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Monkey Business: What the Animal Kingdom Can Teach Us About Modern Dating
38 Plays1 year ago
The Queens are joined Dr. Ashni Dhawale to explore the parallels between the modern dating world and the animal kingdom. From peacocking to power dynamics, we dive into the primal behaviours that men exhibit—and how some things never evolve. Do modern dating trends mirror the mating strategies of our primate cousins, or are we just dealing with a lot of monkey business? Tune in to learn the biological roots of male behaviour, the tactics animals use to secure the best mates, and how to apply that knowledge to your own high-value strategy!
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Background
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome back to the Female Dating Strategy, the meanest female-only podcast on the internet.
00:00:04
Speaker
I'm your host, Diana.
00:00:06
Speaker
And I'm Rose.
00:00:07
Speaker
And today, we have a very special guest with us, Dr. Ashne Davle.
00:00:13
Speaker
She specializes in animal behavior, and her PhD is focused on examining the behavioral and cognitive adaptations of the lion-tailed macaque in response to man-made changes in their habitat.
00:00:24
Speaker
She is currently studying their behavior in Sulawesi, Indonesia.
00:00:29
Speaker
So, Ashley, we're very excited to have you here because you claim that your past dating life may not be as dramatic as the monkeys you study.
00:00:37
Speaker
But, you know, we want to hear from you.
00:00:39
Speaker
We want to hear whether we're the more dramatic ones or whether those monkeys are the more dramatic ones.
00:00:45
Speaker
Hi, I'm so happy to be here and thank you for having me.
00:00:48
Speaker
Yeah, so I may not have a very dramatic personal life.
00:00:53
Speaker
I think the monkeys are definitely more dramatic.
00:00:56
Speaker
But let's see, we'll see maybe as the conversation goes ahead.
00:00:59
Speaker
Well, and Diana, I love how you nicknamed this episode Monkey Business.
00:01:04
Speaker
And I especially was just like, there are, you know, aren't we always telling people like enough of that monkey business, like cut out that tomfoolery.
Why Primates?
00:01:10
Speaker
One thing that we were talking about, Diana, is you were saying, why are we talking about alpha wolves when our closest relatives in the animal kingdom are in fact the primates?
00:01:21
Speaker
Mm hmm.
00:01:21
Speaker
And this is when you said, actually, I have a friend, a very dear friend who studies this very topic.
00:01:26
Speaker
Should we see if we can interview her?
00:01:28
Speaker
So, Ashne, that's how this all came about.
00:01:30
Speaker
And we are just so delighted to have you here today.
00:01:32
Speaker
Thank you so much.
00:01:34
Speaker
I'm so happy to be here.
00:01:35
Speaker
Thank you for having me and for inviting me on this extremely special podcast.
00:01:40
Speaker
I can't wait to be a part of this.
00:01:43
Speaker
Diana, how do we get started?
00:01:44
Speaker
Do we have questions lined up?
00:01:46
Speaker
Well, you know, before we get in, you know, obviously we want to debunk like all of the popular alpha wolf myths that men have come up with because, you know, these podcast bros have come up with all sorts of stupid ideas about the animal kingdom to justify how shitty they treat women.
Debunking the 'Alpha' Myth
00:02:02
Speaker
Obviously, we want Ashnee to explain what actually goes down in the animal kingdom because she's the expert.
00:02:07
Speaker
But Ashnee, if you want to lead us in on your, you know, what's your experience been as a scientist, as a woman of science, as a woman in STEM?
00:02:16
Speaker
You know, what has been your dating experience?
00:02:19
Speaker
Do you want to give us like a like brief...
00:02:21
Speaker
sort of look into your life.
00:02:23
Speaker
And like, you know, FDS is all about helping women maximize female benefit.
00:02:27
Speaker
And we pride ourselves on being a resource to all sorts of women on how to improve their lives, especially their dating lives.
00:02:33
Speaker
So we would love to, you know, have some insight from you or just, you know, learn more about you personally before we get into your work.
00:02:40
Speaker
That is such a great point.
00:02:41
Speaker
And actually, could you tell us how you even came to this field of study,
Ashne's Unique Perspective in Science
00:02:45
Speaker
Ashne?
00:02:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:46
Speaker
Yeah, so I think as a child, I was very interested in animals and animal behavior.
00:02:52
Speaker
I think for the longest time, I wanted to be a vet, which child didn't.
00:02:57
Speaker
But I took my dreams seriously.
00:02:59
Speaker
And I'll give myself credit with a lot of hard work.
00:03:02
Speaker
I managed to find a field that allows me to translate those just childish dreams and my passion for animals into a legitimate career, if I may say so myself.
00:03:14
Speaker
And so I was pretty certain from very early on that I wanted to be in a field of work where I was involved with animals.
00:03:23
Speaker
And sometime during my high school, I kind of figured that you can make a career out of studying animal behavior.
00:03:32
Speaker
And it seemed like
00:03:33
Speaker
the absolute perfect thing that I would want to do.
00:03:37
Speaker
Of course, there were a bunch of challenges, I had to pursue very specific subjects to be able to get into the field.
00:03:44
Speaker
And I decided not to, and continue to study the subjects that I really wanted to, which involved
00:03:52
Speaker
English literature, philosophy, and so on.
00:03:54
Speaker
Luckily, there was one opportunity in India that allowed me to move into wildlife studies.
00:04:00
Speaker
And so I moved from a Bachelor of Arts to a Master's of Science and found my way back to studying animal behavior.
00:04:10
Speaker
My specific professional training is in wildlife biology and conservation of wild species.
00:04:17
Speaker
And it's just been a crazy rollercoaster ride since then.
00:04:21
Speaker
What a well-rounded background.
00:04:23
Speaker
It's really rare to hear about somebody going from a BA to an MS.
00:04:27
Speaker
Have you noticed that amongst your colleagues?
00:04:30
Speaker
Oh, yes.
00:04:31
Speaker
I'm definitely the one that's always the kind of outsider looking in, but I find it quite comforting to know that I bring the interdisciplinary aspects to the table and that I always have something to offer that perhaps my colleagues may not have experience with.
00:04:48
Speaker
There are times when it's extremely challenging to have to then work
00:04:52
Speaker
in a field that I don't sort of belong to.
00:04:55
Speaker
And I feel like that's really equipped me to deal with other aspects of my life where I kind of feel like the outsider.
00:05:02
Speaker
It makes me more comfortable.
00:05:04
Speaker
And it sort of gives me the sense that I can do it, I can figure it out.
00:05:07
Speaker
And it's definitely sort of helped my personal growth and development as a person as well.
00:05:13
Speaker
Diana, you said you've known Ashne for
Divergent Career Paths and Friendship
00:05:16
Speaker
a very long time.
00:05:17
Speaker
Have you been able to follow her journey and kind of see as a friend what it's been like the sort of challenges and victories that she's had to earn on her own two feet?
00:05:26
Speaker
I definitely feel like she's always exhibited a very high level of ambition and drive.
00:05:31
Speaker
So for her to be able to switch from the BA to the MS, I couldn't imagine anybody else who could have pulled it off.
00:05:36
Speaker
But, you know, that being said, I do think that she's found a path where she has found some belonging.
00:05:41
Speaker
That's where I disagree with her.
00:05:42
Speaker
I don't think that she doesn't belong.
00:05:44
Speaker
I think she's definitely found a way to make herself irreplaceable.
00:05:47
Speaker
And she's brought a lot of unique perspective to her field.
00:05:51
Speaker
I mean, that's why she's still succeeding to this day.
00:05:54
Speaker
So I definitely feel like, you know, both of us had nursed this ambition when we were kids.
00:05:58
Speaker
We both wanted to be vets.
00:05:59
Speaker
That was like a kind of goal we shared together.
00:06:02
Speaker
Of course, it's kind of interesting that our career trajectories are the complete opposite of each other because she went from the arts to the sciences and I went from the sciences to the arts.
00:06:11
Speaker
So I went to vet school and then now I ended up in like the film world and she wound up.
00:06:16
Speaker
Oh my gosh!
00:06:17
Speaker
We kind of went in opposite directions.
00:06:19
Speaker
Because for me, personally, you know, after I actually went to vet school, I kind of got disillusioned with like just the whole space of doctors in general.
00:06:27
Speaker
I mean, at least in the States, you know, where I did my medical training, a lot of people who are in vet school are mainly people who are working on their family farms.
00:06:34
Speaker
So they kind of had, you know, a guaranteed job right after they left.
00:06:38
Speaker
And obviously, when you're an immigrant to the States, that becomes something, it's a very heavy investment to invest in medical school in general.
00:06:44
Speaker
And it's a very expensive field to follow.
00:06:47
Speaker
But I mean, beyond the expenses, it's not like I didn't think I could do it.
00:06:50
Speaker
But it's just that at the same time, I always nurse the ambition to also be a filmmaker.
00:06:55
Speaker
And so for me that, you know, I just allowed myself to honor it.
00:06:58
Speaker
And so I feel like the paths that we both went on were naturally suited to our unique talents and our gifts.
