Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
PATHFINDER PRESS
New York
The following articles were printed first in
the International Socialist Review and have
been reprinted here with permission:
“Sociobiology and Pseudoscience,” October 1975;
“Lionel Tiger’s ‘Men in Groups’: Self-Portrait of
a Woman-Hater,” March 1977; “Anthropology and
Feminism: An Exchange of Views,” March 1975;
“Evolutionism and Antievolutionism” (originally
titled “Anthropology Today”), Spring 1957; “An
Answer to T h e Naked Ape’ and Other Books on
Aggression” (originally titled “Is Man An
Aggressive Ape?”), November 1970.
Pathfinder Press
410 West Street, New York, NY 10014
C ontents
Introduction 7
Glossary 178
Bibliography 181
Index 186
Introduction
Science, by definition and tradition, is supposed to be totally
objective and free of bias. However, this is the ideal, not the
reality.
The activities and theorizing of the scientific community do not
proceed in a vacuum. They are subject to all the biases current in
the established social system; these affect, and sometimes warp,
their conclusions.
The influence of prejudice tends to be strongest in those
branches of science th a t are closest to hum an life and its history
and values. Among them are biology, sociology, anthropology,
and the two younger sciences called sociobiology and primatol-
ogy. These are the disciplines discussed in this book.
The essays in this compilation do not disparage the genuine
discoveries and advances made by workers in these various
fields. They seek rather to show in w hat specific respects the
infiltration of pseudoscientific notions distort the facts and
obscure the truths to be found in them.
Much has been written in recent years about the racism to be
found in the conclusions of certain geneticists and other writers.
Less attention has been paid to the presence of sexist stereotypes
in the biological and social sciences dealt with in this book. Some
of these are being brought to light by partisans of women’s libera
tion, who are more likely to be sensitive to them and aware of the
harm they do both to the pursuit of scientific truth and the cause
of social progress.
The first three essays in this book are primarily concerned with
the newer sciences of sociobiology and primatology, the last five
with the status of anthropology. All of them are by-products of
the same workshop in which my major work, Woman’s Evolution,
was fashioned; this collection can be regarded as a sequel and
supplement to W oman’s Evolution.
Evelyn Reed
November 1977
7
P rim a to lo g y and P rejudice
(1977 )
8
Prim atology and Prejudice 9
11
12 Sexism an d Science
top of the scale are the higher apes; a gorilla mother gives birth to
one child, which reaches sexual m aturity a t about eight to ten
and is full-grown a t twelve to fifteen. This slow rate of
developm ent is closer to h um ans th an to monkeys; a hum an child
reaches sexual m aturity a t thirteen and is full-grown at twenty to
twenty-five.
T his slow m aturation of in fan ts occurs only where mother-care
is prolonged, as it is am ong the higher apes. This is of param ount
im portance in the developm ent of their advanced traits. In the
lower anim als, where mother-care is of short duration, the
offspring are obliged to m ature rapidly to become self-supporting.
Among prim ates, which m ature much more slowly, the young
anim als can learn from im itation and experience, modify their
behavior p atterns, and acquire greater reasoning abilities and
intelligence.
Robert B riffault h as analyzed in detail the prime im portance of
prolonged mother-care in developing these traits. (The Mothers,
vol. I.) More recently, W ashburn and H am burg m ake the same
point. They write th a t m onkeys and apes “m ature slowly and
there is strong reason to suppose th a t the m ain function of this
period of protected youth is to allow learning and hence
ad ap tatio n to a wide variety of local situations” (“Aggressive
Behavior in Old World Monkeys and Apes,” in Primates, p. 464).
But there is another side to this prolonged period of mother-
care—its effect upon the females themselves. The more extensive
functions of the fem ales in providing for and protecting their
infan ts, together with the longer periods in which they exercise
these functions, m ake th e fem ales the more intelligent, capable,
and resourceful sex. T his aspect h as also been dealt with by
Briffault. It m ay explain why fem ales are so often selected for
intelligence tests and experim ents. As one writer complains, “all
the intensively studied individual chimps, including those in the
language experim ents, are females. It is time th a t male chimps
dem and equal treatm en t” (Joseph Church in a review of Ann J.
Prem ack’s book, W hy Chim ps Can Read, New York Times Book
Review, April 11, 1976).
T racing the line of continuity from lower to higher forms of
anim al life enabled the evolutionary biologists to show how and
why h um ans ascended from a branch of the anthropoid species
and no other. However, to appraise hum an life it is necessary to
go beyond the continuity of anim al evolution as such to the point
a t which a definitive discontinuity occurred—when a jump was
Prim atology and Prejudice 13
been hum ans and never anim als. As the scientific evidence to the
contrary piled up, this assertion was displaced by its opposite:
hum ans have always been essentially anim als, comparable to
monkeys and apes.
This disavowal of the uniqueness of hum anity sometimes takes
subtle and indirect forms. One is in the realm of terminology.
Prim ates were formerly referred to as anim als, distinct from
“m an,” the hum an. Today the term “nonhum an prim ate” is
widely used, inferring, without explicitly saying so, th a t there is a
“hum an prim ate” not essentially different from the “nonhum an
prim ate.” Also, the term “society,” which belongs exclusively to
hum an organization, has been bestowed upon an endless range of
species, from primates down to ants and termites. So far oysters,
worms, protoplasm, and genes have been excluded, but perhaps
some biological determ inists will soon elevate these clusters into
societies too.
To be sure, every growing branch of science confronts a
problem with terminology—finding words for new phenomena.
The automobile, for example, was called the “horseless carriage”
before it acquired a nam e of its own. Similarly, the term “social
behavior” was used in connection with the study of anim al
interactions and aggregate behavior. Thus, not only are primate
troops called “societies” but so are lower m am m alian species
such as lions, wolves, elephants, etc. These “societies” should
more properly be referred to as primate troops, elephant herds,
wolf packs, lion prides, etc.
According to Gordon Childe’s definition, society is “a coop
erative organization for producing the means to satisfy its needs,
for reproducing itself, and for producing new needs” (What
Happened in History, p. 17). While anim als, like hum ans,
reproduce themselves, no anim al species, including the higher
apes, have ever produced for their needs; much less have they
produced new needs. From the time of the first digging stick and
fist axe, these new needs have accumulated a t an ever accele
rating pace, spurred on by progress in productive know-how.
Only hum ans can produce the necessities of life as well as
produce new needs and the m eans for their satisfaction.
Production, in turn, cannot exist except in an organized social
arena in which all the adult members coordinate their efforts and
collectively provide for themselves and for the young and old
members of the group. As Childe points out, the experiences
gained in productive activities are pooled, and the techniques are
22 Sexism and Science
P rim ate sexual dim orphism began when some prim ates left the
shelter of tree life to become more or less terrestrial anim als.
There is little difference in size between m ale and female gibbons,
w hich are arboreal anim als. Baboons, however, inhabit rocky,
open country and are surrounded by the large carnivores. As
Irven DeVore rem arks, “Life on the ground exposes a species to
far more predators th a n does life in the trees” (“A Comparison of
the Ecology an d Behavior of Monkeys and Apes,” in Classifica
tion and H um an Evolution, p. 313). Males in this species are
usually larger th a n females, and they also have long, sharp,
canine teeth.
Nevertheless, it is incorrect to view m ale anim als as protectors
of their “fam ilies” or defenders of their “societies” as hum ans
are. All anim als defend them selves either through fight or flight.
As W ashburn and H am burg put it, “individual anim als m ust be
able to m ake the appropriate decisions and fight or flee”
(“Aggressive Behavior in Old World Monkeys and Apes,” in
Primates, p. 463). Fem ales will fight to protect their young but
prefer to flee. Males will often turn and fight. But they do so as
individuals an d not as protectors of their “families.” Females are
Prim atology and Prejudice 25
The physical superiority of the human male has had a much greater
effect on the development of social institutions than we usually
realize. . . . Among the sub-human primates the male can dominate
a group of females because these females are unable to organize
among themselves. He can deal with them in detail [ibid., pp. 184,
190].
Two years later, after further studies, she resolved this question
in her own mind. She said:
on six occasions adult males were the object of female alliances. The
females rushed at the offending male who may have inadvertently
frightened an infant. Generally the male made no attempt to threaten
the females but instead ran a short distance. . . . Five instances were
recorded of single adult fem ales actually hitting or slapping a
dom inant adult male. . . . Usually the stimulus for the female attack
is the frightening of her infant by the male. The adult male is usually
taken unaware by the rushing onslaught of the female and no male
w as ever seen to strike the female in return [“The Indian Langur
Monkey,” in Prim ate Social Behavior, p. 121].
