Chapter Ten - She Who Must Be Obeyed

Now there is a big mystery about the 20th century that no one seems to comment on. Throughout the last five thousand years of history it has been accepted that men are the dominant sex. This was true up until the end of the 19th century when women all over the world had less rights than a slave. Yet a hundred years later at the end of the 20th century women in the West have equal opportunity? What suddenly happened in the 20th century than women have gain more rights and power than they had over the last four thousand years?

In answer to this question people look to the work of the Suffragettes, women’s Liberation Movement and Feminists. Yet to be frank women have had it easy. If we say compared the Feminist struggle with say with the civil rights struggle of black people in USA, there is no comparison. The savage violence that black people have had to endure is incredible, with white lynch mobs being able to hang black people without fear of the law, and even today the vast majority of the prison population in USA are black people, as they are the poorest sections of the community.

It is true some Suffragettes and Feminists have been victims of violence but it has not been in the same league as endured by black people, or even trade unionist fighting for workers rights. So why has it been the case that men have successfully kept women in virtual slavery for thousands of years have suddenly caved in to Feminists demands, and gone belly up, without hardly a fight? Though I have to say this is not true in many Moslem countries where Feminists have been beaten up and murdered.

If you take a cork and hold it underwater it is very easy to hold it down but it will only stay there while you keep holding it in that position. If at any time you arm gets tired or you get fed up with keeping the cork underwater, and then let go, the cork will automatically rise to the top. This concept gives a good metaphor of what is happening today in the politics of female power.

For anyone who has read the history of patriarchy over the last five thousand years what it very striking is the great efforts needed to keep women powerless. Up until the end of the 19th century, there were laws to ensure that women couldn’t own any property or wealth. As the law stated that her father or husband owned everything a woman had. The law also make it very difficult for any woman to inherit property. Women were also barred from all jobs and professions except being a housewife, servant or prostitute. So women were unable to acquire any wealth of power in her own right. Husbands were also encouraged to dominate their wives, and women had to swear to obey their husbands when they were married. The law even gave husbands the right to beat their wives with either a stick or whip.

In other cultures the laws oppressing women were even stricter than in the Western world. It was traditional for the Somalis people of Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti for a bride to start married life with a flogging from their husbands. It seems the newly wedded husband would wait for her in the bridal chamber with a whip in his hand. This was also true with the Sifon people of Tibet, who traditionally would again start of married life with the husband whipping his bride. In many places like Sicily, Ethiopia and Eastern Europe where it was commonplace for men to choose their bride through kidnap and rape. A young man would pick out which girl he wanted to marry and then with a few friends kidnap and rape her. The girl was then force by social custom to marry her rapist. This went on in Sicily up until the 1960s and it still goes on in Ethiopia.

In India there is the custom of “Suttee”. This is where when a husband dies his wife is put on the funeral pile to be burnt alive. So what are the origins of this very barbaric custom? It seems that in the past women would frequently poison their husbands, so to discourage this all women were made to die with their husbands. So the Suttee tradition was created by a brutal sex war between men and women in India, which men finally won by simply being more violent than women.

In China there was the tradition of foot binding. Again this is a very strange custom, but the end result is that women were left crippled. So this tradition suggest that at one time men were so frighten of they women that they had to cripple them to be able to dominate them.

Yet we are taught at school and in our history books that men have always been the dominant sex going back to early Stone Age. The irony is that if it is natural for men to be the dominant sex why do then men had to create very oppressive laws and customs against women? If it is natural for men to be the dominant sex then they shouldn’t need any laws, custom or propaganda to keep their place as the dominant sex. For instance they only reason way we have laws against stealing is because many people do steal. If people didn’t steal there would be no reason to have laws against this behaviour. The same is true of all customs and traditions. The custom of marriage with people swearing to be true to each other is only needed because people do tend to have sex outside of marriage. If pair bonding was completely natural for human beings then we wouldn’t need customs like marriage, enforced by laws and social censure.

This then means that oppressive laws and customs to keep women in a subservient position suggests that it is not natural for women to be the submissive sex. If it was natural for men to be the dominant sex then there would be no reason for men to have oppressive laws and customs to keep women in bondage.

If you think about it, from the time the original Aryan invaders conquered Matriarchal communities in southern Europe to the start of Christianity and Islam was about 3,000 years. This means the Patriarchs needed 3,000 years of brainwashing all men and women into believing that our Creator was a male, that sex, childbirth, and menstruation was sinful or dirty and that women was inferior to men. This suggests that women were held in such high regard in ancient times that the original patriarchal invaders with all the advantages of violence and intimidation still took thousands of years to overcome the power of women.

If we compared this with what is happening today, where women in a position of complete powerlessness in the 19th century, has in just over a 100 years gained near equality with men. Through the undermining of the patriarchal religion Christianity we can now see women rapidly rise to power once again. So it is like a holding a cork underwater. It is easy to hold the cork down, but once you let go the cork rises to the surface. Patriarchy could only keep women down while it was actively suppressing them, and when the pressure was release we know find women are naturally moving back to ruling society once again. This suggests to me, that it is probably natural for human beings to be ruled by women.

Not only has women gain political power over the last hundred years but the relationship between men and women are also changing rapidly. With the undermining of the many customs, beliefs and social conventions that men are the dominant sex, the personal relationships between men and women are rapidly changing. It is now more commonplace for women to openly claim they are the head of the household and we even now have househusbands. While sexually attitudes are also changing, from very tiny beginnings during the early 1970s the FemDom sex industry has grown strongly and steadily.

It has been patriarchal religions like Christianity and Islam that has been in the forefront oppressing women. Even today extreme Islam countries try to force women to wear facial screens and discourage female education. Restrictions like this wouldn’t be needed if men didn’t fear the power of women. In the past Christianity used extreme violence against women. In the infamous Witch hunts of the medieval age the vast majority of millions of people who were tortured and burnt alive were women. Suggesting again a real fear of women becoming too powerful.

It was only the decline of the power of Christianity in the Western world through the rise of science that took away the oppression of women. With the ending of oppressive laws and customs throughout the 20th century women have quickly gained near equality with men. I know to us a hundred years might seem a long time but in historical terms it is very quick, for such a far-reaching social change. If this rate of progress for women was to continue during the 21st century then clearly women will be ruling the world within a hundred years.

It has been claimed that, “the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world”. Now at first sight this seems to be a stupid saying because it a woman’s hand that rocks the cradle and women are clearly not ruling the world, and never have done in recorded history. Yet it is still quoted because within it is a kernel of truth. Patriarchal religions and oppressive dictatorships like Nazism and Communism know that it is very important to brainwash children from a very early age. The Roman Catholic Jesuits boasted that, “give us a child for the first seven years and we have him for life”.

Children up until the 20th century were basically brutalised in the Western world. It was normal for parents and schoolteachers to cane, birch and whip children. Favourite saying then were, “spare the rod and spoil the child”, “children should be seen but not heard” and “if you see a child look guilty. Hit him. You may not know what it is for, but he does”. Children were brutalise even as babies. Male “experts” wrote, that a crying baby was being wilful, and mothers where encouraged not to pick up crying baby. They were also told a baby that cried too much was to be put in a room and lock the door to let it cry itself to sleep. Then infants the moment they began to walk and talk they were subjected to physical punishment. (Boys in general were punished more severely than girls.) This was done not only to teach children discipline from a very early age. It was also done to make, “real men” out of boys. In other words by being brought up in a environment of violence, the children naturally became violent themselves. They then make good soldiers and they are able to kill without pity and they are more likely to, “keep women in their place”.

Then as the 20th century progressed, women not only gained power over their own bodies but their children as well. Female child experts and more moderate child male experts like Dr Spock began to write books on child care. The development continued to the point that today what was normal for children in the 19th century, would be seen today as child abuse.

Children in the past were subjected to sexual abuse as well. That man who the “whistle blower” was surprisingly a young Sigmund Freud. In the past men have got away with child sex abuse scot-free. Then in 1896 a young Sigmund Freud presented a paper entitled "The Aetiology of Hysteria". In this paper he said he had discovered that the neuroses suffered by his patients stemmed from sexual assaults and violence they had suffered as young children, with most of these assaults coming from their own fathers, brothers or other male relations in "respectable middle class" homes. This paper went down like a lead balloon and his colleges put great pressure was put on him to suppress his paper. Which was singled out from all the other papers presented in Vienna in 1896 to not be published in psychoanalysis's Journal "Wiener Klinische Wochenschrift". Moreover no discussion of his work was allowed. In the end Freud caved in. (he wasn’t a Wilhelm Reich). To save his career Freud did suppress his paper and then came up later with other theories like "Penis envy" and the "Oedipus complex" to explain neuroses. Which hinted at child sex abuse but never openly said it. These theories explained how the abused child felt and how it will affect them later. Unfortunately because these children were in reality were abused, but this fact was censored, this meant that the blame of the neuroses was put on the abused and not the abuser.

