a bonobo humanity?

Australia knocks Denmark out of the World Cup – time for a hug

Often, in my usually brief discussions with women on the concept of a ‘bonobo humanity’, I get, first of all, ‘What are bonobos?’, and second, ‘But we’re not bonobos’, and third, ‘This female [boss/politician/influencer] was a disaster’. So, in this post, I want to write about this third response.

A thought experiment. Men are banned from running for political office of any kind, and also from voting. And, somehow the world’s richest people – say the top twenty, are all women (though they may not all be multi-billionaires – it just might be a more sharing human society). In other words, forget about female x or y who’s reached the top in an essentially patriarchal society. Think more about a world in which care and concern, and collaboration, and yes a bit more of lovey-dovey sex, has become the norm, and men are mostly happy about not having to make all (or any of) the decisions.

Okay, perhaps that’s going a bit far, but if you consider that the bonobo world is in some ways an inversion of the chimp world, then it might be worth considering what would be an inversion of the current human world, horrendously complex though it obviously is. And for me the obvious transformation would involve gendered power relations.

Do I see it happening? Not globally, of course, but human society is both highly fragmented and yet more inter-connected, technology-wise, than ever before. The Scandinavian countries, observed from my distance, which is about as far away as one can get, seem the most likely pioneers of this New Order, with Sweden, the Netherlands and Denmark ranking as the least machismo nations by some August Body or other (what’s the female version of machismo? – apparently we’re still working on it), but there are any number of nations vying for the title of most patriarchal.

Perhaps we need to look at what the ingredients need to be, to bake a female-dominated society. One ingredient would surely be female solidarity. Here’s a nice solidarity statement that says all the right things:

Women supporting women is a powerful concept that helps foster success and empowerment. Women are more successful in all facets of life when they support one another. Building a community or a tribe of supportive women boosts morale and creates opportunities for growth and collaboration that lead to a more harmonious and inspiring environment. Mutual support among women is essential for overcoming cultural and systemic hurdles, promoting gender equality, and providing a sense of companionship, healing, and encouragement.

Read this and think bonobos. Don’t worry so much about ‘gender equality’ – genders are no more equal than people are. Just think about how female gender support can create a generally better environment for all, humans and non-humans alike, and as we think more on this, and as the evidence grows that female, as opposed to male, empowerment generally leads to more group ‘companionship, healing and encouragement’, without reducing our ability to innovate and problem-solve, female leadership might just become the order of the human planet, with the assent, if at times grudging, of cantankerous males.

So, when you think of female leaders you consider to be ‘disastrous’, or simply not much chop, think of all the male leaders, particularly in what we broadly term ‘politics’. Have there been any female Genghis Khans? (the Mongol invasions have been estimated to have killed nearly 40 million – but who was counting?). How about Mao Zedongs? (whose ‘Great Leap Forward’ in 1958-62 led to the deaths of some 45 million of his own countrywomen, and men – someone has been calculating), or Adolf Hitlers? (whose war-mongering and racism resulted in 15 to 20 million deaths in Europe), or Joe Stalins? (the numbers for him are hard to calculate as they include deaths from forced collectivisation as well as mass executions, gulag neglect, and more or less avoidable famines). Then there was Leo Victor, aka Leopold II of Belgium, whose atrocities in the ‘Congo Free State’ as it was grotesquely named at the time, have left a legacy from which the region has never recovered, as recent extreme crimes and punishments have shown.

Would female leaders have been just as bad, as even some females are prepared to argue? Well, I would point to bonobos as compared to rather more murderous chimps – but we’re not bonobos, are we?

So the point is not to become bonobos but to note that women are in general less violent than men, more co-operative, and – well they have other features that are more attractive than men, just as bonobos, in their social behaviour, have features that are more attractive than chimps. I’ve written about women’s soccer as an example. Opposing teams in the women’s game can be tough and testy with each other – I’ve seen it – but I’ve never seen anything like the bad behaviour I’ve observed in the men’s game, while group hugs in the women’s game are much more frequent and demonstrative. It’s just something in women’s nature – or is it socialisation, it’s hard to pick it all apart. The point is to utilise these better natures, however begotten, for a better world.

And yes, we can learn from bonobos!

References

https://modernminds.com.au/journal/latest/women-for-women-why-do-we-need-our-tribe-to-grow