Macho Nature:
The past, present and future of the patriarchy in natural history
By Bethany Turner
Past prejudice
From Rosalind Franklin to Mary Anning, the contribution of women to the progress of science has been substantial. However, the sexism and barriers thrown at them along the way have also been significant. In this essay I argue that it is not only female Homo sapiens who have endured these centuries of prejudice, but also our fellow animals, who now have no choice but to live with the consequences of our actions. I suggest that the future of conservation is at risk because of these sexist attitudes. It is time we put certain stereotypes behind us.
From an early age I had a fascination with the natural world. Being raised on a healthy dose of Attenborough documentaries and copious amounts of science books drove my ambition to go to university and pursue my dream of becoming a biologist.
However, it had never occurred to me that some of the theories I was being taught were drenched in misogyny and sexism, dating back to Ancient Greece, and the grandfather of science, Aristotle. According to the Greek philosopher “In those animals that have…two sexes…the male stands for effective and active…and the female…for the passive”, and here I find the birth of sexism in science blooms and is further nurtured by the coming generations. Darwin might be forgiven for some of his remarks made in The Descent of man1 in relation to sex, (where he labelled the female species as ‘coy’ and ‘less eager’ to engage in sexual relations) because of the era in which he was born. Even if he did try and redeem females in his second theory of sexual selection, which suggested that female animals “generally exert some choice” about who they mate, this theory became too hard for Victorian society to accept and was rejected by Alfred Russel Wallace in his book Darwinism2: “In rejecting… female choice I insist in the greater efficacy of natural selection”.
Some present attitudes
But even today’s great scientists cannot escape centuries of ignorance, even current science superpowers like Richard Dawkins fall short of delivering anything remotely progressive towards the stance of sexism, boosting anisogamy cliched sex roles in the book the Selfish Gene3 : “Excess copulations may not actually cost a female much… but they do her no positive good. A male on the other hand can never get enough copulations with as many different females as possible: the word excess has no meaning for a male”.
Although these may appear as seemingly small and harmless comments in the large world of science, perhaps they have a significant ripple effect. In the world of conservation our naivety towards sexism is having profound effects on the wildlife we try to protect. Aside from discouraging females to pursue science as a career, the comments made over the centuries have also created a problem where the female animals of the world are understudied, meaning we are much less equipped to help when a species comes under conservation pressures.
The birds and the bees
Take monogamy and birds. Since Darwin, most female birds were labelled as monogamous creatures, hardworking mothers who mated for life. In fact, over the last 50 years we have come to understand that 90% of all female birds routinely copulate with multiple males, as mentioned in Lucy Cooke’s book Bitch4, shattering the Victorians understanding of an “angel in the house”. This new understanding of polyandry clears up some failed attempts of conservation efforts amongst certain bird species.
During 1975 the local red-winged blackbirds were becoming an agricultural pest in North and Middle America and one way of dealing with this was to reduce population size by interfering with their ability to reproduce. The males of the species became the obvious target of chemosterilant, as they were a ‘polyandrous gender’, often having 1-4 partners at a time. However, after sterilizing 8 males and returning them back into their territories it was soon discovered, that 69% of the clutches from the vasectomized males were fertile. This breakthrough study by Olin E. Bray et al., published in The Wilson Bulletin5, suggests that the female part of the population were not such angel house wives after all. Female birds can also be polyandrous.
Understanding that many female species not only take many suitors but also choose which will be the father to her offspring has been a significant discovery for scientists, which I believe will transform the way we are able to conserve and protect the animals we care for. Even in forced situations the female body has a way of fighting back, blocking the sperm from the pursuing male from being able to find the egg. Through Patty Brennan’s work on studying animal vaginas to William Eberhard’s book female control6, we can now see how much more complex animal mating is. Forced mating may occur in many species, but we only need to look at the mallard to realise it is rarely ever successful. In her book Bitch, Lucy Cooke highlights that although one third of mallard mating is forced, only 2-5% of the time does it ever result in ducklings.
We cannot expect to rear offspring from a selected male and female in captive breeding, because even if forced copulations do occur, many female species are well within their capabilities to prevent any offspring from occurring. Captive breeding methods are considered not very effective, and only serve as a last call for the conservation of endangered species.
