Sex, Time, and Power

by Leonard Shlain

  Misogyny is a disdain for women and denigration of the values commonly associated with the feminine. Patriarchy is a set of institutionalized social rules put in place by men to control the sexual and reproductive rights of women. An investigation into the root causes of these two will throw light on how we have come to be the way we are today.

  When asked, many men will gallantly express their admiration for women in general and profess a profuse love for their mates in particular. Despite these touching personal testimonials, society is rife with misogyny and patriarchy. A cursory glance at the current newspapers or television news reveals a global society in which the majority of men disdain women. While some cultures are more egalitarian than others, men’s actions suggest that they believe firmly in their superiority over women.

  The historical record presents an even bleaker picture. The Western canon consists of many brilliant tomes written by white males, the overwhelming majority of whom were unapologetic misogynists. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Plato, Aristotle, Paul, Pliny, Jerome, Augustine, Aquinas, Bacon, Luther, Calvin, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Marx, Hegel, and Freud ranged from outright woman-haters to those who weren’t quite so blatant but nevertheless strongly promoted the patriarchal agenda.

  Even during the majestic periods in which human dignity flowered—classical Greece, Renaissance Europe, parliamentary England, revolutionary America, and Enlightenment France—such champions of human rights as Socrates, Pico della Mirandola, Erasmus, Locke, Jefferson, and Voltaire did not consider the need to elevate women from their second-class status an item high on their political agendas. Western culture had to wait until the nineteenth century before a prominent male philosopher, John Stuart Mill, was willing to stand up and speak out for women’s equality.

  The record in non-Western cultures is also dismal. Both Confucius and Buddha were misogynists. Of the few leaders who seemed friendly to women, Jesus, Muhammad, and Lao Tzu stand out, but what they really had to say has been so filtered by subsequent patriarchal commentators that it is difficult now to know exactly what were their true attitudes toward women during their lives. The history of Christianity, Islam, and Taoism darkly demonstrates that the religions that flowed from the teachings of these three influential leaders have been most unkind to women.* In every case, after the death of the founder, men with harsh patriarchal leanings seized the reins of power and revised whatever gentle counsel the originators of these traditions may have had to impart about women.

  Something is awry if the majority of individual men profess their love for women and many of them proclaim they are for equal rights, but the greater society, dominated by these same men, continues to denigrate the feminine and suppress women’s rights. With few exceptions, the social institutions of commerce, religion, the military, education, and government are rife with overt misogyny and unrelenting patriarchy. These stances, pervasive in global policies and culture, are puzzling to comprehend when one considers the attitudes of each man toward women when he begins life.

  The very first person filling a little boy’s world is his mother. His love for her is boundless. His close attentiveness to, dependence on, and affection for her are unmistakable. Watch the eagerness and love that light up a little boy’s face when he catches sight of his mother after a temporary absence. And anyone who observes his mother’s countenance as she beholds her son can recognize that their feelings, with few exceptions, are satisfyingly mutual. The bond in their intense dyad is one of life’s most uplifting events to witness and is a world unto itself.†

  Surely, girls, too, love their mothers and vice versa, but because the subject of this inquiry is misogyny, let us focus on the special relationship between a mother and her son. There is much truth in the saying, “The most important event in a woman’s life is the birth of her son; in a man’s life, it is the death of his father.” One might modify this statement by adding that the most important person in a little boy’s life is his mother. Dying men on a battlefield cry out for their mothers, not their fathers. The last word they utter is likely to be the same as their first—“Mama.”

  Stemming from the remarkable love that a boy has for his mother and the warm reciprocity that flows back over him from her, one would expect a lifelong male inclination to be kindly disposed to the feminine principle in general and to the women in his life in particular. As a rule, no such transfer occurs. Instead, a pervasive, sometimes barely concealed disdain of and unease with the feminine tinges the jokes and conversations among men out of earshot of women. How could this be? If all boys start out loving their mothers and women in general, how is it that every major historical and contemporary society is founded on antithetical principles?

