Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!bellcore!uunet!tdatirv!sarima
From: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Men barred from primatology conference
Message-ID: <75@tdatirv.UUCP>
Date: 6 Dec 90 01:22:57 GMT
References: <1061@ai.cs.utexas.edu> <15147@cs.utexas.edu> <8283@dog.ee.lbl.gov> <1990Nov29.154434.15873@cadre.dsl.pitt.edu>
Reply-To: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: Teradata Corp., Irvine
Lines: 30

In article <1990Nov29.154434.15873@cadre.dsl.pitt.edu> geb@dsl.pitt.edu (Gordon E. Banks) writes:
 
>Studies of non-human primates have been one of the most serious problems
>for feminists, in that they almost universally report strong male
>dominance, the magnitude of which seems to correlate with the difference in 
>physical size of the male and female (the polygynous baboon, I believe, 
>being the extreme)*. ...
>I suppose
>this conference might be to try to find some evidence that either the
>observations of primates are false or that humans are the exception among
>the primates.  

I do not think either is necessary, even for extreme feminists.  As you note
above the amount of 'male-dominance' is correlated with the magnitude of
sexual dimorphism.  Humans have almost no sexual dimorphism, so they would
be expected to have almost no male dominance.  Thus even as 'typical' primates
male dominace in humans would primarily be a cultural trait.

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uunet!tdatirv!sarima				(Stanley Friesen)