Why is there a battle of the Sexes? part 1

Chinaman:…….Good evening my friends.

Why does it have to be a battle? Well let’s see.

The battle of the sexes is but part of a greater fight or tension that exists in humankind generally and within all individuals specifically. It is almost peculiar just to humankind, although of course tension and balance is part of life itself. But when you consider other animals and species there does not seem to be the constant struggle in the same way in any single species to the same degree that we see in humankind. There is a pecking order, but the acknowledged order between gender, male and female, is usually not in question. For some animal species it is a female who dominates a group, for example the elephant, but more often than not it is the strength of the male that dominates and holds the group together, but even then often only at certain times of the year – that is nature’s way. There seems to be no struggle between the sexes and their respective roles.

I know the following is not comfortable with scientific thinking people and I am sure the argument and the thinking will go to and fro over the years – it is not definitive at any one time – but humankind is not pure, it is hybrid.

Long ago in the course of the evolution of species there was a major division. For many years one type of humankind had been in existence. It was dominated by the female of the species rather than the male and the tribes and communities revolved around the female as the central point, the focus in their nomadic and hunting lifestyle. It was the female who stayed at home and did not go far to forage. It was the female who looked after possessions, the children and the sick. The females were the constant factor. It was the female who controlled the lineage of the tribe and people looked to the mother for their line of descent for there was no monogamous arrangement between the sexes and the female was the constant, obvious point of reference.

Fecundity, health and healing dominated. Intuition and dreams were the way of the tribe which continued across the generations for the living sought help from the dead. Intuition and dreams were the tools towards understanding the world, where good hunting was to be found and what weather was coming, for that meant survival.

Such people you call Neanderthal and were broader than today’s peoples – hairier, dark of features, of hair, eyes and skin. Swarthy let us say. Emotions tended to dominate the tribe as the motivating feature and expression was through dance and movement, through chant and rhythm.

Then there emerged a different kind of human being. You give it the name Cro-Magnon. Here was a very different kind of human. More upright, taller, fairer of skin and hair with blue eyes. A species that thought more rationally and tried to work things out. A species more used to staying in one place, to battle things out rather than be pushed around. They tried to dominate the land and control it rather than follow the herds and good weather. They relied more on strength and rational thinking so communities became dominated by the male rather that the female. It was the strength of the male who provided safety and security for the community and he protected his own – his tribe, his family – they were his. So the lineage was remembered through the male.

So the expression and continuity of the tribe was taught through more thinking processes, different art forms, of pictures that invoked magic, of skills of warfare, of might, of words. So loyalty became more a feature of such communities, loyalty to the tribe, to the leader, to one’s family.

I believe your history teaches that Cro-Magnon man gradually dominated the world and the Neanderthal species died out, but when you look around the world and see how small tribes have lost their bloodline and died out as other kinds of humans have swept by, it is not so much that these groups have been killed off as absorbed into a greater whole. In the same way, although the true blood Neanderthal died out and humankind in lifestyle became Cro-Magnon because of such hardships as ice ages and the like, in reality there was an absorption of Neanderthal by Cro-Magnon and their off-spring are a combination of both.

So in your modern mankind there are characteristics of both Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal and they do not sit comfortably together, they war constantly. There is tension for dominance seen in so many ways such as the rational over the intuitional, between the thinking and logic and the intuitional art of music and emotion. It is seen in your folklore stories and even wars have been fought because of it. There is tension between the settled tribe and nomad. There is tension between the upright, tall person compared to swarthy, dark skin and dark eyes. It is between the fair haired husband or faired haired mother loyal to each other against the dark haired gypsy and promiscuous rogue. It is between a more masculine dominated society compared to feminine expression of dominance and the two kinds have been warring for generations – in society, in families and in the individual.

So you see the battle of the sexes is not just about men and women but about something more fundamentally – about the battle within the hybrid race of humanity.

Everyone has a mix of both kinds, but if there are more Cro-Magnon features or subconscious urges in both a male and female then they are more likely to complement each other and live in a degree of harmony. Similarly if there is more of the Neanderthal in both male and female there is more likely to a complimenting between them. It is when the resulting mix of more Cro-Magnon in one individual meets with Neanderthal in another individual, in male or female – either way, there is more likely to be more disharmony and struggle. To achieve a balance or complement of a Cro-Magnon with another Cro-Magnon is relatively easy, as it is with between Neanderthals, but to cross over between the two is to bring discomfort. So some men and women seem to be in harmony to a larger degree than others, and dominance of one kind over the other will wax and wane as outward circumstances of society dictate the change.

The courting game depends upon finding out how a person leans towards one kind or other as expressed in belief systems, ways of thinking, expressing inner thoughts and feelings – how they understand Life.

I will have to speak much more about this another time.

I do not believe there is a solution to that war for it is tension between different genetic and social straits. But doesn’t it make life interesting and exciting!