  Psychoanalytic theory answers the question by proposing that, in order for boys to make the transition to men, they must reject the ways of their mothers. Girls aspire to be like their mothers and therefore do not have to undergo this wrenching shift in affiliation. To support their thesis, psychoanalytic writers often submit as evidence the rigorous initiation rites elder men design specifically to separate the men from the boys. Psychoanalytic literature, however, has not thoroughly addressed the question why women would not equally dislike men. Although young girls, in general, passionately love their fathers, they do not seem to have to reject them in order to become complete women.

  Anthropologists have put forward an alternative explanation. Having gained control over the symbol-making authority of language, men became the progenitors of laws, religions, and other key social institutions. By exercising this potent power, men, more than women, set the parameters and directions that dictated the evolution of culture. This came about because of the extreme division of labor between the sexes. At the dawn of our species, private space was under a woman’s sphere of influence but public space fell under the purview of men. Home, hearth, and children were a woman’s responsibility; men retained control over pow-wows, peace pipes, and policy.

  Simone de Beauvoir proposed that hunting made men transcendant because it was an exciting, dangerous occupation. A heroic endeavor, it filled men with resolve. The taking of life paradoxically gave meaning and purpose to a man’s life. In contrast, de Beauvoir observed, women remained immanent. Their daily round of washing, cleaning, and cooking was a repetitive grind and not particularly ennobling, even though men tacitly recognized that the band could not survive without women’s contributions.5 A mother’s primary responsibility to her children denied her the freedom to engage in structuring the society to the degree that men did. Another factor was that meat has always, in all cultures, had a higher value than plant foodstuffs, although most hunter-gatherer societies rely more on women’s gathering than men’s hunting.6

  The crux of the anthropologists’ argument can be distilled in the question raised in an influential article by anthropologist Sherry Ortner in 1974: “Is the Female to Male as Nature Is to Culture?”7 Men, according to Ortner, are traditionally associated with culture, and women with nature. Women’s bodies discharge a variety of fluids during menses, birth, and breast-feeding, connecting them inextricably to the elements of earth and water. Combining a woman’s close link to the cycles of nature and her inseparable association with the mysteries of womb and tomb, men blurred the distinctions between them and in their subconscious conflated women with a force of nature.

  Men’s relationship to nature, for the most part, has always been antagonistic. As protector and provider, men from an early age have dedicated themselves to conquering and subduing nature. At the same time, elders have inculcated in young men the need to uphold and honor their culture and, when called upon by old men who deem it necessary, to die for it.

  In Ortner’s view, men transfer the hostility they harbor toward ice, fang, claw, and storm to women. Culture is a man’s defense against nature. Whether it is the crude lean-to he has fashioned out of saplings, or sturdy hurricane shelters built of concrete and cinder block, the trappings of culture are the ramparts and weapons men have used first to repulse a
nd then to overcome the forces of nature. Using cultural knowledge held in the net of language, they have converted nature’s raw material into tools and weapons to exploit Her. Arising in the breast of men as a result of the culture-nature distinction was a feeling of male superiority. This, along with the other factors discussed above, has fostered an attitude of misogyny that clings tenaciously to contemporary social institutions.

  Another factor contributing to this culture-nature dichotomy is the fear men often have of women’s power. Menses mystifies men, and the potency they have superstitiously attributed to menstrual blood is all out of proportion to this relatively innocuous mix of discarded proteins and expendable red cells. Men ascribe the most astonishing and, in many instances, malevolent attributes to menstrual blood.*

  Menstruation, combined with a woman’s mysterious ability to nurture life within her belly, made men fear and, in some cases, envy her close connection to nature. Her uncanny relationship with the moon could have only added to man’s sense of unease. Further confounding his mind: His irrational fears of women dimly flicker against the backdrop of his repeated hosannas of relief that he was not born a woman.

