallacies in-
volves the confusion of cause and function. We need not
involve ourselves in a detailed discussion of causation here;
a simple example should suffice. A jockey is small because
biology made him that way. There may be an element of
feedback here in that the jockey might well weigh more if
166
society did not reward his weighing as little as possible, but
the causation involved in the determination of his physical

characteristics is certainly primarily biological. The function
that his size plays in society, its manifestation in his role of
jockey, is not biological, but society's putting his size to use.
Likewise, the economic functions that sexual differentiation
requires do not cause the differentiation. The biological ele-
ment of male aggression will manifest itself in any economic
system. It is useless for the Marxist to attempt to disprove
the inevitability of male attainment of authority and status

positions by demonstrating that males attain such positions in
a capitalist society. They do in societies with primitive, feudal,
and socialist economies also. Because the social and economic
must conform to the biological, we can change any variable
and patriarchy will not be diminished. Political rule is male
whether the institutions relevant to private property, control
of the means of production, and class stratification are as mini-

mally present as is possible or as advanced as is found in any
society. It is male whether a society is patrilineal, matrilineal,
or bilateral; patrilocal, matrilocal, or neolocal; white, black,

or heterogeneous; racist, separatist, or equalitarian; primitive,
preindustrial, or technological; Shintoist, Catholic, or Zoro-
astrian; monarchical, totalitarian, or democratic; Spartan,
Quaker, or Bourbon; ascetic, hedonist, or libertine. It makes
no difference whether a society has a value system that spe-
cifically forbids women from entering areas of authority or,
like Communist China, an ideological and political commit-
ment to equal distribution of authority positions. One cannot

"disprove" the inevitability of biological factors manifesting
themselves by demonstrating the function that they serve in
a political or economic system. No system could operate that
did not conform to, and utilize, the reality that constitutes it.
In short, the fallacy here is the reasoning that concludes that

men rule because of the nature of the political-economic sys-
tem and ignores the reality that the possible varieties of
167
political-economic systems are limited by, and must conform

to, the nature of man.
Vulgarized Marxism
This is the fallacy that is at the core of all of the analyses
derived from Engels's work and all of those analyses that
treat women as a class. There are, to be sure, a number of
Marxist writings on the subject of sex-role differentiation that
do not commit this fallacy; these either do not disagree with
the theory presented in this essay or admit that the hormonal
factor is relevant, but argue that it need not be; in the latter
case we cannot, as we have seen in our discussion of human

malleability and the nature of society, logically disprove the
theoretical possibility of a society without values, stratification,

or status differentiation, but can only point out the Utopian
nature of such a hypothesized society, reiterate that the same
argument could be made by the fundamentalist for the possi-
bility of a society that overrode the sex drive of the majority

of its members, and admit that, /'/ there were no government
and no hierarchies of any kind, then there would be no patri-
archy. The known contemporary feminist works, such

better
as Sexual Politics, The Female Eunuch, and Shulamith Fire-
stone's The Dialectic of Sex 62 all invoke either aspects of
62 Shulamith Firestone, The Dialectic of Sex (New York: William

Morrow, 1970). Miss Firestone's book begins with the advantage (over
those of Drs. Millett and Greer) of an at least tentative admission that
men and women are different from each other. Her acknowledgment of
biology however, limited to the woman's reproductive role and no
is,
mention made of the determinative hormonal differentiation. Like

is
Simone de Beauvoir's infinitely better book, The Second Sex (New York:
Knopf, 1953), Miss Firestone's book admits the universality of patriarchy
without giving the reader any reason to doubt that the forces that have
engendered patriarchy will continue to do so. Where Dr. de Beauvoir
is immune to the criticism that she does not introduce the hormonal
evidence we have discussed in Chapter Three (little of which had been
discovered when Dr. de Beauvoir wrote), Miss Firestone chose merely
to ignore the evidence that renders her theory irrelvant. Dr. de Beauvoir's
book fails only when it deals with the etiology of patriarchy, male attain-
ment, and male dominance; elsewhere it offers a great deal that is of
168
.
Engels's reasoning or an approach that the authors believe

to be an adaptation of a Marxist analysis, but with which, I
suspect, no serious Marxist would associate himself. By deny-

ing or ignoring sexual hormonal differentiation, these authors
force the histories of all human societies into the framework
of economic determinism in order to confuse the conforma-
tions of economic systems to the reality of male and female
biologies with the biological determinants of differing sexual
roles. While the latter two of these books demonstrate the
same ignorance of the relevant anthropological and biological
facts and the same total ignorance of what theory is all about
that permeates Sexual Politics, it is Dr. Millett's book that is
most annoying to the serious scholar. For, unlike Sexual Poli-

tics, The Female Eunuch and The Dialectic of Sex do not
attempt to camouflage their intellectual inadequacy behind a
facade of scholarship and a misconception that a profusion of
footnotes compensates for a lack of the hard logic and hard
mental work of real scholarship.
Since any analysis of patriarchy must either accept the de-
terminativeness of hormonal differentiation or demonstrate
that such differentiation need not engender patriarchy, we
need not detain ourselves with the specific Marxist analyses
that consider only the economic and ignore the biological. The
analysis that views women as a class is too silly for us to
bother with. It is sufficient for our purposes to point out that
the members of one class are not hormonally different from
the members of another and that the individuals of one class
do not pair off in head-to-head encounters with the individu-
als of another (thereby rendering each member of each class
more tightly bound to a member of the other class than to
any member of his own)
value. Miss Firestone's book is both an unsubstantiated assertion that for

some reason biology is no longer determinative and a fantasy of suggested
social changes whose probabilities range from minuscule to nonexistent.
169
When the Marxist feminist attempts to deal directly with

the question of biology we can expect the arrival of Glancing
Blow's ne'er-do-well sibling, Red Herring. In her otherwise
commendable piece, "Women: The Longest Revolution," 63
Juliet Mitchell acknowledges the necessity for the Marxist to

deal with the biological factor, but presents the biological
factor not in terms of hormonal differentiation, but in terms
of the family. She implies that the institution of the family,
or at least its relevant aspects, may not be inevitable and,
therefore, that patriarchy may not be inevitable. Now there
are quite strong anthropological arguments for the assertion
that no society could be built on a foundation other than that
of the family and that, even if one could, the family would
represent not oppression of the female but woman's greatest
triumph. But this is not my point here. For Dr. Mitchell to
demonstrate that biology is not insurmountable, that patri-
archy is not inevitable, she must demonstrate that sexual hor-
monal differentiation does not render patriarchy inevitable.
No attack on the family or any other red herring — even if
such an attack were successful —can lessen the probability of

the correctness of the theory presented herein. No analysis
that attempts to explain the causation of sex-role behavior or
sexually-differentiated institutions in purely economic terms
can claim parity with an analysis that utilizes the hormonal
factor in its explanation of the limits of social reality; such
an analysis may go far toward clarifying how the roles, so-
cialization, meanings, values, and ideologies of a society con-
form to the limits set by the hormonal factor or how these
vary within the limits, but it cannot explain the limits them-
selves, much less demonstrate that there are no such limits.
The Marxist attempt to explain patriarchy, male attainment,

and male dominance in terms of the economic functions
served by these is as absurd as an attempt to explain male
boxing superiority by demonstrating that male boxers earn
big salaries, that males are socialized toward boxing, or that
63 New Left Review, 40:11-37 (November-December, 1966).
170
our ideology associates boxing with males. One might argue

that an alternative value system might outlaw boxing (thereby
eradicating male attainment in this area), but if one then
argues that a society could similarly eradicate patriarchy, male
attainment, and male dominance by eradicating group values,
stratification, government, and dyadic dominance he once
again invokes Utopia.
Vulgarized Marxism not only fails theoretically by ignor-
ing all the biological and anthropological evidence, it also
fails empirically in that it must explain the failures of each
socialist society to reduce patriarchy in terms of each indi-

vidual socialist society. In socialist countries men continue to
attain the high-status roles; practicing (as opposed to re-
search) doctors in the Soviet Union tend to be women, but

the role of doctor in the Soviet Union receives low status
relative to that which it receives in the United States. 64 As
we have seen, this is the crucial point. If being a practicing

doctor were a high-status role in the Soviet Union, the doc-
tors would be men. Because the role of the practicing doctor
is not a very high-status role, men use their aggression to
attain other, higher-status roles. In time practical medicine in
the Soviet Union will become identified as "woman's work,"
but if, for any reason, this role were to gain status, men would
move into the field and would attain those positions now held
by women. All the famous and powerful (though perhaps not
the best) cooks in France are men.
The Failure to Ask "Why"

Like the analyses we have just discussed, a number of tradi-
tional economic and sociological analyses ignore biology and

cross-cultural anthropology altogether (or treat them with a
superficiality that is tantamount to ignoring them) and con-
64 For data relevant to status in the Soviet

Union see "The Social Evalu-
ation Occupations in the Soviet Union" in Slavic Review (28,4),
of
"Soviet Women and Their Self-Image" in Science and Society (39,3,
p. 294), and Dodge, op. cit.
171
centrate on the manifestations of biology in socialization

(boys are encouraged to compete, become scientists, etc.,
while girls are encouraged to develop their nurturant quali-

ties, etc.) and in economic reality (males constitute the over-
whelming number of senators, corporation presidents, de-
partment chairmen, scientists, etc.). Some of these works,
such as Elizabeth Janeway's Man's World, Woman's Place,
Jessie Bernard's Women and the Public Interest, and Cynthia

Fuchs Epstein's Woman's Place are honest and intelligent
while others are shoddy and wastes of the reader's time. But
all of these works are irrelevant to the general questions
addressed in this book; no primarily economic or sociological
analysis —no matter how high its quality —can ever explain
the causation involved in patriarchy, male dominance, and
male attainment of high-status roles and positions. Such works
merely document the presence of these universals in this soci-
ety, a presence that human biology renders inevitable in this
and every other society. The more the feminists produce such
documentation, the deeper they dig the grave for their basic
assumption that these institutions are not inevitable.
Here we see the ultimate failure of the feminist analysis.
Even the best of the feminist works are grounded in the
erroneous assumption that demonstrating that a society at-

taches different values and expectations to men and women
(or showing that men have often said that men and women
are different) somehow proves that these different values and
expectations are totally arbitrary and are not the social mani-
festations of biological imperatives (or that women have be-
haved in a feminine way simply because men have told them
to— in which case one might ask why it is the women of
every society who listen to the men and never the other way
around ) . Because these works fail even to acknowledge the
problem of causation by asking "why" {why does every soci-
ety socialize boys toward, and girls away from, competition,

why are the nonmaternal roles of women never given high
172
status by any society, why does every society associate authority

with the male, why is it women who are socialized away from
the sciences ) , they cannot be considered theory, but, at best,
merely description. One does not need a sociologist to tell
him that boys are dissuaded from playing with dolls or girls
from fist-fighting or that most senators and corporation presi-
dents are men. As long as the feminist attempt at theory

ignores all the hormonal evidence or simply asserts that such
evidence is unimportant, as long as it ignores and leaves
unexplained the universality of patriarchy, male attainment,
and male dominance, and as long as it ignores the fact that
no society fails to socialize males toward aggressive pursuits
and females away from aggressive pursuits, it will illuminate
little and explain less.
But to ask why, to look for theory in order to understand

rather than selective description in order to justify ideology,
requires that one lay before the reader all of his facts, all of
his assumptions, all of his reasoning, and, only then, all of
his conclusions so that — if he is wrong — the reader can track

down and identify his mistake just as the electrician tracks
down the short on the circuit board. This is what theory is
all about; it differs from the perhaps brilliant and perhaps

insightful nontheoretical work in that one may choose any
sentence and follow its thought to the thought's logical con-
clusion, do the same with any other sentence, and find that
the logical extensions not only do not contradict each other,
but create harmonies that explain even more than do the two
sentences taken individually. This is the minimum require-
ment of any work demanding to be taken seriously. But this
the feminist dares not do lest the inaccuracy of her facts, the
fallaciousness of her reasoning, the incorrectness of her con-
clusions, and the general inadequacy of her analysis be ex-
posed for all to see.
65
65 It is not coincidental that the intellectual background of nearly every

author of feminist anthropological and biological theory (Millett, Greer,
173
A Digression: The Obscurantism of an

Inadequate Analysis
The feminist analysis is most obviously inadequate when it
deals with the manifestations of biological sex differences

that are discussed in the theory presented in this book. Com-
plex as the areas of patriarchy, male dominance, and male
attainment of high-status roles and positions are, however,
the intellectual damage caused by the feminist analysis is
minimized by our ability to explain the mechanisms by which

hormonal reality limits social possibility. In this digression I
wish to discuss not these areas, but the areas in which the
potential for obscureness is far greater, areas in which our
present knowledge precludes rigorous explanations of sex
differences but in which the differences we observe may quite
possibly be real and inevitable aspects of different "mental
gestalts" that flow from the different biologies of the sexes.
The refusal to consider the possibility that there is a bio-

logical component of observed sexual differences in areas such
as the sensitivity necessary for nurturance, perception as it
relates to field dependence or independence, superego de-

velopment and pathology, the nature of sexual arousal, the
personalization of reality, the ability to make and remember
psychologically significant observations (compare the blurred
and obvious description given by the husband with the spe-
cific and perceptive observations detailed by the wife when a
couple discusses the party they have just attended), the pre-
conditions for scientific and artistic genius, and in all the
other incredibly subtle, interrelated areas for which observa-
Firestone, Figes, Janeway, Mitchell, and, to a lesser extent, De Beauvoir)

has been literature or art. An author's intellectual background has no logi-
cal bearing on the correctness of his analysis, of course, and the last three
of these authors offer much that is illuminating when they are not dis-
cussing anthropological and biological theory, but one cannot ignore the
fact that no serious woman biologist or anthropologist has offered her
support for the theories of these writers.
174
tion indicates that there are sex differences, is intellectually
indefensible until we have some reason to assume that biology

does not play a part. We know that sexual biology is crucial
to the areas discussed in the theory presented in this book and

we know that men and women think and behave differently,
whatever the cause. Therefore, it does not seem unreasonable
to suggest that the sex differences listed above might repre-
sent manifestations of innate differences that have evolved as
men and women have fulfilled their biological roles. In any
case, whether these subtle differences are biologically or so-
cially generated, they do exist, and rejections of descriptions

because one does not like such descriptions is hardly justified.
This is not to deny the potential danger of an expectation's
becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy; however, to reject the
validity of all our observations of sex differences for this
reason is to commit the "fallacy of the glancing blow" and
to ignore the question of why we have such expectations.
I think that, in part, the feminist's rejection of the bio-
logical underpinnings of sexual differences is owing to her
immediate identification with what she imagines to be the
male situation —an imagining made simpler by her ignorance
of the negative aspects of the male vision. This refusal to even
consider descriptions and to accept that which is male as that
which is good is most apparent when the feminists attempt

to deal with psychoanalysts like Erik Erikson, psychoanalysts
who, after all, have been trying to correct the admittedly

negative cast of some of Freud's writings on women by show-
ing that the feminine behavior of all the world'swomen is
not passive reaction, but an active, life-sustaining force. Half
the feminists totally reject all psychoanalytic interpretation of
female behavior while the other half describe the ways in
which a "sexist" society produces women not unlike those
praised by Erikson. Indeed, the very point of the feminist
analysis is not that the contemporary woman is unlike the
woman Erikson describes and sees as crucial to our species'
175
survival, but that this woman is inferior and that her inferi-
ority results from socialization rather than biology. So, judg-
ments aside, the question of biology seems, as always, to be

the heart of the matter.
Given its soft intellectual core and its simplistic approach
to the complexities of reality, the feminist analysis is incapable

of dealing with the most interesting aspects of sexual differ-
entiation. For example, feminists often portray the male as
viewing the woman as "unprincipled," quote some nine-

teenth-century misogynist for "documentation," and then dis-
miss discussion of the entire area. In their idealized version
of the male view of possible sexual differences in superego
development, feminists assume the superiority of the line of
development of superego sanctions that leads men to the psy-
66
chiatrist's couch and to fight wars for "great causes." This
assumption dooms them to unhappiness, but more importantly
for our purposes it leads them to dismiss from discussion
differences that observation — the first step in the intellectual
process — implores us to study more closely. Even if one in-
sists on maintaining that psychological development is totally
66 This analysis is virtually free of reference to psychoanalytic theory,