00:07:05
Speaker
And having known her on her whole life, I feel like she's been really consistent.
00:07:10
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:07:11
Speaker
Like every single thing that she's told me about what she's achieved in life has never been something that I'm like, oh, this is so random.
00:07:16
Speaker
Like I couldn't imagine that.
00:07:17
Speaker
Like she's always been very consistent in her pursuit, like, you know, in her pursuit of her goals.
00:07:23
Speaker
She's always had like a very strong sense of focus and passion.
00:07:28
Speaker
You know, it made a lot of sense that she entered this line of work.
00:07:31
Speaker
You can tell her passion for the subject just almost immediately.
00:07:34
Speaker
And there's very few people I can think of that you meet, you know, that almost immediately that the love for their field kind of radiates, you know?
00:07:41
Speaker
Oh, thank you.
00:07:41
Speaker
Thank you, Diana.
00:07:42
Speaker
I think that that's pretty accurate description.
00:07:46
Speaker
Would you give us a little insight into how you've come to know and understand Diana as a lifelong friend as well, Ashne?
00:07:54
Speaker
Yeah, so I think because we shared a lot of similar interests as children, a lot of our core memories are probably based on the same life experiences that we shared.
00:08:05
Speaker
I think that's something that really bonds you for life.
00:08:09
Speaker
It's also important
00:08:09
Speaker
extremely interesting to me that we have very different career trajectories.
00:08:13
Speaker
But I feel like that's really what has always made us sort of enriched in this friendship is because we truly complement each other.
00:08:22
Speaker
And there's aspects of various fields that we've tried and tested through our education that appeal to each of us.
00:08:30
Speaker
Ultimately, I do still think fundamentally, we are quite similar.
00:08:34
Speaker
But what we sort of the way we perceive the world, I would in fact say that, yes, I have been, I have had a very single track mind in terms of the career I want to pursue.
00:08:44
Speaker
I feel Diana in that sense has actually been much more open to her experiences.
00:08:50
Speaker
her lived experiences and kind of grown through her time in various fields.
00:08:55
Speaker
And I learn a lot from her.
00:08:57
Speaker
And I think she's always been sort of a voice of reason that yells at me sometimes from the background.
00:09:05
Speaker
And I take her voice very seriously.
00:09:07
Speaker
I think I value her learnings and things she offers to my life.
00:09:12
Speaker
Oh, I just love to hear a relationship.
00:09:14
Speaker
I love to hear about friendship like this.
00:09:16
Speaker
And it seems like you both are able to bring your own backgrounds to your lives in complementary ways, but also for creating your own paths.
00:09:25
Speaker
And isn't that so exciting in the world we live in today?
00:09:27
Speaker
Absolutely, yeah.
00:09:29
Speaker
I think, you know, to have a friendship that's been as long as ours and to still have mutual respect for each other, I think is a very beautiful thing.
00:09:36
Speaker
And our earliest relationships, and we've seen each other through like various stages of our lives.
00:09:41
Speaker
And I'm sure that that will keep happening, you know, as we age, you know, we've really seen each other, you know, despite like our careers are one aspect of it, but who we are as people and how we've evolved as well.
00:09:52
Speaker
I feel like we've seen each other through those transitions, you know,
00:09:55
Speaker
And yeah, it's a really awesome thing to witness because I don't think that there's a lot of people in the world that can boast of a friendship like ours, actually.
00:10:02
Speaker
It's quite rare, I would say.
00:10:04
Speaker
Yes.
00:10:04
Speaker
Well, what I've been learning about Diana's background to Ashne is I've been
00:10:09
Speaker
talking with her over the last episodes that we've been recording as new co-hosts, you know, just hearing about Diana's life and the different experiences she's had and the different places she's lived.
00:10:20
Speaker
It's like, you know, this is a very singular life that you lead Diana.
00:10:24
Speaker
And I imagine that that has its, it has its pros and its cons, but I think finding a friend who you can take from place to place throughout the years is something that's really special.
00:10:34
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:10:36
Speaker
I agree.
Support Networks Beyond Romance
00:10:37
Speaker
You know, I think, you know, one of the things we always tell our listeners as well is that, you know, I think Judge Toler said this as well, right?
00:10:43
Speaker
You can't singularly focus on one aspect of your life to the detriment of others.
00:10:48
Speaker
And I think that, you know, I've spent a lot of my life being single.
00:10:51
Speaker
I don't think that I've been into too many long-term relationships.
00:10:55
Speaker
But I think one of my biggest strengths is that I've always been able to make friends.
00:10:58
Speaker
And I've kind of had to, right?
00:10:59
Speaker
Because I've just lived all over the world.
00:11:01
Speaker
And so I just really didn't have any option if I wanted to form roots or connections in places.
00:11:06
Speaker
And so, you know, I think it's really important for the people who listen to this podcast to understand that, you know, your dating life is important.
00:11:11
Speaker
Who you find to, you know, be a permanent partner is very, very important.
00:11:15
Speaker
But you need to also make sure that you have robust networks of support and that it isn't just all resting on one man, you know, and you shouldn't be so singularly focused on your romantic life.
00:11:26
Speaker
that you forget to focus on all the other aspects of your life that make life worthwhile.
00:11:30
Speaker
And so, you know, I'm quite proud of the fact that I do have these long connections, these long term connections with people like Ashne.
00:11:37
Speaker
And also, I've made a lot of friends in the last 10 years of my life where I've been moving around as well.
00:11:42
Speaker
And, you know, I'm couldn't do that.
00:11:43
Speaker
I mean, we're doing this podcast together.
00:11:45
Speaker
I'd like to think we're friends now.
00:11:46
Speaker
I would hope so.
00:11:47
Speaker
I think so.
00:11:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:50
Speaker
So, you know, you continue to meet people who add so much value to your life.
00:11:53
Speaker
And some people are there, you know, for a season and some people are there for the entire journey.
00:11:58
Speaker
And, you know, each of them have something valuable to add to your life.
00:12:01
Speaker
That's one thing that, you know, I keep trying to impress on this podcast as well with past episodes is that
00:12:05
Speaker
it is very important.
00:12:07
Speaker
You know, when we talk about female solidarity, it's not just to show up for each other when we're being discriminated against.
00:12:12
Speaker
It's to really, really show up for each other when we need that support and we need that boost and we need that acknowledgement and validation and support in our lives, in our daily lives.
00:12:21
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:12:21
Speaker
And Diana, actually, while you were talking, you led me into a question that I have for Ashne, which is Ashne in the animal kingdom, you specifically study gold-tailed, is it macaque?
Female-Centric Societies in Primates
00:12:33
Speaker
How do I pronounce that?
00:12:34
Speaker
The lion-tailed macaque.
00:12:36
Speaker
The lion-tailed macaque.
00:12:37
Speaker
And you're doing that work out of Sulawesi, Indonesia?
00:12:40
Speaker
No.
00:12:40
Speaker
So that was my PhD work back in India.
00:12:44
Speaker
And now I'm studying a different species of macaque in Sulawesi, but it's also a macaque.
00:12:49
Speaker
Okay.
00:12:49
Speaker
Okay.
00:12:49
Speaker
So it's a different kind of macaque.
00:12:51
Speaker
Is that right?
00:12:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:52
Speaker
Okay.
00:12:53
Speaker
So my question to you is, in this animal kingdom that you study from India to Indonesia, do animals tend to prize above all other relationships that between like mating pairs?
00:13:06
Speaker
Or is it a far more egalitarian collective endeavor?
00:13:10
Speaker
How would you describe it to a layman like myself?
00:13:14
Speaker
Yeah, I would actually describe it as the technical term is female philopatric, which actually means governed by the females.
00:13:23
Speaker
And it is most importantly, a female centric society.
00:13:28
Speaker
In both cases of both the macaque species, the females are the ones that are born into a group and remain in the group for their entire lives.
00:13:36
Speaker
They forge animals.
00:13:38
Speaker
relationships of all kinds, so with their parents, with members of their cohorts, so other babies that are born at the exact same time as them, we call those friendships, and also with other relationships like their older siblings or younger siblings and so on.
00:13:54
Speaker
And so I would actually characterize a society as
00:13:57
Speaker
It's not even a personal characterization.
00:14:00
Speaker
It is officially called a female philopatric society, which means that it's female-oriented, female-centric, and the strongest bonds that the macaques observe are amongst the females.
00:14:12
Speaker
I have a publication that's available online, which is titled, in fact, Female Friendships.
00:14:19
Speaker
And so that's the kind of work that I also like to focus on.
00:14:23
Speaker
I need to know everything.
00:14:26
Speaker
So I just did a little quick search.
00:14:28
Speaker
Philopatric is the word.
00:14:29
Speaker
Is that correct?
00:14:30
Speaker
Yes, that's correct.
00:14:31
Speaker
And it says here, it's the tendency of an animal to remain in or return to its natal area, its natal habitat.
00:14:40
Speaker
Is that correct?
00:14:41
Speaker
Right.
00:14:42
Speaker
And so the bond essentially of being born into and remaining in is governed by the females.