Now child sexual abuse is out in the open and not even Roman Catholic priests find they can get away with it. The result is that now children are being far less sexually and physically abused in the Western world. This lack of childhood abuse is causing men to be far less assertive, while women are becoming far more confident in themselves. So what is happening today was predicted back in the 19th century. When it was claimed that if you didn’t “harden” (brutalise) boys they will become wimps.

The degree Western men have become wimps can be seen, as previously mentioned, in the number of suicides of soldier after both the Vietnam and Falklands wars. There are probably similar figures for the first Gulf war but the “Gulf War Syndrome” obscures these. (This is going on in spite of the extremely violent film; TV programmes and video games young people are encouraged to watch.) To some people today, it is terrible that our young men are losing their, “manhood”, but if we want to live in a world of non-violence and peace, this is a very good thing. It is of interest that the most violent group of men in USA and UK are those of African decent. Black people seem to have been left behind in the reform of child rearing as many young black children are still routinely beaten by their parents. So it is not surprisingly that young black men still tend to be very violent. Though it also doesn’t help that more black people are unemployed or work for low wages, than any other ethnic group in Western societies.

If you watch sport or action adventure movies you might be forgiven for thinking that men are really strong creatures. Well I’m afraid to tell all you “macho” guys out there, but compared but for its size and weight the human animal is just about the weakest animal in the world. Arnold Schwarzenegger is a weakling compared with an average adult chimpanzee.

In most animals it seems that the males fight over the right to mate with the females. We see this clearly animals like cattle and deer where the males head butt each other until the weakest male backs down and the strongest mate with the females. We also see the same behaviour among cats and dogs and other carnivorous animals where it is the strongest and most aggressive male is more likely to mate.

Now the advantage of this according to Darwin’s theory of evolution is that the strongest and fittest males will mate and past down their genes to the next generation. So this means that the weaker males are eliminated from the gene pool of any species. This seems to work very well with many species of animal but there are exceptions like us Human beings and bonobos.

What is remarkable about us as a species of animal is how weak we are. An average male chimpanzee is about three times as strong as the average man, even though he is smaller in statue, while the gorilla is about four times the strength of humans. This is also true of any other animal of about our size. A deer, dog or big cat of about the same weight as a human can run 3 to 5 times faster than the average human. While one blow from a big cat or large ape will kill even a very strong man.

So why has the Human become so weak compared with other animals of a equal size? Does this suggest that some time during Human evolution the need for males to compete with each other to mate with females no longer became a important for the survival of the species? This can be seen clearly in the relationship between the Neanderthal man and the first modern Humans over 40 thousand years ago in Europe. The skeletons of the Neanderthals showed they were far stronger and more heavily built than modern Humans living at that time. Both species had about the same size brains and both used tools. Yet it was the Neanderthals that became extinct and not the physically weaker modern Humans. So it seems that the increased intelligence and tool making ability of Humans made the need for physical strength no longer an important aspect of survival.

The relationship between the Neanderthal and the first modern humans we can see in two species of chimpanzees today. The Congo River in Africa is one of the largest rivers in the World and is in some places it is over 10 miles wide. The result of this is that the chimpanzee living on different sides of the Congo River have evolved into two different species. Living on one bank is the normal chimpanzee you see in other parts of Africa but on the other bank is the bonobo. In spite of its name it is not really smaller but is more lightly built than the heavier and stronger Common chimpanzee.

Bonobos males like humans do not compete with each other through fighting for the right to mate with females. This is what makes both species physically weaker than chimpanzees and other animals of a similar size.

It is a curious fact that in all the Lemur species of Lemur on the island of Madagascar the female is the dominant sex. It has be observed many times by biologists, That if a male lemur approaches a female before she has finished feeding, he is swiftly put in his place. Female lemurs drive males away from food until they and their young have eaten and will even jump at them, bite them or cuff them. Then the male will retreat and give a submissive call.

Unlike with bonobos this behaviour is not re-enforced by a powerful lesbian sisterhood. It seems to be a part of male Lemur’s genetic behaviour. It has also been observed that when adult males begin issuing submissive signals to adolescent females, the young females are taken by surprise. After a while they figure out what's going on and enjoy it, demanding that the adult males play with them. It also seems that young females also play more than males, a behaviour commonly linked to dominance in young male mammals.

The theory put forward by the biologists observing this behaviour is that it is caused by the extreme weather conditions on Madagascar, which makes it very tough for the wild life living there. During four months of the year, the island experiences torrential downpours that nourish the lemurs' food supplies of leaves and fruits. The other eight months of the year tend to be cold and dry. During these dry spells, lemurs rely on low quality foods like bamboo pith. Overall, survival is very difficult, more so for the female, than the male. Pregnancy and providing milk for infants require energy. So Lemurs cannot afford the luxury of males assaulting females, pinching female’s food or even feeding before the female and her young. This means having males who are very submissive towards female is a very important consideration for the survival of the species. Lemur groups with alpha males would quickly die out because only the males would survive. This is because they would hog the short supply of food in the dry months, and the female and young would be first to die. While in female dominated groups even if only one male survives a bad year he is still able to fertilise all the females in the group. So survival pressures have made Lemurs on Madagascar matriarchal.

Scientist now believe that the Neanderthals died out because of the changing climate of Europe at the time of their extinction. But the mystery is why it was the Neanderthals that died out and not the first modern humans. As the bones of Neanderthals show they were physically far stronger than humans. This suggests this was brought about in evolutionary time by Neanderthals males fighting each other in a test of strength for the right to mate, with only the strongest males reproducing. This makes the species far stronger than humans. Who because of their weaker body strength it shows that the male humans were not fighting each other for dominance and right to mate. If we assume that the physically powerful Neanderthal had a similar society to present day chimpanzees, then females being at the bottom of the pecking order would have to always give way to males in disputes over food. Now this wouldn’t be a problem when they had food in abundance. Yet we know during the ice age because of times of rapidly changing climates, food became very difficult to obtain at certain times. So it would only be the alpha males who were allowed to feed and survive. The females and their children being at the bottom of the pecking order would be the first to die, and even if some survived they would be so undernourished that they would be unlikely to be able to give birth and feed their young. This means that in times of scarcity the evolutionary strategy of only allowing the most strongest and most aggressive males to breed would work against the Neanderthals, because although the alpha males would survive they would be incapable of breeding a new generation.

On the other hand the weaker modern humans that no longer had this evolutionary strategy. Their weak and slight bodies suggest they would be more like the bobobos with female at the top of the pecking order. It would then be more likely the alpha females that would survive in times of scarcity. The deaths of the lower order males wouldn’t be such a problem because it would only require a few males to survive to continue the breeding of the species. In that one male can father hundreds children of different mothers. It wouldn’t even matter if the male dies after he has done his job, of fertilising the females, as the caring of the children he fathered would be in the hands of the mothers.

This then means that in the changing climate conditions which brought about the extinction of the Neanderthals, it would be humans a matriarchal society that would be more likely to survive.

It is true that in recorded history we have lived in a patriarchal society and this may of come about because of agriculture and the abundance of food that this created. While humans lived conditions where survival was difficult. It would mean that matriarchal tribes would be the one who would survive and continue to breed. Certainly in the time of the Ice Age and the changing weather conditions made survival for all animals difficult. Then once the Ice Age had ended and the climate settled down into a stable pattern and human intelligence found ways to acquire an abundance of food. Like when humans began to grow crops and herd animals. Then the advantages of living in a matriarchal society for survival declined. This would allow patriarchal tribes ruled by alpha males to be created. They in turn make war on their more peaceful matriarchal neighbours who would be defenceless against organised male violence. In these conditions of abundance of food put females on the lower end of the pecking order as patriarchy would no longer be a threat to the survival of the tribe. This allowed men to indulge in their favourite pastime of war with other tribes, and so over a few thousand years the whole world would become patriarchal through this violence and warfare

So the study of bonobos gives support to the work of Mariji Gimbutas. It also gives a reason why Neanderthals became extinct and not our ancestors.

What is clear is that men can only become the dominant sex by enforcing through violence and propaganda oppressive laws and customs against women. This means that it is not natural for men to be the dominant sex if men have to brutalise each other to become violent and dominant. If we get rid of all these artificial laws and customs created by patriarchal men and follow our natural instincts then we may end up with an equal society. Or we might end up with a female dominated world.