yet with every the genius of Freud becomes more apparent. The
word
absence of hard hormonal evidence necessitated Freud's positing a number
of then hypothetical biological elements. Today he would no doubt sub-
stitute our knowledge of testosterone for "aggressive instinct," but other-
wise his explanation of the way in which the superego usurps the aggres-
sion that is natural in humans and uses it against the ego explains sexual
differences in the mechanisms of guilt flawlessly and demonstrates why
the greater natural aggression of men should lead more often to exag-
gerated superego sanctions. The feminist dismissal of Freud or, to be
more precise, what the feminists think is a dismissal of Freud (without an
awareness or understanding of what they are doing, the feminists utilize
those elements of Freudian theory that suit their ideological purposes and
dismiss other, just as intellectually valid, Freudian theories) and their
absurd overemphasis on the theory of penis envy (which Freud advanced
very tentatively and which most psychoanalysts have long since greatly
modified and have viewed with a great deal of suspicion) would be in-
tellectual dishonesty of the grossest sort were it not the work of in-
dividuals who are incapable of the slightest understanding of the inner
elegance of Freudian theory.
176
,
.
a function of social factors, he has no intellectual justification
for disregarding his own observation that women fighting a

duel for honor strikes us as being absurd and that it is un-
imaginable that Crime and Punishment could have been writ-
ten about a womanwould have been written by a woman)
(or
For the remainder of this section I would like to introduce
a number of random thoughts and observations not as proof
of anything, but as an indication of the incredible number of

observations of sexual differences we make daily and the like-
lihood that each of these differences may have a biological

component that the feminist analysis would have us disregard.
A. The feminist "explanation" of the fact that our anthro-
pomorphized God is male is limited to a declaration that this
is merely another example of "sexism" and the matter is left
at that. Our understanding of reality would be better served

by our examining the possibility that the sex of an anthro-
pomorphized God in a monotheistic society (or of the highest
God in a polytheistic society) is a function of both the bio-

logically generated qualities of men and women and the social
and economic needs of the society. For example: as we have
seen, authority is associated with the male in every society
and, given human biology, this is inevitable. A society that

emphasizes bureaucratic organization — as any industrial soci-
ety must — will look to a God associated with authority, and

this God, if anthropomorphized by the members of the soci-
ety, will always be male. But just as we associate authority

with the male and fertility with the female (Mother Nature)
so does every other society and, again given male and female
biology, these associations are inevitable. One might expect
that the members of an agricultural society, while associating
authority with the male, would deemphasize authority in re-
ligion and look to a fertile, female God. I know of no in-
stance where this is the case
— perhaps this is an indication
that the core of all religion is finite man's fear of an infinite
universe and his need of a transcendent authority —but at
177
least this sort of reasoning allows comprehension where a

cry of "sexism" precludes comprehension of any sort.
B. Examination of the most mundane matters can illumi-

nate for those willing to look for causation rather than mere
description. Let us take the married woman who is referred
to as Mrs. and wears a wedding ring. Let us say that this
woman is angry because married men are not differentiated

from single men by terminology and wear wedding rings far
less often than do women. Now one needs no "right" to get

angry. But if the woman argues that these distinctions are
merely arbitrary or even that they are present only because
male aggression enables men to enforce them, she is almost
definitely wrong. Social expectations are related to biological
reality, to necessities inherent in the very nature of society,
and to individual convenience. Even if one insists on main-
taining that our expectation that it is the male who is the
sexual aggressor (though by no means necessarily the sexual
initiator) is unrelated to the realities of male and female
hormonal and anatomical reality, in my view a totally un-
tenable assertion, it should be obvious that the institutions of

Mrs. 67 and the wedding ring are society's way of indicating
to the male which women are available and which are not.
The inconvenience that would be suffered by women in a
society that did not differentiate between single and married

women in some easily observed way would be intolerable.
This is reflected in the fact that, to the best of my knowledge,
67 It would not be surprisingif the feminist attempt to replace the
abbreviations Miss and Mrs. with Ms. were successful in the business
sphere (on letters, for example), but success will have nothing to do with
the feminist intention. The function served by differentiation of married
from single women is irrelevant for the company that is sending out its
monthly bills (or to the male writing to a female stranger about a business
matter), and here Ms. is convenient and possible. The real function of
differentiation is important only in face to face contact; it is here that
the (sexually aggressive) male must know which women are available.
This is of paramount importance for society (the family is the basis of
every society's organization and status system) and convenient for the
individual married woman.
178
there is no society that does not so differentiate. Because this
alone would account for the differentiation between single

and married women, there is no need here to go into the
complex issue of whether this differentiation would be neces-

sary for far more important societal reasons. The reader might
be interested in considering that it is quite likely that no so-
ciety that was not based on the family and its role in directing
biological emotional energies, maintaining status, and other
vital functions could survive and that the family could not
survive in a society that did not inculcate in its males an in-
hibition against taking other men's wives and that did not
identify these wives. That there are many cases of adultery is
irrelevant; no institution in any society works perfectly — that

is why every society has methods of social control. To those
who would argue that the breakdown of the institutions of

marriage and the family are exactly what they desire I would
point out that all the evidence of anthropology indicates that
society must be based on the family and the family cannot
exist without marriage. Since man cannot exist without society,
the breakdown of this society would merely be followed by
the rise of another that was also based on marriage and family.
To the best of my knowledge, there is no society that is
not more lenient with the adulterous male than with the
adulterous female and no society in which the number of male
prostitutes (to serve female clients) relative to the number of
female prostitutes is not insignificant. I grant that one might
logically argue, in these situations, that males get the "better
deal" merely because their aggression allows them to enforce
rules favoring males, but I think that one would have to have
a total and unwarranted commitment to economic determinism
to believe that these institutions cause, rather than flow from,
differences in sexual arousal or to expect that a female equiv-

alent to Playboy magazine could ever command the attention
(once the initial novelty had worn off) that Playboy seems
to elicit from millions of men. The biological component of
179
the etiology of sexual institutions is not brought into question

by invocation of, say, the excesses of the Victorian era or by
the revelation that women, too, have a "sex drive." To say
that the male "sex drive" is different from that of the female
and is therefore manifested in different institutions is not to
deny that there is an equal, but different, female "sex drive"
any more than saying that the institution of patriarchy is an
inevitable result of male aggression is to deny the existence
of some female aggression, to contend that women are pas-
sive, or to deny that the inevitable manifestation of a bio-
logical reality can be exaggerated in a given society.
C. Let us, for interest's sake, get a bit more speculative.

Most men, when made conscious of the fact through ques-
tioning, acknowledge that they feel somewhat awkward when
shaking hands with a woman. Superficial reasoning would
conclude, perhaps correctly, that this feeling of awkwardness
is completely explained by the fact that men are simply more
used to shaking hands with men and would not concern itself
with why men are far more likely to begin encounters with
men with a handshake. All societies seem to have similar in-
stitutionalized male greetings, however. Is it not likely that

the latent function of the handshake is the acknowledgment
of one man to another that he will not invoke his physical
and aggressive potentials? Since close friends would not need
this assurance, we would expect that a man would be less
likely to shake hands with a close friend; this is, of course,

the case. If this is the latent function of a handshake, men
would feel that this gesture was inappropriate for an en-
counter with a woman and this would be manifested in a
feeling of awkwardness. Moreover, the desire for physical
contact with a nearby woman may always lie at the back of
the male's mammalian brain so that a handshake with a
woman —given the handshake's promise of an absence of
contact — strikes the male as deceitful and he feels this as
awkwardness. If this is correct and if we view the handshake
180
as but one element of the male "code of honor," then the

implication is that women are in reality more honorable — or
at least less capable of acting violently dishonorable. The
"code of honor" is society's attempt to limit the social de-
structiveness of male aggression. Because women are less ag-
gressive, this code need affect them only secondarily. The
important point is not that males distinguish between shaking
hands with a male and with a female by feeling aivktvard
with the latter, but that they do distinguish. In some Euro-
woman is more
pean countries a male's shaking hands with a
common. The European male will not, then, feel awkward-
ness when shaking hands with a woman, but he will dis-
tinguish the meaning of a handshake with a male from that
with a female as surely as does the American male.
D. It has been demonstrated that the intelligence levels of
the husband and wife are among the most highly correlated
variables in the American marriage relationship, yet feminists
often complain that men will refuse to enter relationships
with women of equal intelligence because men are threatened
by such intelligence. If we consider the population as a whole
this is untrue. If we limit ourselves to discussing the rela-
tively intellectual segment of the population I believe that
there is some truth to what the feminists say, but that they
tell only half the story. Intellectuals, by definition, place a
great emphasis on intelligence, and it is natural that, for them,
the feelings (perhaps the biologically generated feelings) of
men and women relevant to male dominance should manifest
themselves here. In other words, it is possible that it is not
only male emotions that engender relationships among in-
tellectuals in which the man is the more intelligent; perhaps

the woman intellectual, despite her claim to desire to have a
large number of men to choose from, is unlikely to select a
man over whom she has intellectual dominance (and who
will not, therefore, in this crucial area, "take the lead") . This
thought occurred to me during a discussion with a feminist
181
who, after arguing that dominance was not relevant to her

relationships, remarked that she did not find masculine any
man who was not more intelligent than she was. The fem-
inists are certainly not alone in pretending that their ideology
reflects the emotional realities of life when it does not even
resemble them, but one still has difficulty understanding an
infatuation with an explanation of reality that bears no re-
semblance to reality.
E. For our last example of situations in which biological

differences between men and women are not readily seen to
be crucial but for which biological differences may be de-
terminative, let us consider the observation that most women
prefer men taller than themselves for sexual and marital re-
lationships. We know that women search out taller men even

though they are perfectly aware that height is irrelevant to
all human virtues. Now a superficial, but again possibly
totally correct, explanation would see a woman's desire for
a taller man as merely a manifestation of our particular
social values. But let us assume, again for interest's sake,
that the women of every society feel this way; I have no
idea whether they do or not. We now have a number of
possibilities. We might assume, as I do in this book, that
there is no direct CNS imperative engendering in the female
a desire for male dominance — the universal female feelings
acknowledging male dominance being totally attributable to
the reality of male biological aggression and the inevitable

female response to it —and that there is no CNS imperative
related to a woman's desire that her man be taller than she
is; this universal tendency of women may then be merely
an inevitable social reflection of the biological reality that
the men of every society will be taller than the women of

the society so that the preference of women for taller men
merely reflects the fact that a man is "supposed" to be taller
than his woman (because most men are). Or perhaps there

is a direct CNS imperative engendering in the female a
182
desire for male dominance, but not one for the desire for
a taller man; then the association of dominance and size
may result from the observation, particularly of the child,
that — all other things being equal, which of course they

rarely are — size is related to dominance. Or perhaps there is
no CNS imperative engendering a female desire for male

dominance, but there is one directing the female to the taller
available man (again all other things being equal); this

would make sense in evolutionary terms. Or perhaps there
is a CNS imperative directing women to desire aman who
is both dominant and taller.
I do not know in any of the situations discussed in this

digression how important the biological factor is or,when
it is important, whether it is direct or indirect. I do know
that no one else knows either and that no one has the right
to assume that biology is irrelevant by automatically accepting
the explanation that considers only social factors. It might be
worth noting, however, how seldom the aphorisms and prov-
erbs concerning masculine and feminine qualities contradict
one another no matter how disparate the societies that pro-

duced them. Could this not be because such aphorisms and
proverbs have long since penetrated to the cores of our na-
tures to find the truths whose physical correlates we are only
now discovering? It would hardly be the first time that
wisdom preceded knowledge.
183
Section Four
Maleness,
Cognitive Aptitudes.
Performance,
and Genius
Chapter Eight
Possible Sexual Differentiation
in Cognitive Aptitudes
Introductory Note in Anticipation

of the Deluge:
I have purposely disjoined the theoretical con-
siderations advanced in this chapter and the next
from the theory of the inevitability of patriarchy
proper in order to emphasize as strongly as possi-

ble the fact that the validity of the theory is in no
way contingent on the correctness of these two
chapters and would in no way be affected if these
two chapters were completely incorrect. Thus far
I have discussed institutions that can be demon-
strated to be both universal and explicable in terms
of an observable physiological factor. The existence

of universality and the physiological factor have
made it possible to present a theory as the only
reasonable explanation of patriarchy, male domi-
nance, and male attainment; this may tend to ob-
scure the fact that it is exceedingly rare for any one
theory to be the only reasonable explanation of the
reality it attempts to explain. It is far more com-
mon for a number of conflicting theories to be
both internally logical and congruent with empir-
ical reality; in these cases acceptance results not
from total destruction of all alternative theories,
but from a slightly better ability to persuade.
187
Maleness, Cognitive Aptitudes, Performance, and Genius
This process is hindered when one of two con-

flicting theories meets enormous emotional re-
sistance while the other is in accord with what

most people would like to believe. We often de-
mand of the first theory a virtually deductive con-
clusiveness while we embrace the second theory
even if its probability of correctness is very low.
In these two chapters I argue that there is a physio-
logical basis to certain differences in cognition be-
tween men and women. I do not attach to the
hypotheses presented in these two chapters any-

where near the probability of correctness that I
attach to the theory of the inevitability of patri-

archy. For our discussion of cognitive differences
we have neither the extensive cross-cultural evi-
dence nor the direct biological evidence that we

were able to evoke in the discussion of patriarchy.
The explanation of cognitive differences presented
here, like any alternative, totally environmental
explanation, attempts to persuade by presenting a
configuration of logically interrelated hypotheses
that is capable of explaining the evidence that we
do have. I do not deny that one could present a
totally environmental explanation of the cognitive
differences I discuss nor that such an explanation
could conceivably be correct, but I do think that
the explanation that posits a physiological factor
is more logically compelling, con-
considerably
siderably more in accord with experience, and
considerably more likely to be correct than the
explanation that does not.
Sexual Differences in Types of Cognition:

Is Biology Irrelevant?
Thus far we have seen that males attain leadership and high-
status roles through their aggression, but we have accepted
188
Possible Sexual Differentiation in Cognitive Aptitudes
the assumption that there are no innate differences between

men and women that enable one sex or the other to better
perform the tasks of any particular role. With many roles
this assumption is unquestionably justified. Perhaps it is
justified in the case of every role save, of course, those few
for which an extremely high degree of strength or the

ability to give birth are necessary. Perhaps even after reading
this section the reader will believe that male aggression does
render patriarchy, male dominance, and male attainment of
high-status, nonmaternal roles inevitable, but that there are
no innate sexual differences in cognitive aptitudes that are
relevant to any social roles or positions or to scientific and

creative genius. Because male aggression leads to attainment,
it is admittedly not easy to determine if men fill a particular

role only because their aggression has enabled them to attain
it or also because they really are more capable of performing
the tasks demanded of that role. When a role is associated
with men in one society and women in another we always
find that the men of the first society desire the role and the
men of the second do not. In other words, the males of the
first society channel their aggression into attaining a high-
status role while the men of the second society, because in
their society that role has low status, use their aggression
to succeed in another (high status) area. The only excep-
tions are low-status roles, such as certain roles that demand
great physical strength, that women are incapable of filling.
Male success in attaining positions of power and status does
demonstrate, ipso facto, that males have some quality —here
I call that quality "aggression" — in greater abundance than
do women; to argue that men have "not allowed" women to
attain positions of power and status is merely to admit this.
Such an admission does not, however, force one to accept

an innate male advantage relevant to performance.
Before we examine the possibility that there are innate
sexual differences relevant to performance it is important
to make one point: if there are such differences the social
189
implications are manifold. One might be tempted to see

such differences as important only at the highest level of
competence; he might acknowledge that there are more mem-
bers of one sex or the other at any given level of competence
and that at the highest level only the members of one sex
will be represented (which sex depends, of course, on the
aptitude in question), but argue that for the majority of
individuals in a society such differences are irrelevant. Thus
he might be convinced that males have a statistical superiority
in an aptitude that is a precondition for accomplishment in

physics, that the greatest theorists of physics will be males,
and that at any given level of competence above the mean
there will be more males than females (and below the mean
more females than males) while maintaining that the num-
ber of women who are superior to some men renders the
statistical reality irrelevant to the social reality. This is entic-
ing, but, given the realities of social life, incorrect. Social

realities tend to bring together (or into competition) males
and females from equivalent positions (relative to other
members of their respective sexes ) . This is most true when
artificial barriers are removed. Thus the most intelligent
woman marries the most intelligent man. Thus the brightest
female law school graduates compete with the brightest male
law school graduates for the small number of most desired
positions. The fact that the female law school graduate has
a far better theoretical mind than most men is irrelevant to
her self-image (which will develop congruently with her
perceptions not of men in general, but with the brightest
males —with whom she is in contact ) , to her social and eco-
nomic reality, and to social stereotypes in general. As had
been the case with aggression, this engenders a situation in
which a woman faces opposition where a man of no greater
ability meets encouragement, in which observation leads a
society's members to associate a particular quality with one
sex, in which the ensuing stereotypes become far stronger
190
than the statistical differences justify, and in which socializa-
tion conforms to the stereotypes. As had been the case with

aggression, even if the stereotypes do not flow automatically
from the observations of the members of a society, even if
each sex is not drawn to alternate activities by its own im-

perative, even then any statistically important innate sexual
differences will result in socialization based on stereotype;
the alternative is to subject the majority of the members of
one sex to inferiority in an area in which their society would
like them to excel.
With these implications of the social importance of innate

sexual differences relevant to performance in mind, let us
consider the chess champion rather than the senator or cor-
poration president. I am assuming throughout this chapter
that the only precondition for chess genius is an extraordinary

aptitude for dealing with high-level abstractions and that
aggression is of minor importance. I realize that the reader
might take exception to this and might invoke other pre-

conditions (aggression, physical endurance, mental endurance,
and the ability to control emotions ) . I acknowledge this but
suggest that the precondition of an aptitude for abstraction
that is some (admittedly very few) men and no
found in
women precludes the attainment of chess genius by a woman.