34
Sociobiology and Pseudoscience 35
and insects is not new. Biologism has been with us ever since
Darwin set forth his theory of evolution. Once the anim al origin
of hum ans was ascertained, the Garden of Eden m yth was
replaced by the scientific study of the genesis of hum ankind. This
required an exam ination of anim al evolution and then of the
socializing factors th a t transform ed a certain branch of the
higher apes into the first hominids.
Mechanical-minded thinkers, however, could not pass beyond
the biological factors th a t led to hum an life. They inflated certain
characteristics common to both hum ans and anim als while
underplaying or erasing the v ast distinctions between them. The
school of biologism gave birth to two m ain trends of thought: one
emphasizing anim al competition and the other anim al coopera
tion to account for hum an competition and cooperation.
39
40 Sexism an d Science
41
42 Sexism and Science
A Crude B iologizer
Like other biologizers, Wilson used modem class and capitalist
terms to describe anim al and insect life. His “social insects” are
divided into “castes,” with a queen a t the top ruling over
“workers” and “soldiers.” This practice is not original with
Wilson; the concept of class divisions among insects has quite a
long history, although Wilson only goes as far back as 1609 with
Charles Butler’s The Feminine Monarchic. W hat is surprising is
th at Wilson, whose extensive studies make him one of the world’s
leading authorities in advanced entomology, continues to use
erroneous term s th a t were applied in the infancy of the science.
Almost fifty years ago Robert Briffault, citing Aristotle, Pliny,
and others, showed the origin and evolution of these misleading
terms. He wrote th a t the ancients regarded the egg-laying female
as a patriarchal male and called it the “king.” Corresponding to
their politics, the bees were divided into “patricians” and “plebe
ians.” When the true sexes of the insects later became known, the
egg-laying female was called the “queen.” By the nineteenth
century the beehive was freely compared to capitalist industry—a
“hive of industry” (The Mothers, vol. I, pp. 161-62).
In one way Wilson’s biologism differs from most. He has no
objection to using the term m atriarchy and is willing to say th at
“m atrilineal societies” exist in nature, rather than making the
anim al aggregates uniformly partiarchal as others do.
The term matriarchy, when applied to primitive society
where it belongs, brings shudders to most anthropologists today.
But they make no objection when the term is misapplied and the
“m aternal brood” in nature is erroneously called a “m atriarchy.”
Thus Wilson feels safe in calling these m aternal broods “m atriar
chies” since he does so entirely within his zoological framework.
On this basis he finds m atriarchies and m atrilineal societies on
every level from an ts to elephants.
As Wilson points out with respect to certain insect colonies,
these “castes” are all female from the “queen” down to the
“workers” and “soldiers.” Males are present, but only to insemi
nate the egg-laying female. Under these circumstances, to Wilson
they are m atrilineal societies (Sociobiology, p. 314).
Among the hoofed m am m als, or ungulates, where female herds
44 Sexism and Science
generally keep ap art from m ales except for the rutting season,
Wilson singles out the A frican elephant as a striking example of
a “m atriarch ” in charge of her daughters and granddaughters.
These “female-female bonds can be assum ed to last as long as 50
years,” he writes. “The m atriarch rallies the others and leads
them from one place to another. She takes the forward position
when confronting danger and the rear position during retreats.”
Wilson’s text is accom panied by a picture of these intelligent
anim als in protective form ation with their young. In the back
ground are peripheral m ales, two fighting each other for domi
nance (ibid., pp. 494-97).
In another instance Wilson speaks of the “m atrilineal” red
deer, where a female leads the herd and another female brings up
the rear. As with the African elephants, he points out, the adult
females and m ales stay ap art except during the rutting season
(ibid., p. 312). A gain, the caption of a picture illustrating the
reconstructed “social life” of the dinosaurs of m any millions of
years ago reads: “A herd of females and young moves in from the
left, led by an old m atriarch. In the foreground two males fight
for dom inance” (ibid., pp. 446-47).
Among th e carnivores, w hich stand higher in anim al evolution
th an the ungulates, Wilson shows th a t the lion pride is more
accurately a pride of lionesses; here too the m ales are peripheral.
Above the carnivores are the prim ates. Wilson writes th a t the
m acaques and chim panzees are “m atrifocal” in the choice of
helpers. The fem ales band together and tru st their infants to one
another. He notes of the rhesus m onkeys th a t “the m other comes
to tru st the females and to use them as baby sitters while she
conducts foraging trips.” Puzzled by this female cooperation, he
asks: “Why should fem ales care for the infants of others, and
why should m others tolerate such behavior?” (Ibid., p. 350.)
Sociobiology and Pseudoscience 45
issue with Konrad Lorenz for m inim izing the competitive strife in
the anim al world. He writes,
M ale-Biased A nthropology
In anthropology, however, Wilson takes his cues from the
prevailing academic schools, which are antim atriarchy and insist
th at the father-family and male supremacy have always existed.
This obliges him to describe anim al behavior in patriarchal terms
th at often conflict with his m atriarchal terms. Thus he repeatedly
refers to anim al and insect reproductive broods as family “kin”
composed not only of fathers and mothers but also of uncles,
aunts, nieces, nephews, and cousins of all degrees. This corres
ponds to his view th a t the “nuclear fam ily,” which he regards as
the “building block of nearly all hum an societies” (ibid., p. 553),
has existed from time immemorial throughout the anim al world.
In a sim ilar vein he sees sexism as a universal trait, present in
the anim al as well as the hum an worlds. He refers to the
“ram pant machismo”—a. term used today to signify male supre
macy over women—th a t exists among some insects (ibid., p. 320).
What he actually describes is not male chauvinism toward
females but the fierce struggles of m ales against other males for
dominance.
The same is true of the “violent machismo” he says exists in
the breeding season among m any other species, including sheep,
deer, antelopes, grouse, lek birds, and elephant seals, where the
males fight one another for dominance (ibid., p. 243). These
struggles between m ales have no connection whatever with
supremacy over females. Such supremacy did not exist in m at
riarchal society, much less in the anim al world, where the
primacy of females is so pronounced.
Wilson’s notions about universal sexism converge with those of
the cruder anthropologists today. In describing some male
anim als who keep “harem s” and exercise strong “leadership,”
Wilson writes, “The obvious parallels to hum an behavior have
been noted by several writers, but most explicitly and persua
sively by Tiger (1969) and Tiger and Fox (1971)” (ibid., p. 287).
48 Sexism and Science
No M onogamy in N ature
It is incorrect to use the terms monogamy and polygamy to
describe the sexual practices of anim als, birds, or insects. Even
though some pairs of birds or a few other species may remain
together longer th an others, with the great majority of species
there is only the act of sexual congress and no cohabitation at all
between the sexes. The segregation of the sexes is far more
pronounced than their fleeting unions.
Females in nature, like males, are promiscuous. This includes
the higher apes. Wilson him self observes th at “chimpanzee
females are essentially promiscuous. They often copulate with
more than one male in rapid succession, yet without provoking
interference from nearby m ales” (ibid., p. 546). Under rigid
patriarchal m arriage rules, so vigorous a female would be
subjected to harsh punishments.
Wilson’s introduction of patriarchal and private-property rela
tions into the anim al world casts a dubious shadow over other of
his interpretations of insect and anim al behavior. How can one
trust a zoologist who speaks of “inheritance” systems and
“territorial” rights in the sense of the private ownership of real
estate? For example, he writes about the black bears of Minne
sota th at the females “permit their female offspring to share
subdivisions of the territories and bequeath their rights to these
offspring when they move away or die.” Male black bears “take
no part in this inheritance” (ibid., p. 502).
To be sure, all anim als occupy the natural habitat, or
“territory,” to which they are adapted and in which they find
their food and mates. But there is no subdivision of real-estate
properties in their world and no inheritance of property, whether
from mothers to daughters or from fathers to sons.
Another example of Wilson’s crude biologism and anthropo
morphism is his patriarchal interpretation of the ham adryas
baboons. He writes, “A female competing with a rival moves next
to the overlord male, where she is in a better position to
intim idate and resist attack. If she is threatened, the male is
much more likely to drive her rival away than to punish her. As a
result she is more likely to advance in social ran k ” (ibid., p. 517).
Female primates, including the ham adryas baboons, do not
50 Sexism and Science
Since the early 1960s the U nited States, the most powerfully
arm ed n ation on earth, h as been conducting an onslaught
ag ain st Vietnam , a tiny nation far from its shores. This long
drawn-out, genocidal w ar h as produced wave upon wave of
revulsion am ong the Am erican people.
Massive, unprecedented antiw ar dem onstrations have been
accom panied by an intense interest in the root causes of m ilitary
conflict. M any A m ericans who once believed th a t w ars were
waged only to “safeguard democracy” rightly suspect th a t they
have been hoodwinked. They are coming to see th a t the only
gainers from such conflicts are the monopolists, who seek to
safeguard their empire and expand their power, profits, and
privileges through them. Thus a political aw akening is taking
place w ith regard to the real causes of im perialist aggression,
which are embedded in the drives and decline of the capitalist
system.