00:14:49
Speaker
And so if you're born into a group that is defined by or composed by a certain group of females, you remain in that group or you return to that group.
00:14:59
Speaker
And so the females remain together, whereas the males are the ones that kind of come and go.
00:15:04
Speaker
And what are the benefits to the female animals to remaining as sort of like the home zone, so to speak?
00:15:10
Speaker
Right.
00:15:11
Speaker
So I think the main sort of biological basis of this would be that females are the ones that essentially track resources.
00:15:21
Speaker
What is most important to females in the wild, in macaque societies and primate societies is tracking the resources, the essentials that they need to survive.
00:15:32
Speaker
And for the males, it's tracking the females because they need the females to produce offspring.
00:15:39
Speaker
And so the females are really just concerned with keeping themselves alive and keeping themselves safe.
00:15:45
Speaker
And so what is important then is that the females banding together are the ones that really help in keeping each other alive.
00:15:54
Speaker
They help in keeping each other safe.
00:15:56
Speaker
And so what really defines this kind of society is that because the females are really tracking the essentials,
00:16:02
Speaker
They are the ones that have the best resources to survive, whereas the males are really just trying to make sure that their lineage continues.
The Real Animal Hierarchy
00:16:10
Speaker
And so they need to track the females, which is why they kind of move around.
00:16:14
Speaker
Okay, so let me get this straight.
00:16:16
Speaker
Let me get this straight, Jayana.
00:16:20
Speaker
Women.
00:16:23
Speaker
I love this so much.
00:16:24
Speaker
I'm so happy.
00:16:26
Speaker
I am geeking out.
00:16:28
Speaker
I want those scrotes to pay attention to this.
00:16:31
Speaker
You are not the providers of anything.
00:16:34
Speaker
You are not the resource providers.
00:16:37
Speaker
Okay, you are not the protectors.
00:16:39
Speaker
You aren't even there in the animal kingdom.
00:16:41
Speaker
Okay.
00:16:43
Speaker
Yeah, that's gross.
00:16:44
Speaker
You heard it from Dr. Ashley Davly first, okay?
00:16:50
Speaker
Yep.
00:16:51
Speaker
So it sounds like females are focused on surviving and thriving, and males are focused on women as survival, in other words.
00:17:02
Speaker
Yes.
00:17:03
Speaker
Exactly.
00:17:04
Speaker
Okay, so let me just get this straight.
00:17:07
Speaker
The male alpha is not the most important member of this troop then.
00:17:11
Speaker
He's not just beating his chest and being like, and all of the girls are running after him because he's refusing.
00:17:17
Speaker
Let me just check.
00:17:19
Speaker
Because the girls need to understand what we're doing.
00:17:24
Speaker
No, the alpha, if there even is one, has very specific roles that you might somehow twist into being the most important.
00:17:34
Speaker
But when it comes to survival, when it comes to thriving and creating space for very complex cognitive social interactions, behaviors and relationships, it is the females that really drive the society.
00:17:47
Speaker
Right, because right now the information we have about this alpha wolf bit is that it's like one wolf who's like the head of the pack, who's at the front of the pack and leading them with his chest puffed out, you know, leading all of the other female wolves, the submissive female wolves into, you know...
00:18:03
Speaker
resources.
00:18:05
Speaker
We'd like to have some clarification on that from someone who's actually in this field, because we need to put a stop to this, you know, stupidity.
00:18:12
Speaker
Yeah, yes.
00:18:13
Speaker
So firstly, before directly addressing this specific point, I also want to point out that most of science began and at the forefront of science, when science and the field of animal behavior emerged.
00:18:27
Speaker
was men.
00:18:28
Speaker
Men were the ones that were deciding what to study, who to study, when to study.
00:18:33
Speaker
And a lot of the questions that were then asked were very extremely male-centric.
00:18:38
Speaker
And so, for example, this whole idea of a dominance rank, and here I'll just take a second to debunk this myth.
00:18:45
Speaker
Firstly, it isn't really an alpha where one singular male individual is kind of somehow deemed
00:18:52
Speaker
the alpha male of the pack and that he's the one leading and finding resources.
00:18:58
Speaker
He again has very specific roles.
00:19:00
Speaker
It does not have much to do with dominance as such.
00:19:02
Speaker
It has to do with age and experience, which is not a very gendered kind of concept.
00:19:09
Speaker
Age and experience.
00:19:11
Speaker
Experience comes with age.
00:19:13
Speaker
And so if you see individuals that are older, they will have more experience.
00:19:17
Speaker
They are more likely to know when to avoid a fight.
00:19:21
Speaker
more specifically than when to engage in a fight.
00:19:24
Speaker
And so when to take pacifist stand and again, when to avoid a fight to survive.
00:19:32
Speaker
And so the kind of value that a more experienced male or female, I might add, especially with the wolves, there is both males and females.
00:19:42
Speaker
They have specific roles again, and these might change, they may vary.
00:19:46
Speaker
It has a lot to do with the circumstances of where they live.
00:19:50
Speaker
And we've stopped using the word alpha quite a while ago in the field of science.
00:19:54
Speaker
We do not use it in our publications or in explaining what we're studying.
00:19:59
Speaker
But the individuals that placed in a certain position on the dominance rank, they come with more experience.
00:20:06
Speaker
And often this experience is more valuable when you know when to avoid a conflict rather than to engage or to display your aggressive tendencies.
00:20:15
Speaker
And so to come back to what they chose to study, firstly, they chose to look at dominance rank as a very vertical structure.
00:20:24
Speaker
So think of it as a ladder.
00:20:26
Speaker
And as you climb up the ladder, you go higher to the top of the dominance rank.
00:20:31
Speaker
But I also want to point out that in evolution, and sorry to get a little technical, but essentially what controls evolution is the process of natural selection.
00:20:43
Speaker
And natural selection is a very realizable consequence of your actions.
00:20:49
Speaker
And so if you exhibit certain behaviors or if you have certain traits that are advantageous to you, you will survive and go on to tell the tale and then pass on those traits.
00:20:59
Speaker
If those traits are disadvantages, you will die and you will not pass on those traits.
00:21:05
Speaker
And so the process of natural selection is extremely sort of, it's a natural order of things.
00:21:12
Speaker
And so when you think of a dominance rank,
00:21:15
Speaker
You think of individuals that are at the top of this so-called ladder that are supposedly more advantageous and they have all these sort of benefits to being a more dominant individual, which is access to food or space or allies or mates.
00:21:30
Speaker
But then the process of natural selection has also allowed for individuals at the bottom of the ladder.
00:21:37
Speaker
That's why they even exist today because those individuals at the bottom of this ladder are still surviving.
00:21:44
Speaker
They're the survivors.
00:21:45
Speaker
They're the ones who avoid conflict.
00:21:47
Speaker
They're the ones who know how to behave and sort of remain within a group in a way that they aren't just killed off.
00:21:54
Speaker
And that is also the process of natural selection.
00:21:57
Speaker
They are selected for as well.
00:21:59
Speaker
So the technical term is dominance hierarchy, but I would think of it more as a horizontal structure rather than a vertical one where there's just individuals at two ends of a horizontal spectrum that have different functions and strategies to ultimately survive.
00:22:17
Speaker
Both groups survive.
00:22:19
Speaker
And I would imagine when a male scientist looks at the system, they will immediately assume and sort of place a conceptualize this entire system as being hierarchical, because why wouldn't you want to see one individual on top of the other individual and so on and so forth?
00:22:39
Speaker
I, in fact, would go on to say that if women were at the forefront of these scientific studies, I wouldn't be surprised if they conceptualized the whole idea of dominance as a more horizontal spectrum rather than a vertical hierarchy or structure.
00:22:57
Speaker
I just wanted to note, and then I would like to get back to how beautifully you were explaining things, but I was looking this up, and apparently one of the researchers who had coined this term, who later had it officially retracted from academic journals, was L. David Mech.
00:23:13
Speaker
Is that right?
00:23:14
Speaker
Yes.
00:23:15
Speaker
a senior research scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey.
00:23:18
Speaker
And what he noticed was, first of all, these terms are decades out of date.
00:23:23
Speaker
Most importantly, this terminology around an alpha wolf arose from research done on captive wolf packs.
00:23:31
Speaker
And also animals that had no shared kinship.
00:23:34
Speaker
So these were stranger wolves to one another's.
00:23:36
Speaker
That's in the case, that's where a dominance hierarchy would arise.
00:23:40
Speaker
But he says, this mech says, that's the animal equivalent of what might happen in a human prison, not the way wolves behave when they are left to their own devices.
00:23:51
Speaker
Because at the end of the day, they're not in their natural environment, right?
00:23:54
Speaker
You know, Ashne and I had this discussion a little while ago about how this particular field of study is also dominated by scrotes who are looking at it through a very, you know, scrotological kind of view.
Early Research Biases
00:24:08
Speaker
Scrotological.
00:24:10
Speaker
I love it.
00:24:10
Speaker
Thank you.
00:24:13
Speaker
And yeah, I mean, a lot of their funding.
00:24:15
Speaker
You remember that the story that you were telling me about the guy who got funded for something ridiculous?