This aptitude is to the attainment of a chess championship
as strength is to the attainment of a boxing championship.
However, if the reader is bothered by the existence of other
preconditions for chess genius — if, for example, he believes
that aggression, but not abstraction aptitude explains male
superiority —he may substitute genius in mathematics, phi-
losophy, legal theory, or composing music wherever I use
chess genius and the logic of this chapter is unaffected. But
if the reader also argues that male aggression does not have
a biological base, he must be able to explain why there are
no women aggressive enough to attain parity with the best
male chess players and why we socialize women away from
191
chess. He cannot explain such socialization as being analogous

to the socialization of women away from boxing (as I do)
because this would admit that the socialization conforms to
a biological male advantage. Furthermore, while each of the
areas of genius listed above has preconditions for genius
that are unique to it, the only obvious precondition that all
of the areas have in common is an ability to deal with high-

level abstractions.
There are presently eighty-two chess Grand Masters; they

are all male despite the fact that there are a great number of
female chess players, particularly in the Soviet Union. Indeed,
there has never been a female Grand Master, and it is un-
questionably correct to say that of the five hundred greatest
chess players there have ever been, not one has been a woman.
Indeed, there are 136 men competing at the present time
with higher point ratings than the highest-rated woman player
in history, Nina Gaprindasvili. Ratings are based on aver-
age, not cumulative, performance, so there is no built-in
mechanism that discriminates against women. A very con-

servative estimate of the female membership of the World
Chess Federation would be 5 percent. (Since listings are by
first initial it is virtually impossible to ascertain the exact
percentages.) Other things being equal, one would expect

that twenty-five of the five hundred greatest players and 5
percent of the Grand Masters would be women.

Now the feminist will say that other things are not equal,
but that the inequality has nothing to do with an innate
male potential for dealing with the logical abstraction of
chess. She will argue that the absence of women from the
highest levels of chess attainment merely reflects the fact
that girls are socialized away from chess while boys are en-
couraged to excel in this area. This is not an explanation.
It merely begs the question and forces us to ask why girls
are socialized away from chess; it is equivalent to saying
192
that boxing champions are all male because girls are socialized
away from boxing.

A better environmental argument would see male chess
(or mathematical, etc.) superiority as resulting from the fact
that women are socialized away from competing with men
in many areas where aggression is a precondition for attain-
ment (they are so socialized for good reason as we have
seen) and that they have transferred the general value of
female noncompetitiveness to the nonaggressive area of chess
(or mathematics, etc.) where aggression is not a precondition
for attainment. It is conceivable that this generalization of
avoidance of competition explains male chess (or mathe-
matical, etc. ) dominance and it is true that the certainty that
men have an innate potential that makes them more likely
to be better chess players or scientists or composers is less
than the certainty that they have an innate aggression that

will lead them to the bureaucratic positions of power in the
worlds of chess, science, and music. However, as we shall
see, there is considerable evidence for the view that men

really do have an innate superiority in these areas. It is quite
likely that the serial unfolding of the male genetic program
affects the male brain in such a way that the male really
does develop potentials a woman does not (just as a woman

develops nurturance potentials a male will not). If chess
were the only area in which we could examine differences
in behavior, we would have no logically compelling reason
to favor the "noncompetitive" explanation over the "innate"
explanation or vice versa.
Some Theoretical Problems with a Totally

Nonbiological Explanation
However, we can test these lines of reasoning when we
examine possible explanations why Eleanor Maccoby and
Roberta Oetzel found, in a survey of twenty studies of cor-
193
relations between sex and mathematical reasoning aptitude,

that when children are tested (thirteen studies) there are
no consistent differences between boys and girls, but when
adult men and women are tested (six studies —one of the
twenty studies was of mental retardates and is not relevant
here) men always did far better than women. These studies
were of tests given to thousands of people, and there can

be no doubt that they expose real sex differences in aptitude.
One might argue that the differences flow from socialization

rather than biology, but he cannot argue that there are no
such differences. 68 The between-sex differences here are as
great as the between-sex differences in height and far more
consistently different than any other sexual differences in
cognitive aptitudes. The feminist will say that by the time

they are in college girls have been socialized to see being
a good mathematics student as being unfeminine. Let us
accept this as true and assume that girls have been socialized
in this way. Still, if one accepts this as the reason why the
great mathematicians have all been men he encounters serious
theoretical questions. Why has the socialization proceeded
in this way? Why is mathematics unfeminine instead of
feminine? There would seem to be nothing in the nature
of mathematics that would automatically lead a society to
consider it masculine. Why then do we not tell little boys
that mathematics is "girls' stuff"? Here the answer cannot
be merely that women have internalized the noncompetitive
68 That such differences in aptitude exist is demonstrated beyond ques-

tion in: Eleanor E. Maccoby, The Development of Sex Differences (Stan-
ford: Stanford University Press, 1966). Of particular interest here is
Dr. Oetzel's summary of the results of hundreds of testing studies of
sexual differences; H. A. Witkin, et al., Psychological Differentiation
(New York: Wiley and Sons, 1962); David Wechsler, The Measurement
and Appraisal of Adult Intelligence (Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins,
1958); and Bernard Berelson and Gary A. Steiner, Human Behavior: An
Inventory of Scientific Findings (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World,
1964).
194
mandate that is valid only in areas in which aggression leads

to attainment.
69
For women equal or surpass men on all
cognitive tests not related to mathematical reasoning or asso-

ciated aptitudes. If the fact that sixth-grade girls are the
equals of sixth-grade boys in arithmetic, but that twelfth-
grade girls have an inferior mathematical aptitude when
compared with twelfth-grade boys is explained as a mani-
festation of the older girls' having internalized a norm
against females competing with males, why do the twelfth-
grade girls equal males in all areas for which the narrow
aptitudes relevant to logical abstraction are not necessary?
The implication here is not that socialization is irrelevant
to the development of sex differences in cognitive aptitudes

or that there have not been serious attempts to describe these
differences as a function totally of socialization and not of
69 One might invoke the fact that men are more likely to have taken
logic ormathematics courses, but this is irrelevant for three reasons.
First: these tests measure aptitude, and perception on an abstract level,
not knowledge or ability. Second: male superiority seems to be maintained
even when mathematical backgrounds are equalized; this is surprising
since, if the pressures dissuading women from entering mathematics were
really all that great, one would expect that only the very best women
would take mathematics (i.e., the elective mathematics course would have
women only from the top 10 percent of women, but men from the top 30
percent of men) and that this would decrease or eliminate the male su-
periority when just mathmatics students are tested (even though the male
superiority is real and will manifest itself whenever men and women from
the same percentiles of their respective sexes are tested). The fact that
women in mathematics courses seem to do as badly relative to men in
mathematics courses as women in the general population do relative to
men in the general population indicates either that the social pressures
dissuading women from going into mathematics are not all that great or
that the sex differences at the top of the statistical curve are even greater
than in the middle. Most importantly: it begs the question to argue that
the society encourages men to study mathematics and dissuades women
from doing so, for the basic question remains: why does the society not
encourage women and discourage men if not because men long ago dem-
onstrated their superiority here and society has conformed to this reality
more for women's sake than for men's? (Similarly: on the quantitative
aptitude section of the Graduate Record Examination, a score that places
one in the ninetieth percentile among women places one only in the sixty-
eighth percentile among men.)
195
innate sexual biology. 70 It is that there are strong, though

not conclusive, indications that such socialization conforms
to limits set by innate differences in cognitive aptitudes. This
is comparable to socialization's conformation to innate male
aggression, though the probability that this is the case with
cognition is less than it is with aggression.
One might construct a model that admits the relevance
of CNS factors but that sees these as a result of environ-
mental factors. It has been suggested, for example, that the
experience of judging the trajectory of a baseball is an en-
vironmental demand that engenders in boys a CNS develop-
ment that could be developed in girls if they were exposed
to these demands. Given the absence of cross-cultural evi-
dence here (we do not know the cognitive aptitudes of males

and females in other societies as we know the authority and
status situations of other societies ) , this explanation is entic-
ing, but not very convincing. We know too much about the
relevance of fetal hormonalization to CNS development for
an environmental explanation to be acceptable. No one
would deny the possibility that the boy's activities may in-
crease "male" cognitive aptitudes just as they increase his
muscularity, but this point is relevant to the adult factors

we are discussing only if there is not a CNS reality that
accounts for these being a boy's activities and the evidence

indicates that there is such a CNS reality to which socializa-
tion conforms.
There is another problem with the explanations that at-
tempt to avoid the conclusion that there is a biological ele-

ment that precedes male and female cognitive aptitudes and
with the explanations that imply that these differences are
erasable or reversible: the environmental sexual differences
in socialization that they invoke are so deeply embedded in
70 See, for example, Walter Mischel, "A Social-Learning View of Sex

Differences in Behavior," in Maccoby, The Development of Sex Differ-
ences, pp. 56-81.
196
maleness and femaleness that it is virtually irrelevant that
the biological factor that necessitates the environmental fac-

tor or the type of socialization is not direct. For example,
one might argue that the adult male mathematical reasoning
superiority is not the direct result of the male CNS and any
of its properties relevant to cognition, but that this superiority
results from the fact that the encouragement of male asser-
tion and discouragement of female assertion limits female

development of an abstract reasoning ability that is not di-
rectly precluded by limitations of the female CNS relevant

to cognition. Even if this analysis were correct, for practical
purposes it would make no difference whether the biological

factor made male superiority inevitable directly or indirectly
(i.e., the hormonalization factor renders inevitable the posi-
tive socialization of male assertion and negative socialization
of female assertion in "male" areas).

Environmentalist attempts to deny the biological factor
here usually entail the demonstration of correlations between
one or another aspects of socialization with the demonstrated
male superiority in this narrow area of cognition. Such cor-
relations do not, in themselves, indicate anything about the
causation involved. Obviously all sex differences will be
correlated with all others.
None of this implies that changes in socialization and
education could not tend to reduce male superiority in mathe-
matical reasoning; even if this superiority results directly
from CNS circuitry the male advantage could, very theoreti-
cally, be eliminated if girls were massively socialized toward
improvement and boys were socialized away from improve-
ment (just as the innate adult male physical strength supe-
riority could be eliminated, in theory, if all women spent
five hours a day in intensive physical training and all men
remained sedentary). For our purposes this theoretical possi-
bility is irrelevant if cognitive sex differences are either direct

results of differing CNS circuitry or even of differing sociali-
197
zation that is an inevitable indirect result of differences in

innate aggression.
The Hormonal Basis of Differentiated Intelligence

In this section it will be suggested that it is quite likely that
the male superiority in mathematical reasoning has a hor-
monal base. It cannot be reiterated too strongly that here
we are dealing on an almost purely hypothetical level and
that though the conclusions offered are, I believe, more
plausible than the explanation that ignores hormonal dif-
ferentiation, they are extremely tentative. In addition, it is
necessary to point out once again that there is no reason to

believe that there are sexual differences in intelligence if
we consider intelligence in all of its myriad aspects. To

consider an ability to theorize as a greater demonstration of
intelligence than perception or insight is loading the dice
no less than is considering physical strength more important
than longevity as a measure of good health.
Nonetheless, if we do focus on certain abstract reasoning
aptitudes there can be no doubt, as we have seen, that adult
males are superior to adult females. We have seen that a
totally environmental explanation of this runs into serious,
though perhaps not insurmountable, problems. If young boys

demonstrated a superiority over young girls in this area there
would be little doubt that male superiority here had a hor-

monal base, but the tests indicate that, as is the case with
height, male superiority is not manifested until puberty.
Why?
The most likely answer, and the least interesting one, is
that sexual differences do exist before puberty, but that the

male superiority has not yet developed to the point where
it manifests itself on the tests. This is comparable to the
situation that exists in school; prepubertal males are not
superior to females in basic arithmetic, which does not call
on abstract reasoning aptitude, nor are they yet capable of
198
succeeding on the mathematical tests on which, three or four

years later, they will be superior to females.
But let us assume that the tests are not too gross to make
the necessary distinctions and that it is true that prepubertal
males are not superior to prepubertal females. This does not
at all preclude the possibility that hormonal development is
relevant here. It is possible that, just as the pubertal male

increase in testosterone production may engender the male
aggression advantage (if the male child's aggression supe-
riority is attributable completely to socialization for adulthood
and not at all to the fetal alteration of the CNS), so does
this increase engender in the postpuberal male a superiority
in certain types of abstract reasoning. There are, however,
two problems with this explanation. First: while it seems
perfectly reasonable that the pubertal male increase in tes-
tosterone, complementing the fetally prepared male CNS,

should generate an increase in aggression potential, it is not
clear why this pubertal increase should be so important to
abstract reasoning aptitude. The fetal male hormonalization
and its alteration of the pathways of the brain would seem
more important here.
The second problem arises from an empirical attempt to
examine the possibility of a relationship between male hor-
monalization and nonverbal aptitudes. In an attempt to dis-
cover the effect of pathological virilization on intelligence,

Drs. John Money and Viola Lewis reported findings that are
impossible to reconcile with Dr. Oetzel's extensively docu-
mented findings that the sexes do not differ in verbal ability
but that males are superior in mathematical reasoning. Drs.

Money and Lewis found that a group of seventy subjects
with either the adrogenital syndrome or progestin-induced
hermaphroditism did remarkably well on IQ tests, but that
a subgroup of forty- four of these subjects did as well, rela-
tive to a random population, on verbal tests as on nonverbal

tests. Of the seventy subjects 12.9 percent scored 130 or
199
higher (the expected percentage for the general population

would be 2.2 percent), 31.5 percent scored 120 or higher
(8.9 percent), 60.1 percent scored 110 or higher (25 per-
cent), and 72.9 percent scored higher than the median for
the general population. 71 Dr. Money points out that these
findings must be considered tentative. There is the possibility
that, to an extent, they represent sampling bias; for example,
these subjects were children of mothers who sought out
treatment and this may indicate that the mothers were of
above average intelligence. Nonetheless, it is quite likely
that fetal virilization does increase IQ.
Drs. Lewis and Money (and Dr. Ralph Epstein) did
not compare the nonverbal scores of the subgroup's prepu-
bertal males, prepubertal females, pubertal-adult males, and
pubertal-adult females with verbal scores. The sample was
too small to allow breakdown into these cells and, even if
it were not, nearly all the female subjects, like the male sub-
jects and normal males, but unlike normal females, had
experienced both fetal and pubertal virilization. Nonetheless,
it is true that we might expect that these subjects would
demonstrate a greater superiority over the general population
in nonverbal scores than in verbal scores and they did not. 72
It is not clear why these findings differ from the numerous
studies reported by Dr. Oetzel. Three of the six studies of
adult mathematical reasoning listed by Dr. Oetzel used the

performance sections of the same test (Wechsler Adult In-
telligence Scale) as did Dr. Money, so the discrepancy cannot
be explained by the use of different tests. It is possible
that there is a qualitative difference between the effect of
71 John Money and V. G. Lewis, "IQ, Genetics, and Accelerated Growth:
Androgenital Syndrome," Bulletin of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, 118:

365-73 (1966), and "Prenatal Hormones and Intelligence: A Possible Re-
lationship," Impact of Science on Society, XXI: 285-290 (October-De-
cember, 1971).
72 V. G. Lewis, John Money, and R. Epstein, "Concordance of Verbal
and Nonverbal Ability in the Androgenital Syndrome," The Johns Hop-
kins Medical Journal, 122:192-5 (1968).
200
—
the male hormone on aptitude for these subjects and for the
general population; Dr. Money's finding that these subjects
are far superior to the general public in verbal aptitudes is
given Dr. Oetzel's finding that normal males are not superior
to normal females in verbal aptitude — just as unexpected as
his finding that the reasoning superiority of his subjects over
the general population is no greater than their verbal supe-
riority. It is only for the female subjects who have reached

puberty that we would necessarily expect virilization to lead
to a non-verbal increase greater than the verbal increase; the
effect of hormonalization may conceivably be one of thresh-
old and this threshold may be reached far more often by
normal males than by normal females (thereby accounting
for the male superiority found by Dr. Oetzel) so that the
excessively virilized male would gain no more here, relative
to the general population, than he would in verbal areas.
In any case, all of the research discussed in this chapter

indicates an association between "maleness" and aptitudes
which manifest themselves on certain tests. The evidence is
conflicting only with respect to the extent to which "male-

ness" manifests itself (i.e., only in non-verbal areas or also
in verbal areas ) . However tentative must be any assessment
of the contribution of hormonal differentiation to the as-
sociation of "maleness" and aptitude, it is undeniable that
there is such an association. If the reasoning invoked in this
chapter is correct, it is difficult to see how sexual differences
in performance on the tests referred to can be reasonably
explained without positing some relevant physiological fac-
tor. In the subtest sample referred to above, ali but three
of the genetic females were raised as females; it is difficult
to explain their test performance in terms of socialization

particularly when we know that they underwent hormonal
masculinization. Dr. Money writes:
It is, of course, still too early to make any sweeping

generalizations from these findings. But Katharina
201
Dalton's work, 73 taken together with our own, strongly

suggests that androgens, synthetic progestenic hor-
mones, and progesterone, given prenatally, do pro-
duce an increase in intelligence and eventual academic
performance. They do so on both males and females
but only when the foetuses are subjected to the hor-
mones in excess at a critical time of their development
in the uterus. 74
Similarly, Dr. Eleanor Maccoby, whose major interests

have been the causation involved in this area and the prob-
lems of socialization encountered by young women, has
written
I think it is quite possible that there are genetic fac-

tors that differentiate the two sexes and bear upon their
intellectual performance other than what we have

thought of as innate "intelligence." For example,
thereis good reason to believe that boys are innately
more aggressive than girls —and I mean aggressive in

the broader sense, not just as it implies fighting, but
as it implies dominance and initiative as well —and if
this quality is one which underlies the later growth of

analytic thinking, then boys have an advantage which
girls who are endowed with more passive qualities will
find difficult to overcome. 75
Feminist Research
The reader who is interested in discovering for himself the
extent to which the popular feminist authors misrepresent

the findings of serious researchers in order to justify their
73 K. Dalton, "Antenatal Progesterone and Intelligence," British Jour-

nal of Psychiatry, 114:1377-82 (1968).
74 Money, "Prenatal Hormones and Intelligence," p. 289.
75 Eleanor E. Maccoby, "Woman's Intellect," in The Potential of
Women, Seymour M. Farber and Roger H. Wilson, eds. (New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1963), p. 37.
202
ideologies might wish to compare what these authors say
Dr. Maccoby says with what she really says and what she
reports (with Dr. Oetzel) in the compilation at the end of
The Development of Sex Differences. For example, Dr.
Millett has extracted from the very article quoted above
just those elements which had to do with socialization and
left the reader with the impression that Dr. Maccoby dis-
misses the idea that biological sex differences could be of

any importance. 76 Germaine Greer, in discussing the implica-
tions of the Maccoby-Oetzel compilation, states that:
Non-verbal cognitive abilities like counting, mathe-

matical reasoning, spatial cognition, abstract reasoning,
set-breaking and restructuring, perceptual speed, man-
ual, mechanic and scientific skills have all been tested
77
and no significant pattern has emerged. . . .
When one attempts to verify Dr. Greer's statement he

finds that, with the exception of one study of perceptual
speed (which no one ever associated with the male), women
were not found to men in any study of any
be superior to
of these particular areas when adults were tested. In all the
tests of adults either men proved superior or no differences
were found. We have seen that this was true in six out of
six studies of mathematical reasoning. To find six out of six
large-scale studies each of which discloses the same statisti-
cally significant patterns is so rare in the social sciences that

this cannot be dismissed.
Dr. Greer no doubt glanced at the listing of studies of
mathematical reasoning aptitude, saw that when boys and
girls (as opposed to adults) are compared neither sex dem-
onstrated a superiority, and looked no further. But Drs.
Maccoby and Oetzel had listed these studies in the order
of the chronological ages of the test takers precisely because
76 Millett, Sexual Politics,

p. 216.
77 Greer, op. cit.,
p. 93.
203
age is the crucial factor. When the tested subjects are adults,
when they have passed the age of pubertal hormonalization,
statistical male performances on tests of mathematical rea-
soning are always superior to the performances of women.
Masculine Logic
In other words, the stereotype that sees the male as more
logical than the female is unquestionably correct in its ob-
servation and probably correct in its assumption that the
qualities observed conform to innate sexual limitations
analogous to those relevant to physical strength. 78 Society's
socializing girls away from careers in mathematics may well
be an acknowledgment of hormonal reality.
79
An ability to
deal with high-level abstractions is unfeminine in the sta-
tistical sense and it is on such statistical realities that social
conceptions are — for all the reasons we have discussed

based. A woman who possesses such an ability possesses an
ability that we correctly tend to associate with men. Her
ability is "unfeminine" only in the sense that a six-foot
78 "Logic," as used in this book, refers only to certain cognitive abilities

and not at all to "unemotionality." Invoking the second feminist fallacy
(see Chapter Seven), some feminists have attempted to show that the
abilities manifested on the tests discussed above are not innate; they are
quite right in saying that emotionality is "masculine" in some societies,
but this is hardly relevant. In Chapter Ten it is suggested that males and
females are innately and, therefore, universally, different in their emo-
tional makeup (hardly a revolutionary finding), but no one who is familiar
with the relevant cross-cultural data would argue that there is some in-
nate reason why women must be more demonstrative than men.
79 There is an assumption implicit in my equating the demonstrable male
superiority in mathematical reasoning with the male logical superiority

that is acknowledged by the social value that sees thinking "logically" as
"thinking like a man," but I think that this assumption is justified by the
high correlation between mathematical reasoning scores and ability in
those areas (chess, physics, legal theory, logical argumentation, etc.) which
engender the social stereotype. Needless to say, each of these areas has
additional preconditions so that excellence in one area does not guarantee
excellence in another; all that I am saying here is that the ability that
manifests itself in high mathematical reasoning scores, that is acknowl-
edged by the social value that sees this as "thinking like a man," is a pre-
condition for excellence that is common to all of these areas.
204
woman's height is unfeminine (i.e., the quality of being six

feet tall is usually associated, correctly, with men). Unde-
niably the female mathematical genius will meet discrimina-
tion (she will be discouraged where a man of equal ability
will be encouraged), but this is an inevitable result of the
fact that a mathematical genius who is a female will always
be a very rare exception. 80 Most likely a population's observa-

tion of real sex differences in mathematical reasoning ability
"automatically" leads to the stereotype of male logical abil-
ity, but let us for the moment assume that it does not. If
we did not consider this ability unfeminine, if our social
values did not acknowledge biological reality, the few women
at the high end of the female curve would no longer face
discrimination, but the majority of women would be forced
80 I do not want to make light of the difficulties encountered by tal-
ented women in many areas; to attempt to explain the reasons for social
attitudes not to judge them. In my own discipline, sociology, when one
is
observes informal encounters between male and female sociologists he

sees that each views the other not only through the lens of professional
expectations, but also in terms of sexual expectations. Insofar as the ex-
pectations attached to sociological excellence (theorizing ability, "hard-
headed logic," etc.) are male expectations, this certainly tends to work
against female sociologists who are just as logical and just as
those
capable of dealing with theory as male sociologists. In formal areas, such as
promotion, women are not promoted in proportion to their numbers, but
this is not totally attributable to sex. The very best women scholars see
and the assertion that there
their contributions reflected in their positions
are hundreds of Arendts, Bardwicks, Bernards, Hackers, Komarovskys,
Maccobys, Meads, or Trillings being passed over for promotion is non-
sense. (Incidentally, can anyone imagine any of these women associating
her work with the simplisms of a Millett or a Greer?) When we con-
sider the "average" academic sociologist we do find discrepancies, but for
the most part this reflects the "publish or perish" syndrome, not sexual
discrimination per se. Male Ph.D.'s publish far more often in scholarly
journals than do women
(Maccoby, "Woman's Intellect," p. 24), and,
since readers for these journals are not told the names of the authors of
submitted manuscripts, discrimination on this level is not a factor. Now
one might well argue that promotion should not be so heavily contingent
on publication or that women academics spend so much time with their
families that they have no time to publish; but as long as men who do
not publish are refused promotion no less than women, the charge of
sexual discrimination in these cases is hardly justified. It is, however,
a fine rationalization for scholarly mediocrity.
205
to consider themselves below average (for the population

as a whole) in an area in which society would like them to
excel. Just as the male's greater aggression led to men's
attaining those roles for which aggression led to attainment

and this resulted in society's associating aggression and mas-
culinity, so does the male's greater logical ability lead to the
social stereotype of masculine logical superiority. 81 Just as
the failure of society to socialize women away from aggres-
sive pursuits would create unattainable expectations for
women, so would a failure to associate mathematics with
the male create an intolerable situation for women. Women
would be expected to excel in the one cognitive area in
which they are unquestionably inferior. To be sure, a failure
to socialize women away from mathematics would not be
the disaster that would ensue from society's failure to so-
cialize women away from aggressive pursuits; this is reflected
in the fact that the pressure brought to bear on the girl
who evinces an interest in mathematics is mild compared to

the sanctions imposed on a girl who attempts to attain goals
by righting.
It is unlikely that the pressure dissuading the young girl
from a future in mathematics has deprived the world of a
female Einstein. For the biochemical underpinning of male

mathematical superiority is relevant not only to the majority,
but to the very best. The biological factor manifests itself
throughout the statistical curve; as was the case with chess,
the very best female mathematicians have far better mathe-
81 This accounts for the oft-repeated observation that the same piece of
research will be given a higher rating —
by both men and women when —
it is allegedly written by a man than when it is allegedly written by a
woman. Here we see the difficulty faced by women intellectuals at its

starkest: it is, however, a difficulty that is probably inherent in the fact
that the best research is, by and large, done by men. If abstract reasoning
ability is a precondition for the creation of theory (the highest status
research in every discipline), then these unfortunate attitudes will prob-
ably always face women, to some extent, even women whose work is
demonstrably very great.
206
matical minds than the vast majority of men, but they do

not approach the level of the very best male mathematical
geniuses any more than the six-foot woman's height ap-
proaches the height of the tallest male.
It is, of course, true that the range of aptitude scores
within each sex is greater than the difference between the
means of the two sexes and that it is only at the very top
that only one sex will be capable of performance. But this
is true of height also. The statistics of social life introduce

a factor that generates the (correct) stereotype. Men are
seen as "more logical" because, statistically speaking, mar-
riage tends to bring together a man from the tenth (or
twentieth or sixtieth) percentile of men with a woman of
the tenth (or twentieth or sixtieth) percentile of women.
The husband will seem "more logical" in each case because
he is. The same thing applies with any characteristic in which
the sexes differ (though with characteristics such as domi-
nance there may be an element of "opposites attracting" and
the situation will be more complex, but the point will be
the same ) . That the women of the ninetieth percentile of
women are "more logical" than the men of the fiftieth per-
centile of men is as irrelevant to the development of social
stereotypes as the fact that the tallest women are taller than
the average man. The woman of the ninetieth percentile
of women is married to a man of the ninetieth percentile
of men and he is "more logical" than she.
An Environmentalist Objection
The environmentalist will no doubt raise the objection that
this line of reasoning would serve as rationale for the most
arbitrary stereotype. This is merely another way of saying
that some behavioral differences result from the cultural en-
vironment (as with the black) and some from cultural
conformation to real statistical biological differences that
affect behavior, certain abilities, and propensity (as with
207
women) No . stereotype is arbitrary; every stereotype is "real"

in that it has an element that is perceived and that can be
seen as biologically caused whether it is or not. If such an
element were not present the members of the society would
not perceive that portion of reality in terms of a stereotype
and would select some other element that is present on
which to base a stereotype. For example: psychological and
economic factors have led to the white population's needing
to perceive the black in unfavorable terms. The white did
not perceive the black as cheap or cowardly — as he did other
minorities who emphasized business acumen or pacifism
but as stupid. What was perceived, of course, was not stu-
pidity, but a lack of education. This lack of education had
nothing to do with biology or intelligence, but it was real.
The stereotype was seen in biological terms so that it could

continue to serve as rationale for maintaining the very edu-
cational discrimination that makes the stereotype possible
in the first place. This circular process is accelerated by the
awful truth that people will come to believe what their so-
ciety says about them whether correct or not.

Now the environmentalist and the feminist will use this
line of reasoning to explain why women do poorly in mathe-
matical reasoning and why they fail to attain roles and
positions when aggression leads to such attainment. They
will say that just as the white needed to maintain the black
stereotype, so do men need to maintain the stereotype of
women. It is certainly true that once one has internalized

a value he will feel threatened when the basis for that value
is challenged, but this anxiety has no bearing on the correct-
ness or incorrectness of the observations that underlie the
value or on the relevance of biology to those observations. 82
82 No one is more threatened than the feminist who is told that her
rage is owing more to her personal psychology than to the "sexist nature
of society" ; —
however, the fact that she feels threatened while it may
indicate how she really feels about the accuracy of her analysis just as the
male's feeling threatened may indicate his uncertainty— is in no way
208
One runs into no obvious theoretical problem when he ex-
plains black performance in terms of environmental dis-
crimination. For black deficiencies in performance might

well be exactly what one would expect of whites if they
were forced to suffer the educational discrimination forced
on blacks. But how does the feminist explain the fact that
women equal or surpass men in all test areas not related to
aggression and abstract reasoning? Why does "avoidance of

competition" not assert itself here? Why is rigorous think-
ing, but not perceptive thinking, referred to as "thinking
like a man"? Why is the stereotype that "women are illogi-
cal" and not that "women are inarticulate" or "women are
unperceptive" ? Is it not an unbelievably specialized form of
oppression that generates an inferiority in one narrow area
of cognition and in no other?
Our conviction that there is a biological reason for male
superiority in the aptitudes relevant to mathematical reason-
ing cannot be as great as the certainty that there is a bio-
logical basis for male success in attaining positions for which

aggression leads to attainment. For when we discuss mental
related to the actual correctness or incorrectness of that analysis. A man is
far more emotionally threatened by the thought of losing a physical fight

to a woman than he is of losing to another man. He is more threatened
precisely because the expectation is that a man will never lose a fight to a
woman and that even engaging a woman in a physical fight is unfair. The
fact that he feels threatened hardly demonstrates that the assumption on
which the expectation rests —
the assumption that men are physically
stronger than women — is incorrect or unrelated to physiologically
generated differences. Likewise, the sergeant who derives his meaning
from the soldiering role which he has devoted his
to life, who has spent
years learning the tasks and expectations that define this role, who sees
this role as a masculine one that women could not fill as well as men and
that no society could socialize women to fill as well as men — a sergeant
who has spent his life this way will feel threatened to the quick by the
assertion that male aggression is not innately greater than female aggres-
sion and that a society could develop in which women were socialized to
be more aggressive than men ; his feelings of insecurity may indicate
something about his sense of certainty, but it casts no doubt on the cor-
rectness of his assumption that males are more aggressive and that no
society could socialize its women to be more aggressive than its men.
209
properties we are dealing in part with hypothetical biological

elements (as opposed to the specifiable hormonal elements
relevant to aggression) and a limited amount of cross-
cultural data (as opposed to the extensive materials on

patriarchy). Nonetheless, the evidence of logic and observa-
tion of sex differences in aptitudes in our own society does,
as we have seen, indicate a biologically based male supe-

riority in this area. This could be empirically tested, though
the test is not very feasible. Groups of men and women from
ten disparate societies could be taught to play chess or do
mathematical puzzles. Assuming that these populations do
not differ from ours in the innate materials relevant to these
abilities (or that, if they do, male-female differences are
maintained), we would hypothesize that the males would
demonstrate a superiority in these areas in every group.
210
Chapter Nine
High Genius in the Arts and Sciences-
The Relevance of Male Biology
The Question of Genius

As is the case with sexual cognitive differences, it is not
possible to explain the preponderance of male genius in the
arts and sciences with the compelling logic that attaches itself
to the explanation of patriarchy, male dominance, and male

attainment of high-status roles. It is admittedly difficult even
to define genius. Genius is not intelligence, though it is cer-
tainly correlated with it, and a high intelligence is certainly
a precondition for genius in the hard sciences. It is probably

impossible for one with an IQ of 70 to possess genius of
any kind, but we know of too many people with IQ's of
180 who have manifested no semblance of genius and too
many undeniable geniuses whose IQ's have not been ex-
traordinarily high to equate genius with intelligence. It is
doubly difficult to identify the biological preconditions for

genius.
Nonetheless, it is difficult to ignore the fact that all
the Aristotles, the Leonardos, the Rembrandts, the Bachs,

the Marxes, the Edisons, the Freuds, the Einsteins, and the
Capablancas (and their counterparts in other cultures) have
been men despite the fact that half of the members of each
of their societies were women. In the performing arts one
might well argue that the greatest women have been the
equals of the greatest men. Perhaps in literature one might
take the position that Jane Austen, George Eliot, and the
211
Brontes were the equals of Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, and