Chapter Eleven - The Aquatic Ape

Recent Video of Elaine Morgan talking to university students.

Scientists have for a long time puzzled over why humans are so different from other animals. In the early 20th century it was simple, it was because humans developed larger brains than any other animal. So because men had bigger brains, they could figure out how to walk on two legs, how to speak and make tools. The problem with this theory is that the elephant, and most species of dolphins and whales have larger brains than us. So a theory was developed that intelligence relied on a brain v body weight ratio. There was no scientific proof that this theory was correct, but then you can’t have another allow another animal to be more intelligent than man, can you? More so, if you are the one making up the rules.

It was the same when I.Q. tests were invented, also in the early 20th century. The first time they tried it out they discovered according to the tests, women were smarter than men. So of course the tests must be wrong. They had to fiddle about with I.Q. tests until they came up with the “correct” results that made men smarter then women. After all women had smaller brains than men and were too emotionally unstable to vote. So they couldn’t possibly be smarter than men.

These men also decided that it was hunting skills that made man so intelligent. It must be this, because hunting is very much a “macho” pursuit. It couldn’t possibly be anything to do with gathering because that is a female thing. As in the Stone-Age communities that have survived into modern times it was observed that men do the hunting and women gathered food. So it must be hunting skills that made men so intelligent. It also made man number one on the food chain. (In no way does man what to be number two, that is to say a plant eater and have carnivores feed off him). And it confirmed he was always ruthless and aggressive as well as the superior sex. So from this, the Great White Hunter theory was created.

Then in the 1960s a scientist called Alistair Hardy noticed that the blubber around a seal was very similar the fat around a human. Now fat is commonplace in all aquatic animals but rare in land mammals. This is because fat is a better protector against the cold in water than fur, while fur is a far better insulator for a land animal than fat. From this Hardy began to wonder if we were once an aquatic creature. (Hardy as it turns out wasn’t the first scientist to make this observation, but he was the first scientist to publicise it). He also wondered if it would make sense of why we are also the only primate that is hairless. He notes that other hairless creatures like dolphins, hippos, pigs and manatees are aquatic or semi-aquatic animals. Being hairless only makes sense if you spend a large amount of time in water or swamps, where hair can get wet and drag you down.

This theory immediately received the thumbs down by the scientific community. A typical reaction came from Prof. Emeritus Phillip Tobias FRS, -

“Ever since Sir Alister Hardy put it forward in 1960, it has been scorned, derided, made fun of. Nobody has really taken it seriously. You either burst into guffaws of uncontrollable laughter or you tap your head in respect of the person speaking it.”

With reactions like this, Hardy dropped it like a hot potato. (He was street wise enough to know that to advocate an unpopular theory would ruin his scientific career). Fortunately it was taken up by the Feminist, Elaine Morgan, who has since developed it further. As she is a journalist and screenplay writer, she had to intellectual freedom to write about the theory without fear of jeopardising her career. If she had an academic career it would of been ruined by the hostility of other academics to this theory.

The beauty of the Aquatic Ape theory is that it explains so much about how humans evolved from being so much different than any other ape.

For instance bipedalism, the great white hunter theory claims that man walked on two legs to see above the high African grass on the savannah. The problem with this theory is that you also have large numbers of grazing animals eating this grass. So these conditions don’t last for very long and would only be a temporary situation every year.

Yet in the past there was another ape, which was biped like us. This was the long-extinct Oreopithecus, known as the swamp ape, which means it was also probably a aquatic ape. Scientists have found it had a pelvis like ours, making suitable for bipedalism. In modern times the two primates that are able to walk upright are the proboscis monkey who lives in the mangrove swamps of Borneo. (This is a real swimming primate and some have been found by fishermen swimming in the ocean.) Also the bonobo who lives in forests that are seasonally flooded every year. Both species wade through the water in a similar way to human beings, so this suggests that bipedalism in primates come from living in flooded or swampy areas.

Although there is another primate that stands on two legs and that is the sifaka or leaping lemur of Madagascar. Unlike some species of ape like gibbons or chimpanzees who use long powerful arms to swing among the trees. These lemurs are leapers and will use long powerful legs to leap from branch to branch or even from tree to tree. Some have been observed to leap as far as 30 feet from one tree to another. The problem for these Lemurs is that when they come to the ground their legs are so long that they are unable to walk on four legs. This means they are forced to stand upright and jump or skip along the ground, so why couldn’t of this happened to humans? Because like Sifakas our legs are too long of us to comfortably walk on all fours.

The bonobo like many primates have almost the same length of arms and legs. The chimpanzee developed from a bonobo like ancestor to become a swinger, resulting in long powerful arms, to swing through the trees. So it would be logical that humans evolved from the same ancestor to become a leaper. To leap through the trees which resulted in the development of long powerful legs. Which would force humans to walk upright when they had to walk on the ground. This could happen simply because of the types of trees these apes lived in. Some found themselves in trees where it was easier to swing through them, developing the chimpanzee. Others found themselves in trees where it was easier to leap from tree to tree, developing the hominid type ape. While others were living in trees where there was no advantage in becoming a specialist leaper or swinger, resulting in the bonobo. This would then give a great advantage to the hominid ape when they came to ground. Because walking on two legs it would have its hands free to pick up things it might need to carry, or develop tool-making skills. Bonobos and chimpanzees have been observed to use tools but are restricted by the fact they also use their hands for locomotion either on the ground or in trees.

This occurred to me years ago when I saw a picture of a sifaka and read why it could only stand upright on the ground. Being young and very naïve I couldn’t understand why scientists had overlooked a obvious reason why humans had become bipeds. It is only now being much older and wiser, I realise that scientists are not going to be interested in such a explanation, because it doesn’t in any way support the Great White Hunter theory. Anyway lemurs are highly suspect because the males as so wimpy that they give way to female in all disputes. Clearly male lemurs lack moral fibre, and so not “real men”, so the least said about these creatures the better. We wouldn’t want yellow belly male lemurs contaminating the “macho” Great White Hunter theory, would we? So hopefully they will go away, if we forget about them. Which is what they might do, as some species of lemurs in Madagascar are considered the most endangered of all species of primates.

The Aquatic ape camp also wouldn’t be interested in the leaper idea because again it doesn’t in any way help their theory. So anyway, to continue to explain this theory. Human being have voluntary breath control, which is unusual for land animals but commonplace for aquatic mammals. Voluntary breathing is need for aquatic mammals because they need to hold their breath to stay underwater for long lengths of time. The adaptations resulting in this has also allowed humans to speak.

At one time scientist believed that only humans had language. (Because man is so much smarter than any other animal, right?) Then a maverick scientist Dr John C. Lilly put forward the research that showed that both dolphins and whale also can communicate through sound. Not something that egoist male scientists wanted to hear, so he was either ignored or savagely criticised. Then up popped a husband a wife scientific team, the Gardners. Who also wasn’t a team player either and badly let the side down by training a chimpanzee to speak using deaf and dumb sign language. Again they were savagely criticised by other scientists who had to redefined speech to “prove” that this chimpanzee wasn’t really using language. Perhaps the Gardners were a bit naïve in choosing a female chimpanzee. Had they of trained a male chimpanzee instead, mentioning just how violent and “macho” he was, they may of got more acceptance. It is true that working with adult male chimpanzees is dangerous because of their great strength and aggression. Yet if you want scientific acceptance you have got to do things like this. If they had paired a male with a female chimp this would of established pair bonding, which would of gone down well. Then mention the violence that the male chimpanzee dishes out to the female. Perhaps even have the male chimp sign, “I like bashing females”. Now this would of been very popular, as it establishes he is an O.K. guy. There would be no talk about him not really using language if he said intelligent and sensible things like that.

So it seems that language is not exclusive to humans. Apes don’t speak, simply because they don’t have the vocal ability to do so, not because they are stupid. This is not true of dolphins and whales whom like humans have a large brain and the ability to take conscious control of our breathing. So it seems our ability to take conscious control of our breathing has also resulted in a far greater variety of the sounds we can make, compared with other apes. It is this greater variety of noises we can make, which has resulted in the formation of speech.

Other human characteristics that support the Aquatic Ape theory is that we sweat salt and water from our skin glands. Which for a land animal is a waste, more so in a hot country like Africa, as water is very scarce at certain times of the years. So sweating water is a very inefficient method of keeping cool for a tropical animal. Salt, is also scarce for land animals who will travel a long way to find salt licks. Yet sweating salt makes a lot of sense to aquatic animals that need a way to get rid of an excess of salt in their bodies when swimming in the ocean. Humans can also get rid of excess salt through their tear glands, again something common to aquatic animals but not land animals.