00:24:19
Speaker
Like, do you remember the story that you were telling me about the guy who got some?
00:24:22
Speaker
What was it about?
00:24:23
Speaker
Oh, yes.
00:24:24
Speaker
The discussion was about, again, some early research that happened somewhere in the UK.
00:24:30
Speaker
I can get details, but it's a bird species called the Jasana.
00:24:34
Speaker
And they went out with the question that they wanted to know how aggressive the male birds are in this population.
00:24:42
Speaker
And so these birds live in groups of ranging between a few tens to 500 or more individuals.
00:24:49
Speaker
So they're extremely large broods.
00:24:51
Speaker
And they sort of went out to look at the levels of aggression exhibited by males because very often and even to date, most of the time, base assumption is that the males are kind of the ones in charge of the aggressive interactions.
00:25:06
Speaker
And to a certain degree, and again, there is a reason behind it,
00:25:10
Speaker
that needs to be kind of really looked at and analyzed.
00:25:13
Speaker
There are nuances.
00:25:15
Speaker
But the base assumption is that the males are the ones that are in control of these aggressive territorial conflicts between males.
00:25:22
Speaker
So it's like a male-male kind of thing.
00:25:24
Speaker
And so they went out to measure the aggression between male jasana birds.
00:25:30
Speaker
And so what they did is that they just recorded all instances of any aggression that they observed in this brood of maybe 500-600 birds, and they noted it down.
00:25:40
Speaker
And when they went to sort of plug in all this data into the statistical models and statistics, my friend, do not lie.
00:25:50
Speaker
They found that they had to dump most of their data because the females were the ones that were showing the aggressive interactions.
00:25:59
Speaker
The females were the ones that were driving the kind of conflicts that were controlling their ability to maintain a territory, controlling their ability to mate and so on.
00:26:08
Speaker
And so what they ended up with is very little data to say that males were in fact aggressive in this species of birds.
00:26:16
Speaker
And so what they did then was to attribute female aggression to what they called the PBS, which is essentially PMS, but for birds.
00:26:28
Speaker
No!
00:26:29
Speaker
No!
00:26:31
Speaker
The females were governed by their hormones and that before or after mating spells or mating seasons, they were compelled to take up this responsibility that should have been the males.
00:26:47
Speaker
And they were able to publish this work.
00:26:49
Speaker
Oh.
00:26:51
Speaker
Yep.
00:26:51
Speaker
They got funding to basically come up with bum data that said that female birds are attacking.
00:26:58
Speaker
And then publishing.
00:26:59
Speaker
Yep.
00:27:00
Speaker
And publishing it.
00:27:01
Speaker
And their conclusion was basically, bitches be crazy, but for birds.
00:27:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:08
Speaker
And birds be crazy.
00:27:13
Speaker
And men are getting paid to do this.
00:27:15
Speaker
And there's like, anyway, there's like a bias towards the male perspective in this field.
00:27:20
Speaker
So like to any woman that is listening to this, and you know, you listen to these male podcast hosts, just know that they don't really care about the science of it, right?
00:27:27
Speaker
Because they're cherry picking whatever is favorable to their opinions.
00:27:31
Speaker
But, you know, going back to like the responsibility of what the male species has in all of this, I wanted to talk a little bit about, you know, some of the questions we had out here for the common threads between our male species, the human males versus our cousins in the animal kingdom.
The Role of Males in Primate and Human Societies
00:27:49
Speaker
So at what stage do the males become liabilities in their troops?
00:27:54
Speaker
And does the pack ever turn on the so-called alpha or like, you know, some of the higher ranking males in their troops?
00:28:01
Speaker
And, you know, and finally, we just wanted to also, once you get into that, just to, if you can tell us a little bit about, you know, we have this concept of this thing called a high value male, right?
00:28:10
Speaker
A high value male is essentially someone who is, you know, generous, a person who's a real provider, somebody who actually cares about the family unit and somebody who is trying to actively make the woman's life easier.
00:28:22
Speaker
And doing that to like a high degree, not just someone who's doing the bare minimum and thinks that that's enough, but someone who's really going out of their way to be more than an equitable partner, right?
00:28:33
Speaker
So, you know, we want to know whether in the animal kingdom, you know, there is such a thing as like a low value monkey, right?
00:28:40
Speaker
you know, that doesn't add anything to the troop.
00:28:43
Speaker
And does the pack ever turn on, you know, how do they treat the ones who are useless, essentially?
00:28:47
Speaker
I mean, because I think in their unit, at least everybody has some kind of use.
00:28:50
Speaker
But, you know, there might be some that are absolutely bums.
00:28:53
Speaker
So you've observed them.
00:28:55
Speaker
So we want to know, what does it mean to be a good macaque and a bad macaque, you know?
00:29:00
Speaker
Yeah, just to first address the question, I absolutely love this question.
00:29:04
Speaker
And in terms of human men, males, I would say they become a liability the day they're born.
00:29:11
Speaker
But...
00:29:18
Speaker
Spoken by an animal behaviorist, ladies.
00:29:24
Speaker
But going back to the monkeys.
00:29:26
Speaker
So yes, of course, all males that are part of a group,
00:29:31
Speaker
They provide a function by simply existing.
00:29:34
Speaker
And that's the concept of group living itself.
00:29:38
Speaker
Why are so many animals group living?
00:29:40
Speaker
Why are they social?
00:29:41
Speaker
One of the biological basis for this is that it's a game of numbers.
00:29:45
Speaker
And so if there's a predator that can take you out, the more number of individuals that you hang out with, the less likely you are to be the one that's picked out of this group.
00:29:56
Speaker
And so that's one of the kind of biological bases to form these groups.
00:30:00
Speaker
But it's not enough.
00:30:01
Speaker
It's not enough to just say, hey, let's stick together so that I don't die because I can run faster than you.
00:30:07
Speaker
There has to be some more contribution to living functionally in this kind of a group.
00:30:13
Speaker
And with primates, that becomes extremely complex because of our place on the evolutionary tree, the cognitive abilities that these macaques can exhibit.
00:30:21
Speaker
And so there's a lot of complex social interactions that
00:30:25
Speaker
that take place in a group.
00:30:27
Speaker
And a lot of them have to do with maintaining your position and your contributions in a group.
00:30:33
Speaker
And so when it comes to the idea of a low value male versus a high value male, so there's a lot of physiological basis to this.
00:30:41
Speaker
And there's a lot of behavioral basis to this.
00:30:43
Speaker
And there's a lot of personality traits that determine some of these kind of roles that males can take up in place.
00:30:49
Speaker
Again, a brief explanation of the primate world.
00:30:53
Speaker
There is a lot of variation in social systems.
00:30:57
Speaker
There's a lot of variation in mating systems.
00:31:00
Speaker
You see everything from monogamy to polyandry and everything in between.
00:31:05
Speaker
There's multiple male, multiple female mating systems.
00:31:08
Speaker
There's also different kinds of social systems that range from despotic, where there is sort of sequential order in which individuals behave in a certain way to each other.
00:31:20
Speaker
And so you would have individuals that do not challenge certain individuals, but will challenge certain individuals.
00:31:27
Speaker
But all the way, so from despotic all the way to tolerant, where individuals are much more tolerant of each other.
00:31:33
Speaker
and will challenge each other in certain situations.
00:31:36
Speaker
So again, to come back to what a high-value male and a low-value male is, if we remove the aspects of genetics and physiology, some of which mostly determines, you know, whether you have a good immune system, for example, whether you're able to survive through bouts of disease,
00:31:54
Speaker
And so your offspring would be able to as well, all the way to your actual body size.
00:31:59
Speaker
And a body size may not be such an important aspect, but it could.
00:32:05
Speaker
And so ultimately, though, what it boils down to is as a high value male, you can contribute to the safety of the group.
00:32:15
Speaker
to being able to behave in a way that the group has the most beneficial outcome.
00:32:23
Speaker
And so even if the females are the ones tracking the resources, a male might go ahead to have a look at the
00:32:30
Speaker
whether the area that they need to go to where all the fruit is growing is safe for them to enter, whether there's predators there and so on.
00:32:38
Speaker
And so in terms of maintaining safety of the group and the territory, there may be another group that's competing for the same resources that you are.
00:32:47
Speaker
And again, the biological basis for the males having to take up this responsibility is simply because the females have the larger sex gametes, which are the eggs, as compared to the sperm in males.
00:33:01
Speaker
And so they have the added physiological requirement to then carry the offspring.
00:33:10
Speaker
And again, if you remove sex completely out of this,
00:33:14
Speaker
It's just a mutation where individuals that had the larger gamete were more advantageous to producing offspring.
00:33:22
Speaker
And over time, the kind of bifurcation between the two sexes occurred.
00:33:28
Speaker
over evolutionary time.
00:33:29
Speaker
But if you go all the way back to the root, it's essentially just the few individuals that have the larger gamete versus the few individuals that then because they don't have this larger gamete or the requirements to produce offspring and the actual carrying of the offspring, they can then focus on
00:33:47
Speaker
all that sort of free time on being larger and growing larger canines and growing secondary characteristics that allow them to reduce the responsibilities that, again, the individuals with the larger gamete, the females, would have to deal with.
