MP Journal :: International Online Feminist Journal

Taylor, Timothy.  The Prehistory of Sex.  NY:  Bantam Books, 1996.

Ryan, Christopher and Jetha, Cacilda.  Sex at Dawn:  The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality.  NY:  HarperCollins 2010

Both of these books concern, in large part, the place of women in prehistoric societies, but are viewed from different academic perspectives.  Taylor is an archaeologist; Ryan is a psychologist and married to Jetha, a psychiatrist.  The disciplinary difference is quite evident, as I will discuss later.

What both books agree on, and do so in no uncertain terms, is that hunter gatherer societies were more egalitarian in terms of sexual equality than the agricultural societies that replaced them in many parts of the world.   Both reject the theory that women exchanged sexual favors or chose sexual partners because of their ability to provide, thus making all women, to some degree, prostitutes.   Both disagree with the notion that hidden ovulation in human women developed so that human men would not know when they were fertile and thus would stay around longer.  Taylor points out the evidence that prehistoric and early agricultural and urban societies had knowledge of contraceptive plants.  Ryan and Jetha point out that prolonged breast feeding would inhibit ovulation and thus prevent frequent pregnancies.  In either view early human societies were more knowledgeable about reproduction than modern people traditionally acknowledge.  Both also mention the similarities and differences between human sexuality and that of other primates, though Ryan and Jetha do so in greater detail and more frequently.

Taylor focuses more on the history of the social construct of gender and Ryan and Jetha on the mechanics of human sexuality.  As an example, Taylor recounts the story of an item found in an archeological dig.  It was classified initially as a short sword, but when it was decided the body in the grave was a woman the object was reclassified as a weaving baton.  In this way modern views of gender affect our view of history.  Another example is the way phallic objects carved out of bone or wood are classified as batons or symbols of leadership or office, and not as sexual aids, even though some of them strongly resemble the artificial phalluses for sale in modern times.  A few other fascinating observations in his book are that the first tool was not likely to have been a spear or hunting item but a baby sling or carrying bag, and that fired pottery was initially used primarily to make weaning vessels.  He cites a study of Roman brothel coins that theorizes the numbers on one side of the coins indicate the cost of the acts represented on the other side of the coin.  The researcher cited asked prostitutes in a modern city to rank those same acts by degree of difficulty or how expensive they might be.  The modern women ranked them in the same order as the Romans did.

Ryan and Jetha write in a far less formal manner, often addressing the reader in colloquial terms.  They are more focused on the physical aspects of reproduction, such as the evolutionary reasons why women vocalize during sexual intercourse.  One of their theories is that this vocalization and other physiological systems imply that in prehistoric times women had sexual intercourse with several men sequentially.  Another theory is that men require young female lovers to stay sexually active.  There is no discussion of women, especially older women, needing young lovers.  An overarching theme is that monogamy is an awkward fit for the natural sexuality of humans.  The two writers, like Taylor, point out examples of how cultural beliefs can blind us.  One is that early European travelers to Australia thought the aborigines were starving, not because of their appearance, but because they were eating insects.  In fact the aboriginal diet was nutritious, but the Europeans could not comprehend anyone eating such things for food unless there were no other alternatives.  Ryan and Jetha also discuss sexual preference and posit that female sexual orientation is far more changeable than that of males.

Both of these books are interesting, though, personally, I found Taylor to be the more intriguing, perhaps due to a greater personal interest in anthropology than psychology.  Taylor’s reference to archeological artifacts such as Venus figurines and burial placements (for example, the Red Threesome, a burial of three people together in an unusual formation), as well as the general avoidance of discussing or acknowledging sexuality, such as evidence of rape, in archeological finds clearly demonstrates the way modern cultural mores color our view of the past.  Ryan and Jetha at times seem to reinforce cultural norms, as in the aforementioned discussion of young lovers for men but no reference to them for women.  The authors also discuss male interest in certain types of pornography without creating a visual image of the male viewers, but when they suggest the reverse they refer to “overweight middle-aged ladies with cheap tattoos, bad haircuts, and black socks …” (231).  It bothered me that the authors felt it necessary to visualize the female viewers but not the males, especially given the relatively negative imagery used.

