Macaques at Japan reserve get first alpha female in 70-year history
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
Given that she is smaller than the average male macaque, I imagine that this is not a terribly stable situation.
this is probably the biggest misconception in mainstream discussions of gender/sex and power (and part of what makes them so tiresome), which threads through everything from affirmative action to sexual harassment to lgbt rights. multidimensional strength fosters dominance, not just gender/sex or simply size. the dominant (or submissive) gender can be performed by either sex. this is foundational for understanding power dynamics (whether sexual, political, economic, social, religious, or anything else).
That much is known.
We can also speculate that if daughters are now receiving more investment as children, they are better positioned to go higher in society as they become adults. A general shift in political power, throughout social species, should be expected, as the climate crisis threatens more and more species with extinction.
This might extent to even those species in zoos, as their population usually is not allowed to expand.
https://www.livescience.com/19311-famine-male-births-sex-rat...
It doesn't. In a species with 50/50 split between male and female, the number of males is almost irrelevant to population growth. Take rabbits. If you kill at birth 90% of the males, the population growth won't slow as the limit is the number of babies per-female. The 10% of males that survive simply father more kids via more females. Males can do that. Females cannot. Going one step further, killing all those males increases the resources available to the females. Ironically, culling those males can cause a population to grow faster than if they lived.
The split between male and female isn't relevant to this. Unless the males are needed to raise the children, the number of males is irrelevant to population growth.
But the average benefit of having a son remains equal to the average benefit of having a daughter; that's why the ratio stays at 50/50.
Then it can get very extreme. Fatalities can occur.
Death by snu-snu!
I think the presence discrepancy is reasonably well accepted.
Note that typically older males mate with (much) younger females: It's no coincidence, that she is that much younger than her male counter parts: She is angry about her mating partners that they have stopped mating (with her). Older females have offspring. The old alpha male, which is dead, has a lot of offspring. The external life conditions just became too harsh, this is not a happy setup. There are 2 strategies, but one is to react on external circumstances (stop procreating), instead of blindly going ahead and having to stem the bill later (starving babies). Apes are intelligent enough for the first, but there are furious women now (including "her").
The problem with it is that one can invent a scenario that never happened and asked for an explanation and similar such plausible explanations can be proffered for it, but there's really no way to actually verify and test them.
It can just as easily be explained with “It is a simple fluke that will repeat itself in another 70 years.”.
https://www.livescience.com/19311-famine-male-births-sex-rat...
It's observing an event, formulating an explanation for it that sounds plausible enough, but the explanation is unfalsifiable, and a number of other explanations that are just as plausible and unfalsifiable can be proffered.
https://www.livescience.com/19311-famine-male-births-sex-rat...
https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e4703.html
Bear in mind that these are wild animals and that there are days where the park's closed due to no monkeys.
高崎山 appears to mean "tall, mountainous mountain". Monkeys aren't mentioned, though the name of the monkey preserve, 高崎山自然動物園 "Mount Takasaki Nature Zoo", does mention animals.
Resident Orcas would be a notable example.
Since you mention the term in relationship to the public, I actually think that "alpha" as a term to describe someone who is dominant has been doing just fine as a societal meme, despite it being used less among biologists/whomever. In this sense it doesn't seem to be going away at all.
Will she attempt to assume the male role in the mating process?
Lots of questions here around this issue.
Let's hope they are thoroughly monitored and studied.
So "the other sex" also inevitably carries around all these (attractive) traits (kind of "reciprocally"), typically: They are there, but don't matter, really. They were inherited and can be passed on, though.
And in this very rare case like this: A female became an alpha. Her masculinity traits, which should rather only exist reciprocally within her (as a female), were coming out so strong, that she beat all the males. Though: No mass-mating (offspring) for her, rather likely: No offspring at all.
Mech has written on his website that he repeatedly asked the publisher to stop printing the book because much of the information is outdated — including the concept behind the alpha wolf. Nevertheless, the book is still being sold."""
https://phys.org/news/2021-04-wolf-dont-alpha-males-females....