  Some physiologists place the blame for misogyny and patriarchy squarely at the pedestal of male biochemistry. Homo sapiens’ extraordinarily high levels of testosterone, they point out, lie behind his domineering and sometimes cruel treatment of women. Testosterone builds muscle mass, increases strength and stamina, and fuels aggression.10 Men have as much as ten times more circulating testosterone than women do.

  Testosterone shapes men’s attitudes toward the weak, timid, and cautious, because it makes them want to dominate those around them. This hormone weakens the bonds of attachment and love. Married men have lower levels than single men, and when a man divorces, it rises sharply. Men with high baseline levels of testosterone marry less frequently, are more likely to be abusive when they do, and are more likely to divorce.11 Some physiologists contend that misogyny is an insoluble problem because of this harsh biochemical fact of life.

  Supporting the claim is the correlation between testosterone levels and a man’s attitude toward women. Men are the most misogynistic immediately following puberty. Generally, as men age and their testosterone levels fall, their disposition toward women improves. Some might say it is due to a man’s gaining experience; others would claim that his change of heart has more to do with his failing testicles. I doubt the physiological explanation can account fully for the rampant misogyny present within cultures, because many other animals have significant disparities between male and female testosterone levels and, with a few exceptions, males do not interrelate as malevolently toward females as humans do.12

  The list of attributes Gyna sapiens seeks in a prospective mate is considerably longer than Homo sapiens’ list (if he even has one). Because the standards by which a woman judges a man are more stringent than among any other female animals, men who do not measure up receive an extra dose of frustration. Cross-cultural surveys reveal that a woman seeks a mate higher on the social and intellectual scale than she is. This is true even among women independently successful and wealthy.13 Men, in contrast, are often attracted to women whose physical charms outweigh their wit or standing in the community.14

  The above discussion represents a brief list of some of the theories that have been proposed to account for what Frederick Engels called “the world historic defeat of the feminine.”15 I shall present an alternative to the sketches catalogued above, which I believe may be at the root of the problem.

  In my view, testosterone plays a role, but not quite in the manner that others have envisioned. Misogyny takes root and grows immediately after puberty, when iron and sex become the central issue in every boy’s and girl’s life. During the halcyon days of childhood, boys’ attitude toward girls resembles the apathy that male mammals express toward females that are not in heat. Girls ignore boys nearly as much. And then the rolling wall of puberty, like a giant tsunami wave, slams into young bodies. This is the moment when the political agendas of the sexes sharply diverge, when economic negotiations over sex become paramount, and when men confront the “world historic defeat of the masculine” at the hands of mere girls.

  Prior to the onset of puberty, a boy’s testosterone levels are nearly undetectable. Then the juice of Eros jolts his nervous system with a twenty-to-forty-fold increase. Testosterone floods the young male’s incompletely myelinated brain, creating a dangerous and unstable situation. Among its protean manifestations, the androgenic hormone boosts the level of the male’s sexual tension to unbearable levels. Though frequent masturbation offers him a partial solution, a teenager realizes for the first time in his life that he requires the intimate cooperation of a willing female. Therein lies the problem.

  Boys enjoy playing games. By the time he discovers that he can mime a gun by cocking his thumb above his index finger, a boy seeks out other boys for group play. Put several of them together, and within a few moments they will be engrossed in a cooperative form of play distinguished by clear winners and losers. “Pickup ball,” “choose-up,” “marbles,” and “cops and robbers” require minimal negotiation at the outset. (The arguments start shortly thereafter.) Rarely will a boy refuse an invitation from another boy to join a game. Imagine, then, a postpubertal boy’s surprise and consternation when he first invites a girl to play with him the game that will instantly become the most fascinating and intriguing sport of his young life—the one in which the closer he gets to her bare skin and external openings, the more points he scores.

