Will Men Learn to Respect Women?An evolutionary perspectiveRecent incidents in Delhi and elsewhere have brought to the fore the asymmetry between the treatment of men and women in our society. A lot has appeared in the press on this subject, projecting various view-points. I try to present here a perspective from the backdrop of the theory of evolution. My objective is to explain behavior as it is evolving so that we get an insight into the shape of things to come. Evolutionary biology says that we are descended from ape like primates driven by the Darwinian principle of Survival of the Fittest. The entire evolutionary story has one theme, survival, and explains to a large extent why we are what we are. The story is about reproduction and mixing up of the parent genes to yield a variety of traits (or genes, if you prefer). Darwin postulated that only those variations survive which give the offspring a better chance of coping with the environment. The changes start as small subtle changes in behavior or other characteristics and get wired into the DNA in a few generations. Darwin had presumed this to be a slow continuous process but today we believe that this is a rather jerky process as the species change dramatically within a few generations in rapidly changing environments. For example, scientists now believe that a cataclysmic event led to the extinction of most dinosaurs at the end of the Mesozoic Era. The mammals became the dominant vertebrates within a few generations to fill the gap created. At other times when the environment is more stable, we have long periods of no major evolutionary change. Man had gone through a period of high evolutionary activity several millennia ago when man made the transition from hunter-gatherer to farmer-settler. It seems we are going through one such rapidly changing phase again now. Early manLet us start with the paleolithic man. The earlier stages of evolution in this era had already brought out differences between males and females of mammals. The female is dependent on the male for food and survival in the extended child bearing and child rearing phases – often giving the males the upper edge in the relationship (Note that cave paintings rarely depict a woman hunting).There is also an asymmetry in the reproduction process viz. the female produces only a few dozen eggs during her entire lifetime but the male produces literally millions of sperms. The eggs are comparatively large and packed with nutrients in addition to the genetic DNA material and move comparatively slowly. The sperm, in comparison are small, mobile and contain only the minimum essential genetic information. This biological difference has governed the process of selection of partners by the two sexes since that time. The females have scarce resources (eggs) and have to invest heavily in child-birth and are thus choosier and want to let only the best sperms come near them (They wait for Mr. Right to come along). The quality of sperms is figured out on the basis of how healthy looking and well-built the man is and his ability to hunt and lead men. The man has a virtually unlimited supply of sperms and can afford to be more profligate, squandering his sperms at all opportunities (reminiscent of Casanova). Survival of his genes require that he should have as many sex partners as he can, counting on all those females who seem capable of child-bearing and child rearing.There is another major difference between man and earlier primates. In primates, as in all lower animals the sex act is performed solely for the purpose of procreation. The female primarily cares for the new born before and after birth. The male’s role often ends with delivery of sperms but in many species, including man, extends to protecting the mother and child and participating in the care of the young ones. Evolution now required that mother and father should be bonded together so that they raise the children through the long years of child rearing (extending into decades). The bonding is achieved by making the sex act pleasurable and making it available independent of child bearing. The able bodied adult male can perform the act any time round the year even a few hours after the last act. The female can perform the act repeated for some 26 days in a month even though she can conceive a child only on 2-3 days in the month.Economic ManThe transition from hunter-gatherer to farmer - settler was a major evolutionary change and required man to live in communities. Thus man evolved into the Economic Man, whose focus changed from physical survival to economic survival. This required a man to be the bread - earner and work outside the home to raise enough money for the family. The womenfolk were required to run the house and raise the family. This is beautifully summed up in the title of a Seinfeld standup comedy “Men Hunt and Women Nest”. Apart from looking after the house and the children, women did work on the farm were a “producer” in the economic sense but their role continued to be secondary. The family became the unit for the fight for survival and evolution depended primarily on economic survival rather than on physical survival.The male, in his role as the bread winner, was in a commanding position. It was no longer necessary for the man to be physically attractive – it was enough if he had the money. Even the most grotesque specimens could pick the most desirable brides with their access to money. Sexual exploits of the kings of old serve to illustrate this point. The woman became a thing to be bought and sold to the highest bidder, a mere chattel. There is a history of “bride price” in every civilization (North India seems to be the only exception where bride’s parents pay a dowry). With progress in agriculture and advent of specialization, the Economic Man had to live in progressively larger communities and this resulted in more frequent clashes over their women. The male libido still had the roving eye and required a new conquest every now and then. The rich now had slaves and armies to conquer the lady love and defend her from other male predators. This recourse was not available to the poorer folks. This was about the time that religion and morality were invented in different civilizations. The moral code, with or without invoking a fear of God, essentially forbade sex without society’s approval through customs of marriage, forbade sexual relationships with close relatives, required a certain amount of celibacy, and often (not always) encouraged monogamy. The society’s rules now also controlled aggression (e.g. do not fight in the presence of superiors) and led to control over acceptable forms of language and conduct (civilized behavior). In many societies the women were now locked up in purdah and harems and kept out of sight of all other men. Instead of a Casanova looking for as many women he can find, the gender stereotype that now emerges is that the male is the large aggressive animal ready to take on other males of the species to secure the favours of the chosen female. The female is looking for and evaluating the best male available for fathering her brood. The female is not aggressive but can be dominating and can go to any lengths for the safety of her progeny.