Also being naked is not a good idea in the hot African sun. (Even black people can get sun burnt, or skin cancer from too much sun). Fur protects the skin from the deadly effects of the sun and is also a far better insulator than fat for land animals. This is because a land animal can shed fur in the summer and grow it again in the winter. It can also fluff up fur in the heat, to allow the air to get to its skin to cool down. Or bring the hairs closer to the body, trapping the air in the fur to allow better insulation, in the cold. Fur also makes it far easier for animals to adapt to very cold conditions. In the 19th century when the first zoos were created in Europe they attempted to house tropical animals in heated rooms, but the animals quickly died. So they tried leaving the tropical animals outside and they quickly adapted to the cold by growing thicker fur. It was found that even Russian zoos have no problems in caging tropical animals out in the open, as they grow fur thick enough to adapt to the Russian weather.

It is true that some animals like bears, grow a layers of fat around them for the winter when they hibernate. The trouble is that humans don’t hibernate, not even the Eskimos, who for thousands of years endured dark arctic winters living in Igloos.

So it begs the question: what is a tropical animal like human beings walking around using a layer of fat as insulation? Because another disadvantage is that it is unnecessary weight for us to carry around. If you want to stay alive either as a predator or a plant eater on the African plains, speed is a big advantage. So lightness and strength is very important for most animals the size of humans. It seems the only advantage of the fat we have around our bodies is that fat is a better insulator in water and it gives us buoyancy. This then makes it easier for us to float and swim in the water.

We also have large oil glands in our skin. Again this is of little use to a land animal in that they only need enough oil in their skin to keep out the rain. Aquatic animals on the other hand have very large oil glands to make their fur or skin, waterproof. Our oil glands are as large as that of a aquatic animal, rather than a land animal.

There is an old saying that oysters make you brainy. There is some truth in this as brain tissue needs an adequate supply of Omega-3 fatty acids. Which is found in abundance in fish oil but is very scarce in the food found on land. So living on food from the sea would be a big advantage in helping humans to develop a large brain. Some people also have vestigial webbing between their fingers and toes. Which suggests that at one time the webbing was more pronounced giving us an advantage in swimming.

Just how aquatic humans are, can be seen in the very modern sport of “free-diving”, that is to say diving without the use of oxygen tanks. When scientist observed people doing very deep free-diving they found that there heart beats would go right down until is was barely beating. The lungs were crushed until they had little more space than a drink can. While what little oxygen left in the body is used to just keep the heart and brain going. In other words human body behaves in exactly the same way in a deep dive without diving gear as a whale or dolphin. Free divers now go deeper than the rescue divers that tried to save the crew of the doomed Russian Kursk submarine. The Norwegian divers in this rescue bid had to spent five days recovering in a decompression chamber. While a free diver do not suffer from bends at all. It seems that the first moment cold water hits the face of a human diving in the water the human body starts to behave like a aquatic animal.

Which makes it more than capable of dealing with the problems of deep diving. On August 17, 2002- a new Freediving World Record has been set by Tanya Streeter, at a depth of 160m/525ft in a total dive time of 3 minutes and 26 seconds. This dive shatters the previous women's No Limits World Record held by Canadian, Mandy-Rae Cruickshank (136m/446ft) and even surpasses the men's No Limits World Record of 154m/505ft held by Frenchman, Loic LeFerme.

There is a lot of other points that have been put forward by Elaine Morgan like the fact that human legs are very similar in shape and mechanic function to that of a frog. Which is adapted to make it easier for both frogs and humans to swim better. Some mothers today have, water births where the mother gives birth in a tub of water. Apparently birth like this is made a lot easier for mothers suggesting that at one time in our evolution this was commonplace. Also it has been found that newborn babies can float and swim straight away after birth. Whereas with other apes, like a new born chimpanzee or gorilla, it will quickly sink and drown, if not rescued. Water births are not just some new-age fad. There is a tribe in Indonesian called the Suku laut, or the "Sea People", who live a semi-aquatic existence. The Sea People spend up to 10 hours every day in the water, they give birth in the water, and the children dive before they walk and the people harvest all their food from the sea.

So how did our ape ancestors become aquatic? It seems that for a ape that can use it’s hands to pick up things from the ground and wade through water, shell fish and edible seaweed would be a very easy way to obtain food. Unfortunately if too many apes take advantage of this, the shallows will quickly become over fished. Forcing them either to mover further along the coast, or to start to dive under water further out. Clearly at first it they would just quickly duck their heads under the water, to collect shellfish deeper than a arms length. Then in time becoming specialist feeders their bodies would adapt to going further and further out to sea.

So you can see there is a very strong arguments for the Aquatic Ape theory. Yet most male scientists still resist this theory. To quote the Anthropologist Prof. Leslie Aiello

“Until there is actual evidence to support a serious aquatic involvement, I don't think that we're going to be able to say that that's at all a contender for a theory for human evolution.”

There is no actual evidence of the man the hunter theory, but this hasn’t stop scientists presenting it to the public as fact. In recent times they are backtracking they now call it the savannah theory and acceptance that early humans might of scavenged for food instead of hunting. There is even a acceptance nowadays, that the mighty hunter might be black! Elaine Morgan now has the confidence to declare that the Man The Hunter theory is defunct. Yet she is clearly puzzled that with all the weight of evidence she can present for her theory, it is still not widely accepted in the scientific community. As we can see from the quotes from two other scientists.

"It is difficult to see how all the points assembled to back the Aquatic Theory can be explained away." - Dr. Desmond Morris, author of 'The Naked Ape'

"The aquatic hypothesis... cannot be eliminated yet." - Prof. Glyn Isaac

Now this begs the question: Why does this theory need to be, explained away or eliminated? Or for that matter why is the Aquatic Ape theory so popular among Feminists but extremely unpopular among male scientists? Is it because of a very strong gender bias in comparing the Man The Hunter theory with the Aquatic Ape theory?

Apart from the fact that the Aquatic Ape theory doesn’t in any way support the ideal of man the mighty hunter, another big problem with this theory is that women are more adaptable to water than men. Because women have less body hair than men, and have more body fat. So what is the problem with that? The trouble is that when we look at modern day communities that still dive for shellfish we find that women have a distinct advantage.

There is a group of islands between southern Japan and southern Korea where before the tourist trade got going, the main source of food and income on these islands was shellfish and edible seaweed. Which is harvested by female divers.

To quote, a Korean travel guide:

Women have dominated this profession because they are physically better suited for it than men, women possess a higher percentage of subcutaneous fat, which insulates them from cold, allowing a longer stay in the water. Thus, it has long been customary for Cheju-do's men to mind the children at home while the women work, culling shellfish, seaweed, and sea urchins from the seabed, on which many of the island's inhabitants depend for subsistence and livelihood. Ranging in age from 10 to 60, these women divers can plunge as deep as 45 to 60 feet and stay underwater for as long as three to five minutes without the aid of breathing equipment. The average dive, however, lasts about 30 seconds at a depth of 15 or 20 feet.”

The Cheju-do women are referred to by some Korean commentators as Amazons, because they are far more assertive than ordinary Korean women. In the extremely “macho” society of Korea, these women and their “weak” husbands are an embarrassment, and for this reason knowledge about Cheju-do customs were once kept quiet.

The Japanese islands have a similar story to quote, the late Jacques Cousteau.

For 1500 years in ancient Japan, as well as neighbouring Korea, these women have traditionally dived for pearls. At least 30,000 of their kind remain. Today they mostly dive for food. Wearing only a loincloth, they have begun to wear masks and snorkels within the 20th century. They dive both during the warm summers and the cooler winter months when temperatures can reach 50º F. They plunge to depths of 20 to 80 feet – sometimes 100 – to gather food, in the form of shellfish and seaweed, which they place in a net around their waists. They learn to dive around puberty and do not stop till they are about 60 years old. They are known to dive right up to the point of childbirth and having given birth, resume shortly after, nursing their infants between dives! A similar group of women once dived in the wave tossed waters off Tierra del Fuego. (Islands at the most southern point of South America). They descended completely naked, through waters averaging 42º F to collect clams and crabs for food.

The Japanese and Korean women divers did experiment with modern equipment like scuba gear, but it was soon found that using such equipment would quickly over fish the area, so scuba equipment was banned by the authorities.