00:34:04
Speaker
And so essentially, the sort of the bifurcation of then what the behaviors that the males need to exhibit is simply because the females don't have the luxury of being able to do it.
00:34:17
Speaker
Yeah, just to stand on that point for a little bit, one of the other things in this study of the animal world is also males have a function because there are predators, because they have an active threat.
00:34:28
Speaker
They have a role, right?
00:34:30
Speaker
I remember you made this joke when we were talking about this earlier that like the men in our human society have basically artificially constructed a system that
00:34:38
Speaker
where they control all the resources and they have all the power, but they're bad at both.
00:34:43
Speaker
They're bad at maintaining power and they're also bad at maintaining and keeping resources.
00:34:48
Speaker
So even in this artificially constructed system, they're failing terribly.
00:34:53
Speaker
And you mentioned about monogamy.
00:34:55
Speaker
As a dating podcast, we're kind of in a full focus on monogamy specifically because we believe that
00:35:01
Speaker
That is probably in the human world, at least the most equitable outcome for a woman is to have someone who's equally invested in her.
00:35:06
Speaker
Because you hear a lot of podcasts being like, you know, polyamory and stuff.
00:35:09
Speaker
And we can go into that.
00:35:10
Speaker
But like, you know, we don't live in a system where society is equitable to women in general.
00:35:15
Speaker
So, you know, usually in these polyamorous situations, it's not so much that it's one woman with like five hot providers who are providing her everything she needs.
00:35:23
Speaker
It's usually one low life scrote who doesn't deserve even one woman, let alone like five.
00:35:28
Speaker
So, you know, one of the things you mentioned is that monogamy is a dual investment.
00:35:33
Speaker
Both parties, both the male and the female, have to contribute in order for it to be an effective strategy.
00:35:38
Speaker
So part of the reason why it's an effective strategy is that in an off chance of a predator, you
00:35:43
Speaker
it gives enough and sufficient time for the female to escape in the off chance that they are attacked, right?
00:35:48
Speaker
So really, a man's job is to provide that kind of buffer, to be able to give the chance for his offspring to survive.
00:35:55
Speaker
So it's really to ensure that the offspring has a chance to have a better life, really.
00:36:01
Speaker
So, you know, I think one of those things that we can take from that, at least in the human world, is that, you know, we tell a lot of people that you should also be looking at what kind of father this person is going to make.
00:36:11
Speaker
Right.
00:36:11
Speaker
Because how they treat you is a good indication of how your children might be treated.
00:36:15
Speaker
If he doesn't respect you that much, he's not going to respect your children that much.
00:36:19
Speaker
So it seems like in the animal kingdom, they have a vested interest in giving a shit about their offspring.
00:36:25
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:36:26
Speaker
Like, it's not a strategy for survival if they don't care about their progeny at all.
00:36:30
Speaker
If I'm getting that correctly.
00:36:31
Speaker
Yeah, I would also go ahead to say that you will not find mating systems that are monogamous unless the males and the females are contributing equally in terms of providing for the offspring.
00:36:43
Speaker
Firstly, in terms of, of course, if they encounter a predator and so the females can contribute.
00:36:48
Speaker
potentially move away, but also in actively acquiring resources, not only for the offspring, but also for the female who is investing her time and energy in taking care of the offspring.
00:37:01
Speaker
And this role is, again, realizable in the sense that if the male is not contributing sufficiently, the offspring will die.
00:37:10
Speaker
In essence, the male dies, right?
00:37:12
Speaker
Because his lineage dies, his DNA isn't passed on,
00:37:16
Speaker
In an evolutionary sense, that is the end to him.
00:37:19
Speaker
And it is again, because it's a realizable consequence.
00:37:23
Speaker
It's either you live or you die.
00:37:25
Speaker
I want to tie together what you said about how there aren't predators in human society.
00:37:30
Speaker
In fact, the kind of the opposing force to survival, and I keep saying the word survival is because that's what really drives evolution, is mortality or death.
00:37:41
Speaker
And we've kind of done away with this idea of random mortality in human society through medicine and through the advent of all these various technologies.
00:37:52
Speaker
We don't think of mortality really as a very major driving force to our existence and our survival.
00:38:01
Speaker
And so when then you say that the males really sort of are contributing by providing this protection, and we've done away with this, I tend to question then what is the role specifically of men in society?
00:38:15
Speaker
And then we also had this conversation where they can say that they're contributing to the raising of an offspring, again, in human society, they can say that you need us because we provide you resources in the form of money.
00:38:29
Speaker
And because, again, the system is set up such that we can make more money than you can in the first place.
00:38:35
Speaker
They can say that they're going to support you and provide the money and to whatever extent they do, but it's not a realizable consequence if they don't.
00:38:44
Speaker
You just have to sort of live with this kind of man then who is not really...
00:38:51
Speaker
providing anything in a monogamous situation.
00:38:56
Speaker
We also question what is the role of men in society.
00:39:05
Speaker
I want them to be consequential, but science and evidence seems to be pointing to me that, you know, that they are at sort of a standstill in terms of evolutionary advantage or benefit to the human race.
00:39:17
Speaker
Am I incorrect?
00:39:19
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good way to put it.
00:39:21
Speaker
Speaking about these male podcast hosts for a second, I think that, you know, part of the rise in the male podcast host comes from the fact that men are also questioning what their role is in society.
00:39:30
Speaker
Because so long as they artificially control resources and our access to education and jobs,
00:39:35
Speaker
They had, you know, the upper hand.
00:39:37
Speaker
They don't have that anymore.
00:39:38
Speaker
And so they've begun to question what their use is in society, you know, like, what is their actual usefulness.
00:39:45
Speaker
And I think that, you know, if we are to take some lessons from our cousins in the wild, I'd have to assume that, you know, since evolution is about the survival of your lineage, and by extension, the survival of you, this is part of the reason why men say they want like a legacy of
00:39:59
Speaker
and why they want children, right?
Men's Legacy and Evolutionary Impulses
00:40:01
Speaker
They haven't moved beyond the biological evolutionary impulse that is, I need to copulate with as many women as possible to make sure that I have a chance to have my bloodline continue.
00:40:11
Speaker
So they haven't gone behind the animal kingdom mindset really.
00:40:14
Speaker
And that's why back in the old days, like, you know, if you look at your great grandparents and, you know, your relatives beyond that, they would have so many children because
00:40:22
Speaker
You know, they lived under harsher circumstances.
00:40:25
Speaker
And, you know, before we had all of these modern medical advancements, there's a very high likelihood that your children could die and like, you know, they could be stillborn, you could miscarry or they would die from an illness before they reached like their teenage years.
00:40:37
Speaker
Like there were so many opportunities for them to die that like part of having that many children was like to ensure that there would be a bloodline to carry on.
00:40:45
Speaker
So, you know, and now that we have all these medical advancements, it's very uncommon in most of the world and the developed world, especially that people have more than two kids.
00:40:53
Speaker
You know, it's very rare that you hear people being like, I have six siblings, I have eight siblings, maybe if they're like farmhands and stuff.
00:40:59
Speaker
But even then, I mean, Rose, you said you grew up in like a farming community.
00:41:02
Speaker
Was it very common in your community for people to have lots of children?
00:41:06
Speaker
By the time I was brought up in the 80s, most farm families were not having more than four to six kids, which is still considered an appreciable number.
00:41:14
Speaker
But compared to my mom's generation, where she was one of 13, and that was just, you know, one or two generations prior, that was a marked decrease.
00:41:23
Speaker
Actually, Diana, you're bringing up a really interesting point that I want to ask Ashne.
00:41:27
Speaker
So Ashne, right now, I don't know.
00:41:30
Speaker
One thing Diana has pointed out is, you know, how the United States where I live,
00:41:34
Speaker
tends to be a region of the globe that maintains a lot of interest for people worldwide, as far as what's happening politically, militarily, etc.
00:41:43
Speaker
I don't know if you've been following, but maybe you're seeing that, you know, we're hearing all of a sudden this year, there's been a huge upsurge in all of these concerns over the birth rate dropping.
00:41:53
Speaker
Yes.
00:41:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:55
Speaker
Might there be an evolutionary advantage to that?
00:41:58
Speaker
Or what kind of light could you shed on this sort of behavioral shift among our own species?
00:42:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:05
Speaker
Right.
00:42:05
Speaker
So the human race has, in a way, made the process of natural selection ineffective because we have artificially modified so much of what happens to us and how we respond to the environment.
00:42:19
Speaker
For example, removing the natural order in terms of mortality and so on.
00:42:24
Speaker
And so if we were to continue based on our own kind of wants, needs, luxuries, we would be facing extinction.
00:42:34
Speaker
I think that popularly agreed upon is just based on the past growth rates, the exponential growth rates.
00:42:42
Speaker
No species on the planet can survive beyond a certain point.
00:42:46
Speaker
Either we would have destroyed the entire planet or some sort of event.