Dostoevsky. But there is not a single woman whose genius
has approached that of any number of men in philosophy,
mathematics, composing, theorizing of any kind, or even

painting. 83 Even in these areas (except perhaps for compos-
ing) there have been a few women at the level below that
of the greatest genius, but this is irrelevant unless one is
prepared to argue that not only is Suzanne Langer the equal

of a Hegel, Kant, or Aristotle, but that in being the equal of
these men she is not merely an exception, but an exception
which eradicates the entire statistical rule. For if genius
in these areas were solely a function of biological factors
we would expect that, as is the case with height, there would
be a number of women who manifested greater ability than
all but a very few men, but none who manifested the ability
of the very greatest men.
One might argue that the arts considered feminine in
other cultures are equal to, or not comparable to, these, but
this would make no difference unless it could be demon-
strated that the arts and sciences discussed here are associated
with women in some other culture; this cannot be demon-
strated. One can argue that the pottery designs created by
83 Perhaps the name of Madame Curie has leaped into the reader's
mind. Realizing that doing so will seem quibbling to many readers, I

wouid nonetheless submit that: A. Even were Madame Curie the greatest
of all theoretical scientists the probability that scientific genius is related
to male biology would be unaffected. Again it is important to note that
probability expects exceptions and the discovery of an eight-foot woman
would not lessen our conviction that men are taller than women for bio-
logical reasons. B. Moreover, while Madame Curie was unquestionably
one of the greatest of experimental scientists, she was not a theoretical
physicist. If we remember that statistically we would expect that some
women would be toward the high end of a curve representing abstract
reasoning (but not as many as there would be men) and that the very best
women will rank far higher than the vast majority of men (but not as
high as the highest ranking men), then the surprise is not that Madame
Curie had an excellent theoretical mind (but not that of an Einstein, a
Bohr, or a Dirac), but that there are so few other female theorists of any
note at all.
212
.
High Genius in the Arts and Sciences
women in a society in which this art is associated with women

are as creative as Einstein's theory, but this casts no doubt
on the relevance of CNS development to mathematical
genius. I am not saying that masculine creative genius is
superior to feminine creative genius — am not any point

I at
in this book saying or implying that any masculine quality

is superior to any feminine quality — only that it is different.
However, I think that it would be more sensible for the

feminist to argue that our society overrates manifestations
of male genius and underrates manifestations of female
genius rather than to argue that there are not differences in
males and females engendering the two (just as it would be
more sensible for her to argue that our society overrates
values for which aggression is relevant rather than to argue
that there are not sexual differences in aggression )
Note that the farther one moves from those areas in which
there is an obvious need of an aptitude for dealing with pure
abstractions to those in which such an aptitude is not a pre-
condition for genius, the more women there are who ap-
proach the level of great genius. Moreover, these differences
are maintained as one descends from the level of genius;
the history of literature is replete with the names of first-
class women writers, but it is doubtful that there has ever

been a woman composer who could be considered much
above average. It would seem likely that the aptitude for
dealing with logical abstractions is a precondition for genius
in composing, philosophy, theorizing, and mathematics. We
have seen that male superiority in this aptitude is undeniable
and there is considerable reason to believe that this male
superiority is a function of male hormonal biology.
If an exceedingly high-level ability to deal with abstrac-
tions is a precondition for genius in mathematics, philosophy,
and chess, but not for genius in literature or the performing
arts, we would expect women to attain the level of genius
in literature or the performing arts, while they would be
213
precluded from manifesting genius in mathematics, philoso-

phy, and chess. This is precisely the case. If this reasoning
is correct, then it follows that society will always associate
with men genius in those areas for which the high-level
abstractive aptitude is a precondition and socialization will
always conform to this. As was the case with the woman
whose aggression equaled that of the average man, the rare
woman who does possess these abilities will meet resistance
where a man of equal abilities will meet encouragement;
but, as with the aggressive woman, this is the price one pays
for being an exception. If male biology does contribute to
the male ability to compose, then women composers will
always be such exceptions.
I do not deny that one can develop a theoretically possible,
though not very plausible, explanation of male success in
the areas emphasizing an ability to deal with abstractions
without invoking any biological factor; perhaps some eco-
nomic and social factors direct women toward those areas
which demand a lesser ability to theorize. It is true that the
ethnographic materials that were so helpful in documenting
universal sex differences in aggression and authority are not
much help here; we are dealing primarily with science and
art in the Western world, China, Japan, and India. None-
theless, this covers a fairly broad spectrum of different
historical times with quite different value systems. Science
and musical composition have often had fairly low status,
yet even in such times the scientists and composers were men.
There have been a great number of women poets and writers
ever since Sappho; why have there not been an equal num-
ber of women composers and scientists? Furthermore, there
would seem to be nothing in composing music (or in the
sciences for that matter) thatwould automatically lead to

a society's associating it with men. Aggression does not give
men any head start here (though the biological substrate
that underlies male aggression may contribute to a male
214
ability to compose), nor is there any obvious connection be-

tween composing music and economic reward (which, one
might argue, could have led men to forbid women to enter
this area ) . If there is no male biological element relevant

here, what factor has directed women toward those areas in
which an ability to deal with abstractions is less necessary?
Why does society not associate composing with women if

not because men have proven to be better composers; why
have men always been the better composers if not because
they have a greater biological potential here? Any environ-
mental answer to these questions must relate specifically to
the differences between composing (or science or philosophy)

on the one hand, and literature or the performing arts on
the other; for any general explanation that one might hy-
pothesize (concerning the woman's self-image or the time
and energies consumed by the maternal role, for example)
will not be able to explain why so many women have excelled
in the literary area and in the performing arts. Moreover,
an explanation emphasizing the demands of the maternal
role fails to explain the demonstrated superiority of young,
single adult males over young single adult females in ab-
stract reasoning. Explanations emphasizing the necessity of
training in some of these areas cannot deal with the fact that
training is far more necessary for the performing arts than
for composing music. To say that this is true, but that women
have nonetheless been dissuaded from composing and have
been urged by society to enter the performing arts is to beg
the question. For why have they been so dissuaded and so
urged if not because their potential, relative to that of men,
is far greater in the latter area?
A similar question might be asked of one who argues
that the absence of women from areas for which an aptitude
for dealing with abstractions is a precondition for genius
results from differential socialization relevant, not so much
to the particular creative area, as to the aptitudes which are
215
preconditions for genius in these areas. In other words, if
one argues that the point is not so much that women are
socialized away from composing, but that their socialization
does not encourage the aptitude for dealing with abstractions
which is a precondition for composing genius, he must ex-
plain why girls are so socialized if this socialization does not
conform to the reality of innate male superiority in the
aptitude for dealing with abstractions. He will then face
the contradictions we discussed in the last chapter. It should
be added that if it is true that there is a cognitive aptitude
which is a precondition for genius in these "logical" areas
which no woman possesses, it is irrelevant whether or not
there are other preconditions (aggression, for example)
which some women possess, but which are discouraged in
thesewomen because they run counter to the stereotype by

which women are, and, as we have seen, must be, socialized.
The absence of the first precondition precludes attainment;
that is what a precondition is.
The relation of biology and aggression to scientific and

artistic creativity is far too complex to yield an easily de-
scribed cause-effect model. However, if one accepts the
reasoning used in this book, particularly that which deals
with possible innate sexual differences in the potential for
abstract mathematical reasoning, it would seem quite likely
that the biological substrate underlying male aggression is
more intimately connected with genius than mere meta-

phorical comparison would indicate. Furthermore, even were
sexual differences in Central Nervous Systems not related
to creative genius, the mere presence of the male's "extra"
hormonally generated aggression may provide for a complex
of factors that constitute an entity which can be viewed
either as an aggression precondition for genius which is
satisfied in a much smaller number of women whose great

aggression — relative to that of other women — is derived
from social sources (see section titled "The Irrelevance of
216
Exceptions) or as an advantage, but not a precondition. Both

of these views allow for the female literary genius we have
observed. The male's greater aggression, when stifled by the
dominant male (the father or maternal uncle) and by society
in general, is forced inward, and this may direct male emo-

tional energies into composing symphonies, creating theories,
"conquering" mountains, and committing murders. Woman's

development, even if it were not guided by biological ele-
ments that tend toward creating and sustaining life itself, is
more "healthy" in that there is less aggression to be turned

inward. Thus female biology does not clash with familial
and societal environmental realities to as nearly as great an
extent as does aggressive male biology, and so there is less
frustrated aggression to be channeled into creative energy.

I think that this would help to explain why even in literature,
the creative area where the possible sex differences in the
raw cognitive abilities would seem to be least relevant, we
find, as Elizabeth Hardwick has pointed out, that even the
undeniably great women writers have lacked the obsessive
dedication to their work and the inexorable energies, the
lifelong burst of speed, that enabled a Balzac to write at the
limits of his abilities for sixteen hours a day all his life. 84
It is perhaps crazy to write for sixteen hours a day, but it is a
craziness that seems to possess men more often than women.
No doubt there are psychological preconditions for this, but
it seems likely that there are biological preconditions also.
Some have viewed male creativity as a search for a meaning

that, while it is not identical to the meaning that is inherent
in women's ability to give birth, tends to be precluded by
this ability. This makes biological sense and acknowledges
the fact that women create life itself, but I do not think
that this does anything to clarify or extend a theoretical
analysis, for it implies that women do not create only be-
84 Elizabeth Hardwick, A View

of My Own (New York: Farrar, Straus,
and Cudahy, 1962), p. 181.
217
cause they can conceive. If this were the case one might argue
number of women "decided" not to be life creators,
that if a
they would be the intellectual creators. If either male CNS
circuitry or just male aggression tend to lead to creative
genius, this would not be the case.
I suspect that those who explain the preponderance of
male genius in environmental terms have never had the
fortune to be exposed to a mind of genius for long. It is
inconceivable that one who has could maintain the belief

that genius is often stayed by social factors. If genius is not
given form by context it will make its own. It is this aggres-
sive reordering of context that is genius. It is simply un-
imaginable that context, whether the intellectual matrix
facing the genius or the social and economic factors touching
his life could dissuade him. One could describe the New-
tonian world that Einstein destroyed or the unspeakable
handicaps overcome by so many of the great minds; he could
show that minorities whose inferiority was assumed by all
around them have produced men of unquestionable genius.

But it must be admitted that if one adheres to the meta-
physical assertion that there is something inherent in every

society's view of women that precludes the manifestation of
an intellectual genius for which women have the biological
potential, his assertion cannot be disproven. Such an asser-
tion is metaphysical because it is not falsifiable. Whenever

someone making such an assertion suggests a concrete social
element that accounts for the dearth of female genius one
can easily demonstrate that there have been any number of
male geniuses who have overcome the suggested obstacle.
As long as one merely invokes "society's view of women" as
the element that precludes the manifestation of female

genius, his belief is not any more disprovable than it is
meaningful.
218
PART III
Section Five
Male
and
Female
Chapter Ten
Male and Female
No doubt there are many reasons why some women will

accept the illogic of feminism. Anyone wishing to explore
this area should examine a contemporary America in which
the rage of young women protesting professional discrimina-
tion is complemented by a revulsion toward professional
roles by the men who are "supposed" to fill them. For an
understanding of the forces that lead to the feelings of
meaninglessness that so many men and women now seem
to attach to their traditional roles perhaps one should begin
not with the content of roles that were formerly capable
of providing meaning, but with the failure of contemporary
American society to inculcate in the society's members the
feeling that the society's value system, its way of denning
reality, is correct and meaningful. It is this ability, rather
than the specific characteristics of the value system or the
value system's "humaneness," that is the precondition for
the society's survival and that is relevant to the members'
present feelings of meaninglessness and the feelings of alone-
ness that are inevitable if the members have no meaning to
share. When a society loses its ability to inculcate values its
members fall Here traditions evaporate, as

into the abyss.
they must when the values on which they were founded
seem meaningless, and they take all sense of continuity with
them. Children no longer provide a sense of future, for
values are the link we have with our children, and if we
223
Male and Female
have no values — values based on intelligence infused with

experience, not ideological proclamations supported by Uto-
pian fantasy —then we sacrifice our future for their contempt.
In the abyss some will have the strength to become "the
calm in the center of the whirlwind," but many will lack
the faith, the strength, the courage, the will, and the imagina-
tion to create their own meaning. Having received no values
from their society and having themselves created nothing
worthy of passing on to their children, they will rail against
everything in sight save the image in the mirror.

Liberation is an experience of personal salvation that im-
plies power over oneself. It is far more than the attainment
of social and economic freedom. One who has found a well
of pure meaning will have no need to drown everyone in it.
The priest does not frantically ignore biological evidence by

arguing that the "sex drive" is merely an arbitrary social
value or that we could expect many people to choose celibacy;
he acknowledges the power of this drive while himself an-

swering a more compelling call. Likewise, any woman who
feels that her sense of meaning is satisfied in areas not usually
considered feminine need not explain to anyone. She can
never hope to live in a society that does not attach feminine
expectations to women, but if she has the courage she will
overcome the attitudinal discrimination that she will, un-
deniably, face. Certainly such discrimination is less threaten-
ing to one's liberation than the obsessive hatred of an enemy

who serves only to symbolize one's inner turmoil, the avoid-
ance of the battles for one's own existence, or the inevitably
futile attempt to substitute group strength for individual

psychic weakness. No one is denying the value of the woman
who devotes her life to career rather than to children; there
is no need for her to rewrite physiology, anthropology, and
psychology in order to rationalize an unnecessary defense.
Ultimately every examined life can be interpreted as a
disaster; looking closely enough we can always discover psy-
224
Male and Female
etiological and social forces that could provide fuel for

unlimited rage. For every intelligent and creative woman
there are ten men who must stumble through life without
the aid of intelligence or creativity. But no life can transcend
its own disasters unless it celebrates its uniqueness and con-
tributes that which only it can contribute. Life is perverted
if one is constantly reacting, never initiating, but always
allowing rage to define it.
Too often such a definition shapes the lives of contempo-

rary middle-class radicals in general and feminists in par-
ticular. Too often we fail to ask men and women to face

the battles of their own existences; we merely inquire as to
which form of societal oppression it is that is causing their
desperation and accept their exaggeration of external oppres-
sions, oppressions that they use to camouflage the terrors
that one must face alone because such terrors are inherent
in existence. This is not only sad, but dangerous. When a
moral urgency is superimposed on an emotional immaturity,
as it is when an affluent, educated generation grows up
without ever being forced to learn that life's choices offer
rewards that are mutually exclusive, fanaticism is more prob-
able than altruism. The alacrity with which feminists invent
some "facts" and reject or accept others on the basis of their
emotional appeal is illusion in the guise of intellectual inves-

tigation. Invocation of this illusion as rationalization is
self-indulgence parading as virtue. There is no doubt that

American society demands some new answers quickly. But
the readiness of increasingly large numbers of radicals to
translate nearly any new idea immediately into action does
not demonstrate rational response nor even pragmatic des-
peration but betrays an emotional development so stunted
that they are forced to navigate life on one engine; the in-
tellect is twisted to serve the stabilizing function of incul-

cating meaning usually served in part by the emotions. Who
but the children of the forties and fifties could believe that
225
Male and Female
evolution would do an about-face this very year just because

they did not like the way it was going? Who but children,
who combine an intellectual egalitarianism (which views
every individual's ideas as equally valid and accepts one
idea over another on the basis of its ideological value and
its perceived sincerity) with an emotional elitism which de-
rides as delusory false consciousness the emotional satisfac-
tions of all the world's men and women, could be so petulant
as to attempt to justify their longing contempt for the eternal
sources of joy with an analysis built of ignorance and held
together by fallacy? Who but children whose lifelong nur-
turance on material things has cursed them with the inability
to discover the small joys which define happiness could
have failed to learn that human imperfection will be grafted
onto any institution? To confuse this inevitable imperfection
with the causes that render the institution inevitable is un-
intelligent. To hope for the perfection of any institution or
the disappearance of the institution because imperfection is
inevitable is Utopian.
Both men and women, even the feminist who rails against
such a feeling, feel that the husband "allows" and "protects."
Here the difference between those who strive for equal pay
for equal work and those who reject the validity of their
own feelings and observations and accept the feminist analy-

sis is seen in bold relief. For the former, the question of
patriarchy and dominance is unimportant. For the latter, it
is crucial; the feminist's philosophical aversion to the pos-
sibility of the inevitability of male dominance stems from

her finding this possibility psychologically intolerable. In-
deed, feminist literature emphasizes this area far more than
it does real economic discrimination. Economic discrimination
is abhorrent because it is artificial. When we speak of male
dominance we are speaking of the feelings of both men and
women that the man selected by the woman "allows" and
"protects," feelings motivating the actions and determining
226
Male and Female
the institutions of every society without exception. It is these

masculine and feminine feelings, the emotional manifesta-
tions of our biologies and the emotional prerequisites of
political power, that prescribe the limits of sexual roles and
social possibility. As long as societies are composed of human
beings these feelings will be inevitable. To judge them is
not merely stupid, it is blasphemous.