There is also some reports of women divers in other parts of the world. In Barents Sea, palaeontologists and archaeologists have for a long time been puzzled why such large amounts of shellfish shells have been found in Palaeolithic sites without any evidence of fishing gear and boats. This would only be a puzzle for male scientists who are blind to the role women play in ancient communities. Before the 1920s when the Russian authorities began to use modern diving gear and motorboats equipped with dredges, there was still a local tradition of using professional women-divers similar to that in Japan and Korea. Even in these cold waters on the coast of Siberia these divers would continue diving in the cold autumn months. (Needless to say when they adopted modern equipment the area was soon over fished and fishing in the area was banned in 1960).

If male divers had been doing this job these scientists wouldn’t of had no problems in putting two and two together. They would of praised the male divers about how tough and macho they were, given it wide coverage, but because they were women, the fact was ignored.

It is perfectly possible for women to swim in these waters without a wet suit. In the sporting world we are used to men outperforming women, yet there is one sport where women are now outperforming men, which is the sport of marathon open water swimming. In the 21 miles across the English Channel, the first women to do this was Gertrude Caroline Ederle of USA. In 1926 she broke the record of the fastest man by one hour and fifty-nine minutes. In spite of having to battle through heavy seas in the second half of her swim. Since then the record for the fast channel swim has been held at different times by both men and women. In 1987 Lynne Cox of USA, (who also held the fastest time for swimming the English Channel for awhile), swam the across the Bering Strait, from the U.S. to Soviet Union with water temperatures at 38-42 degrees Fahrenheit, without wearing a wet suit. She done it wearing only a normal swim suit, cap and goggles. At this temperature most normal men will freeze to death in the water within 20 minutes.

The censorship by patriarchal authorities of women divers many be responsible for the mermaid legend. Once a Dutch ship was wrecked on Cheju island's coast. Subsequently, its crew was detained for 13 years. One of the seamen, Hamel, published a record of their experiences upon his return to Europe, describing the 'haenyo' (women divers) as mermaids. Which is interesting because being on the island for 13 years he must of known they were ordinary women. So why did he write that they were mermaids? In may be because in those days a story of mermaids was more acceptable to people than female divers. After all, the Korean authorities at one time forbade and written record of these divers.

The official version of the mermaid story is the sailors have mistaken animals like seals and dugongs as mermaids. Which is a typical patronising attitude from academics towards uneducated working class people, in assuming they are stupid. I personally find it hard to believe that experienced sailors couldn’t tell the difference between a seal and a women swimming in the sea or sitting on rocks. Korea and Japan the authorities have tended to keep quiet about women divers up until recent times. Because it undermines patriarchal beliefs, to have assertive women doing a physical job better than men. So the same was probably true in other parts of the world. The patriarchal Jews went as far as to ban shellfish as a taboo food. Was this because in those days women divers were still collecting them from the sea? Had not female divers in Japan and Korea survived up until modern time we today wouldn’t know nothing about them. There is other evidence that women divers were still commonplace all over the world in the recent past. For instance in the 19th century peal industry, some of the European traders were horrified to find the locals using women peal diving. To the degree that in the Torres Strait islands they banned women divers.

Because of the patriarchal conspiracy of silence, sailors would be shocked suddenly coming across women divers. To these very patriarchal sailors used to their own women being very submissive, shy, retiring and modest. To suddenly see naked, (They probably were naked as the bathing suit was only invented at the end of the 19th century and clothing is a hindrance in the water), athletic and confident women going about their work would be something completely outside of their personal experience. As we can see from this following sighting in Britain.

“A SCHOOL MASTER OF THURSO IN CAITHNESS, William Munro, wrote in a report in THE TIMES on September 8, 1809 that twelve years earlier he had been walking along Sandside Bay shore when he saw what he first thought was a naked woman, sitting on a rock and combing her light brown hair. The face was plump, with ruddy cheeks and blue eyes. If the rock where the woman sat had not been so dangerous for swimmers, Munro would have assumed it was human. After a few minutes it dropped into the sea and swam away. Others had seen it too. .”

He clearly states is that he saw a naked woman, sitting on a rock. Yet it is reported as a mermaid sighting. Probably in isolated fishing villages all over the world women divers may of been used up to fairly recent times. Because people living on the edge of survival couldn’t afford to ignore a important food resource like shell fish and edible seaweed. In traditional mermaid stories from Europe there is stories of fishermen marrying mermaids. Now, if it was to a women with a fishes tail this would virtually impossible, so in some of the stories the mermaid obtains legs by magical means. Yet if we take a more sensible view, that mermaids are women divers then there is no problem with this. Most women divers were probably married to fishermen anyway.

They would also have to keep this tradition secret because of patriarchal condemnation of women doing men’s work. There would be a even more deadly reason to do this, churchmen in the past have condemned mermaids as pagan. Now this is a real threat, because the Church in the middle ages had murder millions of women as Witches. It seems that country people in the times still had many pre-Christian beliefs, which was stamped out as pagan during the witch-hunts. (The word pagan comes from the word peasant). This includes women healers who practised the ancient art of herbal medicine. (There was no problem about educated men giving out herbal medicine, they were called doctors, so that was all right, but a women doing this was condemned as a witch). To protect themselves, one of the ways of keeping the tradition of women divers secret, would be to invent stories of mermaids. Then to tell strangers who did see them, that it was a mermaid that they saw.

You can find out more on my playlist of seven mermaid videos on Youtube.

So why was it that women become more aquatic than men? A possible explanation is that wading in the water was also a protection from predators, who are unlikely to try and swim out to catch a ape who can stand upright in the water and can walk out as far as it’s neck. To this ape the water will come a safe haven in much the same way a tree is, so instead of climbing a tree to escape from a predator it can run into the ocean instead. In fact a beach is a difficult hunting ground for predators as there is not much cover a large cat can hide behind to stalk their prey. This then would make shell hunting more popular among females if she is pregnant or breast feeding a child as she is protected by the water she is wading through. Even when the child is too big to carry, the mother can leave the child on the water’s edge and then quickly snatch it and take it out to deeper water if she sees a predator coming down the beach. So there is a lot of advantages of female apes becoming marine food gathers. Though not so much for male apes, who would be bigger and stronger anyway and don’t have the burden of trying to save a helpless baby from a predator as well. So it would cause a division of labour of men gathering on land while women gathered in the sea.

So the Aquatic Ape theory seems to be very much appeal to women, and this also may be why many male scientists don’t like it. Instead of having a great white hunter, coming home from a hard day of hunting to be greeted by his adoring wife, who will submissively wait on her lord and master hand and foot. We now have women who are the breadwinners and it is the men who have to look after the home and children! Well, we can’t possibly have that can we? More so if you realise that it is claimed by Elaine Morgan that it took a 6.5 million year for humans to evolve into a semi-aquatic animal. Does this mean that men were under the women’s thumb all this time? It couldn’t be possible be that our male ancestors were a bunch of yellow belly wimps, can it?

Large deposits of shellfish shells have been found in South Africa in early human sites. Proving that shellfish was being eaten by early humans. Also very early hominids like Homo erectus had very thick tooth enamel and powerful jaws. Which it is speculated that they were needed, to break open nuts and shellfish with their teeth. Later on they would of used stones or clubs to do this, which may of been the first use of tools for hominids. Yet most male scientists still do not accept the Aquatic Ape theory and still cling desperately to very watered down versions of the Great Hunter theory, or prefer to have no theory at all.

This then means that it is possible to make out a case that human society was dominated by women from the time when we were still a ape to the end of the Neolithic Age. We can briefly summarise this in the following points.

1. The skeleton of the bonobo ape is very similar to the australopithecines oldest discovered is 3 million year old and the australopithecus ramidus which dates back to 4,4 million years old. The teeth of these primates show that they were vegetarians, which is another blow to the man the hunter theory. So as the bonobo ape lives in female dominated communities can we also assume that the australopithecines was the same? Now I am sure that male chauvinists scientists will correctly claim that you cannot make such a assumption on such slender evidence. Yet we know that if these skeletons were more like that of a chimpanzee than a bonobo. These same scientists would be very quick to claim that humans then had exactly the same social structure as male dominated chimpanzee communities.

2. Then we have the Aquatic Ape theory that shows that humans went through a Aquatic period in their evolution. The bones of the australopithecines were found at the edge of ancient sea, which means the this ancient human could of used this sea as a means of obtaining food. It is true that many bones of ancient humans have also been found inland, but what we don’t really know is whether any of these hominids were our direct ancestors. There has been many species of hominids in the past yet only one species, the modern human, has survived into modern times. It seems that because of the aquatic adaptations to our bodies it was only the aquatic species that survived. If we accept that Aquatic Ape theory then we also have to accept that “macho” hunting had little to do with our evolution. Also that because women’s bodies are more adaptable to aquatic life it was women and not men who became the main, “bread winners”.