It just goes to show, it's never about gender, just about choices, ambition and how brave you choose to be. Fuck yeah!
I wonder if the social dynamics will change under a (nominally?) female leader?
> just about choices and how brave you choose to be
Reminds me of Hollywood directors who think "alpha" women characters have to be regular women with all the traits of "toxic masculinity"
But then again, some of those traits you pretend are toxic, are actually just awesome, and work in the human world. So why should "man" or "woman" polarity have dibs on that stuff? That gendering of traits is the fucking stupid thing I think. Anyone can choose to do anything. Don't trust people who devalue choice, they're the ones that love to try to deflect blame and responsibility onto anyone but themselves.
But yeah, the human world is pretty fucked up as a whole, male and female, because we're all full of ape brain shit, of which you're no better being human, too.
Stop calling evil "asshole" and you might find your pooping becomes a little easier, as that part of your body is no longer equivocated with malice.
"Agree that"? What are you on about? The parent comment can't remotely be interpreted to be saying this.
> ... especially when they, at the same time, "stand against" how "toxic" men are.
The term "toxic masculinity" does not imply "masculinity = toxic".
Rather, our culture associates certain (often positive) traits with what it means to "be a (real) man", such as strength, protectiveness, ambition, decisiveness, confidence, courage etc.
"Toxic masculinity" is the cancerous behavior you get when men overshoot in trying to display these qualities, such as authoritarian behavior stemming from an obsession with being perceived as strong; being incapable of letting others shine due to seeing everything as a zero-sum competition; being unreasonably stubborn and unwilling to change their mind out of a desire to be perceived as decisive and confident; pointless risk-seeking behavior potentially putting others at risk etc.
It totally does, this is why those two words are used in that expression. The plan is to skew the meaning of masculinity by making the colloquation widely used enough, until it's automatically associated with toxicity even when that word is not present.
Do you believe that every "<adjective> <noun>" phrase is intended as "<noun> = <adjective>"? Do you believe that the phrase "fundamentalist Christians" is only used by people who want to create the association "all Christians are fundamentalists"?
It totally does though, whether that's the intention or not. If I talk about "greedy Frenchmen", that technically just means, the (perhaps tiny) subset of Frenchmen who are greedy, but in practice, through a quirk of language, it also communicates an idea about Frenchmen being greedy.
Hopefully, "greedy Frenchmen" is not an expression that pushes anybody's buttons too much, but I think most people will be able to think of comparable "[Adjective] [Noun]" examples that illustrate the problem more vividly.
But contrast another phrase of the same pattern, say, "fundamentalist Christians". I don't think anyone reasonable would interpret this as saying "fundamentalists, as is typical for Christians" (it could depend on the speaker though). Instead, this phrase would be broadly recognized as selecting the fundamentalist subset of the set of Christians (most of whom are understood not to be fundamentalists).
The difference between these two phrases is that in the first case, the two properties being discussed (being greedy and being French) don't really inform one another. There is no broadly understood "typically French way" of being greedy (afaik). So by putting these two properties in proximity, the speaker tries to construct the association. In the second case, the properties (being fundamentalist and being Christian) do inform one another. If you'd get both pieces of data separately, the meaning is different: a person might be Christian and fundamentalist about something other than Christianity. So the phrase "he is a Christian fundamentalist" is more informative than just getting these two pieces of information apart, since Christian fundamentalism is a somewhat specific set of beliefs.
So you only argue why it is linguistically possible for phrases of the pattern "<adjective> <noun>" to be interpreted as "<noun>s are typically <adjective>", but you don't argue for why this must be the case for "toxic masculinity".
And it seems quite clear to me that the phrase "toxic masculinity" is in this regard a lot closer to "fundamentalist Christians" than to "greedy Frenchmen". There is a qualitative difference between being told "his displays toxically masculine behavior" and the two separate pieces of information "he is masculine" and "he is toxic"; this is because there are many ways to be toxic, and the phrase "toxic masculinity" asserts that there is a certain type of toxicity that arises from trying to be perceived as very masculine.