  It is like no game he has ever played before. The other player is, from all outward appearances, a member of the same species, but the boy soon perceives that he is dealing with an alien. She seems to speak a different language from the one with which he is familiar. Worse, he must play by her rules, and, much to his surprise, despite her smaller stature, she is extremely effective at tenaciously guarding her goal. Initially, he may be convinced that it is he who is in control of the situation; after all, he is the one who initiated the game in the first place. Over time, however, he dimly perceives that she is setting the pace and conditions and, more often than not, that he is acceding to her requests in order to please her.

  In those contemporary cultures in which harsh patriarchy has not yet destroyed a young woman’s exercise of Original Choice, a young man’s initial foray into this unfamiliar arena most likely occurs at a middle-school sock hop. (There is no reason to doubt that some variant of this ritual also occurred in the Pleistocene.) Perhaps the first girl he asks refuses his offer to dance (a skill at which she excels and he has barely learned the rudiments, since dancing was not something terribly interesting to him before his testosteronal transformation). She confounds him by her inexplicable rejection. Rarely in his life has a potential playmate refused to engage in a game. If a conspiratorial peal of giggles among her close group of friends follows her refusal, then, in addition to his feelings of perplexity, his nascent masculinity suffers a crushing blow.

  Undeterred, sometime afterward he will attempt to discover firsthand the consistency of the two fascinating protuberances growing so invitingly on the chest of the student with whom he shares homeroom. Repulsed again, he will quickly learn that, although he considers this a harmless exploration, it, too, is verboten. Her resistance further baffles him, because he thought he had made it clear to her that he did not intend to hurt her but only wanted to satisfy his curiosity. Our young explorer soon comes to the realization that his quest is going to be far more difficult than he had initially anticipated. Perhaps he is fortunate enough to be rich, suave, handsome, strong, athletic, and never at a loss for words. Even if he has all those qualities, convincing a girl to join him in the play called sex will remain a pointed-elbows contest of wills at this stage in their lives.

  Throughout the animal world, females are a scarce resource and males compete among themselves for the right to impregnate them. This struggle may be the invisible death swim of schools
of sperm racing toward a prize only one of them can win, or the very visible and resounding clash of locked horns on the field of battle. Once a male has won the contest among other males for mating rights, he meets virtually no resistance from a female in heat. She desires sexual union as eagerly as he does, because her hormones are firmly in control of her frontal lobe’s Executor (if she even has one). Through impeccable timing, the height of her lustful frenzy coincides with the departure of her eggs from her ovaries.

  The irresistible siren song of her sexual instinct compels a female’s willingness. The vibrations that shake her frame are set in motion by a cocktail of different hormones around the time of her internal ovulation. Estrus, or its equivalent in other female mammals, initiates a distinctive set of behaviors driving a female primate urgently to seek sexual union.

  A biologist appropriately coined the word “estrus” by borrowing the Greek name for the stinging gadfly that harasses cattle. This large insect deposits its microscopic eggs under the beast’s tough hide. When the gadfly’s eggs mature into larvae, their squirming drives the host animal mad with itching. Sexual desire’s most apt metaphor is an itch that must be scratched. (The intense frictioning of human coitus is an exceedingly complicated form of scratching an itch.) The human female is the only mammalian species who we know for sure has lost estrus (or its equivalent). However, what she lost, he seems to have gained; a young male of the human species exhibits ample behavioral indicators signifying that he is in a state of full-blown “estrus” all the time.

  Behind every expectation is a frustration waiting to happen. Sadly, a young man learns, to his eternal disappointment, that the person of the opposite sex upon whom he has just recently focused his attention is balky, recalcitrant, and uncooperative. It is his incredible frustration with his sexual counterpart’s unwillingness to comply with even his simplest sexual advances that begins the baleful dirge of misogyny. Cultural convention and media may reinforce his feelings later, but this is the fount from which it springs. That is exceedingly unfortunate, because his testosterone fog prevents him from seeing the major difference between his agenda and hers. At his young age, he is blithely unaware of the stakes involved—while he indulges himself thinking he is just playing a game, she is playing for keeps. For her, this is not a game but the opening skirmish in a campaign she cannot afford to lose.