The central role will forever belong to women; they set
the rhythm of things. Women everywhere are aware that
sublimation is an ignorance of the center; one of the most
stunning regularities one notices as he studies the cross-
cultural data closely is the extent to which women in all
societies view male preoccupation with dominance and supra-
familial pursuit in the same way the American wife views
her husband's obsession with professional football —with a
loving condescension and an understanding that men embrace
the surrogate and forget the source. Nature has bestowed
on women the biological abilities and biopsychological pro-
pensities that enable the species to sustain itself. Men must
forever stand at the periphery, questing after the surrogate
powers, creativity, and meaning that nature has not seen fit
to make innate functions of their biology. Each man knows

that he can never again be the most important person in an-
other's life for long and all know that they must reassert
superiority in enough areas often enough to justify nature's
allowing them to stay. There is no alternative; this is simply
the way At the bottom of it all man's job is to protect
it is.
woman and woman's is to protect her infant; in nature all

else is luxury. There are feminists who try to have it both
ways; they deny the importance of the biological basis of the
behavior of the sexes, yet blame the world's woes on the
male characteristics of its leaders. The latter hypothesis is
correct, and we find that we are trapped in what could be

the final irony: the biological factors that underlie women's
life-sustaining abilities —the qualities most vital to the sur-
227
Male and Female
vival of our species —preclude women's ever manifesting

the psychological predisposition, the obsessive need of power,
or the abilities necessary for the attainment of significant
amounts of political power.
It is not merely that the line is thin that separates the
male's aggression from the child's demandingness; the ag-
gression is inseparable from its childish component. What
is lacking in the male is an acceptance that radiates from all
women save those few who are driven to deny their greatest
source of strength. Perhaps this female wisdom comes from
resignation to the reality of male aggression; more likely it
is a harmonic of the woman's knowledge that ultimately she
is the one who matters. As a result, while there are more
brilliant men than brilliant women, there are more good
women than good men. Women are not dependent on male
men are
brilliance for their deepest sources of strength, but
dependent on female strength. Fewwomen have been ruined

by men; female endurance survives. Many men, however,
have been destroyed by women who did not understand or
did not care to understand male fragility.
In any case the central fact is that men and women are
different from each other from the gene to the thought to
the act and that emotions that underpin masculinity and
femininity, that make reality as experienced by the male
eternally different from that experienced by the female, flow
from the biological natures of man and woman. This is the one
fact that the feminist cannot admit. For to admit this would
be to admit that the liberations of men and women must pro-
ceed along different and complementary lines and that the
women of every society have taken the paths they have not
because they were forced by men but because they have fol-
lowed their own imperatives. Neither I, nor, I gather, the
vast majority of women can imagine why any woman would
want to deny the biological basis of the enormous powers
inherent in women's roles as directors of societies' emotional
228
—
Male and Female
resources; doing so demands that one accept the male belief

that power has to do with action rather than feeling. But
whatever the reasons, denial does not indicate that there was
a choice. If we have learned nothing else from the wisdom
of every culture, we should have learned by now that one
cannot transcend his fate until he accepts it. Women who
deny their natures, who accept men's secondhand definitions
and covet a state of second-rate manhood, are forever con-
demned — to paraphrase Ingrid Bengis's wonderful phrase
to argue against their own juices. For all the injustices com-
mitted in attempts to enforce bogus biological laws, roles asso-
ciated with gender have been primarily the result rather than
the cause of sexual differences. Sex is the single most decisive

determinant of personal identity; it is the first thing we notice
about another person and the last thing we forget. Just as it
is criminal for others to limit one's identity by invoking arbi-

trary limitations in the name of nature, so it is terribly self-
destructive to refuse to accept one's own nature and the joys
and powers it invests.
229
Epilogue
I have not at any point associated with men any masculine

characteristic, or with women any feminine characteristic,
that has not been so associated by the members of every so-
ciety that has ever existed. I have not discovered, nor at-
tempted to discover, any attribute of either the male or the

female psyche that was not already known to virtually every
individual on earth; such discovery is the task of the artist,
not of the theorist. I have attempted only to demonstrate the

inevitability of the sexual differences we observe and the in-
stitutions they engender. I trust the reader understands that
the theoretical nature of this book demanded that I refuse to

make any "assumption" that could not be shown to be cor-
rect in virtually deductive terms. I have assumed that I have
been addressing a reader who is hostile to the theory pre-
sented herein and who would like to believe that sexual
biology does not render inevitable the social and behavioral
realities I discuss. This book is, in other words, the bottom
line; the biological factors I have invoked are those for
which the probability of existence and determinativeness is
so great that, I think, their existence and determinativeness

cannot reasonably be denied. Had I assumed that I had been
addressing a friendly reader —one who enjoys the social and
biological realities discussed herein— I would have intro-
duced discussion of sexual differences whose existence and

determinative importance to behavior are highly probable, but
230
Epilogue
still reasonably debatable. I would have, for example, dis-

cussed innately generated sexual differences in direction and
propensity rather than only in capacity.
Indeed, the theory presented here is not in any way con-
tingent on there being even a biochemical factor gen-
erating the feelings and affecting the behavior of a mother
toward her infant despite the fact that every society rec-
ognizes the "maternal instinct" and despite the fact that

I could not imagine how anyone could doubt that such
a factor exists. I find this no more absurd, however, than
the attempt — for the sake of ideology and with fiat as the
only evidence — to explain away as mere socialization the fact
that the infant and the small child respond totally differently
to the mother and the father, a difference which can be seen

in every human society and in every species even vaguely re-
lated to ours; ideology may satisfy those who espouse it, but
it is not capable of overriding either the daily observation or
the laboratory experiment that demonstrates the damaging
effect of maternal deprivation. In any case, to assume that
there is a "maternal instinct" or an innate difference generat-
ing the different responses of the child toward the mother
and the father would serve the very positive function of bal-
ancing the somewhat negative view of feminine behavior that

is inevitable when we speak only of male aggression and
women's response to it. But the price we would have to have
paid for including such an assumption — a lessening of the
tightness of the theory without any corresponding increase
in explanatory powers —was simply too high. I hope the
reader understands that my refusing to make these assump-
tions in no way indicates that I think that the denial of their
correctness is not ridiculous. As I developed this theory I
was often forced to stand back, incredulous that there are

people who have journeyed so far from themselves that they
can really believe that their most basic impulses have nothing
to do with their most basic natures, that their daily experi-
231
Epilogue
ences with their children, in sexual encounters, and in psycho-

logical relationships, are not given direction by the hormones
that run through them. The experience of men is that there
are few women who can outfight them and few who can out-
argue them, but that when a women uses feminine means
she can command a loyalty that no amount of aggression ever
could. The experience of women is that the violence men
often seek out is terrifying and overpowering, but that by
using the feminine means that nature gave her, a woman can
deal with the most powerful man as an equal. Are not these
sexual differences manifested and described in the works of
our greatest writers, the members of our species whom we
have acknowledged to have the greatest insight into our na-
tures? Is not the usual practice of ignoring the theoretical
contradiction at the heart of each feminist work in order to
concentrate on feminist insight, of treating feminist theorists
as we would treat women in a coed football game, both in-
sulting to serious women scholars and pointless; can we really
expect a better vision from one who is facing away from
nature? Is an analysis that denies these differences not an
unspeakable insult to the women of all societies — societies
that would not have survived had their women not asserted
their female energies? Would not a true feminist movement
that truly believed in the uniqueness of women yearn to dis-
cover rather than deny the biological factors within women

which make women unique?
One wonders if Mother Nature's anger at her children's
denial of her is particularly strong when the renegades are
of her own sex. If it is, she will nonetheless allow them the
same chance she allows all her other children. If they have
found a truth they will survive. If they have not they will
not survive. Of course the feminist will say that all that I say
in this epilogue is merely a reflection of socialization and it
is for this reason that I have refused to make any assumption

in the theory that could not be demonstrated to be correct
232
Epilogue
even though I believe that only the most dehumanized among

us could question the correctness of the assumptions I ex-
cluded. This has the advantage of yielding a theory that is
in no way contingent on the characteristics of the theorist or
the moral or political implications of the theory; if the theory

presented here is correct, then, as is the case with alleged
libel, truth is its own perfect defense. Therefore, it is man-
datory for the feminist theorist who wishes to be taken seri-
ously to demonstrate that the theory presented here is in-
correct. If she cannot demonstrate either that the facts on

which this theory is based are incorrect or that the reasoning
invoked is faulty, then — since it is impossible for both this
theory and the feminist theory to be correct — the analysis on
which she bases her entire world-view must be incorrect. If
the elements of the theory presented here are correct — if
the biological differences between men and women make it
inevitable that every society will be patriarchal, that male

behavior will always be more aggressive than female be-
havior, that males will always fill the nonmaternal roles of
authority and status, that males will be dominant and females
nurturant in dyadic and parental relationships, that socializa-
tion and even stereotype will always conform to these reali-
ties, and that the physiological basis of male and female
cognition is such that men and women will forever see reality
in different terms —then what is left of femininst theory? If
the feminist cannot compete successfully even in the area of
theory, where aggression is of little value, how can she hope
to compete in those areas where aggression is determinative?
It should be apparent to the reader by now that I believe the
evidence indicates that women follow their own physiological
imperatives and that they would not choose to compete for
the goals that men devote their lives to attaining. Women
have more important things to do. Men are aware of this and
that is why in this and every other society they look to women
for gentleness, kindness, and love, for refuge from a world
233
Epilogue
of pain and force, for safety from their own excesses. In

every society a basic male motivation is the feeling that the
women and children must be protected. But the feminist can-
not have it both ways: if she wishes to sacrifice all this, all
that she will get in return is the right to meet men on male
terms. She will lose.
234
ADDENDUM
Some Additional Comments on
the Universality of Male Dominance
In this addendum I deal with every society I have ever heard

any author suggest, usually by implication, as a possible ex-
ception to the universality of societal conformation to male
dominance in dyadic relationships. At the risk of seeming to
beat the proverbial dead horse, I add a few more comments

in an attempt to keep this all in perspective.
A. The uncontested universality of patriarchy and our

knowledge of hormonal biology leaves little doubt that patri-
archy, at least, is not only universal, but is inevitable, for

biological reasons. Even if we had no cross-cultural informa-
tion at all on male dominance it would seem likely that these
hormonal factors would manifest themselves in dyadic and

familial relationships.
B. We do have cross-cultural information relevant to male
dominance on between twelve hundred and four thousand
societies (see page 61). Given the nearly infinite variability
of the economic, political, religious, and social systems of

these thousands of societies and the fact that the most com-
mitted environmentalist does not contest the fact that these
societies acknowledge male dominance, we do have the right
to scrutinize evidence alleged to indicate the existence of a
society not acknowledging male dominance with more than
a bit of skepticism.
C. Unlike patriarchy, male dominance is not easily uncov-

ered, nor even easily defined. We have seen that anthro-
237
Some Comments on the Universality of Male Dominance
pologists have dealt with dominance in terms of customs and

that, while these customs will reflect the feelings relevant to
male dominance (as defined in this essay) in nearly every
case, there are a few "chivalrous" societies in which the cus-
toms do not reflect the member's feelings that authority is
invested in the male.

D. We must accept the unfortunate, but at least partially
unavoidable facts that there has not been the kind of stan-
dardization of ethnographic procedures we might have hoped
for and that in some cases particular ethnographic studies
were the work of anthropologists who, to be gentle, did not
possess the objectivity, ability, or knowledge that would today
be expected of the least competent anthropologist. Given
these difficulties the surprise is that there are not a great many
"exceptions."
Considering these four points, I think that we have the
right to demand that an alleged exception be a fairly clear-cut
case. Indeed, even if there were a few clear-cut exceptions,
one would not immediately dismiss the importance of the

biological factor; he would, however, be forced to admit that
it was not so overwhelming a force that it could not under
any environmental conditions be overcome. Since there is no
such exception I think that we have the right to ask once
again the question: if there is no biological reason for male
dominance, why is there not a single clear-cut case of a society
for which the ethnographer could state without equivocation
that the society does not associate general authority in dyadic
relationships with the male?
Alleged Exceptions
With the exception of the Berbers and the "Yegali," the fol-
lowing quotations were all taken from the same ethnographic
studies that have been invoked by various authors (never the
ethnographers themselves) as describing societies that did
238
not manifest male dominance in their dyadic and familial in-

stitutions. The evidence alleged to indicate that the Berbers
and the "Yegali" did not manifest male dominance was based
on anecdotal information obtained in an interview (see Ber-
bers below) or in informal conversation (see "Yegali" be-
low). Save those "societies" that have existed only in myth
and legend, such as the "Amazons," this list includes every
society that I have ever seen invoked as exception to the uni-
versality of male dominance. The purpose of this list is, of

course, to demonstrate that none of these societies can be
reasonably argued to fail to manifest male dominance in their
dyadic and familial institutions. Stephens refers to William
N. Stephens, The Family in Cross-Cultural Perspective (New
York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1963).
Alorese
Cora Du Bois, The People of Alor: A Social-Psychological
Study of an East Indian Island (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1944).
Page 114: "... marriage means for women far greater

economic responsibility in a social system that does not
grant them status recognition equal to that of men, while
at the same time it places on them greater and more
monotonous burdens of labor."
Bamenda
Phyllis M. Kaberry, Women of the Grassfields (London: Her
Majesty's Stationery Office; Colonial Research Publications,
Number 14, 1952).
Page 148 : "Women are not eligible for the headship of

kin or political groups."
Berbers
Stephens implies that it is "possible" that the Berbers do not
239
associate familial authority with the male. He indicates that

the ethnographic materials do not imply that the Berbers fail
to associate familial authority with the male (p. 301); his

basis for raising the possibility that the Berbers are an excep-
tion is information obtained in an interview with a graduate
student in archaeology who had observed a particular Berber
group in the Rif Mountains while on an archaeological dig
(personal communication). Since the informant has not pub-
lished on this subject, it is not possible to demonstrate in her
own words that the group she observed does not represent an
exception to the universality of male dominance. Furthermore,
the term Berber refers to a large number of social groups
whose languages are similar. Since there is no way of know-
ing which of the Rif Mountain groups was observed, it is
not possible to invoke someone else's ethnographic study of

the group. One would doubt the absence of male dominance
simply because all Berber groups are Moslem. Moreover,
Murdock, in his compilation covering all Berber groups
writes: "Nuclear families are reported to be independent
social groups only among the Mzab [not a Rif group]. Else-
where they are aggregated into patrilocal extended families,
each with a patriarchal head [Emphasis added]." George
Peter Murdock, Africa: Its People and Their Cultural His-
tory (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1959), p. 117.
Hopi
Edward P. Dozier, "The Hopi-Tewa of Arizona," University
of California Publication in American- Archaeology and Eth-
nology, 44, 3:259-376 (1954).
Page 320: ". . . it seems that brothers are assumed to

be senior to sisters, and entitled to respect as such, in
the absence of evidence to the contrary." (Dozier quot-

ing Barbara Freire-Marreco, "Tewa Kinship Terms
from the Pueblo of Hano, Arizona," American An-
thropologist, n.s. 16:269-287).
240
Page 339: "Within the family, the mother's brother,

or, in his absence, any adult male of the household or
clan, is responsible for the maintenance of order and

the discipline of younger members."
Iroquois
Lewis Henry Morgan, League of the Ho-De-No-Sau-Nee or
Iroquois (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1901).
Page 315: "The Indian regarded women as the in-

ferior, the dependent, and the servant of man, and from
nurturance and habit, she actually considered herself to
be so."
See also: Cara B. Richards, "Matriarchy or Mistake: The Role

of Iroquois Women Through Time," in Cultural Stability
and Cultural Change (Annual Meeting of the American Eth-
nological Society in Ithaca, New York, 1957), pp. 36-45.
Martha C. Randle, "Iroquois Women, Then and Now,"

Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 149 (Smithsonian
Institution, undated).
Jivaro
Stephens presents two contradictory ethnological views of the
Jivaro. One pictures a strong male dominance. The other,
on which Stephens bases his suggestion that the Jivaro male
is not dominant, is R. Karsten, The Headhunters of Western
Amazonia (Helsinki: Centraltry-cheriet, 1935). I assume
that the text is identical to R. Karsten, The Headhunters of
Western Amazonas: The Life and Culture of the fibaro In-
dians of Eastern Ecuador and Peru (Helsingfors: Finska
Vetenskaps-societeten Helsingfors; Commentationes Huma-
narum Litterarum VII, 1935), in which Karsten writes:
Page 254: "Of the relations between husband and wife

it may be proper to say that it is regulated according to
241
the principle 'the man governs, but the woman holds

"
sway.'
Kibbutz
See Footnote Fifty-three.
Marquesans
R. Linton, "Marquesan Culture" in A. Kardiner, The Indi-
vidual and His Society (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1939).
Pages 69-70: "She [the Marquesan woman] does not

take the role of disciplinarian."
Page 184: "The gods were almost all male. Theoret-

ically, women could hold the highest rank, but in prac-
tice few women were actually household heads, rulers
of tribes or inspirational priests. In rare cases the eldest
daughter of a chief would become a chieftainess and
rule in her own right, although as a rule the chief
adopted a boy if his eldest child was a girl. Such a
woman might be deified, but the most powerful deities
were invariably male."
Mbuti (BaMbuti)
Discussed in text.
Modjokuto
Stephens provides unclear evidence to support Modjokuto as
"matriarchy" (i.e., female authority in the home). Quoting
Hildred Geertz "Javanese Values and Family Relationships,"
1956 RadclirTe Ph.D. thesis, and The Javanese Family (New
York: Free Press, 1961), he says that the man is shown
deference in that he gets the better food, often he must be
the first to eat, and receives "formalized deference," but that
242
the woman tends to have real household dominance. But

Geertz states:
Page 107: "The relationship with the mother remains

as strong and secure as before —and lasts throughout the
individual's life. While mothers are described as 'lov-
ing' (trisna) their children, fathers are expected only to
'enjoy' (seneng) them. The mother is seen as a bulwark

of strength and love to whom one can always turn. In
contrast, the father is distant and must always be treated
respectfully. It is the mother who instructs the child in
social forms, who makes countless decisions for him,

and who administers most punishments. The father is
usually only a court of last appeal and a model for

imitation. He is expected to be, above all, and
patient
dignified (sabar) with his wife and children: he should
lead them with a gentle though frm hand, not inter-
fering with their petty quarrels, but being always avail-
able to give solemn sanction to his wife's punishments
of disobedient children. Only during the one early phase

of the child's life is this aspect of the father's role set
aside" [Emphasis added].
Nama Hottentot
As Stephens (p. 298) points out (quoting I. Schapera, The
Khoisan Peoples of South Africa [London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1930], p. 251), the woman does have
considerable authority in the home and over the children,
but "... she plays a subordinate role in matters pertaining
to tribal life, and in public always walks several paces behind
her husband. ..."
Navaho
Clyde Kluckhohn and Dorothea Leighton, The Navaho (Cam-
bridge: Harvard University Press, 1946).
243
Page 55: "Formally, from the Navaho angle, the 'head

of the family' is the husband. Whether he is in fact
varies with his personality, intelligence, and prestige."
Nayor
E. Kathleen Gough, "The Traditional Kinship System of the
Nayars of Malabar." Manuscript, Social Science Research
Council Summer Seminar on Kinship, Harvard University,
1954, quoted in Stephens, p. 317:
"The Karanavan [mother's brother] was traditionally

unequivocal head of the group. . . . He could com-
mand all other members, male and female, and chil-
dren were trained to obey him with reverence. ..."
Philippines
C. L. Hunt, "Female Occupational Roles and Urban Sex Ra-
tios in the United States, Japan, and the Philippines" in
Social Forces, Volume 43, Number 3, March, 1965.
Page 144: "This combination of patterns has brought

the Filipino woman to a point where, although denied
some of the adventurous freedom of the male, she may
be even better prepared for economic competition. The
acceptance of the boredom of routine work may be seen
as part of 'patient suffering' which is said to characterize
the Filipino female to a greater extent than the male.
Her responsible role in the household means that the
wife is charged with practical affairs while the husband

is concerned to a greater extent with ritualistic activity
which maintains prestige."
Semai
RobertKnox Dentan, The Semai: A Non-Violent People of
Malaya (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1968).
244
Page 68: "No rule prevents women from being influ-

ential, and some women are. Most of the time, how-
ever, Semai women are primarily concerned with the
petty affairs of hearth and home. As a Semai proverb
puts it, "men's loincloths are long, women's loincloths
are short,' that is, men are concerned with major prob-
lems,women with minor ones. Furthermore, Semai
women feel 'embarrassed' to take a prominent part
in public debate, although a woman often exercises
influence through her husband."
Tchambuli
Discussed in text.
Yegali
This tribe is alleged to have existed in Madagascar in Harold
Hodges 's introductory sociology text, Conflict and Consensus
(New York: Harper and Row, 1971). Dr. Hodges writes
(personal communication) that he heard of this group from
the late Donald Bender. Investigation has not uncovered a
single mention of this group in either anthropological or
popular publications.
245
Index
Adolescence, testosterone level American society, male domi-

in, 108-109 nance in, 41
Adultery, society and, 179 see also Male dominance
Aggression Androgen, aggression and, 87
androgen and, 87 Androgenized girls, 84
in arts and sciences, 214-216 Anthropology
attainment and, 105-108 male anthropologists in,
biological evidence in, 104 165-166
as boxing prowess, 97 n. social variation limits and,
channeling of into authority 29-73
systems, 120 Aptitudes, "maleness" and, 201
denned, 91 Aristotle, 212
dyadic male-female relation- Arithmetic, sex differences in,
ship in, 97 195
female, 77, 93, 149, 151 see also Mathematics
gender identity and, 80-81 Arts and sciences
hormones and, 81-82, 85, aggression in, 216
91-94, 104 genius in, 211-218
in industrial society, 121 Ashley Montagu, M. F., 55 n.,
inevitability of, 151 59 n.
leadership and, 152 Austen, Jane, 211
in male, see Male aggression Authority
male advantage in, 98 delegation of, 37
male-female difference in male aggression and, 103-
capacity for, 90 114
nonbiological elements in, wealth and, 153
96 n.
as physical strength, 98-99
sex drive and, 98-99 Bachofen, Johann J., 55
social, 94-96 Bamenda tribe, male role in,
testosterone level and,85-90 44, 239

use of term, 92-93, 96 Bantu tribe, male role in, 142
see also Male aggression Bardis, Panos, 55
"Aggressive instinct," 176 n. Bardwick, Judith, 94
Alorese tribes, 239 Barnouw, Victor, 44 n.
Amazons, 31 n., 45, 54-61 Beach, Frank, 76
246
Index
Beauvoir, Simone de, 168 n., Blood, Robert O., 36 n.

174 n. Bohr, Niels, 212 n.
Beeson, Paul B., 95 n. Boys, socializing of, 135
Behaviorism, male-female role Brain mechanism, testosterone
in, 137 n. and, 89
Bender, Donald, 245 Briffault, Robert, 55
Bengis, Ingrid, 229 British Guiana, nuclear family
Berber tribe, male role in, 39, in, 49 n.
239-240 Bronte, Charlotte and Emily,
Berelson, Bernard, 194 n. 212
Bernard, Jessie, 44 n., 84 n., Bureaucracy
172 in industrial society, 121-122
Biological analogy, dangers of, masculine nature of, 145
76-78 women's role in, 111
Biological engineering, sexual
differentiation and, 149- Capitalist society, male aggres-
150 sion in, 167
Biological factors Castration, effects of, 78
irrelevance of exceptions in, Cause, vs. function, 166-167
94-99 Central nervous system
social exaggeration of, 123— fetal alteration and, 199
124 genius and, 216
social realities and, 120 hormonal stimulation and,
Biological hypothesis, objec- 86-88
tions to, 133-157 mathematical genius and, 213
Biological nature, vs. society, morphological changes in, 89
142-143 sexual differences as develop-
Biological reality ment of, 196-197
future change and, 140-146 Chesler, Phyllis, 56 n.
socialization and, 108-110 Chess
society and, 147-148 genius in, 191, 213-214
Biological stereotype, 207-208 male superiority in, 193
Biology, discrimination women players in, 191
through, 146-147 Childbirth, women's role in,
Biopsychological differences, 146-147
156 n. Child training, female need in,
Black leadership, sex and, 31 n., 103
128 Chivalry, vs. male dominance,
Black matriarchy, 31 n. 41
Black people Chromosomal dimorphism,
as minority, 127-128 gender identity and, 83
performance deficiencies of, Cicero, Marcus Tullius, 23
209 Cognition, biology in, 188-193
white's perception of, 116 Cognitive aptitudes, sexual dif-
Blizard, David, 76 ferentiation in, 187-210
247
Index
Communist China Dostoevsky, Feodor, 212

authority positions in, 167 Dozier, Edward P., 240
male leadership in, 125 Du Bois, Cora, 239
Composers, women as, 212 "Dyadic dominance behavior,"
Crime and Punishment (Dos- 80
toevsky), 177 Dyadic relationships, in social
Cuba, male leadership in, 125 context, 34 n., 36
Cultural-environmental factors,
sex behavior and, 137-138 Edwards, David, 76, 88-89
Cultural variation Ehrhardt, Anke A., 84 n.
as biological explanation, 73 Einstein, Albert, 212 n.
relevance of, 65-72 Eleftheriou, Basil, 93 n.
Curie, Marie Sklodowska, 212 n. Eliot, George, 211
Emotionality
Dalton, Katherina, 201-202 inculcation of, 25
Dante 212
Alighieri, male vs. female, 163
Davis, Elizabeth Gould, 56 n. Emotional resources, woman as
Day-care centers, 144 keeper of, 25
Deference, customs of, 34 Emotions, social institutions
Dehumanization, 154 n. and, 150
Democratic society Engels, Friedrich, 51-52, 57,
organizational authority in, 60, 70, 168
110-112 Environment
sexist "battle" in, 113 vs. heredity, 147
women's authority role in, 32 survival and, 148
Dentan, Robert Knox, 244-245 Environmentalism, dilemma of,
Development of Sex Differ- 136-140, 207
ences, The (Maccoby), Environmentalists
203 denial of biological factor
Dialectic of Sex, The (Fire- by, 197
stone), 168 male "logic" and, 207-210
Diamond, M., 86 n. Epstein, Cynthia Fuchs, 172
Diner, Helen, 55, 56 n. Epstein, Ralph, 200
Diodorus Siculus, 55 Erikson, Erik, 175
Dirac, Paul A. M., 212 Evolutionary fallacy, 52-54
Discrimination Exceptions, irrelevance of, 94-
through biology, 110-112, 99
145-147
economic, 226 Familial authority, delegation
DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), of, 37 n.
"reading" of, 162 n. Family
Dodge, N. T., 125 n. humanization through, 154 n.
Dominance behavior, male- neuroses and, 154 n.
female difference in, 91 as patriarchal, 36 n.
see also Male dominance universality of, 32
248
Index
Farber, Seymour M., 202 n. Fertility, female and, 177

Father role, 41 Fetal brain, hormonalization of,
"instrumental" nature of, 48 89
in Manus society, 47 n. Field, Pauline M., 89
Female Figes, Eva, 108 n., 174 n.
authority of, 41 Firestone, Shulamith, 168-169,
lower status roles of, 45 174 n.
nurturant role of, 138-139 Fisher, Alan, 89 n.
superiority of, 24-26 Food gathering, patriarchy and,
see also Woman; Women 140
Female aggression, 77, 93, 149, Freeman, W. H., 89 n.
151 Freud, Sigmund, 48, 150, 155,
Female chess players, 191-192 175, 176n.
Female Eunuch, The (Greer), Function, vs. cause, 166-167
168-169
Female infanticide, 65 Ganong, W. F., 89 n.
Female status, socializing of, Gaprindasvili, Nina, 192
106-107 Geertz, Hildred, 40 n., 242-
see also "Status of women" 243
Feminine logic, 204-206 Gender, socializing of, 80, 84 n.
"Feminine" societies, 61 n. Gender identity
Femininity aggression and, 81-82
hormonal biology and, 141- genetic code in, 82-83
142 Genetic code, 82-83
physiology of, 155 Genius, nature of, 211-218
power-engendering aspects Girls
of, 27 fighting behavior in, 118
Feminist analysis socializing of, 106-107
confusion and fallacy in, "tomboyism" in,84 n.
158-183 "unladylike" behavior in,
failure of, 172-183 118, 135
ideological acceptance of, Glancing blow, fallacy of, 1 64-
134-135 166
rejection of biology in, 174- God, as male personage, 177
175 Goode, William J., 46 n.
socialization of sexes in, 162 Gough, E. Kathleen, 56 n.,
Feminist research, 202-204 60 n., 70 n., 244
Feminists and feminist move- Government, women in, 124—
ment, 24 125
assumption of on sex-role Goy, R. W., 89 n.
differentiation, 49-52 Graves, Robert, 55
invention of "facts" by, 225 Greer, Germaine, 162 n.,
male dominance and, 35 163 n., 168 n., 173 n, 203,
Feminist theory, future in, 140- 205 n.
146 Gynecocracy, 31 n.
249
Index
Hamster, size of female in, 86 Incest taboo, 32, 62

Handshake, function of, 180- India, women's authority role
181 in, 32
Hardwick, Elizabeth, 217 Industrial society
Harlow, Harry F., 78 n. aggression in, 121
Harris, Marvin, 44 n., 59 n. bureaucracy in, 121-122
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Fried- male dominance and, 68
rich, 212 masculine nature of, 145
Heredity, vs. environment, 147 patriarchy in, 124-127
Hermaphroditism Infanticide, 65, 151
hormones and, 78-85 Infants, male-female differences
IQ and, 199-200 in, 108
Herodotus, 55, 59 n. Institutions, universality of, 61—
High-status roles, male attain- 65
ment and, 44-47 Intelligence, of husband and
Hodges, Harold, 245 wife, 181-182
Homer, 55, 212 Intelligence differences, hor-
Homosexuality, happiness in, monal basis of, 198-202
164-165 IQ
Hopi Indians, male role in, 44, genius and, 211
240-241 sexual differentiation in,
Hormonal aggression, 81, 104 199-201
Hormonal factor, 74-99 Iroquois tribe, male role in, 40,
Hormonalization, social values 44, 58, 241
and, 135, 197 Israel, women and authority, 32
Hormonal system, "head start"
for male in, 105 Janeway, Elizabeth, 172, 174 n.
Hormones Javanese, male role among, 142
aggression and, 81, 104 Jivaro tribe, male role in, 39,
in human hermaphrodites, 42 n., 241
79
Hottentot tribe, male role in, Kaberry, Phyllis M., 239
142 Kant, Immanuel, 212
House of Representatives, U.S., Kanter, Emmanuel, 56 n.
female members of, 124 Kardiner, A., 242
Human aggression, see Aggres- Karsten, R., 241
sion; Male aggression Kibbutzim, male role in, 45,
Humanization, family and, 154 125-126
n. "Killer instinct," 75
Human malleability, limitation Kluckhohn, Clyde, 243
in, 146-157
Hunt, C. L., 244 Lafitau,Joseph Francois, 55
Husband, as protector, 226 Langer, Suzanne, 212
Lawrence, D. H., 50 n.
Ideology, 134 n. Leacock, Eleanor Burke, 70 n.
250
Index
Leadership attainment and, 189, 206,

aggression and, 152 209
cultural variation in, 66-67 authority and, 103-114
male aggression and, 107 biological association in, 77-
male-dominated, 29 78
status of, 151 in capitalist society, 167
women's "exclusion" from, chess and, 192-193
106 childish component of, 228
women's preference in, 105 discrimination through, 110-
Leighton, Dorothea, 243 112
Leslie, Gerald,39 n., 59 n. environmental explanation
Levine, Seymour, 89 n. of, 136-140
Lewis, Viola G., 199-200 vs. female aggression, 77, 93,
Linton, Ralph, 242 149, 151
Logic, masculine vs. feminine, as female "oppression," 113-
204-207 114
hormonal factor in, 74-75
Maccoby, Eleanor E., 103, 193- as instinct, 54
194, 202-203, 205 n. inevitability of, 78
McDermott, Walsh, 95 n. limiting of by society, 122
McEwen, Bruce, 76 vs.male dominance, 33 n.
McLennan, J.
F., 55 preponderance of, 189-190
McNall, Scott, 126 n. physical size and, 139-140
Malbin, Nona Glazer, 60 n. power and, 103-114
Male societal manifestation of,
authority of,26-27 115-128
deference of, 34 status and, 103-114
dominance of, see Male domi- superiority and, 92
nance see also Aggression; Male
emotionalism 163 of, dominance
expendability of, 149 Male authority, defined, 36 n.
high-status role of, 44-47, 71 Male dominance
leadership and, 32, 105 alleged exceptions to, 238-
as protector, 227 245
psychological differences in, attitude toward, 37
156 n. biological factors in, 114
superiority of on certain tests, defined, 31 n., 33, 114
203 degree of, 67
superior size and strength of, in dyadic and familial insti-
139 tutions, 68
tallness in, 182-183 as feeling, 3667 n.,
see also Leadership; Male female desire 182-183
for,
dominance feminist feelings and, 35-36
Male aggression industrialization and, 68
advantage in, 98 inevitability of, 38
251
Index
Male dominance (cont.) Masculinity