That isn't agreeing with me! My point was that both meanings are expressed by the phrase. I also think the phrase "fundamentalist Christians" does (in practice) contain an message about Christians, as well as acting as a qualifier that excludes many of them. I'm entirely not a Christian, but I imagine if I was, I might well not read it and think "Well they said fundamentalist Christians so they definitely don't mean me..."
If we want to get language lawyery about it, the meaning where the adjective acts as a qualifier is technically correct, and I would love it if everybody could agree that's what matters and read carefully and charitably, but that is not how things work in this universe. In practice, a bit of care and empathy is required if you don't want to offend people.
Apologies. I disagree with that then. I think it's quite safe to assume that if someone uses the phrase "greedy Frenchmen", that in almost all contexts they are trying to create or reinforce an association between being greedy and being French.
In that specific example, the technical meaning of the phrase has become irrelevant, as the juxtaposition of these two unrelated facts about the subject immediately raises questions about the motive of the speaker.
To understand your perspective better: I think you want people to stop using the term "toxic masculinity", out of a commendable sense of care and empathy. And I think we all intuitively feel that there's something wrong with phrases like "greedy Frenchmen". But do you think in the same vein that the phrase "fundamentalist Christians" is insensitive/offensive and to be avoided? What language would you use if you wanted to talk about the fundamentalist subset of Christians?
(From my PoV, "toxic masculinity" is like "fundamentalist Christians": there is no pressing reason (unlike with the phrase "greedy Frenchmen") to interpret it as an association, and I find it bewildering and unreasonable if a partner in conversation jumps to that conclusion, rather than interpreting it as subset selection. As such, I don't see a problem with either one. So I'm trying to figure out: do you think "toxic masculinity" should be avoided because you also believe that "fundamentalist Christians" should be avoided, or because you think it is more similar to "greedy Frenchmen"?)
My point, linguistically, is just that "<adjective> <group>" paradoxically both qualifies "<group>" and also links "<adjective>" and "<group>". I think that is just how language works, (I'm admittedly not a proper linguist and kind of freestyling). I think that's true of "greedy Frenchmen", "fundamentalist Christians", "fundamentalist Muslims", "toxic masculinity", "gold-digging women", and, well, just in general.
Whether it matters, whether you care, and what you want to do about it, are separate questions. But I think it's useful to understand that language functions that way, whether you like it or not. I don't think these phrases should be verboten, but I do think it's good to understand what it is you're communicating. Even if what's being understood is not what you intended when you transmitted it, I think communication entails a responsibility for the speaker to consider the impact of their speech on the listener.
Completely honestly I'm a bit bewildered by your bewilderment. While it's obviously a huge, toxic rabbit hole and I don't really want to go there, I think perhaps you're not appreciating that people have genuine sensitivities about things you presumably don't. Maybe if I put it like this: There are contexts in which "toxic masculinity" or "fundamentalist Christians" aren't going to land well, and some people spend a lot of time in those contexts.
I think that's broadly speaking correct. The point I made in my first reply to you was that I don't think this happens to the same extent for every word combination. Among other things the degree of linkage seems to me to be inversely correlated to the degree to which your adjective and group inform one another.
That is, to be clear, an attempt by me to put into words why I intuitively feel the phrase "greedy Frenchmen" is strongly dominated by linkage, whereas "fundamentalist Christians" is not. I cannot prove this. But I don't think I'm an insulated case here: I've never seen anyone being called out for being insensitive by using the phrase "fundamentalist Christians"; I have seen it for phrases like "greedy Frenchmen" and, in this very thread, "toxic masculinity".
Nevertheless, even though I might not fully understand a certain sensitivity, I'm happy to adapt my language to be less prone to misinterpretation. But I'm curious whether you have any workable suggestions. If you want to talk about the fundamentalist subset of Christians, what phrasing would you use that avoids offending people?
* It's usually best to go with something more tailored and thoughtful, and avoid politically charged clichés if you can. For me, this is the real reason "greedy Frenchmen" seems innocuous and the other examples seem problematic.
