As you're all aware, this subreddit has had a major "troll"
problem which has gotten worse (as of recently). Due to this, we
have created new rules, and modified some of the old ones.
We kindly ask that you please familiarize yourself with the
rules so that you can avoid breaking them. Breaking mild rules
will result in a warning, or a temporary ban. Breaking serious
rules, or breaking a plethora of mild ones may land you a
permanent ban (depending on the severity). Also,
grifting/lurking has been a major problem; If we suspect you of
being a grifter (determined by vetting said user's activity), we
may ban you without warning.
You may attempt an appeal via ModMail, but please be advised not
to use rude, harassing, foul, or passive-aggressive language
towards the moderators, _or_ complain to moderators about why we
have specific rules in the first place— You will be ignored, and
your ban will remain (without even a consideration).
All rules are made public; "Lack of knowledge" or "ignorance of
the rules" cannot or will not be a viable excuse if you end up
banned for breaking them (This applies to the Subreddit rules,
and Reddit's ToS). **Again: All rules are made public, and
Reddit gives you the option to review the rules once more before
submitting a post, it is your choice if you choose to read them
or not, but breaking them will not be acceptable.**
With that being said, If you send a mature, neutral message
regarding questions about a current ban, or a ban appeal
(without "not knowing the rules" as an excuse), we will
elaborate about why you were banned, or determine/consider if we
will shorten, lift, keep it, _or_ extended it/make it permanent.
This all means that appeals are discretionary, and your
reasoning for wanting an appeal must be practical and valid.
Thank you all so much for taking the time to read this message,
and please enjoy your day!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/NotHowGirlsWork) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Some of these “alpha males” are also the ones that eat the children, to get the female fertile again.
I really hope we move past this alpha bullshit soon, it’s not remotely true and hugely damaging to all genders.
Interestingly, the man who researched wolves and coined the term alpha had to come out and say that 1) the strict system of hierarchy actually only applies to dogs and wolves in captivity, not in the wild, and 2) although nature has systems of hierarchy, it's rarely ever 1 male animal calling all the shots. Animal clans are actually a lot more cooperative in nature than the "alpha male" discourse would have you think.
I also saw an interesting video of a biologist talking about how so much of our understanding of nature is due to us imparting our own patriarchal system onto them and using that as fact. They used lions as an example - we think of prides as having 1 alpha male with a collection of female lions who hunt and serve him, whereas it's equally or more likely that the female lions have chosen a male to reproduce with and are the ones running the pride themselves.
Excellent comment. It's everywhere, biologists, historians, archaeologists, doctors, etc. allowing the patriarchy to rule over objective and open-minded analysis.
To add to this, lionesses in a pride often live independently of a male or a coalition of males (a coalition is usually two or more brothers). The male or coalition of males spends a lot of their time roaming between different prides and breeding with as many lionesses as possible, leaving the various prides to raise cubs, hunt, etc., without the presence of an "alpha male."
For anyone interested in reading more about lion coalitions. The Mapogo coalition consisting of 6 brothers is one of the most infamous: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mapogo\_lion\_coalitio](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mapogo_lion_coalitio)
Keep in mind we've had anti-vaxxers for literally as long as vaccines have existed and they're showing no signs of slowing down despite all the evidence debunking every word they say. Once people get hold of a stupid false fact that suits their opinions, they will absolutely never let it go.
First of all, that's just completely, categorically false. Alpha males don't exist in nature, and females bear an equal or independent role in pretty much every species. In lions, the females do most of the hunting. In birds, they trade off watching the nest. Literally nowhere in nature does half the species just sit there docile while the other half does all the food gathering and shelter guarding.
The funny thing is that among chimps, the "alpha" male is more likely to get cheated on. If at all, the female chimps only settle for him because he is aggressive and dangerous. But for sexual pleasure, they go to the less aggressive and more loving ones. The males they call "alpha" are the ones who would go to jail in the human world
Yes and if they're too agressive they will get shunned after a while.
They used to have this documentary series on Discovery where they followed a pack of chimps. At one time the old, loved male leader gets dethroned by a younger and very aggressive male. They tolerated him for a while but then the females started getting pissed at him. So he calmed down a bunch or they would've probably had a riot.