In the sam e tim e period a set of writers has come to the fore
whose books present a wholly different view of the causes of
organized warfare. They claim th a t m an ’s biological heritage and
his “killer” instincts are responsible for wars, absolving the
predatory capitalist system of all responsibility. Their paper
backs are bought by the hundreds of thousands and have been
high on the best-seller lists. They obviously influence the
thinking of m any readers who are anxiously searching for
answ ers to the problems of w ar and other social evils.
The principal figures am ong these capitalist apologists have
produced six such books in the decade. The pacesetter is Robert
Ardrey, who brought out African Genesis in 1961 and its sequel,
The Territorial Imperative, five years later. A third, The Social
54
An Answer to ‘The Naked A pe’ 55
56
An Answer to ‘The N aked A pe’ 57
The establishm ent of the fact th a t m an is a prim ate, w ith all its
evolutionary im plications, early gave rise to fallacies for which there
is no longer any excuse (and never w as much). . . . These fallacies
arise from w hat Ju lia n Huxley calls the “nothing b u t” school. It was
felt or said th a t because m an is an anim al, a prim ate, and so on, he is
nothing but an anim al, or nothing but an ape w ith a few extra tricks.
It is a fact th a t m an is an anim al, but it is not a fact th a t he is
nothing but an anim al. . . . Such statem ents are not only untrue but
also vicious for they deliberately lead a stra y enquiry as to w hat m an
really is and so distort our whole com prehension of ourselves and our
proper values.
To say th a t m an is nothing but an anim al is to deny, by
im plication, th a t he h as essential attributes other th a n those of all
anim als. . . . His unique nature lies precisely in those characteristics
th a t are not shared with any other anim al. His place in nature and its
supreme significance to m an are not defined by his anim ality but by
his hu m anity [pp. 282-83].
complains. “Anyone who chose the arm y for a career was a fool
or a failure.” Indeed, after the First World War, “certain words
almost vanished from the American vocabulary, among them
such fine patriotic words as ‘honor’ and ‘glory.’" And he
sorrowfully adds, “Patriotism , naturally, was the last refuge of
the scoundrel.”
Bent on changing this attitude, Ardrey warns th at the same
“territorial im perative” th a t is embedded in our instincts likewise
motivates the “enemy.” So if we are to save ourselves and our
property we m ust fight, fight, fight. He writes:
The Am erican people do not decide who their enemies are; these
are singled out for them by the shifting needs of the capitalists.
During the Second World War the G erm ans and Japanese were
the enemies w hereas the Soviet and Chinese allies were friends.
Since then these respective nations have been switched as friend
and foe. W hat h as changed is not the territorial relations but the
diplom atic and strategic aim s of American im perialism. Its
propaganda m achine tells the country who is to be hated and
who is to be liked a t any given time. C ontrary to Ardrey, there is
nothing in stinctual in these attitudes; all of it is learned behavior,
instilled by the ruling class.
Lorenz and Morris, who, unlike Ardrey, have some claim to the
title of scientists, go as completely wrong when they try to
biologize history. T his is as great an error as it would be to reduce
biology and botany to chem istry and physics, even though
anim al and vegetable life have a physicochemical origin and
basis. In the case of h um an life it produces grotesque distortions
of the truth.
Desmond Morris is particularly crude in this respect. “I am a
zoologist and th e naked ape is an anim al. He is therefore fair
gam e for my pen,” he declares in his first book, The Naked Ape.
To this zoo keeper, m an differs from the ape by virtue of two
amplified biological organs, a bigger penis and a bigger brain,
and because our species is “naked” while apes are hairy. Nothing
essential h as been altered by hum ans either in themselves or
their society; they were and still rem ain the creatures of their ape
instincts: “So there he stands, our vertical, hunting, weapon-
toting, territorial, neotenous, brainy, Naked Ape, a primate by
An Answer to ‘The N aked A pe’ 61
Some of the critics are gentler with Lorenz, who has made
certain contributions to n atural science. But they do not
66 Sexism an d Science
that everyone can retreat from the stronger and expect submis
sion from the weaker, if they should get in each other’s way.”
Every boss today would certainly like to establish this rule with
regard to the workers. Unfortunately for him, they are not birds
or beasts—but men and women who can organize and fight back.
It is true th at a wasteful method of species survival and
development prevails in nature where, under conditions of limited
food and space, competition prevails and the less fit are elimi
nated to the benefit of the fittest.
But such wasteful methods are unnecessary in hum an society
today, where people can plan their lives and control their own
destinies—once they get rid of the exploitation and anarchy of
capitalism. As Engels commented, “Darwin did not know w hat a
bitter satire he wrote on m ankind, and especially on his country
men, when he showed th at free competition, the struggle for
existence, which the economists celebrate as the highest histori
cal achievement, is the norm al state of the animal kingdom ”
(.Dialectics o f Nature, p. 19).
R a cist a n d S e x ist
Prejudices of a feather flock together. So it should come as no
surprise th a t those who degrade hum anity to the anim al level are
also racist and sexist in their outlook. Whereas Ardrey denies
th at male birds or anim als fight over anything as unim portant as
females but rather fight over real estate, Lorenz takes a different
tack. He says th at females are “no less aggressive than the
males,” and in particular display hostility toward members of
their own sex—presumably just as women do in competitive
capitalist society.
This generalization is based on observations of certain rare
fish, such as the E ast Indian yellow cichlids and Brazilian
mother-of-pearl fish, where not only are males hostile to males,
but females are apparently unfriendly to females.
It is well known th at in m any species, above all the mammals,
females will fight in defense of their offspring. Males, on the
other hand, fight one another for sexual access to females. This
trait is not duplicated in the female sex. A female fighting
another female for access to males is conspicuous by its absence
in the anim al world. In herding species, one bull is quite
sufficient for a herd of females, and a “pride of lions” is composed
of a pack of lionesses to which usually only a solitary adult male
70 Sexism and Science
T here it is, spread out for everyone to see. Man is a killer-ape, and
woman is a sneaky, n asty prim ate th a t castrates men.
These neo-social D arw inians are pushing the most pernicious
prejudices of class society under the label of biological and
anthropological “science.” The enterprise is highly lucrative for
them and their publishers. But unw ary readers should be warned
th a t they are receiving large doses of poison in the sam e package
with only a few facts.
L ionel T iger’s
‘Men in G roups’:
S elf-P ortrait o f a W oman-Hater
(1977 )
73
74 Sexism and Science
On F em a le In ferio rity
When Tiger speaks of “men in groups,” he is not referring to
the huge groups of men, organized and unorganized, th a t com
prise the m assive modern working class. If he did so, he would be
obliged to refer as well to the “women in groups” whose steadily
increasing num bers have alm ost reached the halfw ay m ark in
the sam e work force. T his would hardly fit in with his thesis th at
women, “alas,” are incapable of grouping because they do not
possess the biological infrastructure of the male bonders. And it
would give the lie to his charge th a t women are so dependent
upon men for financial support, for sex, and as reproductive
partn ers th a t they easily become “strike-breakers” against other
women (p. 272).
Tiger gets around this difficulty of very visible m asses of
women grouping and fighting together in labor struggles by
dow nplaying th e whole period of capitalism . It is only about two
hundred years old anyw ay, he observes, which is insignificant
compared with the m any “m illions” of years of hunting activi
ties.
T hus when Tiger speaks of “men in groups,” he is referring to
the resplendent figure of M an the Hunter. “H unting is the m aster
pattern of the hum an species,” he writes. “Most hum ans at most
tim es—with the exception of several thousand recent years—have
needfully existed w ith aw areness of their symbiosis with ani
m als” (p. 216, em phasis in original).
Tiger the anthropologist shiftily sidesteps the fact th a t the
hunting-gathering epoch began to go out of existence some eight
thousand years ago, a t which tim e hunting as a “needful”
occupation receded and w as finally abandoned. With the advent
Women “bonding” w ith women (above). A convention of the Coalition of
Labor Union Women (CLUW). Women “bonding” with men (below). A
strike action of teachers.
77
78 Sexism an d Science
A L earn ed T rait
This tra it of the m ale sex w as overcome only after our branch
of the higher apes passed over into hum an life. Through their
newly acquired labor and cultural activities men learned how to
h u n t together instead of aggressively ousting one another. Thus
the “sexual dim orphism ” am ong anim als favors not the males
but the females; for it is the females who possess the natural trait
Self-Portrait of a Woman-Hater 79
H o rm o n es to G en etics
If argum ents like these are unconvincing, Tiger has more. He
leaps about like an agile monkey, from horm ones to genetics, to
explain the h azard s posed for the hum an species should women
engage in hunting. The specialization of m ales for hunting, he
writes, “favored those ‘genetic packages’ which arranged m atters
so th a t m ales hunted co-operatively in groups while females
engaged in m aternal and some gathering activity.” Any distur
bance of th is m ale specialization would have been disastrous to
the “genetic packages” th a t arranged m atters this way, and
presum ably nothing could disturb them more th a n females
tak in g up hunting.