3. As we move forward in time to the more modern humans that came into existence about 200,000 years ago. What we find compared with other animals of a similar size is that we are incredibility weak. In fact far weaker that apes like chimpanzees and gorillas and other hominids like the Neanderthals. As evolutionist point out one of the main reasons why a animal becomes very powerful and strong is the competition between males who have a test of strength and aggression for the right to mate. The fact that the modern human is so weak compared with its nearest species except the bonobo, is probably because there was very little male competition for the right to mate with females, among our ancestors. This points to women selecting which males she wants to mate with instead of men. Suggesting a situation where women were either equal to men in status or the dominant sex.

4. Of the many species of hominids it was only the modern human that has survived. This was because of periods of rapid changing weather conditions during the last ice age. When many large species of animals became extinct. Even we were probably nearly wiped out because genetically it seems that all humans today had only one female ancestor about 200,000 years ago. In the survival of any species, women are far more important than men. This is because one man can father hundreds of children, while a women is very limited on how many children she can have. More so in the state of stress and starvation, it is important that a women is reasonably well fed to nourish a baby. So like the lemurs in the island of Madagascar, communities that give preference to alpha males are less likely to survive than communities that give preference to females.

5. Then in the Neolithic age we find evidence of people worshipping Goddesses and no evidence of war or violence. Which changed dramatically when in the bronze and iron ages where the use of weapons of war, fortifications and the worship of male warrior gods became commonplace.

Taking all the evidence from above it would seem that women have always dominated human society up until five thousand years ago. I have to say that is unlikely. The point is that what you read in this book readdress the balance of sexual bias scholarship, archaeology, zoology, biology, anthropology and palaeontology, which claims that man was always the dominant sex.

Ever since I went to school in the 1950s to now all I have ever read in mainstream science is that we have always lived in male dominated societies. It was only by reading a book called, “The First Sex, by Elizabeth Gould Davis in the 1970s that opened my eyes to different possibility. Since then I have taken a interest in this subject and soon found that to get any information on anything that suggests human beings were once dominated by females, very difficult to find. The truth is that the general public is only given one very sexual biased point of view.

This is because of very egocentric academic males who very much want to believe that men have always been the dominant sex. The problem is that the censorship about the possibility of women rule or even sexual equality, gives the general public the illusion they only have one choice and that is patriarchy. Which wouldn’t be a problem if men were doing a wonderful job in ruling our world. The trouble is that men do a really terrible job of doing this. I would even go as far as saying that, it would be difficult to do a worse job of ruling our world, than what men do.

If we accept that in the past we didn’t always live in brutal and violent patriarchal communities. It means we can if we choose create a more peaceful and caring world ruled by women.

More youtube videos of Elaine Morgan
Aquatic Ape  - Documentary (Discovery Channel/BBC 1998), 5 videos


http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=9023FC3571752063

Chapter Twelve - Masculine and Feminine Cycles

We live in a sick, sad world, which needs to be healed. The first thing needed in process of healing is an acknowledgement that there is an illness. For instance with alcoholics or drug addicts attempts to cure them are a waste of time until they acknowledges they have a real problem. Then the healer needs to convince them that they have a workable method that will bring genuine healing.

So the first hurdle is the universal admission that we do actually live in a sick world. The problem is that we are taught from childhood that the world we live in is “normal”. We have all been brought up from childhood to believe war, crime, violence and hatred is customary for human beings. If we think about it a bit deeper we find that all the major religions of the world has failed to make our world a better place. Communism and Socialism with the ideal of equality also seems to have completely failed. The only thing that seems to have worked is Democracy, which it is clearly a step in the right direction. Yet even Democracy is being undermined by corrupt, two faced politicians who seem to be incapable of telling the truth.

So the message that comes to us from history and the media, is that the world of conflict, hatred and violence we live in is simply human nature and there is nothing we can do about it. The reason why we seem to be incapable of making our world a better place is because we are caught in the trap of a masculine cycle of fear and violence.

We stand on the brink of two possible futures, either a masculine or feminine destiny. These two possibilities come through two very different cycles. The masculine cycle began with the end of the Neolithic age. Somehow women lost control of a handful of men who became very violent. The male cycle probably began with men who find they can obtain power over other people through violence and aggression. Probably at first they were simply outcasts who survived by robbing people moving between towns and villages. Then in time some of these men formed groups and become bandits. They would be joined by other men who would be drawn by the attraction of power over others, through violence. In time these groups would become so large that they were able to take over towns and villages and impose on the people a protection racket. “you give us what we want and we leave you alone”. This would be in effect the first taxation. Then different bandit gangs would then start to fight each other for territory. Until one bandit leader got on top and conquered other bandit gang and he would become a king.

The bandits would exploit their power over the people and probably would steal whatever they wanted. As well as rape and kidnap women and use them as sex slaves. Understandably the people would get angry with this behaviour and perhaps rise up and against the bandits. Some of these revolutions would fail and the people would find themselves receiving even worse treatment than before. Other revolutions would succeed but the people will find that even getting rid of the bandits, will not allow them to return to their previous life of peace. If the revolution is led by men they will become as violent as the bandits and will end up behaving the same, once in power. If the revolution is led by women they will become Amazons and still have to learn warfare to defend themselves from attack from other bandits. In the end the Amazons died away probably because violence is not as natural for women as it is for men. So in the end women will be subdued by male violence.

This violence is very similar to what we observe in apes like chimpanzees and the male hamadryas baboons.

As female chimps come into season males start to become attractive to them, but many females can be choosy and only prefer certain males. Males who are not chosen by females counter the females right to choose by aggression and violence, by repetitively attacking the females he wants to mate with. Jane Goodall who has observed this behaviour claims that alpha males train the females he wants to mate with through intimidation and fear. So she will be too frighten to refuse him when he wants to mate with her.

A graphic account of this was observed by the Japanese primatologist Mariko Hiraiwa-Hasegawa. She was observing two chimp communities she called M and K group. One day she discovered the alpha male of M group called Ntologi with four of his side kicks attacking a lone female from K group and her three year old child. With the help of a companion Hiraiwa-Hasegawa attempted to beat the male chimps off by beating them with canes, but the powerful males ignored them. Then her companion threw a rock at the males and this had the effect of making them backing off. (Had the male chimps had instead attacked the two humans they wouldn’t of stood a chance against the powerful chimpanzees). The life of the female was saved although she and her child were covered in blood and badly injured. A year later the same female had another child and was again attacked by the Nitologi and his henchmen. This time her baby was eaten alive by them. After this the female defected to M group and mated with her baby’s murder. Probably because she couldn’t no longer find safety in F group for herself and her children. A post script to this, was that Ntologi himself was later murdered by his second in command, so he could take over the position of the alpha male. While Hiraiwa Hasegawa herself have given up observing chimpanzees because she was so appalled by their behaviour, that she learnt to hate them.

Male hamadryas baboons are also very aggressive. They kidnap females to become part of their harems from a young age and maintain it through continuous threats and intimidation. Usually by biting the back of the necks of his females. Which is a real threat as hamadryas baboons have large razor-sharp canines. So he is capable of killing or bad injure the female if was to bite hard. The males frighten the females so much that they will not stray too far from them, so that even a stare by the male will so frighten the females they will run back to the male. They are so under the control of the male that they will never refuse sex when they are into estrus.

The behaviour of humans in extremely patriarchal societies is very similar. It use to be that the alpha male, the king or local lord, could have as many wives he wanted. Even when Christianity come into force and man were suppose to have only one wife. Many lords still had conjugal rights to all the peasant women working on his land. In places like Sicily, Ethiopia and Eastern Europe it was commonplace up until recently that if a young man wants to marry a girl, with some of his friends he would kidnap her and then raped her. After that there would be social pressure put on the girl to marry her rapist. This was only stopped in Sicily, when one young women in the 1960s was brave enough to take her rapist to court and have him charged with rape. In doing so she had to not only resist social traditions but also the Mafia. So we can see that this behaviour is not far removed from that of the hamadryas baboon.

We can see a contrast in the behaviour of the bonobo. Milwaukee County Zoo had a group of bonobos and they attempted to train them in the same way they train chimpanzees and other animals. The bonobos reacted by becoming extremely non co-operative. They would scream loudly at the zoo keepers and urinate on them if they come into the pen. Then a female keeper took over and she adopted a system of kindness and positive reward. The behaviour of the bonobos changed and they became very co-operative and easy to work with. So it seems that bonobo females will not accept force and intimidation. Yet this is not the attitude of the male bonobos.