Modern ManThese changes had come in several millennia ago. There were small incremental changes but no major evolutionary change for a long time. We now believe we are now undergoing a major change and are transforming ourselves into a, for want of a better word, Modern Man. The change started accelerating about a century ago and we do not yet have any idea how long this phase will last. The major difference between the Economic Man and the Modern Man is that Survival is not an issue anymore. With increase in income levels even economic survival has ceased to be a major driver for a substantial portion of the human society.  The society and the governments do everything within their power to make sure each person’s genes are able to survive and multiply irrespective of whether the genes are “fittest” or not. The trend started several centuries ago, notably with the advent of printing press, universal education, and industrial revolution but has picked up speed only in the 20th Century. The first major driver was Freudian psychology which helped dismantle the moral code of the Economic Man. The second was the large scale induction of women in the work force, led primarily by the two world wars in the last century. The third was the invention of the contraceptives which effectively delinked sexual activity from reproduction. The entire process has been further accelerated by scientific and social advances which have provided better childcare, medical care, care of orphans, and financial aid to the poor (dole) and so on. With survival no longer an issue, the improving economic status of the majority of people ensure that an increasing number of people now do not need jobs just for survival. This reduction in dependency is reflected in a work culture where people take more sabbaticals than ever before, take longer holidays, often taking longer breaks between jobs. These people are ready to do a job only on their own terms and are ready to throw in the towel at the smallest issue. This behavior is more common in countries with higher per capita incomes and is catching on in other countries as the incomes rise. Their wages are also fixed more and more on market related issues and the concept of subsistence wages has practically vanished, even in poorer economies. Savings have lost their relevance which explains to a large extent the popularity of buy-now-pay-later lifestyles around the world. The proliferation of credit cards and personal loans are a testimony to this trend. People across the globe have substantially more time at their disposal than ever before. In part this is because of lower commitment to their jobs (because of lower dependency on jobs for survival) and partly because scientific innovations have dramatically reduced drudgery both at home and in the workplace. The rising income has also contributed to this trend by making these drudgery reducing gadgets more affordable.Earlier generations would have used a part of their surplus time for self-development (e.g. learning new skills) in a bid to improve their chances of survival, or for working harder to earn and save some extra money. With survival no longer an issue, these activities are on the decline. Instead people want to use all their spare time to “feel good”. Thus activities becoming popular are: hobbies, sports, games, holidaying and partying, none of which contribute significantly to survival (economic or otherwise) but improve the quality of life. Time spent with sex partners falls in this category of time structuring.
Alpha MalesIn the wild, many animals live in a social structure where the most powerful male in the group is decided by either simple play-fights or even very aggressive battles. The current alpha male must defend his ranking from younger members. When he is too old or not strong enough to win, he loses his position in the group. The result of this is that the alpha male usually has more opportunity to mate with the available females. This system developed because strong males will produce young which have a better chance for survival. In human context alpha male refers to an aggressive, highly-ranked man in a human group.The alpha males were important in the evolutionary scheme of things in the caveman society. As the economic man flourished the code of ethics, the new morality, the entire religious system worked to suppress this aggressiveness. Even the rich had to behave in a gentlemanly fashion and treat the women with some degree of respect. But the innate aggression which was hard-wired into the genes over several hundred millennia was still there and heightened the male aggression.  With survival now taking a back seat the modern man no longer needs the gender stereotypes. True, the modern woman still has to go through the pangs of childbirth and breast feeding, but with far fewer childbirths than before (lower child mortality rates) and with better facilities (baby sitters, daycares etc.), she can practice time structuring and achievement motivation with the same zeal as her male counterpart without thinking of mere survival. She is able to hold her own against the next man. But the genetic differences are still at work and make their presence felt in myriad ways. For example, men watch and talk about sports as a way of fighting off aggression, an activity many women find useless. Women are more likely to share their inner thoughts and private matters with their good friends compared to men. In the selection of mates, men find it harder to show their aggression on other males to win the affections of the girl and often end up showing aggression on the object of their affections (there is a rape in US every 5 minutes). Even though these gender based traits are no longer required, these can be expected to continue for a considerable period of time since there is no evolutionary pressure to change these traits. If evolutionary pressure cannot do it, the only way to curb gender based violence is to do what man did at the time of advent of the economic man: build a strong moral or religious social structure which will be able to inhibit the animal in the man. This may be more difficult this time as the educated man is more self-centric and less compliant. So we have an uphill task to build a society where men and women are more equal and where they can live and love end enjoy. Meanwhile it is Vive la différence