The Power of Sisterhood

While our chimpanzee cousins have been well-known to us modern humans since practically forever, there is also another closely-related species that many people have probably never even heard of:  bonobos.  These apes, who are genetically just as close to us as chimps are, have only been discovered fairly recently.  And to those who know about them, they are famous for two things:  female dominance and free love.

You read that right.  Bonobos, unlike chimps, are female-dominated, and the differences between them and chimps (which are male-dominated) are like day and night.  While chimps are quite violent, aggressive, and hierarchical, bonobos are peaceful, loving, and at least relatively egalitarian.  Bonobos take the phrase "make love, not war" literally, even going so far as to use sex to resolve conflicts.  Female-female sex is particularly common, leading to greater bonding between females apparently. And to the extent that bonobos even have hierarchies, females are clearly in charge, and the older they get, the more powerful they are.  It is very likely that humans started out much more like bonobos than chimps in that regard, and remained as such for the first million or so years of our existence.  But after men took over about 7000 years ago, they started to behave like WORSE than chimps, and as they say the rest is history.  Until Women reclaim their rightful place as the new leaders of the free world, that is.

(Read Sex at Dawn by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha for more on how early and modern humans have evolved in that regard.)

So how do the female bonobos manage to keep the rogue males at bay despite the fact that the males tend to be bigger and stronger?  (Yes, even bonobos have a few rogue males here and there.)  Well, the answer is rather simple:  the females form coalitions with each other against any males that dare to harass or act aggressively towards them, and they win through strength in numbers.  It's the power of sisterhood, essentially, and it occurs even among unrelated females as well.

Now contrast that to how humans have historically lived under patriarchy.  One thing that the patriarchy has been very, very successful at is turning Women against each other, effectively breaking up any potential sisterhood.  Divide-and-conquer, basically. We saw that during the Burning Times (aka the Women's Holocaust), which was primarily waged by men against Women but also had plenty of Women pointing the finger at each other.  Legend has it that it got so bad that King James of England even had to call a brief moratorium on the "witch trials" due to so many Women attempting to settle personal scores with one another.  And by that point (the 17th century), the sisterhood had basically been destroyed.  Keep in mind that this was all by design, as the real reason why the Burning Times happened was to prevent Women from taking over again.  In the centuries leading up to it, Women were gradually gaining more and more power, and what started as what the history books call the "Peasant Revolts" was actually a long revolution by Women against the patriarchy.  Thus, the Burning Times was basically a counterrevolution in that regard.

Even today, the result of patriarchal brainwashing of Women is still evident, albeit to a somewhat lesser extent. We see it when some Women still think it is okay to slut-shame, body-shame, mom-shame, and/or childfree-shame other Women.  We see it in the perennial "mommy wars" of various sorts on the interwebs and IRL as well.  We see it when some Women think it is okay to pull each other under just to save themselves.  We see it in various forms of "patriarchal bargaining" and "beggar-thy-neighbour" policies.  And while individual Women may indeed benefit from it all, Women as a group end up worse off as a result.

In keeping with the overall theme of this article, I would say that slut-shaming and erotophobia in general deserve special consideration in terms of divide-and-conquer.  This erotophobia is basically internalized patriarchy and self-hating misogyny (especially on the right), as well as (especially on the left) a fear that sexual freedom will lead to a "race to the bottom" for Women much like so-called "free trade" and "free enterprise" does for the broader working class. The former can be debunked as effed up on its face, while the latter can be debunked by noting that while men are naturally hard-wired to worship Women, employers are not naturally hard-wired to worship their employees (would that it were true!), so that analogy can only go so far in practice.  Furthermore, the interests of capital and labor have always been opposed and always will be (unless capital and labor become one and the same), while the interests of men and Women are not inherently opposed (and did not become opposed until the advent of patriarchy).  We should in fact be natural allies, but we fellas messed that up big time, and as they say the rest is history.  And regardless, since the so-called "sexual revolution" of the 1960s-1970s, as much of a mixed bag as it were, Women have gained more far more power (relative to men) than they lost as a result of increased sexual freedom overall.   

And again, we come back to bonobos once more, from whom we can learn a great deal.  Clearly for them, far from it diminishing female power in a "race to the bottom", sexual freedom actually seems to enhance it.   That makes sense, because any attempt to quash sexual freedom by acting as the veritable OPEC of sex in a (generally futile) attempt to control males would act at cross-purposes with the goal of sisterhood in the long run.  That's not to say that Pat Ravasio's (from Buckyworld) idea of going a global sex strike would be fruitless in the goal of overthrowing the patriarchy.  It would most likely have at least some positive effect even with less than 100% participation.  But that is clearly a short-term solution for taking power, not a long-term solution for maintaining power.  Just like how the working class can't remain on strike forever--eventually the workers have to win and fundamentally change the system so future strikes are unnecessary.

Clearly, the sisterhood needs to be revived if Women are to successfully take over, Goddess willing.