In zoos it was found that bonobo males were frequently assaulted by females who would gang up on a single male. To the degree of having fingers and toes bitten off and in one case a female bit off male’s penis! It seems that this is normal behaviour in the wild but the differences is that the male can run away, but in a zoo he has no form of escape. So it seems to be normal behaviour for female bonobos gang up and assault lone males to show them, who is the boss. (They also assault male zoo keepers who come into their pen).

Scientists have not been slow to compare primate behaviour with human behaviour. Where domestic violence between men and women is commonplace. In the past in the Western world it was once “normal” for a husband to beat his wife with a stick. In the Islamic world even today a man is “dishonoured” if he cannot dominate his wife by beating her up. In China as late as the 20th century was the tradition of foot binding which left women nearly crippled. Which is very similar to the behaviour of some male chimps who will not only beat up the female he wants to mate with, but cripple her as well, so she is unable to run away.

So sadomasochism is part of the primate sex war between males and females. Males dominate through violence and the female have to become masochistic to be able to stay sane in a life of brutal beatings and rape. Patriarchal societies also enforce the custom of marriage that forces a women stay with a man and breaks up any chance of women creating a powerful sisterhood. Bonobos and other female dominated primates re-enforce the sisterhood through lesbian sex. Which even today is discouraged by patriarchal custom. Female macaque and rhesus monkeys also mount males and rub themselves against them as a sign of dominance over the male. Which is again similar to human behaviour, it seems some men will go to a dominatrix to pay them to bugger them with strap on dildos. Is this a unconscious desire by these men to want women to dominate them once more?

One of the reasons why male chimpanzees and humans continue to use violence and intimidation against females and other males, is because it works. If people and female chimps adopted the attitude of, “Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death” (Patrick Henry, 1775). Then this behaviour wouldn’t be able to continue. Though admittedly his is a lot to ask of any person or creature. Yet again some women have done this. In certain parts of Pakistan and India some mothers will murder their female babies. Some feminists have seen this as a sign of extreme patriarchal brainwashing on women. But other feminists have pointed out that another reason for this could be that these mothers do not want to bring up daughters in the very brutal patriarchal world they live in.

Feminists have point out that a women to gives in to a violent husband and cares for him and has his children is betraying the next generation of women. This is because her sons will think it “normal” to beat up their girlfriends or wives while her daughters will think it “normal” to beaten up by men. Also she is allowing his violent genes to be passed on as well. This then allows this behaviour to continue generation after generation. So like the female chimpanzee or hamadryas baboon if she gives into male violence it encourages males to continue to use it. Though it has to be admitted that very few women are able to stand up to male violence on their own. It was only by Feminists setting up Women’s Refuses where women subjected to violence could go to, that allowed women to tackle male violence in recent times. This then is the advantage human females have over female chimpanzees, they are better able to communicate with each other and organise resistance to this behaviour.

In extremely patriarchal countries male dominance is enforced by male violence. Not only against women but men also fight each other for supremacy with violence as well. It seems to be the more violent a society becomes the more men dominate it. A example of this is Afghanistan. Up until the 1970s it was a country that had lived in peace for nearly a hundred years. In that time it began to become slowly Westernised, in that the women were allowed education and all the Islamic restrictions against women were slowly eroding away. Then it was invaded by the Soviet Union. Even after the Soviet Union left in the 1980s war still continued between various warlords. The result of over 20 years of war has been that women’s rights have been taken away and Afghanistan has now one of the most harshest laws and customs against women. Even the recent invasion by USA hasn’t changed the attitudes of brutalised men towards women, and is still a country mostly ruled by violent warlords.

So the masculine cycle is created by male violence. The effect of male violence is to brutalised men and increasing their testosterone levels. While women become more submissive, to counter male violence by appeasing men. Which undermines women’s confidence and self-respect.

The antidote for male violence is peace. Like with capitalism the end result of companies competing with each other is a monopoly where one company comes out on top and competition comes to a end. The end results of competition between warring warlords and states is empire. Where one leader ends up coming out on top and imposes peace, by force. This brings about a time of peace where the testosterone levels of men go down as they become less brutalised by the decreasing violence. Unfortunately peaceful countries then become open to invasion by other states who are still fighting among themselves. This is not a problem while they continue to do this but when they become united under one strong leader, this leader becomes a conqueror. Because finding he has a united army of battle harden fighters he will invade peaceful states on its border. This is what happened to China when it was invaded by the Mongols.

In 1206 Genghis Khan united the warring Mongols under one ruler. These men used to fighting among themselves found it easy to conquer other surrounding countries, who had been at peace for many years. The Mongols invaded not only China, but India and Europe as well and ended up with the largest empire known in recorded history. Then Mongols in turn became less aggressive through years of peace. This resulted in them being driven back to their homeland and finally conquered in turn by the Chinese.

It is noticeable that women began to become liberated in Europe and Northern America during the 19th and 20th century during a time of relative peace and stability, after the Napoleonic wars. It is true in this period we did have the American Civil War, the Franco-Prussian war and the First and Second wars all fought on European and North American soil. Yet between these wars we did have years of peace, with generations of people not knowing what it was like to fight in a war. While Switzerland is one of the safest countries in the world which hasn’t had a war on its soil for over a hundred years. In the USA the high rate of crime has been blamed on the freely availability of guns available. Yet in Switzerland shooting is a main national sport encouraged by all men having to do national service. In fact Switzerland has one of the most heavily armed populations in the world. Yet it also has one of the lowest crime rates.

So is it a coincide that Switzerland has also managed not to be involved in any wars for the whole of the 20th century? Also at one time Switzerland boasted that they had eliminated poverty in their country. Recently this has returned through the influx of immigrant workers doing low paid work, but it still remains low. So it means that people in Switzerland have not been brutalised by either war or poverty for a long time, which makes it possible for the male population to be armed with guns without the problem of gun crime.

This means that peace can create a feminine cycle. In times of peace men become less aggressive, their testosterone levels go down and are less likely to commit violence against women. As they are no longer being battered by men, women begin the gain confidence and self respect. This is the danger patriarchal religions understood thousands of years ago. This is why the Christian and Islamic religions made laws and customs to restrict female freedoms and encouraged men to assault women. Christian priests encourage men to dominate their wives by beating them. While in the Islamic world even today, a man is “dishonoured” if fails to beat his wife to make her obedient.

In the 19th century many wealthy women in USA campaigned against slavery. Then as they began to understand the legal position of slaves, they were shocked to find that black slaves had more legal rights than did the average women. This started the women’s movement in America. Because men were becoming less aggressive and women more confident, men have little resistance to women’s demands for equal rights over the next 150 years. What has been striking in the West is that the Feminist movement has been met with very little male violence. Unlike what happens in Islam countries where women who have been brave enough to fight for equal rights, have been murdered, arrested and assaulted.

As women become more free, so do men. A despotic dictatorship is only possible if the dictator can rely on a army of ruthless young men who will obey him and commit violence, murder and torture against anyone who opposes his rule. A leader who cannot find enough young men to commit violence against the people, then has to rule by consent and not violence. This means that the level of male violence in the general population has to decrease to make democracies and women’s liberation possible.

So men and women have two very different strategies to gain dominance over the other sex.

The Masculine method is through violence. men simply using their superior size and strength to batter women into submission. On top of this, patriarchal institutions have created laws and customs to keep women in a condition of slavery. As well as creating competitive masculine societies that favours men and not women.

The Feminine method is through co-operation. We can see this clearly with the female bonobo ape whom have created a powerful sisterhood. This has also been the battle cry of many Feminists that, THE SISTERHOOD IS POWERFUL. Unfortunately up until now, women haven’t been able to put this into practise to make a noticeable difference.

Many Feminists have criticised their own sex for not making most of the opportunities that at equal opportunities legalisation gives them. This has also been a similar problem for African Americans. People like Malcolm X have complained bitterly that most black Americans have what he called, “A slave mentality”. That is to say although slavery was abolished in 1863 nearly a 150 years later African Americans still find themselves the most poorest and deprived group in USA. Although one of the reasons for this, is discrimination by other ethic groups, like white people. The culture of Black people is not very helpful either. For instance there is a real problem of a anti-academic culture among young black men. Where in schools black men who try to study hard are ridiculed and physically attacked by other black men. It seems that for a black man to get ahead he has to be very secretive or very big, strong and violent, to resist bullying by other black young men.

