Patriarchy: a tough nut to crack
We all know who wears the panties on this planet
I’ve just finished rereading The Bonobo Sisterhood, and was amused and bemused by this passage:
The current patriarchal laws gaslight women into not believing what they know to be true. Recall Heidi Schreck sitting in her car, thinking something like ‘stay alive’ while a boy removed her panties. At that moment she knew something to be true, and in Bonoboland her truth will be acknowledged and acted upon, either in the moment if her cry is heard or afterward.
Diane L Rosenfeld, The Bonobo Sisterhood, p225
Of course there’s nothing amusing about date rape, which so many women have experienced, and which is dealt with at some length in the book, along with the male privilege and male solidarity that often facilitates such behaviour, but on this occasion I was struck by the word ‘panties’. Girls wear panties. Even grown women wear panties, apparently. Males never wear panties, even when they’re children. I’m presuming Rosenfeld used the term inadvertently, but it’s that very inadvertence that resonates. It’s an infantilising term, that’s so commonplace that we’re generally oblivious to its effect. But it’s important to make the connection. Children are under our control. They need to do as they’re told, to realise what’s good for them – it might hurt them at first, but they’ll finally recognise that it’s all for their own good…
Panties are pretty, underpants are boring, jocks are manly (they’re an Aussie term, not sure if they’re globally recognised). A lot of the names for clothing have underlying gendered and sexual connotations, some of which are subtle, others, like ‘panties’, not remotely so. Why do men have shirts while women are stuck with blouses? Why do women wear stupid shoes, aka stilettos, while men have Cuban heels or whatever? Like petticoats, it’s all a bit petty. And of course patriarchy is at the bottom of it all, and it’s telling that Rosenfeld, so clearly onto feminist issues, should make that slip … (slip for a female undergarment – sexist or not?)
Who wears the pants? The men of ancient Greece and Rome, all ultra-patriarchs, wore skirts and dresses, which they called robes or togas. Trousers probably started with horse-riding among the Asiatic nomads, males generally, though hopefully women too. And think of tights and slacks, socks and stockings, bloomers and knickerbockers, which somehow became knickers; ties and scarves, hats, caps and bonnets, all with their shiftingly genderised elements. And nowadays, for good or ill, we’ve gone beyond or underneath clothing, with trans and cis, shemales, bitches, butches, incels, alphas, betas, sluts and studs, to name a few. Language does seem to have its downside.
Which brings me back to those language-free, and clothing-free, primates that I like to go on about. You see how we’ve mucked things up a bit with all that paraphernalia. With bonobos, what you see is what you get. And what do they see, or sense? A backside to die for? A wet dream of pink bits? The sexy scent of those fabulous pheromones? A boner to… well, you get the idea. And even without the sexual stuff – though the sexual stuff is pretty central – bonobos have something which could almost be called a policy. No-one left behind. Yes, I’ve mentioned a bit of female-on-male discipline, which very effectively sends a message to the odd uppity male, who always seems to learn his lesson, but the contrast with their chimp neighbours north of the Congo and elsewhere, is stark. And I mean really stark. Here are the facts on chimp aggression, from Wikipedia:
Dominance Aggression: Adult males fight for social status and access to fertile females using charging, biting, and displays (like branch-shaking), which rarely result in death due to submission rituals.
Coalitionary Aggression: Multiple males or females gang up on a single rival to gain rank or improve mating opportunities.
Intercommunity Warfare & Raiding: Neighboring groups regularly patrol borders, ambush loners, and engage in coordinated lethal attacks. Famous instances include the Gombe Chimpanzee War (1974–1978) and ongoing civil strife among the massive Ngogo Chimpanzee Community in Uganda’s Kibale National Park.
Infanticide and Cannibalism: Males and females occasionally kill and consume infants from rival groups or within their own community to eliminate competition or speed up a mother’s return to fertility.
Sexual Coercion: Males frequently chase, hit, and bite estrous females to control mating access.
This is a truly stark contrast to bonobo behaviour, just as human patriarchal behaviour, in terms of numbers slaughtered alone, dwarfs that of chimps. But then, we’ve still managed to out-number them, by a huge margin. We doubtless need to produce fewer kids, and to look after them better. Like bonobos…
We have a lot to learn.
References
Diane L Rosenfeld, The bonobo sisterhood, 2022
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