Even if we did manage to get a female to successfully mate, who is to say the outcome will have the benefit conservation scientist’s plea for? Females drive population growth of a species, so for the successful conservation of many endangered species, (excluding many other factors) a split of 1:1 in gender reproduction is desired, but this is not always the case. We can look to birds to understand why the golden gender reproduction ratio of 1:1 is harder to achieve than expected. Here I introduce us to the kākāpō, a flightless parrot that resides in New Zealand. Unfortunately for this bird, the increasing rate of globalisation in the 1800s brought a mix of invasive species by European settles, and the destruction of their habitat. By 1995 there were only 51 of these critically endangered flightless parrots left in New Zealand. Conservation efforts to protect the defenceless parrot started off rocky. When the kākāpō population was relocated to a nearby island with no mammal predators and an abundance of food in 1995, the scientists at the time presumed that would greatly benefit the species. However, by 2001 only 86 remained, the population had not flourished as predicted, but why?
The steel grip of maternal care that many female animals have for their offspring starts a lot earlier in life then one might imagine. As it turned out, the Kakapo sex ratio is biased in favour of males (34:20). Kakapo females are able to take the risk of delivering more males when their body condition peaks as a result of food availability. This meant less females were being born. As population growth is female-driven, the species was doomed to come to a grinding halt. Similarly, to many other animals the female Kakapo has the profound ability to alter the sex of her unborn offspring. This factor, unbeknown to the humans dedicated to protecting this endangered species meant that their job became a little bit more complex.
However, this isn’t the only species suspected of being able to alter the sex ratio of offspring, a new study by Stanford University School of Medicine7 shows that mammalian species can influence the sex of their offspring in order to beat the odds and produce extra grandchildren.
A rebalanced future?
The examples discussed here cover only a few species that are being affected by human prejudices. The list goes beyond these few unfortunates and extends to our own human race, questioning how the treatment of our own female species has prevented further conservation efforts from being achieved. Research from the CARE-WWF Alliance8 shows that empowering women can reduce environmental damage, especially when women are engaged in natural resource management and conservation leadership positions.
However, things do seem to be changing for the better, already we are seeing a larger understanding and appreciation for the XY chromosomes of the world, and in the last 50 years there has been a push to encourage more female scientists into the sector of conservation. Many female animals will play a key role in helping us to understand how our own bodies work. A paper in Communication9 about menopause in killer whales highlights how relatively little is known about this post-sexual phenomenon which only occurs in three animal species, and how the study and conservation of pilot dolphins and orcas may be critical resources into understanding why post-sexual maturity occurs in humans and the historical importance of menopause.
While we should hope to see improvements in the way female scientists are treated, listed below are just a few female scientists who have paved the path for future conservation, and have inspired many others:
- Dian Fossey (1932-1985)
- Wangari Maathai (1940-2011)
- Rosaline Barrow edge (1877-1962)
- Margaret Thomas Murie (1902-2003)
- Jane Goodall (b.1934)
And hopefully many more to come…
Bethany Turner is currently undertaking her second year at Exeter University, studying biological sciences.
References
Feature image: @bystradesigns
1Darwin, C. (1871) The descent of man. London: Murray.
2Wallace, A.R., Huxley, T.H. and Spencer, H. (1880) Darwinism. New York, NY: Humboldt Pub. Co.
3Dawkins, R. (1976) The selfish gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
4Cooke, L. (2022) Bitch: A revolutionary guide to sex, evolution, and the female animal. London: Penguin Books.
5Bray, Olin E., et al. “Fertility of Eggs Produced on Territories of Vasectomized Red-Winged Blackbirds.” The Wilson Bulletin, vol. 87, no. 2, 1975, pp. 187–95. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4160617.
6Eberhard, William G. Female Control: Sexual Selection by Cryptic Female Choice. Princeton University Press, 1996. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvs32rx1.
7Richter, R. (2013) Mammals can ‘choose’ sex of offspring, study finds, News Center. Available at: https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2013/07/mammals-can-choose-sexof-offspring-study-finds.html
8How gender equality impacts conservation (2022) WWF. World Wildlife Fund. Available at: https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/how-gender-equality-impacts-conservation
9Brent, L.J.N. et al. (2015) “Ecological knowledge, leadership, and the evolution of menopause in Killer Whales,” Current Biology, 25(6), pp. 746–750. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2015.01.037.