Women have had the same problem. They also had a “slave mentality” but there are signs that they are now overcoming this. Up until the 1980s, young men were always ahead of young women academically. Girls would be ahead of boys up to about the age of puberty, then girls academic performances would drop away and boys would overtake girls in getting more places in college and universities. Yet in more recent times there has been a slow change where girls are now studying harder than boys at school right through to university. The result is that in school leaving exams in 2002 in Britain there is now a 9% gap in favour of girls and this gap is slowly growing every year.

It also seems that boys are now having problems. The anti academic culture of young black men is spreading to young white boys as well. Where anti-learning laddish culture is being blamed for the poor academic results of all young men.

The result of this is that some commentators are claiming that, “the future is female”. The idea is that if more women have better academic qualifications than men, they will have more of the top jobs in the future. This assumes that women will also be able to cope with the very “macho” and aggressive culture of politics and business. For this reason many women who want careers go to assertiveness classes. Which is probably what many women do need, but to go down this road too far can be self defeating for women. This can be seen in the case of the hyena. It seems that females as they develop in their mother’s womb they are bathed in male hormones resulting that when they are born the young females have clitorises as large as a male penis and are even more aggressive than males. This aggression allows female hyenas to dominate the males.

The dominance by females benefits their offspring in that Hyena cubs have a far lower starvation rate than other carnivores. So it is a big help in allowing the hyena to survive difficult times.

Some modern sportswomen have taken steroids to boost strength and the side effect has been to become very aggressive as well. So women don’t really have to go to assertiveness classes to survive in the patriarchal market place, all they have to do is take steroids. Like female hyenas they can become as aggressive and as assertive as men. The only problem with this, is that do we want to live in a world where everyone is so aggressive? The normal patriarchal society is bad enough with 50% of the population behaving like irresponsible idiots. To have a full 100% would be even worse. Yet this doesn’t have to be the only way, there is another choice.

In business there is talk about co-operation rather than competition. Business studies have shown that competition within a company can make it very inefficient. This is because if you have staff competing with each other for power and status, they are unlikely to co-operate with each other. This will result in office politics where people with attempt to undermine other members of the staff and even sabotage their efforts. So some businesses want to try to eliminate all this, and get people to co-operate rather than compete. I don’t have to tell you that, it has been found that female staffs are far better at this than men.

Another quantum leap could be made in politics as we can see through the leadership of Princess Diana. The genius of Princess Diana was that she was able to portray herself in the media as a genuine caring and loving person. Something any politician or spin-doctor would give their right arm to have. Although she didn’t have any political power, in the way she was able to use and manipulate the media made her a very powerful person. Which she used to further her own agenda, to create a more caring and loving world, where possible.

From the very beginning when she became a royal she responded to people in a very caring way. Now this is not unusual with famous people in the media, but she put it across in a way that no one doubted that it was genuine. To the degree not even her critics doubted this. So this made her from the start the most popular royal, and gave her worldwide fame. At first she was just content with this, but then she was to learn a trick from another royal, Princess Ann.

In the early 1980s there was a great famine in the Sudan, but the media ignored this famine so the people in the West were unaware of the millions of people dying of starvation in the Sahara desert region. Princess Ann as president of the Save The Children Fund visited Sudan and of course the media went with her, because they wanted a story on her failing marriage. Then reporters personally saw the great suffering going on in the area, and as the result of this visit the media all over the world began to report on the famine. This in turn got the Band-Aid movement off the ground. Resulting in millions of pounds being donated to try and save these people.

So likewise, Princess Diana began use her celebrity status to highlight causes she believed in. One of the most important acts she done was change people’s opinions on Aids epidemic. When Aids first started to spread in the West, people greatly feared it and believed that they could catch this disease by touching people with this disease. Also as it was mostly homosexual men who got Aids, this increased homophobia, and some extreme Christians were suggesting that Aids was the way God was punishing deviant acts like homosexuality. The media in Britain encouraged these stories and I can remember reading one scare story in the British newspaper, The Sun, suggesting that people could catch Aids from public toilet seats, if a homosexual man sat there previously.

At the height of the homophobia frenzy whipped up by the British press, Princess Diana fearlessly met this hysteria head on. She visited a hospital with Aids patients inside and talked to and shook hands with patients dying of Aids. Pictures of her doing his was in the newspapers and on the TV and in one stroke she had given homosexual men Royal approval and destroyed the myth that you could catch Aids by touching someone with this disease.

She was later to do the same with leprosy as in many part of the world people still believe it is possible to catch leprosy but touching a leper. She again appeared on TV touching shaking the hand of a leper and helped overcome prejudice against lepers. Charitable organisations were finding that if Princess Diana publicly gave them support of them, she was able to generate large amounts of contributions for their cause. So they became very aware of her power to help the causes she believed in.

She also started to move into politics. In the 1980s in Britain there was high unemployment as well and an increasing number of homeless people living on the streets. The right-wing press in Britain was whipping up a hate campaign against unemployed people, claiming that they were scroungers and work-shy. Princess Diana showed the world clearly where her sympathies laid by again visiting and talking to homeless people. Though by this time the media was now wise to her tactics and wasn’t so keen on reporting her doing this. So she didn’t get the media coverage in this that she normally expects. The British media also tried to start a hate campaign against Princess Diana but the newspapers that attempted to attack her found that they were unable to dent her popularity with the common people.

She was to move more into politics towards the end of her life. Charitable organisations had for years campaigned again the production and use of land mines, but had never got anywhere with this. In all conflicts all over the world countless land mines were buried indiscriminately, then after the war the land mines would be left in the ground with no one knowing were they were. So the civil population living in the area would continue to be killed and maimed by treading on these mines. Princess Diana then decided to get involved, and simply by visiting a area where land mines had been buried she focused the world’s media on this problem and got governments all over the world to take notice.

She was warned by conservative politicians not to get involved in politics. She herself was to claim before she died, that she feared she would be killed, and when it did happen the circumstances of her death was very suspicious, suggested a government cover up.

The great emotional effect of her death on people was immense, which was to surprise everyone. The reason for this is I believe is that in a uncaring world, where selfish and corrupt industrial and political leaders are commonplace. Princess Diana was one of the few people in establishment who showed that she genuinely cared and loved people. So in the very large numbers of people that mourned the death of Princess Diana gave a clear message to the politicians that the people wanted to live in a more caring world. This was picked up by the British Prime Minster who stated that people loved Diana because she genuinely cared. But he didn’t learn from this himself and his actions have since shown he is a normal selfish and uncaring politician.

Another women was the have the same effect before Princess Diana and this was Evita Peron. It would be easy to be cynical and say that she was only a the mistress and later wife of a South American dictator. But the emotion effect she was to have on Argentina, the country where she was the first lady, shows she was more than this.

Like Princess Diana the political influence she had was very limited. Yet unlike any other Argentina politician, before or since, she was able to show to the people that she genuinely cared. The people respond greatly to her and although she was unable to do a lot for the people of Argentina she came across and a person who really believed in what she said. With her early death, people showed clearly how they felt about her at her funeral, and this gave a message to the politicians that people do want to live in a caring society. Something I’m afraid the Argentina politicians ignored.

The story of Evita Peron was given publicity by the stage musical Evita written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. The genius of this musical was it portrayed clearly the emotion effect Evita had on the people of Argentina. Unfortunately when it was also make into a film the producers and directors had little understanding of what the story was about. They put a pop star in the title role who didn’t have either the singing voice or acting ability to do justice to the music and lyrics.

To a lesser degree the same thing happened with Mary Robertson the first women President of Southern Ireland. Although the Irish Presidency has little political power Mary Robertson was able to present herself as a caring person. She became so popular that when she retired, nearly all the candidates to replace her were women. After Mary Robertson’s performance few people were interested in voting for a male.

With the rise of Feminism in the 20th century some female politicians have risen to become leaders of countries like Margaret Thatcher and Indira Gandhi. Both of these politicians have shown clearly to the world that a woman can successfully rule a country. Unfortunately both women more or less behaved like a male ruler and didn’t show the caring side of women. Though to be fair to both women, they came leaders of very patriarchal parties and had they behaved like caring women it is unlikely they would of became leaders of their parties and country.

I believe the next step for powerful women is to have a female leader of a country with the political skill of a Margaret Thatcher or Indira Gandhi. Yet also with the ability to express there caring nature in the same way Princess Diana had. So that by becoming very popular through her caring nature she is able to push forward widespread reforms to the patriarchal system.

Once we start to have compassionate and powerful women leaders of countries, very few people will want to vote for male politicians. Male political leaders have had thousands of years to demonstrate they can be compassionate and responsible leaders. Yet very few in all that time can be said to be like this. (Apart from Nelson Mandela I can’t think of any genuinely caring male politician). They had their chance and completely blew it.