00:42:50
Speaker
would have wiped us out as a species.
00:42:52
Speaker
In that sense, a lowered birth rate is advantageous to evolution of our species because as of now, it's still not functionally impacting what would happen to us in the near future.
00:43:04
Speaker
But if trends continue, there would be a steadying of the population and we'd sort of then be closer to remaining
00:43:14
Speaker
functionally in sort of connection with the ecosystem without disrupting it too much to the point of our own extinction.
00:43:21
Speaker
In other words, we cannot keep growing at such a rate without facing our own extinction.
00:43:27
Speaker
Is that correct?
00:43:29
Speaker
Yes, yeah, we cannot at this rate keep reproducing in this way.
00:43:35
Speaker
I think what's more interesting though is perhaps why birth rate is reducing.
00:43:40
Speaker
And then I'm going to bring in the topic of female mate selection here.
00:43:47
Speaker
And that's where, yeah.
00:43:49
Speaker
You know, a lot of men in these male podcasts also talk about how, you know, women control sex and men control relationships,
Female-Driven Social Structures
00:43:57
Speaker
right?
00:43:57
Speaker
Like the access to sex versus the access to relationships.
00:44:00
Speaker
But it seems that, you know, just to end this point on like overpopulation, for a very long time we were hearing about overpopulation and, you know, you and I come from a country that's very overpopulated.
00:44:10
Speaker
And it has begun to ask this question about this Malthusian problem, which is that are we reaching a stage where we have fewer resources than we do people?
00:44:20
Speaker
So does it make sense for us to be responsible when it comes to procreating in general?
00:44:25
Speaker
And I think what's ended up happening in the developing world is that as women got more access to resources and were able to educate themselves and get better jobs, they naturally had less of a reason to marry and procreate with men because they don't really need them that much.
00:44:42
Speaker
And they're able to have sufficient, you know, happy, fulfilled lives without men.
00:44:47
Speaker
And one of the points that you made about, you know, macaques specifically is that it is, and I think this is part of your PhD as well, is that it is entirely female driven.
00:44:56
Speaker
It's all of the human, sorry, not human, all of the connections that are formed in those troops are primarily driven by women, whether it's, you know, within, between the mothers and the children or all of the females within the troop.
00:45:08
Speaker
And even with the males, I remember like I read this thing about the Japanese snow macaques where one of the male alphas was killed by a female member of the troop.
00:45:18
Speaker
And then she ended up being the alpha or the top of the hierarchy for a little while.
00:45:23
Speaker
I had a younger, younger boyfriend.
00:45:25
Speaker
I'm not, you know, we're not suggesting to the people who are listening here to murder, murder the president and then take over.
00:45:30
Speaker
But we're not not suggesting it.
00:45:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:35
Speaker
I'm just saying from a legal perspective, you know, we're definitely not advising anybody to do this, but you know, yeah, you know, and so this doesn't have to be primate specific.
00:45:48
Speaker
We would love to learn about, um, why women need to be more ruthless with mate selection and how ruthless the natural world actually is when it comes to sex and relationships.
00:46:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:01
Speaker
Right.
00:46:02
Speaker
So just to address a bunch of things that you said.
00:46:05
Speaker
So firstly, yes, in my in my study, in my during my PhD study, it really there was really a lot of focus on just the female relationships.
00:46:15
Speaker
And like I said, I'll put it this way, the males come and go, but it's the females that are really your true allies.
00:46:22
Speaker
And that will support you even in the macaques that I study to date.
00:46:26
Speaker
There are situations where I've observed that the females band together to put even the sort of high ranking male in his place and he will respond appropriately.
00:46:41
Speaker
He knows that if he were to defy, even if it's two females or a single female that's challenging him,
00:46:50
Speaker
that he would then become the liability.
00:46:53
Speaker
And he is perceiving that when one female or more is responding to him, is sort of aggressing towards him or defying his decisions, there is a reason for it.
00:47:06
Speaker
And we will see that the male will respond appropriately.
00:47:11
Speaker
Perhaps you can translate that to males being empathetic in human society, but there is a very conscious self-awareness that even the males exhibit.
00:47:23
Speaker
And to go back, so a lot of...
00:47:26
Speaker
the kind of behaviors that are exhibited by the males and females, the sexual differences, they all have a purpose, but over evolutionary time and simply to make it more efficient, because a lot of these animals don't live long enough to grow large body sizes and have large brains to cognitively process every decision.
00:47:50
Speaker
Simply for that reason, a lot of these behaviors become ritualized
00:47:55
Speaker
which is a technical term, but it just means that repeated behavioral patterns determine your instincts, what we call instincts.
Unlearning Gender Rituals
00:48:04
Speaker
There is a purpose for it, but it becomes ritualized simply to make it more efficient in terms of survival and to reduce cognitive load.
00:48:13
Speaker
But humans have evolved to have gigantic brains.
00:48:17
Speaker
And what better use can we have for them?
00:48:21
Speaker
to then un-ritualize some of these behaviors.
00:48:24
Speaker
I think it becomes our responsibility to un-ritualize behavioral patterns and examine why certain...
00:48:33
Speaker
sexes may behave in certain ways or what instinct really is.
00:48:38
Speaker
It's simply repeated behavioral patterns.
00:48:40
Speaker
A lot of the times I read articles that say that feminism has to sort of defy the animal kingdom.
00:48:49
Speaker
We have to, females are more submissive because of our instincts.
00:48:54
Speaker
We tend to avoid eye contact because of our instincts.
00:48:58
Speaker
But a lot of it
00:49:00
Speaker
And, you know, sort of like, oh, we have to tell our brains not to behave this way because we're feminists.
00:49:07
Speaker
But I think we've just been told that animals behave this way and females are more subordinate than males.
00:49:15
Speaker
But I don't actually think that's true.
00:49:17
Speaker
And again, it's because the men told us that they observed these things in the wild.
00:49:22
Speaker
Because they were looking for them.
00:49:24
Speaker
They were specifically looking for the females that were... If you were to quantify the submissive tendencies in macaques, for example, you would probably find that males show an absolute higher frequency of submissive tendencies simply because they are also more aggressive.
00:49:44
Speaker
So you would see that, I mean, if you quantified it, you'd see that males are more submissive.
00:49:49
Speaker
than females.
00:49:50
Speaker
I could make that statement legitimately from data.
00:49:54
Speaker
And so it's just based on what we're told.
00:49:57
Speaker
And I don't think that we're really working against our instincts.
00:50:00
Speaker
I think females are driving sexual selection.
00:50:05
Speaker
And it's so funny because in some studies, they simply will not ask, how does a female choose a mate?
00:50:15
Speaker
They, in fact, focus mostly on the physiology of the female.
00:50:19
Speaker
And this is so funny.
00:50:20
Speaker
They call it the cryptic female choice.
00:50:26
Speaker
They tried to make that sound scientific.
00:50:28
Speaker
It didn't work.
00:50:30
Speaker
Yeah, it's essentially that her vaginal tract is what determines whether a male is successful or not.
00:50:37
Speaker
It completely sort of ignores her actual decision making, her cognitive decision making in choosing a mate.
00:50:46
Speaker
Females in many species across the animal kingdom show extremely high levels of infidelity.
00:50:53
Speaker
They may even pretend to be monogamous, but it is advantageous to them to be able to mate with multiple males who could potentially offer them something else or something more, even if it's just genetic diversity.
00:51:09
Speaker
And so females are making many choices.
00:51:13
Speaker
To date, there is not a single paper that will...
00:51:17
Speaker
sort of exclaim that females are the drivers of sexual selection.
00:51:21
Speaker
But I think it's simply the way that science is done.
00:51:25
Speaker
And then when we come to females being ruthless, I would perhaps like to end with the examples from the arachnids, the spiders and some species of insects, where we observe sexual cannibalism, where the female will consume her male meat.
00:51:43
Speaker
And again, when men started this research, their first assumption was the female mistakes the male for prey and just eats him.
00:51:55
Speaker
And they soon found that this was not the case because females aren't so stupid as to mistake another spider.
00:52:05
Speaker
Whoops, I thought you were... They are making...
00:52:10
Speaker
The conscious choice to kill their mate.
00:52:13
Speaker
And of course, we still don't know really what drives this specific behavior.
00:52:19
Speaker
It's understudied because, oh, so again, they were just anomalies first, like, oh, some weird spiders doing weird things because it was the females basically killing out men.
00:52:31
Speaker
But
00:52:33
Speaker
The sort of the research as it developed, they found that some of the concepts that could explain this behavior is that when a female encounters a male that is not sort of genetically valuable, she will just do away with him.
00:52:51
Speaker
And I mean, that supports a lot of our FDS philosophies as well, because what are we always saying in our podcast, in our forum?
00:52:59
Speaker
We're saying hypergamy benefits you.
00:53:02
Speaker
Hypergamy benefits women.
00:53:04
Speaker
Don't settle for the first person that comes along.
00:53:06
Speaker
Right.
00:53:07
Speaker
And when you see something you don't like, leave immediately.
00:53:10
Speaker
Right.
