Anyone round here an expert on feminism, sexism and evolution?

Morals and laws supposedly help protect other members of the human race and therefore are good for the species. But often the people who gain most benefit from them are at the top of the tree anyway. And male. I guess if we were comparing ourselves roughly to chimpanzees, our nearest relatives, we could surmise that in the past the dominant males in our society took all the spoils. Without morals and laws anyone could come along and prove their dominance and take them. But now Skint Sid from Soddingnojobsland isn't going to take on Sir Moneybags Mansiondweller because morals and or the law won't deem that acceptable.
And of course that doesn't deny that there are many genuinely altruistic and moral people, and we think of them as good (and I definitely prefer these people), but it you are Mrs Muddlingalongquietly who wants to stay safe from the rampent clutches of Moneybags and any contenders for his position, then banding together with other like-minded moral people is probably your best bet.

And please forgive the stereotypes, I'm not for a minute suggesting that belonging to any particular sex or class dictates anyone's personal morals.
And a lot of animals do fight for the right to mate with the pick of, or all of, the females. As if they have an automatic right to the choice. This I believe does include chimps.

We are a lot more civilised, we seem to think that money, either paid directly for sex and breeding rights or accumulated to attract females is much more moral... (well a fair few members of our species do)

A male in charge of many females is also called a farmer.

I doubt if madam zebra minds being humped by master zebra on Monday, alpha zebra on Tuesday and a random on Wednesday. It won't bother her at all.

She won't mind if all her offspring are from different males.

But woe betide a male that comes between her and her young.

That's when you see visceral female rage.

Clearly, humans have a sense of morals that not all animals have

Hate to be awkward/cynical, but this is not at all clear to me. Definitely up for debate.

Why does it matter if something is natural or not? Natural and desirable are (imo) not necessarily the same things.

Bowlofbabelfish
You're right - it's sapience.

Technically, 'sentience' doesn't include the reflecting/thinking/perception part

Yes you’re right! What’s the word I’m reaching for then? Self reflecting? Sapience?

(Luggage notwithstanding)

As far as we know, humans and pearwood are the only organisms capable of sapience - so we jolly well ought to use that capability.

only humans are sentient in the way we are - regardless of our animalistic nature’s we can reflect, think and project forward in the time the consequences of our actions

Technically, 'sentience' doesn't include the reflecting/thinking/perception part .

It's arguable that animals are more purely sentient than humans.

Be very wary of evolutionary psychology misused like this. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a single argument starting off like that which isn’t an attempt to justify awful behaviour.

Humans are sentient - so are many animals but only humans are sentient in the way we are - regardless of our animalistic nature’s we can reflect, think and project forward in the time the consequences of our actions. Other animals of course have these skills to some degree, but none are capable of abstraction the way we are.

So regardless of what animals do, or don’t do, humans have the ability to consider our actions. So be wary of eco psych, because it’s very rarely used as those working in the field use it

I’m not even sure what ‘consent’ means in the context of animals. Children can’t consent and they are more capable of reason than animals. A chimp doesn’t know that sex leads to pregnancy.

Animals are sentient - perhaps it's as simple as knowing knowing (and communicating) whether or not they feel like it? I don't think 'reason' is necessary for denying consent; as we are Homo sapiens we can apply the additional criterion of informed consent.

'Inferior' by Angela Saini is a great read on this subject.

I thought that humanity considers itself a culture where we use our brains to help us overcome base animal instincts to so give greater benefit to humanity? Isn’t that part of what separate society human from animal?

And when we lose that, for example when we degenerate into war, we lose so much.

So feminism is trying to hurry along a path to a more civilised cultured society where we don’t just use physical strength to dom8nate others . Because relying on fighting destroys. HOMEs, cultures, civilisations

I’m not even sure what ‘consent’ means in the context of animals. Children can’t consent and they are more capable of reason than animals. A chimp doesn’t know that sex leads to pregnancy.

Evolution is a good guide to how we come to react in the way we do rather than whether that reaction is right or wrong. It provides a good explanation for the fight or flight reflex, for instance. But most of the time we have nothing to fight or flee from. We have a panic reaction when we don’t need it.

That’s why people are going apeshit over Tweets from some wrongthinker on the other side of the planet.

Clearly she can't consent, but she could refuse I suppose.

Quite a bit of mating behaviour involves the female saying 'no' - as anyone who has a male dog will know, bitches can make their yea or nay very clear!

(I should add that my comment was more about popular factoids as opposed to actual science.)

Nature documentaries also regularly depict mating behaviours that we would call rape if they happened with humans.

I always wonder about this.
A male chimp will wander over to a female chimp, she'll present her rear and they'll mate.
Clearly she can't consent, but she could refuse I suppose.
I heard something recently where apes were given money and trained to swap the money for food.
After a while, one of the females started offering her sexual services for the money.
Is that "natural"?

New evidence tends to vindicate Morgan against Dart. The origins of Homo Sapiens are complex and diverse.

Also, whatever ad homs people might throw at Darwin, they’re irrelevant.

Evolution is one of the most successful theories we have.

Wouldn’t matter if Darwin was history’s greatest monster.

I agree with pp that animal behaviours are complex and so much of what we think we know is coloured by speculation and bias. Look at all the ahistorical Freudian pop science spouted by the likes of Desmond Morris et al, eg lipstick makes your face look like a monkey's arse.

I mean we hear that the necktie is a phallic symbol, but what about neck ruffs, cuff frills, high heels, wigs (all worn by men at various times in history), or women's scarves etc etc, why are they not worthy of analysis?

Also, we are not lions/wolves/bees/seagulls so who's to say how relevant the examples of animal behaviour are? I'm sure there's a legitimate application but as soon as anyone says something like 'Well, if you observe the lion...' my bullshit detector starts twitching.

What I believe as a feminist is that I'm a human being worthy of respectful treatment. I don't really care if male ducks gang-rape females so that proves it's natural behaviour. Both male and female animals sometimes kill their young too. We don't promote animal behaviour as a model for human behaviour unless it conveniently supports our own beliefs.

That argument is a good example of what philosophers call the Naturalistic Fallacy: the idea that because something occurs in nature, it must be good.

This.

Humans evolved just like every other animal but evolution isn’t ‘moral’ - any more than it is ‘intelligent’ or ‘directed’ - and we shouldn’t seek moral guidance from it.

Random mutations happen, predators and the environment weed out those less capable of producing offspring before they die.

Until we started controlling our own environment a few thousand years ago ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ didn’t come into it.

The decent of woman by Elaine Morgan is worth a read, I think she was one of the first few to argue that males and females have an equal role in evolution.

No one knows what earlier humans were like.
Anthropology today encompasses linguistics, biology, evolution, archeology, agriculture, history and present-day aboriginal societies. As a result, anthropologists can formulate a pretty good idea of how past human societies worked. And they are now very well aware of their own cultural biases.
Evolution: Darwin. Who married his first cousin. Who thought that black people had smaller brains.

1. First-cousin marriages were common everywhere before the development of easy forms of travel. Also, there's nothing inherently wrong with first-cousin marriage; it's discouraged because we now know that it carries a risk of amplifying genetic defects over the generations.
2. Darwin never said any such thing. It's one of the many myths propagated by anti-evolution US creationists.

But if it is... if you look at the hunter-gatherer societies with the least outsider contact, they aren't violently patriarchal like fixed human societies are. So human are 'naturally' fairly egalitarian.

Yes... the rise of agriculture may have been the cause of the power structures (including the control of women and their fertility) found in 'civilised' societies. And then there's that most unnatural product of the human mind, organised religion - the most powerful of which entrenched the oppression of women.