* A low-effort hack that sometimes softens things a bit is prefixing with "some" and / or suffixing with "people" ("some Christian fundamentalist people...").
* You don't have to live in constant fear of offending people, maybe sometimes you can just say what you want to say and hope your audience doesn't take it the wrong way. I don't want to overstate my concern for Christian sensitivities. Your chances of avoiding offence are obviously dependent on the context and your audience.
Again, I'm not necessarily saying I'm good at this! I think I'm better than I used to be, which is an extremely low bar.
You’ll just have diversity in corruption, nothing will truly change, so don’t just blindly support these current ideologies.
For example, it's been widely observed that on the whole, countries with female leadership understood and managed COVID better than the rest— acting sooner, more decisively, and in a way that both started and stayed aligned to the evolving scientific understanding. A sprinkling of articles across varying dates:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/avivahwittenbergcox/2020/04/13/...
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-01-31/women-...
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2021-03-...
‘The world would be better if women ran it’ or ‘The world would be better if men ran it’, none of these beliefs use objective criteria, yet it is one of the more dominant themes in the current zeitgeist.
Burr is right in targeting a belief with a high-degree of traction, and that includes among people involved in DEI initiatives.
https://expanse.fandom.com/wiki/Chrisjen_Avasarala_(TV)
>A master politician and maneuverer, she achieved one of the highest ranks in UN government without ever standing for election. She manipulates those in the highest seats of power through careful cultivation of relationships with their spouses, friends, and staff nearest to them. [...]
>Avasarala's personality is often one of clashing traits. She is erudite and elegant, always properly and beautifully dressed, but is also notorious for her use of foul language and profanity, and was described by Bobbie as cursing "like a trucker". She has been shown to be cold and ruthless one moment, as she tortures a prisoner for information or manipulates her close friend DeGraaf into ruining his career for her political gain, while she is warm and maternal the next, playing with her grandson or giving Errinwright a chance to redeem himself. She is shrewd and intelligent, knows her way around people, and is also an astute and remorseless deceiver, often lying to advance her goals, such as when she pretended to know Captain Yvgeny to convince Sorrento-Gillis to do what she wanted, or attributed fake quotes to the deceased Admiral Souther and called him her friend, while in truth they barely spoke to each other.
> It just goes to show, it's never about gender, just about choices, ambition and how brave you choose to be.
Then why is this newsworthy?
Are you implying that male and female macaque's are the same and that male macaque's are sexist?
Noteworthy and circumstances make it a good story. But... It seems to fly in the face of modern sensibilities.
But in this case it's a good thing cuz this girl is doing the rare and brave step of achieving alpha status by doing what she needs to do. I think that lesson even from a different species has applications in our own society--you can do what you need to do in our society to achieve the rare heights of being an alpha whatever your gender. It doesn't mean you have to beat everyone up that's incorrectly applying the moral standards from this other species to our own; but it means like do whatever the fuck you need to do: make your choices, be brave, have ambition right? and then score your wins. kind of hilarious that people want to push back against that sentiment and pretend they're standing for women's rights but that makes sense to me because the people who often pretend they're standing for women's rights are really just standing up for the disempowerment of women through fake narratives about how women are always these fake victims. Who can't do anything for themselves and need to be given everything. but it's actually makes sense to me and he's really predictable for those people who pretend to stand up for women's rights would really hate on and be threatened by a comment where a woman was making choices and being brave and having ambition and doing something that's actually empowering for her rather than being playing the fake victim game and disempowering herself all the time, stuff which plays into the hands of those people who only pretend to stand up for rights.
If it is not then: Wow.
Ridiculous statement: "It just goes to show, it's never about gender, just about choices, ambition and how brave you choose to be."
Followed by: "Fuck yeah!"
--> Ironic in my world, but "the other side ("feminists") seem to have adapted to also address / talk to (deceive/decept) 'more conservative' people with their speech. We try to include/reach each other.
It's not like if you have a large enough sample size you won't discover alpha females in even the human world when it was dominated by physical violence prior to the invention of the gun.
Beating up someone four times your own age is only challenging if you're a child.