00:53:10
Speaker
These are the two things that we say in our podcast all the time.
00:53:14
Speaker
And we see it in the wild as well.
00:53:16
Speaker
And, you know, we've observed in the male kingdom, in the human male kingdom, that men are a lot more submissive to other men.
00:53:24
Speaker
That's the whole purpose of them having these stupid podcasts is because they're sitting in submission listening to other men.
00:53:30
Speaker
So we, you know, they're just being like their monkey cousins, like they're just doing the exact same shit.
00:53:35
Speaker
You know, they're being submissive to other men instead of figuring it out for themselves.
00:53:39
Speaker
But the other thing is that, you know, being ruthless in the animal kingdom is also a survival strategy for a lot of these animals.
00:53:45
Speaker
Right.
00:53:45
Speaker
Like they can't afford to make with an animal that is not going to look after them the correct way or not going to provide them something of tangible value.
00:53:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:54
Speaker
Even if you look at like penguins and the pebbles and stuff, what was that thing about?
00:53:57
Speaker
You know, we were talking about, for example, how abortion is like, you know, a lot of the conservative right wing will say like abortion is unnatural.
00:54:05
Speaker
But Ashley was telling me about these species.
00:54:09
Speaker
Can you tell us about those monkeys again?
00:54:10
Speaker
Like the sperm plug thing?
00:54:12
Speaker
That was very interesting.
00:54:13
Speaker
Yeah, so it's called the copulatory plug and it basically is when the males in certain macaque species are maybe all.
00:54:22
Speaker
They have a congealing quality which basically prevents other males from...
00:54:29
Speaker
depositing their sperm into the vaginal tract of a receptive female.
00:54:35
Speaker
And of course, I was looking for resources that actually have scientifically studied this.
00:54:43
Speaker
And of course, I didn't find any.
00:54:45
Speaker
But I know of so many instances of personal observations that particularly female primatologists have made
00:54:53
Speaker
and we discuss is that, so when the, when the, it's called the copulatory plug, it's essentially the congealed semen.
00:55:03
Speaker
There have been records of females removing it from their vaginal tract and being rid of it.
00:55:10
Speaker
And that is perhaps a way that you can look at choice in the,
00:55:17
Speaker
wanting to conceive or not or wanting to conceive with a certain male or not yeah it's quite incredible oh my gosh this is so fascinating you know what you're reminding me of Ashini to listen to you is just to be to like have relevation after relevation and it's it's making my head my brain is so happy
00:55:39
Speaker
Thank you so much.
00:55:41
Speaker
I'm so happy to hear that.
00:55:43
Speaker
I'm just thinking about so much of what you're talking about.
00:55:46
Speaker
And I come from a PhD background as well.
00:55:49
Speaker
It's in the arts.
00:55:50
Speaker
But so much of my research, I go to ask questions or I go to look for citations that can support some of my assertions or my theories.
00:56:01
Speaker
And I can't find it because...
00:56:03
Speaker
So often the men who have come before have never asked the question or they have considered it from a completely unrelated angle that doesn't support any of the research I need to do.
00:56:13
Speaker
So what I hear you talking about when you say these are things that we haven't heard about or that there has been no research published, this sort of cognitive bias that the male species of the researchers in your field is
00:56:25
Speaker
possess means that we have lost over a century of data to extremely flawed perspectives.
00:56:34
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, there isn't space for women scientists to ask these questions.
00:56:41
Speaker
And if there is the space, there isn't the funding to do it.
00:56:46
Speaker
And so you might be able to ask the question, but then you will hear back saying, well, this hasn't been studied before.
00:56:54
Speaker
And so it seems kind of not mainstream.
00:56:57
Speaker
But that's the whole point of science, isn't it?
00:57:00
Speaker
Is to ask or re-ask the same questions that have been asked before, but from a more valuable perspective or from simply a different perspective that could enhance our understanding of the system.
00:57:13
Speaker
And so that we aren't left...
00:57:15
Speaker
just discussing these incredible observations as if there's some sort of secret, you know, like, oh, females do actually have a choice kind of situation that we're just whispering to each other in quiet.
00:57:30
Speaker
So, yeah, so I think there's definitely like, hopefully this changes over time.
00:57:37
Speaker
And hopefully that's where we're heading to.
00:57:39
Speaker
And they have this choice in the wild as well.
00:57:42
Speaker
They have this choice to decide and determine what quality of partnership they're going to have.
00:57:50
Speaker
One of the biggest points you made was that almost all of the sexual interactions and the mate selection is actually primarily driven by women and by females in most species.
00:58:03
Speaker
It's usually the female that determines whether the male gets to pass on his lineage at all.
00:58:08
Speaker
And one of the things that, you know, we say in our forum as well, when we started out and read it, was that, you know, a lot of the things that we were telling women just seemed like common sense and knowledge passed on from our
Evolutionary Biology and Dating Advice
00:58:21
Speaker
ancestors.
00:58:21
Speaker
But a lot of women in the early stages kind of rejected that because our, you know, cosmopolitan
00:58:27
Speaker
reading, you know, Vogue reading society is like, no, but Cosmo tells me these are 50 ways to please your man and like, you know, go 50-50 with him and pretend to be somebody you're not and like work in a way that is disadvantageous to you.
00:58:39
Speaker
And so when we were coming out with this advice about like, you know, actually care about the value of resources that someone is giving you.
00:58:45
Speaker
Don't, you know, invest your heart too quickly into someone, you know, do play the field a little bit like
00:58:50
Speaker
people are really rejecting that because they were raised with this idea of, no, everything should be 50-50, not acknowledging the fact that women are already doing so much work and that women are actually doing more than 50% right now.
00:59:05
Speaker
And so now that you're explaining the way that the animal kingdom is set up, it seems like a lot of the things that we're saying to women is not just common sense.
00:59:13
Speaker
There is a biological intention behind doing that that actually goes back all the way to evolution.
00:59:19
Speaker
And it's the way we've evolved.
00:59:20
Speaker
You know, we have to evaluate men ruthlessly.
00:59:22
Speaker
And nature does the same thing.
00:59:25
Speaker
It also evaluates males ruthlessly.
00:59:27
Speaker
Otherwise, they don't get to pass on their lineage.
00:59:30
Speaker
Yes, and maybe here because I did not have a chance to really delve into my own dating life.
00:59:38
Speaker
I am still single and there is a reason for it.
00:59:42
Speaker
I think a lot of because of what I study is seeing that if there is a partnership, there is an evolutionary benefit to being with a partner.
00:59:53
Speaker
over being single, over being absolutely alone.
00:59:57
Speaker
And it seems like I haven't found the kind of relationship that allows me to just to have some benefits to being with another person in a relationship over simply just being single and taking care of myself.
01:00:14
Speaker
I have found that in relationships, in my personal relationships, and I will put a disclaimer here, I've mostly lived most of my adult life in a forest in the middle of nowhere.
01:00:26
Speaker
And so I have not had the opportunity to meet many men.
01:00:31
Speaker
But I feel that I have very high standards for what a partner should contribute in a relationship.
01:00:40
Speaker
I'd like to think that if they don't, they die.
01:00:44
Speaker
But in an evolutionary sense, I mean, in the wild, they would die.
01:00:51
Speaker
Yes, they die in the sense that you do not pass on their lineage.
01:00:56
Speaker
Yeah, if we were to live in the wild.
01:01:00
Speaker
Just to protect you illegally, we just want to say that she's not talking about murder.
01:01:05
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:01:07
Speaker
I'm not ripping off any men's heads, but yeah.
01:01:12
Speaker
Yeah, and I don't, I cannot answer whether it's, again, because I've only ever had the opportunity to meet very few people.
01:01:21
Speaker
I don't want to speak for all men out there, but I haven't found the kind of
01:01:28
Speaker
equal, equitable contribution that a partner can bring to a relationship to keep me in a relationship.
01:01:36
Speaker
And yeah, I think there's... So again, like we were talking about how...
01:01:44
Speaker
So like you don't pass on their lineage.
01:01:48
Speaker
I think in today's world, and again, there are many relationships out there where it isn't an equal contribution to the raising of an offspring.
01:01:59
Speaker
And perhaps comparable to death would be just the decay of society in terms of having...
01:02:07
Speaker
the people in younger generations that aren't able to cope mentally, their mental health is being affected and their ability to function in society, even in a version of society that is perhaps more reasonable than the one we currently live in.
01:02:23
Speaker
But just their ability, it shows in the offspring if the parents aren't contributing equally.
01:02:30
Speaker
And that could be a measure of how you see
01:02:35
Speaker
actualizable behaviors.
01:02:38
Speaker
And I like to think of it as a comparison as you're still being held to the standard of contributing
01:02:47
Speaker
other than just providing maybe resources and money.
01:02:51
Speaker
And I was discussing this with Diana where we were saying some sects of society do not have the privilege to seek out a partner and that oftentimes they have to enter a marriage or a relationship simply to succeed in life.
01:03:09
Speaker
And we still see these patterns of sort of
01:03:14
Speaker
men need to step up and kind of contribute more than simply just verbal promises.
