Everything you thought you knew is WRONG!
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“He’s a complicated man / But no one understands him but his woman.”—Isaac Hayes, theme from Shaft
Pretty much everything you think you know about the alpha male is wrong. Our understanding of who they are and what they do has been seriously revised by the last two decades of ethological research. Two things strike me as especially fascinating:
- Alpha males are just as good at following as leading—viz., they’re exceptionally good at working with others and deferring respectfully to the superiority of others. If they’ve got a problem, it’s with horizontal (as opposed to vertical) relationships.
- Alpha males are basically cops. They keep the peace within the group. And the biggest ongoing threat to social peace in most primate communities isn’t angry young men, by the way; it’s mothers. Yep, mom’s Public Enemy #1! A typical scenario runs something like this: two young primates are playing; one of them gets too rough and hurts the other; hurt playmate starts crying; hurt playmate’s mom freaks out, runs over,and smacks the one who hurt her kid; now that kid starts crying; and his mom freaks out, runs over, and smacks the mom who hurt her kid. Now you’ve got two adult females in a full-blown brawl. Within seconds the grandmothers and all of the aunts jump into the fray.
Fights like this can quickly escalate, splitting a group in two, which is bad for everyone because smaller groups are less able to defend themselves against predators and other groups. Anyhow, that’s where the alpha male comes in. The job of an alpha male is to step in and break up the fight before it escalates. And he never plays favourites, even if one of the moms happens to be his sister.
Wow! Talk about Sexism! It’s like I’m reading something out of a 1950s magazine about how superior men are over women. Just so I understand correctly, basically, what you’ve come to conclude is men aren’t the problem, women are. And all of us women..grandmothers, aunts, mothers..we are just one step away from b*tching slapping each other into a stupor. Wow..niiccce John..real niiiiceee. I am all in favor of dismantling negative ideas and stereotypes about men. But when you do this by basically stepping on women’s heads to uphold some pretty awful and grand stereotpyes about them in the same process… Read more »
I think it comes down to leadership. A lot of this Alpha talk comes from pop psychology. Even the concept of a stay at home dad used to be considered the anti-thesis of masculinity. Now more than ever gender roles are being redefined so that marriages and family can manage all the responsibilities! In my family and marriage, I take leadership in how and what we spend our money on. I recently purchased a Zipadee-Zip from Sleeping Baby! I love this sleeping suit! Thank you for sharing this! Interesting read but we are not primates.
“And the biggest ongoing threat to social peace in most primate communities isn’t angry young men, by the way; it’s mothers. Yep, mom’s Public Enemy #1! A typical……..her kid. Now you’ve got two adult females in a full-blown brawl. Within seconds the grandmothers and all of the aunts jump into the fray” Good gosh, this is almost verbatim to an incident that occurred during “family visits” at my male adolescent facility. One client made and accusation of another client, they got into a shoving match, one mom stepped in and started yelling at the accused client. the other mom stepped… Read more »
I have never in my life witnessed something like this.
Men shouldn’t be demonized (alpha or otherwise) but this article is kind of offensive, as if women a chimps who need strong men to keep us in line.
BTW, alpha male chimps also spend a lot of time beating up weaker males and preventing them from mating.