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

The work of female primatologists has blown open the myth of the objective observer. Male researchers saw a big male beating his chest and inferred that the females were all passive and subordinate. The likes of Jane Goodall, Diane Fossey and others had a different perpesctive and saw the complex mainly matrilineal social relations of the group.

Also, we haven't got to the level of civilisation we're at today by constantly giving in to "natural" urges. Humans are social creatures, and that means that we learn to control our behaviour through socialisation as we grow up. We follow rules and patterns of behaviour that contribute to the well-being of other individuals and of society as a whole, not just to ourselves, because that is how we flourish both individually and collectively. Individuals who consistently don't do this have the personality disorder of psychopathy.

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 is a good discussion of it:

www2.palomar.edu/users/bthompson/Naturalistic%20Fallacy.html

No one knows what earlier humans were like. It's all speculation based on a patriarchal society.

Evolution: Darwin. Who married his first cousin. Who thought that black people had smaller brains.

Sexism. Is not confined to either sex.

Feminism. I'd start with: Andrea Dworkin and Cordelia Fine.

Since when is morality based on evolution?

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.

About 6 paragraphs in

Really not and eSy read, I had to read it in chunks as it's quite disturbing but the first part has nods to what earlier human societies were like and what changed.

reneejg.net/2017/02/07/a-call-to-feminists-to-remember-the-history-and-sex-based-nature-of-womens-oppression/

This thread is a good example of bias actually. The assumption that animals exist in a Patriarchy, when for many its the opposite. But people will focus on an individual patriarchal behaviour they have seen (on TV, probably directed by a man) and apply that to all.

Human society isn't 'natural'.

Except that it is in our nature to think, to reason, to have a sense of justice and empathy. It is in our nature to be able to overcome 'animal instinct'.

Recently watched the doc on snow wolves. Packs are led by female. Also many so called alpha male led groups are by consent with leader overthrown if behave 'tyrannically'. Recent incident in zoo where 3 lioness' turned on male monopolizing food.

Animal' behaviour is far more complex than initially thought.

it’s not really useful to draw comparisons between humans and animals because there are so many animal species that you can find examples of every type of social structure to prove whatever point you want to make.

As an aside, the man who invented the concept of the “alpha male” while describing the structure of wolf colonies many years ago actually recanted the whole idea. There’s a vid on YouTube where he talks about how there really isn’t such a thing as an “alpha male” in wolf colonies, and it was his personal biases that led to those erroneous conclusions

Also, don't take those nature documentaries as depicting unassailable facts. Like any film or TV programme, they are produced, directed, edited and scripted by people. They will have made decisions about what to include, what to leave out and how it is put together. Those decisions are infomed by the same kinds of stereotypes and bias as any other media.

If certain behaviours look like rape (or any other human behaviour) that may be because of the way the film is shot, edited or the way the narration prompts you to interpret them. IMO we all need to look at all this stuff with a critical eye.

Many social animal packs are rules by an alpha male with a clear hierarchy.

No they aren't. Many social animals have a hierarchy with a dominant female who decides when and wear to eat, or drink.
Dominant males protect the group against predators, and defend their group of females against other males.

...what about all the animals with matriarchal systems? Lions, elephants, bonobo apes..

It would only be a coherent intellectual position if you also believe that murder and theft are natural.