Moreover, on the other side of the question, females who hunted
would be displaying “n o n m atem al female behavior,” and th at
would be equally bad for the “genetic pool.” The latter is safe
only w ith “those fem ales who accepted a clear-cut sexual dif
ference and enhanced the group’s survival chances chiefly by
full-time m atern al and g athering behavior” (pp. 57-59).
All this absurd advice to women is buttressed by sim ilar advice
to m en—a t least those who m ight be softheaded about letting
women hunt. According to Tiger, this “could interfere with the co
operative n atu re of the group by stim ulating competition for
sexual access.” Male bonding seems to rest upon fragile founda
tions after all—despite Tiger’s assertion th a t it has been em
bedded for m illions of years in the m ale biological infrastructure.
In any case, there is an even worse hazard th a n this sexual
Self-Portrait of a Woman-Hater 81
fighter pilots, tan k com m anders, or police chiefs? When men join
arm ies they become dishw ashers, laundrym en, and nurses. Yet
when women join arm ies they do not commonly take jobs which
are conventionally defined as m asculine” (p. 108).
Perhaps by now, some seven years after he wrote this, Tiger
h as learned th a t it is social discrim ination and male prejudice
th a t have held women back from taking m en’s jobs. In the few
years th a t the fem inist m ovem ent h as been on the m arch, women
have already broken down m any barriers; they have moved into
scores of occupations formerly reserved for men only.
Today there are women architects and sportscasters, bartend
ers and engineers, doctors and train operators, stevedores,
m iners, and truck and bus drivers. Women are rig operators,
coast guards, and construction workers, as well as fire fighters,
pilots, and subw ay operators. They are electricians, ditchdiggers,
and cops. Women have broken down their exclusion from
Olympic sports as well as from the m ajor m ale-supremacist
universities. They are now being adm itted into the m ilitary
academies of West Point, A nnapolis, and Colorado Springs. If
they are not yet tan k com m anders, bomber pilots, or astronauts,
this is not because of any fem inine frailties.
The h andicaps placed upon women are exclusively social and
not biological; for th e earliest and longest period in hum an
history there were no such handicaps. Tiger’s notions about the
in n ate inferiority of women are as outdated as the horse and
buggy.
83
84 Sexism and Science
G lorification o f War
This “bonding-cum-aggression,” as Tiger dubs it, clears the
road for his glorification of the masculine traits of war and
violence. War is alm ost universally an all-male enterprise, he
writes, and “other agencies of aggressive-violent mastery are
composed of m ales” (p. 226). Among these agencies he cites the
Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan. In passing, he notes the few
unspectacular things women can organize: “from charity groups
to hairdressing salons to berry-gathering cliques” (p. 218).
The exceptional merit of male bonding-cum-violence is th at
women are excluded. He writes th a t “m ales bond in a variety of
situations” which involve power and force, and they “consciously
and emotionally exclude females from these bonds” (p. 143, his
emphasis). One well-known example, cited by Tiger, is th at of the
Hitler era in Germany, when Goebbels elaborated the doctrine
that woman’s place was in the kitchen and nursery—“kinder,
kirche, und kiichen.” He offers this as further evidence of the
innate inferiority of the female sex and writes, “apparently even
major changes in political form and ideology can have little effect
on the role of women” (p. 90).
To Tiger fascism is merely a change in “ideology” and not a
disastrous political defeat of women and workers. This is in
keeping with his thoroughly reactionary and racist outlook which
sets whites above Blacks and men against women, and which
glorifies w ars and other forms of the “violent mastery of others”
as the highest virtues of Manhood.
On this basis Tiger h as h arsh words for women warriors—they
are as bad as women hunters. In his opinion women who try to
join armies are disparaged as “necessarily often transvestite” (p.
104). On the other hand, Tiger is favorably disposed to
homosexuality—providing it is male—and he proposes separate
men’s houses and all-male societies and clubs where husbands
can find enjoyment and relaxation ap art from the tedium of
wives and domesticity.
When Tiger’s book appeared, provoking expressions of outrage,
the New York Times Magazine generously accorded him a forum
in which to defend himself. His article appeared on October 25,
1970, under the caption: “Male Dominance? Yes, Alas. A Sexist
86 Sexism an d Science
Plot? No.” T his disclaim er did not alter his im age as a gross
upholder of m ale suprem acy. Rather, it reinforced his book,
which, despite its shiftiness and sophisticated pseudoscientific
terminology, is essentially the self-portrait of a virulent woman-
hater.
A nthropology and Fem inism
An E xchange o f V iew s
(1975 )
87
88 Sexism and Science
The w orking girl who m arries, works for a period after her
m arriage and retires to breed, is hardly equipped for the isolation of
th e nuclear household. . . . H er horizon shrinks to the house, the
shopping center and the telly. Her child is too much cared for. . . .
The child learns to exploit his m other’s accessibility, badgering her
w ith questions and dem ands which are not of any real consequence to
him , em b arrassing her in public, blackm ailing her into buying sweets
an d carrying him.
tio n ” and cap italist profits: “For the capitalist, a society m ade up
of nuclear fam ilies is a joy. It m eans lots of workers, lots of
consum ption units. . . . With sm all nuclear families, consump
tion is more inefficient” (in Sisterhood is Powerful, p. 462).
The reader will also recall Reed’s view of the “family-as-
consum ing-unit,” and “family-members-as-living-possessions”
w hen Millett writes: “In noting its economic character, Engels is
calling attention to the fact th a t the family is actually a financial
unit. . . . Due to the n ature of its origins, the fam ily is committed
to the idea of property in persons and in goods” (Sexual Politics,
P. 124).
The final solution:
“. . . the family, as th a t term is presently understood, m ust go.
In view of the institu tio n ’s history, this is a kind fate. Engels was
heresy in h is age. These m any decades after, he is heresy still.
But revolution is alw ays heresy, perhaps sexual revolution most
of all” (ibid., p. 127).
In short, the “new fem inism ” contains elements of some rather
“old” theory. The anthropological speculations of the evolutionist
school m ay have been generally disavowed by twentieth-century
Western universities, but the unilinear view of societal develop
m ent rem ained p art of M arx-Engels’s rhetoric. The result has
been a curious blend of theory this writer h as called “feminist
anthropology.”
Of course, not all fem inists are prone to this kind of rhetoric.
W riters like Betty Friedan, dubbed a representative of the
“NAACP w ing” of th e m ovem ent by her fem inist detractors, has
opted for such m undane dem ands as equal pay for equal work,
equal access to th e professions, and equal opportunity for
advancem ent w ithin these professions. Such concerns seem
“lackluster” an d “run-of-the-mill’ when placed beside the new
evolutionism in th e “g ran d old m anner” of writers like psychia
trist M ary J a n e Sherfey or M arxist-feminist Evelyn Reed.
F em inist “anthropology,” however, probably stands as good a
chance of acceptance am ong m ost Am erican women as evolution
ism does am ong m odem anthropologists—th a t is to say, small
chance indeed.
In th is au th o r’s opinion a more realistic perspective for
women’s organizations in seeking an end to antifem ale discrimi
nation would lie in a different direction. There are essentially five
broad (and overlapping) areas of struggle for women’s groups to
do battle in so as to effect sexism ’s eradication: legal, educational,
Anthropology and Feminism 97
EV ELYN R E E D ’S REPLY
E dw ard B. T ylor
101
102 Sexism and Science
respectable” (p. 345). The other was Julian Steward who stated
that the Marxist support of M organ’s work “has certainly not
favored the acceptability of scientists of the Western nations of
anything labeled ‘evolution’ ” (p. 315). I summarized these
political comments as follows:
Here is the real reason for the antimaterialism and antievolution
ism of contemporary anthropologists. The reactionary school has
become predominant because it has accommodated itself to ruling-
class prejudices and dogmas and assumed the obligation of stamping
out the spread of revolutionary conclusions.
comes from attem pting great and universal problems” (pp. 175-
77).
More recently, in his book The Rise o f Anthropological Theory,
Marvin Harris, former chairm an of the Columbia Department of
Anthropology, challenged the claims of Lowie and the functional
ists that Morgan’s stages of evolution were “fixed sequences,
every step of which had to be gone through by all cultures.” In
his sections on “The Myth of Unilinear Evolutionism” and “The
Myth of the Denial of Diffusion,” he shows how Morgan and
Tylor have been “system atically m isrepresented” with the label
of “unilinear evolutionism” pinned on to them by Julian Steward.