01:03:21
Speaker
Yeah, and you know, speaking, just to add another little small point here is, we've been hearing a lot about this male loneliness crisis, which to me, I think is very overinflated because it's never acknowledged the fact that women have been sitting out here holding the fort on their own.
01:03:36
Speaker
And for a very long time, women have been the lonely ones.
01:03:38
Speaker
It's only really become an issue now that men are lonely too.
01:03:41
Speaker
But really, if you look at society as it is right now, because we're in late stage capitalism in a lot of countries, a lot of human society is profoundly lonely.
01:03:50
Speaker
And when we look at the way that the monkeys and the primates have adapted, it seems like forming community is an essential strategy for survival.
01:04:00
Speaker
It's not just a matter of like, oh, this is nice and fun to do.
01:04:03
Speaker
There is an evolutionary incentive to do it.
01:04:08
Speaker
And like a lot of, as you mentioned, a lot of these bonds are between women.
01:04:12
Speaker
And so it is actually essential to your survival to befriend and to form solidarity and strong bonds with other women.
01:04:19
Speaker
Even the males that aren't investing in raising their offspring are relying on the fact that the females are bonded
Importance of Female Solidarity
01:04:29
Speaker
amongst themselves.
01:04:29
Speaker
There is something we call alloparenting, where the females help each other raise offspring.
01:04:37
Speaker
But in human society, when there's a monogamous relationship, there's also simultaneous isolating of the woman from her female community.
01:04:48
Speaker
And even that we haven't gotten right, where, okay, don't invest in the offspring, but then...
01:04:55
Speaker
create this scaffolding where the woman can create her own female community.
01:05:00
Speaker
But we somehow misinterpret it where she has to be dependent on us.
01:05:07
Speaker
She has to be dependent on the men in the relationship, even when they're not providing any investment or contribution to the offspring.
01:05:14
Speaker
And so we've gotten it pretty backwards.
01:05:18
Speaker
We've done it all wrong!
01:05:20
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, the monkeys have figured it out.
01:05:24
Speaker
So at least we, you know, we hope that the people who are listening today are, you know, going to be mindful of the fact that actually in the wild, women support each other, they look after each other's offspring, the men have very little contribution besides looking for better places to nest, or building you a house, or bringing you a pebble.
01:05:41
Speaker
or all these other things that they're supposed to do.
01:05:43
Speaker
But again, you know, in a lot of cases, when a female doesn't find a sufficient mate in the wild, she just doesn't mate.
01:05:49
Speaker
And I think that, you know, this is something that people should consider as well is that if there are no good options, you don't have to take the best of the terrible options.
01:05:58
Speaker
In the wild, they just don't take the option at all.
01:06:01
Speaker
Yeah, I will bring up the example of Yaki, who is the Japanese macaque that you were referring to, who she defied her own mother in her macaque group.
01:06:12
Speaker
And she, I think, fought against five of the males in the group to establish a more dominant status.
01:06:20
Speaker
And she held the most dominant position in the group for about a year.
01:06:25
Speaker
And then mating season came around and she was seen to exhibit behaviors that suggested she did not want to mate because it would jeopardize her position.
01:06:37
Speaker
And what she wanted was to be the one leading the group and make sort of decisions for the safety of the group rather than producing offspring.
01:06:47
Speaker
And so even biologically, it is not our only prerogative to reproduce.
01:06:53
Speaker
We are simply stuck with the larger sex gamete, the egg, and that is by complete fluke.
01:07:01
Speaker
And so...
01:07:02
Speaker
you can sort of defy that.
01:07:05
Speaker
There is no biological tendency that you must, there is no drive that you must meet.
01:07:10
Speaker
And that is your sole purpose.
01:07:12
Speaker
It's just another additional bonus contribution that women already provide to society.
01:07:20
Speaker
It's just on top of everything else that we already do.
01:07:23
Speaker
I love you putting it like that.
01:07:25
Speaker
What's that, Diana?
01:07:26
Speaker
Do you think we should crown Yaki an unofficial FDS queen?
01:07:30
Speaker
No.
01:07:31
Speaker
Yaki is now our spirit animal of SBS.
01:07:35
Speaker
And I love that Ashley is the one who named her for us.
01:07:38
Speaker
Look at this is just so perfect, you know, and talking with you and hearing the way you present things.
01:07:43
Speaker
This is why I've always liked science and science.
01:07:46
Speaker
academia and studying because there is so much that's there for us to learn if we can get to it.
01:07:53
Speaker
I think that's always the trickiest part is being able to access and get to this information that's just waiting for us to help unlock our understanding and our common sense of the ways in which we dwell in this world.
01:08:07
Speaker
I know we have to wrap it up here shortly.
01:08:10
Speaker
Ashne, I hope this isn't the only time you come talk with us.
01:08:13
Speaker
I think this would be a fantastic ongoing series.
01:08:15
Speaker
I would love, Diana, to ask our listeners to write in with their own questions and own observations for things that we can integrate into future conversations.
01:08:24
Speaker
But I think this is just a start.
01:08:26
Speaker
Oh, that would be amazing.
01:08:28
Speaker
Yes, I think it's so special because first of all, I don't think we get too many scientists out here on the podcast, especially women in STEM.
01:08:35
Speaker
We don't get a lot of women in STEM out here.
01:08:36
Speaker
There's not a lot of women in STEM in general.
01:08:38
Speaker
And to be able to have you here is, first of all, so special.
01:08:42
Speaker
And, you know, some of the talking points we have when we give advice to women, because it's not just rooted in how you function sociologically or how your cultural upbringing and all these other things.
01:08:53
Speaker
You are wired.
01:08:54
Speaker
You know, we recommend the book, The Gift of Fear, to a lot of people because it's about following your instincts and understanding your fear response.
01:09:01
Speaker
And this is something that has been passed down through evolution.
01:09:05
Speaker
And why shouldn't we consider the opinions of experts who are studying animal behavior, who can inform us better than these men who are coming up with these stupid podcast things that women also end up listening to and think is legit?
01:09:17
Speaker
You know, like there's a lot of women out there who probably also buy into the male alpha myth of the wolves because they didn't bother to investigate.
01:09:24
Speaker
And because there aren't enough female animal behaviorists who are debunking and coming out and saying anything.
01:09:29
Speaker
And also, they're not being platformed, right?
01:09:30
Speaker
Like, they're not getting the platform to come out and say, hey, that's bullshit.
01:09:34
Speaker
The guy who actually made that study already came out and debunked his own study.
01:09:38
Speaker
But nobody is talking about the fact that he came out and debunked his own study, right?
01:09:42
Speaker
Everybody's talking about, like, still using that study.
01:09:44
Speaker
Like, it's still...
01:09:46
Speaker
a legitimate source of information.
01:09:48
Speaker
And so to have someone who's in the field, who's an active member of the field, to come and give us this advice, not just from the perspective of like what is going on in the animal kingdom, but also how it's relevant to us as human beings and how the way we respond to things and the way that we look at mate selection and the way that we look to find partnerships with men is also driven to a certain extent, biological impulse.
01:10:08
Speaker
It's not coming from nowhere, you know, it's coming from somewhere.
01:10:11
Speaker
Not only that, Diana, but part of the reason, if not most of the reason we find ourselves in such a fix right now as a human race and a planet that's dealing with a lot of issues is because we have not followed what evolution and nature have shown us is the most effective and natural way.
01:10:31
Speaker
And a lot of popular discourse is to kind of explain away or rationalize away and like, you know, de-incentivize women from being able to follow their natural impulses.
01:10:39
Speaker
Like one of the funniest episodes we had before Rose and I joined the podcast was one called Dick Size Matters.
01:10:45
Speaker
Classic.
01:10:50
Speaker
And I'm sure that, you know, in the animal kingdom, if there is something about the male that doesn't appeal to the female, for whatever reason, like, you know, we try to explain away like why she's not attracted.
01:11:02
Speaker
But the point is, she just isn't.
01:11:03
Speaker
And she's ruthless about enforcing those standards.
01:11:06
Speaker
And in the wild, if like our female cohort is ruthless about enforcing their standards, it just goes to show that, you know, we are in the right about telling women to do the same here.
01:11:17
Speaker
Like you should be ruthless with your standards because it's evolutionarily advantageous.
01:11:21
Speaker
But beyond that, it's also going to lead to a better life.
01:11:24
Speaker
Like there's a reason why you are ruthless that way.
01:11:27
Speaker
It's also going to lead to, like our fellow female spiders, the reduction of men carrying undesirable traits in the population by not choosing to pass on their DNA.
01:11:42
Speaker
And so be ruthless.
01:11:43
Speaker
Yeah.
01:11:44
Speaker
I need to hear that again.
01:11:45
Speaker
For me and for all the others who need to hear this, please repeat that point, Ashne.
01:11:50
Speaker
Yeah.
01:11:52
Speaker
Women, when you make a choice and you uphold extremely high standards for the men that are worth your time and worth your DNA to pass on to your offsprings, you're helping out the population by reducing the men with the undesirable traits that we all want to get rid of but don't know how.