7. The Origin of Hierarchy and Male Dominance: why David Graeber and Jordan Peterson are wrong

Why are hierarchy and male dominance so prevalent in human societies?  According to anthropologists David Graeber & David Wengrow, it’s because people were “self-consciously experimenting with different social possibilities,” and then we somehow got stuck this way.  Meanwhile according to... Continue Reading →

Why are hierarchy and male dominance so prevalent in human societies? 

According to anthropologists David Graeber & David Wengrow, it’s because people were “self-consciously experimenting with different social possibilities,” and then we somehow got stuck this way.  Meanwhile according to Jordan Peterson, it’s just human nature.  

Thankfully for humanity, both of these views are very, very wrong.  

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BIBLIOGRAPHY / SUGGESTED READINGS:

HIERARCHY VS. EQUALITY IN PRE-HISTORY

Christopher Boehm 1999 – Hierarchy in the Forest

Graeber & Wengrow 2015 – Farewell to the ‘childhood of man’: ritual, seasonality, and the origins of inequality, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol 21, N° 3

Graeber & Wengrow 2018 – How to change the course of human history, Eurozine

Shulnitzer et al 2009 – Causes and scope of political egalitarianism during the Last Glacial, Philosophy and Biology, Vol. 25 [on why egalitarianism was likely the norm in the Palaeolithic despite some archaeological finds of hierarchical societies in that period]

Camilla Power 2018 – Gender egalitarianism made us human: A response to David Graeber & David Wengrow, libcom

Camilla Power 2018 –  Gender egalitarianism made us human: A response to David Graeber & David Wengrow (video lecture)

Camilla Power 2018 – ‘Communism in Living’; What can early human society teach us about the future?, libcom

EGALITARIANISM AND GENDER RELATIONS

Jerome Lewis 2014 – Egalitarian Social Organization Among Hunter-Gatherers: The Case of the Mbendjele BaYaka, in Hewlett (ed) 2014 – Hunter-Gatherers of the Congo Basin

Michelle Kisliuk 2006 – Seize the Dance! [see chapter 7, Women’s Dances, the Politics of Gender]

Morna Finnegan 2013 – The politics of Eros: ritual dialogue and egalitarianism in three Central African hunter-gatherer societies, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. 19, N° 4

Jerome Lewis 2007 – Ekila: blood, bodies, and egalitarian societies, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute Vol 14.

Colin Turnbull 1961 – The Forest People [includes the gender tug of war story]

Barry Hewlett 1991 – Intimate Fathers

Cathryn Townsend 2019 – Emerging Patriarchy in the Mythology of a Previously Egalitarian Society (video) 

TRANSITION TO AGRICULTURE

Richerson et al 2001 – Was Agriculture Impossible during the Pleistocene but Mandatory during the Holocene? A Climate Change Hypothesis, American Antiquity, Vol. 66, No. 3

Mark Nathan Cohen 1977 – The Food Crisis in Prehistory

Mark Nathan Cohen 1998 – Were Early Agriculturalists Less Healthy Than Food-Collectors?  in Ember, Ember & Pellegrine (eds) 1998 – Research frontiers in anthropology. Volume I, Archaeology

Mark Nathan Cohen 2009 – Rethinking the Origins of Agriculture, Current Anthropology Vol. 50, No. 5 (university paywalled)

Valerie Ross 2011 – Early Farmers Were Sicker and Shorter Than Their Forager Ancestors, Discover, June 17 2011

PATRILOCAL RESIDENCE AND MALE DOMINANCE

Ember & Ember 1971 – The Conditions Favoring Matrilocal Versus Patrilocal Residence, American Anthropologist, Vol. 73, N° 3 

Pasternak 1997 – Family and Household: Who Lives Where, Why Does It Vary, and Why Is It Important? in Ember & Ember (eds.) 1995 – Cross-Cultural Research for Social Science

Mace & Holden 2003 – Spread of cattle led to the loss of matrilineal descent in Africa, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B, Vol. 270, N° 1532

Dyble et. al. 2015 – Sex equality can explain the unique social structure of hunter-gatherer bands, Science, May 2015

OTHER

Keely 1995/2014 – The Foraging Spectrum

Cathryn Townshend 2020 – Neither nasty nor brutish, Aeon  [on the Ik social collapse]

Carl Philip Salzman 2008 – Crisis and Conflict in the Middle East [an example of right wing materialist analysis]

Mauss 1950 – Seasonal Variations of the Eskimo [cited by Graeber & Wengrow]

Levi-Strauss 1944 – The Social and Psychological Aspect of Nambikwara Chieftainship, Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences, Vol 7 No. 1, Series II (university paywalled)   [cited by Graeber & Wengrow]

https://archive.org/download/07-male-dominance/07%20-%20MALE%20DOMINANCE.mp3