Although Harris chides the original evolutionists in his field for
pushing their search too far—above all, in the direction of the
priority of the m atriclan system—he is far more critical of the
“particularists,” who “denied th a t a science of history was
possible” (pp. 171-79).
Significantly, the taboo ag ainst applying the evolutionary
method has not always been strictly observed even by some
functionalists. This is the case with Malinowski, who probed
around in the Trobriand Islands, where m atriarchal survivals
existed, and drew some im portant generalizations from his
findings. This aroused the resentm ent of some of his colleagues.
As Lowie wrote: “this scom er of history him self reconstructs the
past,” and added in biting condemnation, “he does so self
consciously, mumbling the purifying spell th a t he is ‘discounting
any undue antiquarian or historical bias’ ” (History of Ethnologi
cal Theory, p. 239). Yet Malinowski’s utilization of the historical
method—even on a partial basis—makes his researches immea
surably superior to those of the pure descriptionists.
Despite the near-monopoly exercised by the functionalists in
academic anthropology, the evolutionary method could not be
completely exiled. Indeed, a growing uneasiness has asserted
itself over the anomalous position occupied by antievolutionary
anthropology while sister sciences such as biology, paleontology,
and archaeology continued on their evolutionary courses. The
influence of Gordon Childe, the world-renowned archaeologist,
helped to create a dissident current in the field of anthropology.
Prime credit for m aintaining the evolutionary method in the
United States m ust go to Leslie A. White, who kept the flame
burning throughout the decades of deep reaction against it.
Contrary to Haym es’s statem ent th at only the heirs of Engels
have adhered to this method, there have been others besides the
110 Sexism and Science
H is A dvice to th e F em in ists
Haymes lays out five m ain areas of struggle for feminists:
educational, artistic, legal, scientific, and ideological. The field of
woman’s history is conspicuous by its absence. But his plan has
other defects.
Haymes believes th a t the “ideological” sphere of fem inist
intellectual activity is “easiest” to achieve. All it requires is for
women to concur with Haym es’s naive faith in American capital
ism’s capacity to produce “unparalleled wealth.” However, even
those feminists who have yet to read Engels are observing and
experiencing the gross dislocations of capitalism in the grip of a
severe crisis. They will hardly be inclined to place such blind
faith in an economy th a t is in fact producing unparalleled profits
for the big monopolists, while cutting down the opportunities of
the middle classes and driving down the standards of the workers
and the women.
Haymes’s view of the “scientific” sphere is equally narrow and
one-sided. He thinks th a t the unraveling of certain psychological
myths, such as Freud’s penis-envy thesis, removes the last
bulwark against granting equal opportunity to women. However,
no m atter how m any psychological m yths are discarded, so long
as capitalism profits from the exploitation of women they will
remain the doubly oppressed sex, on the job and in home and
family life. It is this socioeconomic reality, not psychological
notions, th a t stands in the way of full liberation.
112 Sexism an d Science
114
The Challenge of the M atriarchy 115
U n a n sw e red Q u estio n s
If, as they argue, all th is evidence is “insufficient,” why have
they so arbitrarily cut off further investigations of the subject so
th a t more evidence could be obtained? And why, even on the
basis of the evidence now available, do they refuse to answer
certain questions on the priority of the m atriarchy?
Let me pose three m ost im portant queries:
1. Opponents of the m atriarchy do not deny the presence of the
matrilineal kinship system, since it exists to the present day in
m any prim itive regions. Where did this m atrilineal structure
come from if not from the ancient m atriarchal epoch?
2. Why h as the passage from m atrilineal to patrilineal kinship
alw ays been in th a t direction, never the other way around?
3. Why is the ancient system of m atrilineal kinship and
descent found now adays only in primitive regions and never in
the advanced patriarch al nations, which have long lost and
forgotten their m atriarchal origins?
Those who fail to deal w ith these and related questions are
merely asserting th a t the m atriarchy never existed and the
patriarchy is eternal. They have neither documentation nor
adequate argum ents to prove their contentions. Their method is
prejudiced rath er th a n scientific. It h as produced more obscurity
th an clarity on the subject of hum an origins.
A leading Am erican anthropologist, Marvin H arris of Colum
bia University, adm itted this in a recent interview: “Sometimes I
th ink th a t the prim ary function of establishm ent anthropology is
to fog the tru th ” (Psychology Today, Ja n u ary 1975, p. 67).
Under these circum stances it is not surprising th a t anthropol
ogy h as retrogressed in theory and method, even though addi
tional valuable inform ation on particular peoples has been
The Challenge of the M atriarchy 117
author of the book Kinship and Marriage has now come to question
what anthropology is all about and how he fits into it. He opens his
later book Encounter with Anthropology, with the following con
fession:
T h e “ D iv id ed F a m ily ”
In my book I explain th a t the m atrifam ily (my term for
M organ’s “pairing fam ily”) was the last stage in the evolution of
the m atriclan system. Because it recognized the father and
patrilineal kinship, it w as a “divided fam ily.’ It was tom
between two functional fathers—the m other’s brother and her
husband. However, the m other’s brother held the fixed, perm an
ent, and traditional ties to his sister’s son, while the father had
only ephem eral kinship ties to his wife’s child. A son was kin to
his fath er only as long as his m other’s m arriage lasted—and
these m arriages were easily and often broken.
Thus, while patrilineal kinship—of this weak and subordinate
type—could be accommodated w ithin the framework of the
m atrifam ily, patrilineal descent could not. A child’s relationship
to his m other’s brother w as a “blood” relationship in the
The Challenge of the M atriarchy 125
127
128 Sexism and Science
M aternal C lan K in sh ip
V ersu s F a th er-F a m ily K in sh ip
The elem entary structures of kinship are not to be found in the
father-fam ily, th e un it of patriarchal society, but in the m aternal
clan, the unit of prim itive m atriarchal society. The m aternal clan
was not composed of fam ily relatives but of sisters and brothers
in the social or collective sense. This is called the “classificatory”
system of kinship.
U nder th a t system all the members of the clan were classified
by sex and by age or generation. Thus the older women were
classified by sex as the “m others,” and by generation as the
“older sisters” to the “younger sisters” in the age-group below
them. Sim ilarly on the m ale side, the older men were classified by
sex as the “m others’ brothers” to the “younger brothers” in the
generation below them.
O riginally there were no m ates residing in the m aternal clan
unit. These m ates lived in their own m aternal clan units where
their social classification was also th a t of sisters and brothers.
Before the p aternal relationship was recognized, the m others’
brothers (or m aternal uncles) performed the functions of father
hood to their sisters’ children. Kinship and descent were reckoned
exclusively through th e m aternal line, with a subsidiary male
line p assing from m others’ brothers to sisters’ sons.
It is th is m aternal clan kinship system, or the “classificatory
system ,” which represents the “elem entary structures of kin
ship.” As the early scholars put it, “fathers were unknown,” and
only the kin on th e m aternal side were recognized. Thus in the
The M isconceptions of Claude Leui-Strauss 133
Actually, since the women of the m aternal clan period were the
prime producers of the necessities of life, they held the highest
authority as the social and cultural leaders, a fact th at is
exhaustively documented in W oman’s Evolution. Lćvi-Strauss,
who doesn’t deal with the economics of primitive society, tries to
prove eternal m ale suprem acy through his thesis on “sister
exchange.”
Concealing the fact th a t in cross-cousin m atrim ony there is just
as m uch “brother exchange” as “sister exchange,” he writes, “the
basic fact [is] th a t it is men who exchange women, and not vice
versa.” And he adds:
151
152 Sexism and Science
did not exist in the period of the m aternal clan, the question
arises: how and when did men get the power to traffic in women?
Historical m aterialists have explained th a t such male supremacy
began only a few thousand years ago—with the overturn of the
m aternal clan system by patriarchal class society. But Lćvi-
S trauss h as a different outlook. He believes th a t the exchange of
women by men goes all the way back to the beginning of human
life (about a million years ago), and it came about through the
operation of w h at is to him the m ost fundam ental law in all
history—the incest taboo!
The “incest theory” to explain the primitive taboo is an old
theory. Incest is defined as sexual relations between the closest
genetic relatives. This incest theory was originally based upon
the m istaken notion th a t clan brothers and sisters were such
close genetic relatives th a t inbreeding am ong them would be
harm ful to the species. Subsequently, with the advances made in
biological knowledge about the effects of inbreeding, this
argum ent was underm ined. In addition, it was found th at
classificatory kin were in the overwhelming m ajority not
genetically related a t all. This further undermined the biological
basis for the incest theory.
It should be ap p aren t th a t to underm ine or discard the
biological basis for the taboo is to remove the “incest” from the
prohibition. W hatever the taboo was directed against, it could
not, then, be characterized as an “incest taboo.” This problem
created the need for some new theory to take the place of the
incest theory. U nfortunately, the “new” theories were by and
large attem pts to m ake the untenable incest theory more tenable.
