Gender Roles in a Subsistence Level Economy

Whether one believes in evolution or special creationism, at one point in human history, humans were greatly outnumbered by large carnivorous species.  At that time, social cooperation for defense was necessary for survival.  Whether the human economy was as hunter-killers or as scavengers is irrelevant as in either case that economy was subsistence level only.  Due to physiological sexual dimorphism, and the necessity of distributing labor in the most efficient manner possible, food provider roles became concentrated in the male.  This was because his greater size gave him greater ranging ability.  Also, nurturing duties became concentrated in the female, for breast feeding infants not only restricted her range, but also made her the most efficient mode of storing extra calories.  This division of labor developed into women becoming the servants of life, while men became the servants of society.  It is the nature of the case of child rearing that for some period of time at the beginning of one’s life, one must be the center of the universe, due to the inability of the human infant to care for itself.  Gender roles confer adulthood differently.  In a subsistence level economy, a girl becomes a woman purely by biology, the onset of menses determines her role, the ability to bear children and produce milk.  But the male role must be learned, larger musculature does not automatically confer skill with the spear or the thrown rock.  In a subsistence level economy, boys must be made into men.  They are initiated into warrior society.  They are forcefully taught self-sacrifice, to go out, gather food, and bring it back and give it to others.  Thus biology confers a certain self centeredness in the female role as the number of women in a population controls the number of potential individuals in the next generation, women are charged with the conservation of resources if only to preserve the ability, through good nutrition, to produce breast milk, which in times of distress can be a source of calories for the entire group.  Thus even though men may need more calories for the chase, it is to the advantage of all that the majority of food produced be given to the female.  The male, however, does not acquire weapons skill by virtue of his testes dropping.  He must be taught, not only the skills to acquire food, but the social necessity of bring it back home to feed the rest of the group.  Self-sacrifice must be integrated into the socialization of his gender role for the greater good.  Just as it is the female’s role to be who she is, it is the male’s role to go beyond what he is.  As the males were busy procuring food, it is more likely that the female invented agriculture through foraging near home, and through snatch crops, also invented animal husbandry and domestication.  Thus it can be said that civilization is the invention and gift of the female.  Once civilization was a going concern, agriculture and animal husbandry was absorbed into the male role.  While living in the garden of Eden or as arboreal proto-humans, food production was not an issue, all gleaned as their appetite dictated.  Survival issues were mostly defense against predation or invasion which was addressed by group action under the leadership of the “Big Man”.  The big man also prevented petty domestic squabbles from getting out of hand.  He kept order.  Once humans ate bread by the sweat of their brow”, greater social organization than a big man and a pecking order was needed; gender roles were developed by society according to what worked.  Males were bigger, males did the physical work.  Females gave and preserved life, females were, in their gender roles, the life of the tribe; thus they were a commodity that a failing tribe might seek to steal.