Ryan and Jetha refer to Taylor’s work, and in a positive fashion.  Since Taylor wrote his book some years before theirs he could not return the academic salute.  Both books are interesting.  Readers may prefer one over the other depending on their academic background and personal interests.

An upcoming issue of MP focuses in part on transgender.  Mainstream society has definite gender expectations .  As an example there was a recent firestorm over a J Crew ad that showed a mother painting her young son’s toenails pink.   Another is the reception one mother received when she allowed her five year old son to attend a pre-school Halloween party dressed as Daphne from “Scooby Doo.”

Regimented systems such as prisons, college dormitories, even transit systems,  can insist that people publicly identify themselves (or be indentified against their will) as either male or female.  It is, in fact, almost impossible to go through life without being identified as one or the other.

Even in popular culture characters are identified as male or female.  An exception is Pat from “Saturday Night Live,” whose gender ambiguity was a source of humor.  More seriously, science fiction writer Jon Scalzi created a character in his novel Android Sheep, Sam Berlant, who gender is never provided.  Sam is clearly in a relationship with another character, Archie, who is indentified as male.    Scalzi deliberately didn’t assign Sam a gender.  In a blog post, “What Sex is Sam Berlant?” he writes that some people contacted him, irked because they didn’t know Sam’s gender and therefore didn’t know if Archie is heterosexual or homosexual.   Scalzi says he doesn’t know what gender Sam is.  Presumably Sam knows, as does Archie, but if anyone else in the book has noticed, they don’t mention it.

The neurological research done for marketing purposes turns up some fascinating information.  One recent research finding, showed differences in men and woman that were identical in the U.S. and China.  In a research study for Intel, 12 men and 12 women each in Berkeley and a city in Schian Province, wore devices that detect electrical activity across the brain.  They were shown Intel ads and then a series of words to see what qualities people associated with Intel.  Researchers looked at brain activity to see which words got the strongest reaction.  Two words scored the highest, one each to a segment of the total group.  The difference wasn’t between cultures but between genders.  Women in both groups reacted more to the word “achieve” and men in both groups to the word “opportunity.” 

For the full article see  Adam L. Penenberg, “Neurofocus uses neuromarketing to hack your brain,” Fast Company, September 2011.

Cartoonist Alison Bechdel popularized a method for testing how inclusive movies are for women.  She credits her friend Liz Wallace with developing the criteria but they appeared in Bechdel’s comic “Dykes to Watch Out For” and so the test is known as the Bechdel Test or Bechdel Rule (sometimes the Bechdel / Wallace Test).   The test is comprised of three questions:

1) Does it have at least two women in it?

2) Do they talk to each other?

3) About something other than a man?

Some variations say the two women characters have to have names.  Movie viewers can rate films at The Bechdel Test Movie List (http://bechdeltest.com/).  The site currently rates over 2000 films.

Tina Fey, Emmy award winning actor, writer, comedian, and producer, wrote an essay in the February 14 & 21 issue of the New Yorker.  In the essay, “Confessions of a Juggler,” she comments on the different attitude the entertainment industry has towards older men and women, especially in comedy.  In a nutshell she says:

I know older men in comedy who can barely feed and clean themselves, and they still work.  The women,though, they’re all “crazy.”  I have a suspicion — and hear me out, because this is a rough one — that the definition of “crazy” in show business is a woman who keeps talking even after no one wants to [expletive] her anymore.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/02/14/110214fa_fact_fey

Online journals are still a little new; no one is quite sure what to make of them and academics can be a bit wary. They ask themselves: “How will this stack up in the tenure and reappointment process?”

There are a number of ways of evaluating a journal, whether print or digital.  One way is to see where it is indexed — is it accepted with the more traditional publications?  The MP editorial board is proud to announce that the MLA International Bibliography and Academic Search Premiere will be including the journal’s articles in their databases.  The MLA is the premiere index for literary research and Academic Search Premiere is one of the standard databases used for overall undergraduate research.

MP articles are also included in Google Scholar, though it is easier to find them by searching the author or keywords than by the journal name.  I’m not sure why and am trying to figure it out.  One of the more interesting aspects of Google Scholar is that it will show citations if someone has used that article in their research.  It isn’t a perfect tool to use for citation research but it does pick up some items, such as book chapters, that the more standard citation indexes don’t.