Psychological reasons were advanced to take the place of the
discredited biological reason. But these could not be sustained
under rigorous scrutiny either.
The m ost im plausible aspect of the incest theory was the
premise th a t primitive people, who did not even know the
biological facts about birth and death, could have understood
anyth in g about incest. Such knowledge requires a very high
scientific level of understanding and was acquired only in the
m ost recent period of social development.
The “incest taboo” thus became the Number One Baffler in
anthropology. Three options remained open after repeated
setbacks in trying to fathom its meaning: to continue to believe in
a biological basis for the prohibition; to stretch the definition of
“incest” to include categories of “fictional” relatives who are not
The M iscon ception s o f C laude L evi-S trau ss 153
are not only economic commodities, but vehicles and instrum ents
for realities of another order, such as power, influence, sym pathy,
status and emotion. . . .” Elsewhere, “A gift is at most a venture,
a hopeful speculation” (ibid., pp. 52-55).
Thus Lćvi-Strauss equates the primitive gift-giving system,
designed to m aintain peace and fraternity am ong clans and
tribes, to modern stores in Latin countries called “casas de
regalias” and Anglo-Saxon “gift shops,” where free food and
drink are served to the customers buying the gifts.
Anticipating the criticism th a t this travesty of the primitive
gift-giving system will arouse, Lćvi-Strauss writes:
161
162 Sexism an d Science
B irth P a n g s
Anthropology, like everything else in this world, was bom in
and through struggle. It emerged as a branch of science about a
hundred years ago through a series of colossal battles against
religious dogm as and petrified ideas.
The first m ajor dispute centered around the antiquity of
hum ankind. Theologians h ad established the duration of hum an
ity in accord with th e Bible a t some six thousand years. Even the
great French biologist Cuvier adhered to this orthodox view and
argued th a t fossilized bones of men antedating this time did not
exist. However, another Frenchm an, Boucher de Perthes, ex
ploded th is prejudice by his discoveries of ancient stone axes in
French deposits which paleontological tests proved were much
older. His book published in 1846, dem onstrating th a t fossil men
and their tools dated back tens of thousands of years, was greeted
w ith skepticism an d scom .
Continued discoveries of ancient hum an fossils and tools soon
settled this question beyond dispute. Today, through the findings
Evolutionism and Antievolutionism 163
T h e C lassica l S chool
The twin stars of anthropology in the English-speaking world
in the latter part of the nineteenth century were Morgan in the
United States and Tylor in England. Around them were a galaxy
of brilliant scholars and field workers who made noteworthy
contributions to various aspects of this science. Their work was,
of course, supplemented by equally able workers in Europe and in
other countries.
The work of this pioneer school was marked by the following
traits: It was, first of all, evolutionary in its approach to the
problems of precivilized hum anity. These anthropologists ex
tended Darwinism into the social world. They proceeded on the
premise th at in its m arch from anim ality to civilization, hum an
kind had passed through a sequence of distinct, m aterially
conditioned stages. They believed th a t it was both possible and
necessary to distinguish the lower stages from the higher ones
th a t grew out of them and to trace the interconnections between
them.
Secondly, this school was substantially m aterialist. Its
members laid great stress upon the activities of hum an beings in
procuring the necessities of life as the foundation for explaining
all other social phenomena, institutions, and culture. They sought
to correlate natural conditions, technology, and economics with
the beliefs, practices, ideas, and institutions of primitive peoples.
They probed for the m aterial factors a t work w ithin society to
explain the succession and connection of different levels of social
organization. The m ost successful exponent of this evolutionary
and m aterialist method was Morgan, who used it to delineate the
three m ain epochs of hum an advancement, from savagery
through barbarism to civilization.
Although these scholars applied the m aterialist method to the
extent of their ability, their m aterialism was in m any instances
crude, inconsistent, and incomplete. This was true even of
Morgan, who, as Engels wrote, had rediscovered in his own way
the m aterialist interpretation of history which Engels and Marx
had elaborated forty years before. For example, while Morgan
166 Sexism and Science
The R eaction
Around the turn of the century new tendencies began to assert
them selves in the field of anthropology. These were marked by a
growing aversion to the m ain ideas and methods of the classical
school and by a consequent regression in the theoretical level of
the science itself. Since then the representatives of these reaction
ary tendencies have acquired an alm ost undisputed ascendancy
in academic circles, crowding out the doctrines of their predeces
sors.
Two of the principal currents of thought in this sweeping
reaction are the “diffusionist” and the “descriptionist,” or “func
tionalist,” schools. Disciples and students of these two tenden
cies, or of com binations of them, furnish the bulk of the contribu
tors to the Wenner-Gren compilation.
The diffusionists focus their attention upon the beginnings of
civilization. Sir G. Elliot Smith, anatom ist and leading figure of
this school, asserts th a t “Egypt was the cradle, not only of
agriculture, m etallurgy, architecture, shipbuilding, weaving and
clothing, alcoholic drinks and religious ritual, the kingship and
statecraft, but of civilization in its widest sense” (In the Begin
ning, p. 26). The fundam ental institutions of civilization spread
from th a t innovating center, with minor accretions and modifica
tions, throughout the world.
Whether or not Egypt was the sole source of all the inventions,
as claimed by Smith, the transm ission or diffusion of achieve
m ents from one people to another is an undeniable factor in the
Evolutionism and Antievolutionism 167
M aterialism A bandoned
This retrogression arose directly out of the abandonm ent of the
m aterialist outlook and aim s of the classical school. As a rule, the
tw entieth-century academ icians are unwilling and unable to
relate the social and cultural institutions of primitive peoples to
the economic base upon which they are founded. They deny th at
the productive forces and activities are decisive in shaping these
cultural features. They proceed as though the cultural superstruc
ture developed ap art from, and even in opposition to, the techno
logical and productive foundations.
By divorcing culture from its economic roots, some of these
anthropologists come to the m ost absurd conclusions. Elliot
Smith, for example, locates the key to hum an progress not in the
advancem ents made in producing the m eans of life but in a
p articular mode of preserving corpses: “It is no exaggeration to
claim th a t the ideas associated with the practice of the em-
balm er’s art have been the m ost potent influence in building up
both the m aterial and spiritual elements of civilization” (In the
Beginning, p. 51).
The end product of th is retrogressive movement is the fashion
able psychological and psychiatric approach—latest offspring of
the functional school. M argaret Mead, E. Sapir, Ruth Benedict,
Evolutionism and Antievolutionism 169
A few decades ago culture was very real, tangible and observable to
anthropologists. They went out to preliterate peoples, saw and
collected tools, clothing, ceremonial paraphernalia, utensils and
ornaments; they observed people doing things—grinding seeds, prac
ticing circumcision, burying prayersticks, chewing betel; they ob
served expressions of conventional sentiments—a loathing for milk,
respect for the mother’s brother, a fear of ghosts; they discovered the
knowledge and belief of the people. All of this was once as real and
tangible to the enthnologist as to the native himself. In recent years,
however . . . culture has become an abstraction, intangible, imper
ceptible, and all but unreal to many anthropologists. . . . What was
once a distinct class of real, observable, tangible phenomena, the
subject matter of a special science, has now been conjured almost out
of existence! [Philosophy for the Future, pp. 359-60.]
filled to the brim with further data and documentation during the
past seventy or eighty years, M organ’s opponents have not
presented any adequate substitute for his theory of social evolu
tion. Having annihilated the positive framework of social evolu
tion developed by the nineteenth-century school, and unable to
provide any alternative of their own, the modern schools are
manifestly bankrupt in theory and method. Leslie White aptly
depicted them as follows:
In truth, the hodgepodge and jumble exist not in the social and
cultural phenomena but in the m inds and methods of Lowie and
his school. Whereas the pioneer anthropologists had sought, and
had succeeded to a large degree, in m aking order out of chaos, the
modem academicians have introduced chaos into the previously
established order. The more m aterials they accumulate the more
narrow their views become. The study of anthropology has
become disjointed and jumbled in their hands—and in their
students’ heads.
At the sam e time Steward ranges him self with the particu-
larists ag ain st the advocates of universal evolution, on the
specious ground th a t their generalizations fail to explain particu
lar phenomena:
But the issue goes even deeper than the historical priority of the
m atriarchy. Morgan and others of the classical school observed
th at wherever m atriarchal vestiges were found, there was also
clear evidence th a t m atriarchal society was collectivist and
egalitarian. It is this combination of the high position of women
and an egalitarian society th at lies at the bottom of the stampede
away from evolutionism. Basically, it is a flight from Marxism.