leadership and, 29 hormonal biology and, 140-
vs. male aggression, 33 n. 142
male-female contact and, sex-linked tendency toward,
48 n., 50 n. 50 n.
vs. patriarchy, 26-27, 31-32 Maternal propensity, 138-139,
in political and economic sys- 231
tem, 112-113 Mathematics
"protection" of woman in, genius in, 213-214
226-227 male superiority in, 197
role of, 33 sex differences 194-195 in,
social exaggeration of, 123 as "unfeminine," 194, 208
universality of, 39-44, 52, "Matriarchal stage," fallacy of,
134, 237-245 52-53
wife and, 37 n. Matriarchy
Male matriarchy and, 56
fears, biological evidence for, 63
"Male-female" behavior, 23-24 denned, 30 n., 31 n.
aggressive capacity and, 91- evidence for, 55 n., 59 n.,
94 60 n.
environmental determinant "prehistoric," 54-61
in, 137 n. Matrilineality, transfer to patri-
see also Femininity; Male lineality, 57
dominance; Patriarchy Mbuti Pygmy society, male role
Male leadership, women's pref- in, 25, 44, 67, 118-120,
erence for, 105 151
see also Leadership Mead, Margaret, 43-46, 157
Maleness, obstacles to, 201 Mice, fighting in, 88
see also Masculinity Mill, John Stuart, 51 n.
Malinowski, Bronislaw, 47 n., 48 Millet, Kate, 49 n., 50 n., 51 n.,
Man, concept of, 23 168 n., 173 n., 205 n.
see also Male Mischel, Walter, 196 n.
Man's World, Woman's Place Mitchell, Juliet, 170, 174n.
(Janeway), 172 Modjokuto (Java), male role
Manus, father role in, 47 n. in, 39-40, 242-243
Mao Tse-tung, 125 Money, John, 50 n., 76, 79, 81-

Marquesan Islanders, 61 n., 242 83, 84 n., 166, 199-201,
Marriage 202 n.
Monkeys, play behavior in,
breakdown of, 179
78 n.
as universal institution, 32,
Montagu, see Ashley Montagu
61
Morgan, Lewis Henry, 40, 58,
Martini, L., 89 n.
241
Marxism, vulgarized, 168-171 Morgan, Robin, 155 n.
Masculine logic, 204-207 Mother, artificial substitute for,
"Masculine" societies, 61 n. 142
252
Index
"Mother Nature," 177 Philippines, male dominance

"Ms," abbreviation, 178 n. in, 244
Murdock, George Peter, 58-59, Philosophy, genius in, 214
240 Phoenix, C. H., 86 n., 89 n.
Physical strength
aggression 98-99as,
Nama Hottentot, male role in,
139
status and,
39, 243
Physiology, feminism and, 155
Napier, J.
R., 87 n.
Playboy magazine, 179
Navaho male role
Indians,
Plutarch, 55
among, 243
Policy making, male leadership
Nayar tribe, male role in, 45,
in, 124-125
244
Political authority, men in, 32-
Nimkoff, M. F., 39 n.
33
Nonbiological factors, inade-
"Political dominance behavior,"
quacy of, 133-157
80
Nuclear family, 49 n.
Politics, women in, 124-125
Polyandry, 64-65, 72
Oetzel, Roberta, 193-194, 199-
Power
201, 203
36 n.
as influence,
"Oppression," 113-114
male aggression and, 103-
Origin of the Family, The
114
(Engels), 52
male dominance and, 26
Overpopulation, 142
Prehistoric matriarchies, 32 n.
Preoptic area, sexual dimorph-
Parsons, Talcott, 48 ism in, 89
Patriarchal family, 36 n. Primate studies, 78 n., 86 n.,
Patriarchy 156 n.
alternative to, 142 Private Property and the State
biological evidence for, 63, (Engels), 52
108-110, 123-124, 133- Psychoanalytic theory, 176 n.
157 Psychological differences, 155
denned, 30 n., 31 n. n., 156 n.
food gathering and, 140 Psychology of Women (Bard-
in industrial society, 124-127 wick), 94
inevitability of, 103-128, Pygmy society, male role in, 25,
233 44, 67, 118-120, 151
vs. male dominance, 27, 31-
32
Queen Mother, in African so-
universality of, 30-33, 51-
cieties, 32
52, 66, 78, 134
Patrilineality, transfer to, 57-58
Performing arts, women in, Rabin, A. I., 126 n.
211-212 Race, sex and, 127-128
Personal identity, sex and, 229 Racism, biological truth and, 77
253
Index
Raisman, Geoffrey, 76, 89-90 individual behavior and, 141

Randle, Martha C, 241 women, 180
in
Reed, Evelyn, 56 n. Sex role differentiation
Reeves, Nancy, 56 n. feminist assumption on, 49-
Reiss, Ira L., 39 n. 50
Research, rating of, 206 n. Marxist writings on, 168
Revolutionary societies, patri- Sexual biology, socialization
archy in, 124-127 and, 108-110
Richards, Cara B., 241 Sexual dimorphism, in preoptic
Rights versus "respect," 68-73 area, 89
Rogers, Hilliard, 91 n. Sexual dominance, in social
contacts, 104
Sappho, 214 Sexual Politics (Millett), 50 n.,
Schachter, 56 n.
S., 1 168-169
Schapera, I., 243 Sexual stereotypes, basis of,
Schultz, Adolph, 86 n. 50 n.
Scientists, women as, 212-215 Shakespeare, William, 212
Scott, John 93 n.
P., Shtetl,male role in, 26
Semai tribe, male role in, 244 Singer,
J.
E., 156n.
Senate, U.S., male make-up of, Smith, R. T., 49 n.
124 Social aggression, 94, 96
Seward, Georgine, 126 n. Social behavior, leadership and,
Sex 29
personal identity and, 229 Social contacts, sexual domi-
preselection of, 149-150 nance in, 104
social behavior and, 50 n. Social evolutionary theory, 52-
status and, 73 53
superiority in, 24 Social exaggeration, of male
Sex differences dominance, 123
aggression and, 97 Social institutions, emotion
behavioral manifestations of, and, 150
116-117 Socialization
biologicalcomponent of, 174 biological reality and, 108-
performance and, 189-191 110, 147
race and, 127-128 female status and, 106-107
Sex differentiation gender and, 80-82, 84 n.,
in cognitive aptitudes, 187- 85 n.
210 Social organization, 121-122
need for, 115-118 Social realities, biological fac-
Sex distribution, improvement tors in, 120
in, 149-150 Social Structure (Murdock),
Sex drive 58-59
aggression and, 98 Social values, hormonalization
celibacy and, 224 of, 135
denial of, 159-160 Societal variation, 29-73
254
Index
Society Testosterone level

clash with biological natures, in adolescence, 108-109
142-143 aggression and, 85-90
emotionality in, 25-26 virilization and, 95
limits of male aggression in, in women, 95-96, 162 n.
121-122 Theory
patriarchy in, 31-32 nature of, 7-10
sex differentiation in, 115- necessity for, 158-159
118 Thurnwald, Richard, 44 n.
socialization by, 106-110, Tiefer, Leonore, 86 n.
147, 172 "Tomboy ism," 84 n.
Soviet Union Trobriand Islanders, sexual
male authority in, 46 roles among, 48
male leadership in, 125 Turnbull, Colin M., 119-120
women chess players in, 192
women doctors in, 171 United States, male aggression
Spiro, Melford, 126 n. 41-43
in,
Status see also Male aggression
biological advantage in, 105 Universality, meaning of, 61-
physical strength and, 139 65
"Status attainment behavior,"
80 Vaerting, M., 57 n.
"Status of women," 68-73 Violence, feminine control of,
Steiner, Gary A., 194 n. 232
Stephens, William N., 39-41, Virilization, testosterone and,
42 43, 239, 242-243
n., 95
Stoller, Robert, 50 n., 84 n.
Strength, aggression as, 98-99 Waehrer, Helen Youngelson,
Subjection of Women, The 60 n.
(Mill), 51 n. Ward, Lester Frank, 55
Suomi, Stephen J., 78 n. Wealth, authority and, 153
Superego development, sexual Weber, Max, 42 n.
differences in, 176 Wechsler, David, 194 n.
Superiority-inferiority, meaning Weisstein, Naomi, 155 n., 156
of, 24-28 n., 157 n.
Survival, environmental factors Whalen, Richard E., 89 n.
in, 148 Wife, male dominance and,
Sweden, male leadership in, 37 n.
125 Williamson, Robert C, 126 n.
Wilson, Roger H., 202 n.
Tallness, as social value, 182 Witkin, H. A., 194 n.
Tasks, male status in, 47 Wolfe, Donald M., 36 n.
Tchambuli (New Guinea), Woman
male role in, 39, 43-44 concept of, 23
Testes, in fighting of mice, 88 as creator, 25
255
Index
Woman's Place (Epstein), 172 percentage of in U.S. work

Women force, 46
in arts and sciences, 211-218 physiological imperatives of,
in bureaucracy, 111 233
career vs. family for, 224 power advantage of, 36 n.
central role of, 227 respect for, 69, 72
as chess players, 191-192 sex drive in, 180
childbirth and, 146-147 socialization of, 106
as composers, 212, 214-215 "status" of, 68-73
in day-care centers, 144 superfamilial roles of, 42 n.
"discrimination" against, testosterone level of, 95-96,
145-147 162 n.
as doctors in Soviet Union, Women and the Public Interest
171 (Bernard), 172
equal pay and work for, 226 Women's "rights," 68-69
government roles of, 124- Work, Murray S., 91 n.
125 Work force, women in, 46
in high-status areas, 145
"inferior" feelings in, 116- X-factor, aggression and, 91
117
leadership roles "barred" to, "Yegali" tribe, 239, 245
106 Young, W., 89 n.
logic of, 204-207
"oppression" of, 113-114 Zelditch, Morris, 47 n., 48
256
(continued from front flap)
point of view that is meant to influence people's
behavior, nor does he say or imply that any
masculine quality is superior to any feminine
quality.
The Inevitability of Patriarchy is a major ad-
dition to the literature of human self-under-
standing. It will be discussed widely, argued
over, praised and damned. But, assuredly, it
will be required reading for anyone who wishes

to consider seriously the relationship between
men and women in our world.
Steven Goldberg was born and raised and

presently lives in Manhattan. He has been in
the Department of Sociology at City College
for four years.
WILLIAM MORROW & COMPANY, INC.

105 Madison Avenue
New York, N.Y. 10016
*S6 0-688-00175-0
Advance Praise for
THE INEVITABILITY OF PATRIARCHY
no one who wishes to be taken seriously on the subject of
"I believe
sex roles
and political authority, or
on all the questions of the nature of male-female
relationships, can ignore The Inevitability
of Patriarchy. Its logical elegance
and extensive scholarship give the book an authority that
contrasts with the
shallowness of the popularizations and ideological tracts
that have been re-
sponsible for the spread of somuch misinformation."
—Ibtihaj Arafat, The City College of New York
"The Inevitability of Patriarchy
is a delightful, intellectually refreshing
tour
de force. . . . Seldom have
seen a theory in the social sciences so rigorously
I
advanced, and seldom have I found such pleasure in seeing
an idea unfold.
Goldberg has a gift for making bold arguments sound plausible.
. . .
He is
scrupulously fair in his treatment of those views—particularly
the feminists'—
that attempt to contradict his theory. He is especially
careful to note that this
book does not constitute an expression of 'male chauvinism'; only on
spurious
grounds can his book be offered in defense of the proposition that
males are
superior to females." —Noel S. Iverson, The University of New Brunswick
"I find The Inevitability of Patriarchy first-rate.
To me the strong points are
Steven Goldberg's elegant handling of sociological theory—
his explication of
what theory is and to what extent it can be 'air tight' and then
his highly
ethical handling of his argument. A book that could have
descended to cheap
polemics is rescued by his continuous judicious tone and his
fair-minded
openness to opposing arguments." —Richard Birdsall, Connecticut College
"The Inevitability of Patriarchy
is coolly, tightly, cogently, and even
brilliantly
reasoned. demolishes the position of the feminists and does so with more
It
concern for truth and human values than they show. It is the only
work I
have so far seen that links biology to social and political organization cogently."
—
Morton A. Kaplan, The University of Chicago
"I wanted to be sure that my enthusiasm for The Inevitability
of Patriarchy
was not merely idiosyncratic; and so I loaned it to three women, all of whom
are dispassionate and knowledgeable on these issues, to get some
sense of their
reaction, which was as enthusiastic as mine. It is, I think, a
marvelous book,
impeccably reasoned and vigorously argued."
—Joseph Adelson, The University of Michigan
"The Inevitability of Patriarchy is a major statement in the growing debate

over the contribution of biology to the shaping of human behavior. It is
a
scholarly work that no one interested in the status of women in society —and
who is not? —can afford to miss."
—Edward Sagarin, The City College of New York
WILLIAM MORROW & COMPANY, INC

105 Madison Avenue
New York, N.Y. 10016

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Inevitability of Patriarchy - Why The Biological Difference Between Men and Women Always Produces Male Domination by Steven Goldberg

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INEVITABILITY OF

tions, this is the first that attempts to demon-

limitations on social possibility. Beginning with

He is not, however, a polemicist for a certain

Jacket design by Appelbaum & Curtis

WILLIAM MORROW & COMPANY, INC.

William Morrow & Company, Inc.

New York 1973

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced

Printed in the United States of America.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 73-7385

miwrin i"? NXTrn

Perhaps any preface is, by its nature, superfluous. Certainly

readers that this book is primarily addressed, I suspect that the

that a given theory contains fallacy or that it misrepresents

theory to persuade by demonstrating that the theory makes

still he can severely weaken a theory's ability to persuade by

persuasive, when it survives these challenges, for the same

accurate in its presentation of observation and factual state-

it is the only available or most reasonable logical explanation

nitely greater than that of the theory that is internally illogical

particularly persuasive because, if his cards are the highest on

that this theory reaches conclusions that many readers will

plicit all of the facts and observations that underpin the

faulty, if I have ignored some society whose institutions would

invoke until he uncovers a fallacy of any sort, then I would

tive theories that attempt to explain the same elements of

As long as I am presuming to suggest the way in which

be defended as being merely alternative interpretation. In

differing interpretation; rarely does one find logical contra-

diction (which in itself disproves the analysis to which it is

central) or a presentation of evidence that is blatantly dis-

ternative theories I discuss. Tempting as it would be to expose

the inadequacy of the innumerable peripheral and theoret-

ology, I discuss only the central assumptions on which the

rigid (though, strictly speaking, correct) deductive sense

on questions concerning current biological research are mentioned

I am particularly grateful to the following:

Peter Carstens, Lewis Feuer, Irving Howe, Noel Iverson, Irving

Chapter One: A Question and Some Ground Rules 23

Chapter Two : Anthropology and the Limits of Societal

archy —MaleDominance Defined and Discovered

Chapter Three: The Hormonal Factor 74

Aggression and Attainment — Conforma-

tion to Biological Reality — Discrimination

Chapter Five: The Societal Manifestations of Male

ity — Social Exaggeration of —

gression: Race and Sex

Chapter Six: The Inadequacy of a Nonbiological Ex-

Chapter Seven: Confusion and Fallacy in the Feminist

Nonbiological Explanation — The Hormonal of Basis

-Cicero, Tusculanae Disputationes, 5.27.78

A Question and Some Ground

The Question of Male and Female

ologist, the anthropologist, the psychologist, and the sociol-

ogist are in the debt of the new feminist movement. 1 For if

there is any single question that is at the center of all artistic

Superiority and Inferiority

tempt to explain these attitudes, but if he allows his subjective

essay that at no point am I intimating that science can ever

perior to another, and it is meaningless for the same reason:

should be emphasized that when I refer to "feminists" I refer to

those theoristswho propose an environmentalist analysis of sexually differ-