Fear o f Marxism
In the field of anthropology, as in other fields, a consistently
evolutionist and m aterialist method of thought has revolutionary
implications. Unwittingly, the classical anthropologists had
verified and supported Marxism as the most scientific system of
thought. The science of anthropology did not originate with the
historical m aterialists, but the creators of Marxism drew upon the
m aterials provided by the nineteenth-century anthropologists to
extend their own historical reach and substantiate their m aterial
ist interpretation of history. They drew out to their logical
conclusions the sharp contrasts between capitalism, the highest
form of class society, and primitive, or preclass society. These
conclusions are set forth in the renowned work by Engels, Origin
of the Family, Private Property, and the State, which appeared in
1884.
The reactionary flight from m aterialism and evolutionism
arose out of the effort to counter this challenge of Marxism. But
in the process of disowning the views of the M arxists, they were
174 Sexism and Science
T he R o ad A h ead
Darwin provided a solid foundation for biology and directed it
along correct lines by explaining how anim al species originated
and evolved from one order to another. Until the science of
anthropology likewise discovers the secrets of the social cradle of
hum anity, it lacks such a solid foundation. The road ahead for
anthropology today lies precisely in this deeper penetration into
our most remote past, above all, a t th a t critical juncture where
the first social horde emerged from the anim al world.
This central problem was not neglected by the nineteenth-
century pioneer school. On the contrary, their serious and
systematic research provided a sound point of departure. Morgan
had detected th at the gens, or clan system, arose as the universal
and fundam ental form of primitive organization. He also detected
th at the gens had been preceded by a cruder, more unfinished
form of social organization based upon “male and female
classes.” This “classificatory system” was subsequently sub
sumed into the gens system. The Scotsman J. L. McLennan
called attention to the importance of the strange code of social
and sexual rules which h as been voluminously discussed under
the various headings of totemism, taboo, and exogamy. W. H. R.
Rivers understood th a t decisive clues were contained in th at
peculiarity of the gens system called “dual organization.” Sir
Jam es Frazer and others assembled m onumental researches on
these and other bewildering phenomena, but their meaning in the
formation and rise of the primitive gens system remained
enigmatic. The principal merit of these pioneers was not the
answers they provided but rather the m aterials they assembled,
the penetrating observations they made, and the questions they
posed. Their work was and still rem ains the precondition for the
solution of social origins.
Despite this wealth of m aterial and the crucial importance of
the subject, the question of social origins is neglected in the
Wenner-Gren inventory. Not only have they ceased to follow the
trail begun by the nineteenth-century investigators but they have
ignored the key theoretical contributions to this study already
available.
176 Sexism and Science
178
Glossary 179
Note: Where a later edition is listed, the date of the original edition is
given in parentheses.
Howard Haymes's bibliography follows Evelyn Reed's.
181
182 Sexism and Science
185
In d ex
Abortion, 112 Ashley Montagu, see Montagu, M. F.
Africa, 71 Ashley
African Genesis, 54, 58, 64, 71 Atkinson, Ti-Grace, 90
Altmann, Stuart A., 9
American Anthropological Association, Baboons, 19-20, 23, 24, 28, 29, 49, 50, 74
114 Bachofen, Johann Jakob, 88, 89, 90, 163
Ancient Society, 164, 166 Benedict, Ruth, 89, 168
Animals: and aggression, 59; and habi Biology, 34, 37, 53
tats vs. territories, 58, 59; sexual di Birds, 68
morphism of, 24, 26, 45, 78-79, 80; Blood revenge, 125, 126, 138, 142-43. See
sexual segregation of, 23, 29-30; and also Death; Men; Mother’s brother
societies, 20-26, 34, 35, 37, 53 Boas, Franz, 89, 102, 114, 160, 167, 169
—females: and bonds with offspring, 30; Boulding, Kenneth E., 67
cooperative traits of, 23, 31-32, 69, 74; Briffault, Robert, 12, 26, 43, 46, 101,110,
"inferiority” of, 26-29, 32-33; and 176
mother-care, 10, 12, 23; power of, 27-
28, 32-33, 50; primacy of, 12, 47; role Cannibalism, 120, 122, 155. See also
of, in transition to humanity, 23; Taboo; Totemism
sexuality of, 29, 30, 48, 49, 58, 70 Capital, 63
—males, 23, 24-25, 26; aggressiveness of, Capitalism, 51-53, 54, 60, 67-69, 90, 97,
19, 28, 74, 82; in captivity, 28, 50; 111; and antievolutionists, 107; and
sexuality of, 48, 49, 70; sexual violence exploitation of women, 98, 100
of, 69, 121, 155; “superiority” of, 24-25, Carpenter, C. L., 27-28, 29
26-29, 32-33, 47; and territory, 49, 58 Carrighar, Sally, 67
Anthropologists. See Antievolutionists; “Changing Family and Lćvi-Strauss, or
Evolutionists Whatever Happened to Fathers?” 140
Anthropology: and “unilinear” evolu Childe, Gordon V., 14, 21, 37, 63, 109,
tion, 89, 97, 103, 106, 107-9; evolution 111
of, 162-77; feminist, 94, 99; state of, Children, 93, 94, 143
118-19, 161; and survivals, 103-6, 130. Chimpanzees, 19, 22, 30, 33, 49
See also Antievolutionists; Evolution; Clan, 121, 164; demise of, 143; evolution
Evolutionists of, 124; and interchange system, 149;
Anthropology Today, 172, 173, 174 and patrilineal kinship, 123, 141, 142;
Antievolutionists, 89, 99, 114-15, 127-60, and phratry, 133, 134; structure of,
161-77; antimaterialism of, 168-69, 124, 132-33. See also Cross-cousins;
170-71; empiricism of, 8-9; “piecemeal” Family; Kinship; Parallel cousins
method of, 171-73; reactionary influen Clark, J. Grahame D., 102, 174
ces on, 102-3, 173-75; descriptionist Clark, W. E. LeGros, 10
school of, 100, 102, 106, 166, 167; Conception, 119, 138
diffusionist school of, 166-67; function Corroboree, 149
alist school of, 100, 102-8, 160-69 Cross-cousins, 126, 137, 142, 148; and
passim; structuralist school of, 156. change of residence, 139, 141; and
See also Anthropology; Evolution; conflicts, 142-43; defined, 133; and
Evolutionists interchange system, 155; Lćvi-Strauss
Ardrey, Robert, 48, 54, 55, 57-61, 64-65, on, 130, 136, 139; as peace-making
69, 71 institution, 138-39, 149. See also Clan;
186
Index 187
Dual Organization; Family; Kinship cies of, 165-66; findings of, 100, 114,
Cuvier, Georges, 162 140, 161, 165, 175; method of, 8, 100,
104, 116, 125, 128, 129; and “unili
Darwin, Charles, 8, 35, 101, 163, 175; near” evolution, 103, 107-8
Engels on, 69; on male animal vio —twentieth century: deficiencies of, 110-
lence, 58; and social Darwinism, 42, 67 11. See also Briffault; Frazer; Morgan;
Death, 119, 138. See also Blood revenge Spencer; Tylor
de Perthes, Boucher, 162 Exogamy, 88, 125, 130, 133, 175
Descent, 122-23, 142, 143, 146-47. See
also Kinship Family: divided, 124-25, 143; evolution
Descent of Woman, The, 48 of, 123; and the matriarchy, 163-64;
DeVore, Irven, 14, 17, 19-20, 24, 27, 28, modem patriarchal, 122, 143; one-
29 father, 125, 132, 134, 146; pairing
Dialectics of Nature, 69 (matrifamily), 90, 93, 123, 124, 143. See
Digging stick, 14 also Clan
Divided family, 124-125, 143. See also Female Eunuch, The, 95
Family Female oppression: and animals, 27-28,
Dual organization, 129-30, 133, 136, 137, 30, 32-33, 47, 50; Bachofen on, 163;
175. See also Cross cousins and discrimination, 81-82, 112; Engels
du Chaillu, Paul B., 33 on, 98-99, 102, 124; source of, 79, 91,
Durkheim, Emile, 89 100, 111, 115, 122
Fish, 69, 70
Eaton, G. Gray, 32 Fox, Robin, 47, 48, 118
Egypt, 166 Fraternal relationship, 51, 79, 120, 121,
Elementary Structures of Kinship, The, 138, 154. See also Interchange system;
127-59 passim Women, as peace-makers
Emlen, John T., Jr., 33 Fra triarchy, 79, 93, 122, 124
Endogamy, 125, 133 Frazer, James G., 87, 140, 175
Engels, Frederick, 13, 15, 69, 87, 101, Freud, Sigmund, 97, 111
103, 173; and early anthropologists, Friedan, Betty, 91, 96
89-90, 98-99, 176-77; on female oppres
sion, 98-99, 102, 124; and modern Galdikas-Brindamour, Birute, 18, 29-30
feminists, 91, 92, 96; on primitive Genetic determinism, 51-52, 80-81
society, 164 Gift, The, 148
Equal Rights Amendment, 97, 112 Gift-giving. See Interchange system
Estrus, 29, 30, 70 Goldschmidt, Walter, 114
Evans-Pritchard, E. E., 119 Goodall, Jane van Lawick, 16-17, 18, 19,
Evolution, 40, 41; social, 13, 34, 37-38, 22, 30, 33, 40
75; and uneven and combined develop Gorer, Geoffrey, 65
ment, 107-8 Gough, Kathleen, 118
—animal, 9-12, 38; and hand and brain, Gould, Stephen Jay, 15
10; and mother-care, 10, 12; and tran Greer, Germaine, 91, 95
sition to human evolution, 12-15
—human: and capitalism, 51; compared Hall, K. R. L„ 16, 20, 25, 28, 31
to animal evolution, 13, 34, 37-38; and Hahn, Emily, 16
Ice Age, 14-15; preconditions for, 10, Hamburg, D. A., 9, 12, 24
37; role of women in, 51, 79 (see also Harris, Marvin, 109, 110, 116
Women); and transition from animals, Hartland, E. Sydney, 135
12-15; two turning-points in, 74-75 Haymes, Howard, 87-97, 98-100, 105,
Evolutionists, 88, 131, 136, 161-77 107, 109, 111, 112
—nineteenth century: attacks on, 20-21, Hinde, Robert A., 66
115, 128-32, 140, 143, 170, 174; defend Hoebel, E. Adamson, 16
ers of, 106, 109-10, 169, 171; deficien Holloway, Ralph, 67
188 Sexism an d Science
117, 118, 173; downfall of, 124, 145; Origin of the Family, Private Property,
institutions of, 133-34, 163-64; Lćvi- and the State, 13, 89-90, 98, 173
Strauss on, 128, 157; and patrilineal
kinship, 123, 141; recognition of, 26-27, Parallel cousins, 133, 136, 137
114, 176; social equality in, 79, 102, “Part Played by Labor in the Transition
114, 173; and survivals, 105, 106, 109; from Ape to Man, The,” 13, 176
Tiger on, 75-76. See also Women, role Paternity, 104-5, 123, 132, 146, 163
in primitive society and status in Patriarchy, 123, 124, 143, 145
primitive society Penniman, T. K., 68, 108-9
Mauss, Marcel, 148 Philosophy for the Future, 169, 171, 172
Mead, Margaret, 168, 169 Phratry. See Clan
Meaning of Evolution, The, 13, 57, 75 Piercy, Marge, 91
Meat-eating, 16, 18-20, 74, 120 Potlatch, 149, 156
Men: and bonding, 73-74, 79, 82, 83, 84, Premack, Ann J., 12, 22
85; fighting among, 121, 137-38, 149; Primates, 75; cooperation among fe
as hunters, 73, 74, 76, 78, 93. See also males, 23, 31-32; diet of, 18-20, 74; field
Fraternal relationship; Fratriarchy; studies of, 8, 9; and mother-care, 10,
Interchange System; Male supremacy; 12, 30; sexual dimorphism of, 78; and
Mother’s brother societies, 20-26; and theory of male
Men in Groups, 73-86 dominance, 27-29, 32-33; and tool-use,
Millett, Kate, 91, 96 15-18, 20, 40
Mitchell, Juliet, 90 Primatology, 8-33
Moiety system, 137. See also Dual orga Primitive collectivism, 61, 93, 102, 114,
nization 164
Montagu, M. F. Ashley, 61, 65, 68 Problems of Women’s Liberation, 92, 94
Morgan, Elaine, 48, 90
Morgan, Lewis H., 87-88, 101, 175; at Racism, 7, 71, 84
tacks on, 115, 128-30, 170; on charac Radcliffe-Brown, A. R., 114, 160, 167
ter of primitive society, 98; commemo Reed, Evelyn, 90, 91, 92-97
ration of, 117-18; deficiencies of, “Reflexions Sur L’Atome de Parentć,”
165-66; and Engels, 89; on the family, 134
164; on kinship, 87-88, 122; method of, Rethinking Anthropology, 135
128, 131; and three stages of history, Rivers, W. H. R„ 175
103, 106, 114-15, 128, 165
Morris, Desmond, 48, 55, 60-61, 62, 64, Sachs, Karen, 92, 95-96
66, 70 Sacrifice, 143
Mother right, 90, 105, 163 Sahlins, Marshall, 64-65, 110
Mother’s brother, 88, 93, 133; and blood Sanderson, Ivan T., 19
revenge, 125; and conflict with fa Sapir, E. 168
thers, 125, 142-43; and divided family, Savage Mind, The, 130, 131
143; downfall of, 123, 143; Lćvi- Scarf, Maggie, 16-17, 33
Strauss on, 134-35, 144-45; and male Schaller, George B., 18, 30, 33
descent, 142; and relationship with Schneider, David M., 117-18
sisters, 124; role of, 124, 132; status of, Schultz, Adolph H., 24
123, 142 Scott, J. P., 66
Mothers, The, 12, 26, 43, 110, 176 Seneca-Iroquois, 88
Mutterrecht, Das, 88, 163 Service, Elman R., 110
Myths, 125 Sexism. See Female oppression; Male
supremacy
Naked Ape, The, 54, 55, 60-61 Sexual Politics, 91, 96
Needham, Rodney, 115 Sherfey, Mary Jane, 90
Simpson, George Gaylord, 9, 13, 57, 75
On Aggression, 55, 62, 64, 68 Sisterhood is Powerful, 92, 96
Orangutans, 29-30 Smith, Elliot G., 166, 168
190 Sexism an d Science
Social Darwinism, 35, 49, 54-72, 75 of, 131, 165; on peace-making role of
Socialism, 51, 64; and feminism, 98; and women, 138, 154
Women’s liberation, 92, 102
Social Life Among the Insects, 35-36 Uneven and combined development,
Social Research, 140 107-8
Society: definition of, 37, 53; and insects, United Nations Educational, Scientific,
34, 35; and language, 22; and pri and Cultural Organization (UN
mates, 20-26 ESCO), 66
Sociobiology, 34-53
Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, 34-53 Veve, 137. See also Clan
Sociology, 37 Vietnam, 54
Spencer, Herbert, 87
State, 170 War, 54, 55, 58-59, 60, 63-64, 85
Steward, Julian, 103, 106, 109, 171-73, Washburn, S. L., 9, 12, 19-20, 22, 24, 27,
174 29
Structural Anthropology, 135 Wenner-Gren Foundation of Anthropo
Strum, Shirley C., 23, 27, 30-31 logical Research, 161, 171, 174, 175
Survivals, 103-6, 130, 156, 157, 163 Wertheim, W. F., 110
Wheeler, W. N„ 35-36
White, Leslie, 106, 109, 110, 169, 171,172
Taboo, 119-20, 175; and cannibalism, Wilson, Edward O., 34, 36, 38, 40, 42-53
120, 155; food, 119; and marriage, 123, Woman’s Evolution, 28, 138, 141, 149,
133; sex, 121 155
—and incest, 119-20, 121-22, 155; Lćvi- Women: bonding ability of, 73, 76, 79,
Strauss on, 152, 153, 159; Tylor on, 122; and childbearing, 115; downfall
154. See also Incest; Totemism of, 102, 124; hidden history of, 99,100,
Territorial Imperative, The, 54, 58, 65, 112-13; as modem workers, 76, 82;
71 oppression of (see Female oppression);
Tiger, Lionel, 47, 48, 73-86 theory of, as exchange, 50-51, 127-28,
Tilney, Frederick, 17, 20, 22 136, 139, 148, 149, 154, 158-59
Tools: and animal evolution, 10; and —in primitive society: as founders of, 51,
human evolution, 13-15, 38, 162; and 79,122; as peace-makers, 137,138,148,
primates, 15-18, 20, 40. See also Labor 154; productive role of, 79, 93, 176;
Totemism, 117, 118, 119, 120-22, 175 status of, 79, 98, 100, 131, 144, 163
Totemism, 136 Women’s liberation movement, 99, 100,
Trobriand Islands, 109, 156 111, 112
Tylor, Edward B., 87, 101; achievements
of, 137; on blood revenge, 138; method Zuckerman, Solly, 28
WOMAN’S
E m C T IO N
%mi i i i l r S f c W d o s t i< i
"How im portant it is to women today that the myth o f the eternal and
preordained patriarchy be exploded. A nd at last we have a good solid
woman anthropologist to do it. A landm ark book."— KATE MILLETT
"An instant classic. . . . Reed explores some fascinating concepts:
origins o f the incest taboo: control o f the food supply by prim itive
women: strange savage com binations o f sex and cannibalism: the origins
o f marriage: and the clash o f marriage and m atriarchy. "
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