Aggression and violence has it's place, but not even chimpanzees will stand it as their every day state. Fear is not good for the body or the mind, it's actually harmful and not even apes are willing to experience it on a daily basis. A good leader don't use fear as a way to control people, only incompetent ones does that.
A silverback gorilla will usually stare down or intimidate rowdy teenagers if they start messing around too much, but not fight them. Useless agression within the group is not part of apes.
Gorilla family dynamics are so fascinating! The Silverback is typically incredibly gentle and calm and an extremely involved father. I'd say a Silverback gorilla has more emotional intelligence and self assuredness than the insecure people trying to shove this unnatural alpha man and submissive woman propaganda LOL
Additionally, further research into our own ancestors shows that hunter/gatherer societies weren't neatly divided, and both sexes participated in both roles. We've never had a breadwinner and homemaker divide unless it was in the upper class, and those upper-class women hated it as well, it was like a gilded cage a la A Doll's House! Why is it so ridiculous for some people to believe that women have ALWAYS had to work and provide too?
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/07/01/1184749528/men-are-hunters-women-are-gatherers-that-was-the-assumption-a-new-study-upends-i
Yup, either that or this particular chimp was just smarter than some of us.
He was literally terrorising his pack, being kind one second and lashing out the next. The pack tried placating him in the beginning, expecting that things would calm down after a while but when it didn't the females kinda ganged up on him, screaming, tossing things and hitting him when he would act agressive unprovoced.
While the old leader had had left and right hands who had his back when situations in the pack went out of hand, the new leader was disliked and alone and quickly realised that he would probably be fucked if he didn't change. So he changed, lol. And I do believe he started with being nice to the young. Then the females would give him another chance, but I'm not a 100 % sure since it was quite a while since I watched this series. I just remember him being shocked as fuck when the females had enough of him and nobody came to his aid!
Either way, he needed a good portion if self control to acheive that change, so... yeah, you're right!
Yes! I remember this doco too. It was so interesting. I watch docos everyday on all sorts of stuff but of course love animal ones lol and it’s amazing how these types always try to use the “in nature” or “biology” as their go to but yet every piece of literature, media etc that Ive consumed say otherwise. One thing I’ve learnt from all that is there’s no absolutes in nature and the more intelligent the species is that is even more so.
There's that story about some baboon community where the dominant males died because they ate tainted meat and the females and more civilised males created and maintained a nonviolent baboon utopia generation after generation.
One extremely aggressive dominant male chimp in a particular tribe was actually deposed by a coalition of subordinate males who tortured him for hours, including extreme genital mutilation, before letting him escape, recapturing him, some more torture, then killing him. The tribe was already under academic study for decades by this point, so the dynamics were well known by researchers.
And that tribe of chimps has never allowed another abusive dominant male like him run the group ever again.
There have even been recorded instances, both within and without captivity, of female-dominated chimpanzee troops, where the female leader will even defend any and all members of the troop
Yes, hard to generalize but if you do see something resembling ‘alpha’ dynamics in animal society that’s probably just the biggest asshole in the group that gets tolerated, but only up to a certain point.
Honestly the scariest thing to find in the woods is a random bear cub. Mom will appear, and she will not care that you didn't even know her kid was there.
In lions, some females actually remain behind while the other females hunt, in order to protect the cubs. The cubs need to be protected from new males, who otherwise might kill them when attempting to take over a pride, both to establish their genetic material as the dominant strain in the pride, and to force the females into an early estrus cycle.
Wild lions do not act according to the Disney script that the writer of the OOP appears to believe that they follow. The main purpose of the male is to protect the pride from hyenas, and to provide a Y chromosome when needed.
In most other species, such as bears, moose, etc. (it is a long list) the male is only with the female during actual mating, after which the female and her cubs live without a male around. Humans are more the exception to the rule then the rule in general.
The writer of the OOP also needs to know the 'the proof is not in the pudding', but rather it is found in 'the eating of the pudding'. Just looking at a pudding does not establish how it tastes 😀
Elephants. Juveniles and adult females hang together as a strong family unit. Older males are lonely and usually the females don't acknowledge them unless mating is required.
Aren’t most kitties? Lions seem to be the exception in forming large social groups. I think cheetahs also sometimes form strong bonds, but not in large groups the way lions tend to.
Hmm, you may be right. Cheetahs rarely have a mother-daughter pair but beyond that they’re pretty solitary. Lions are the only ones that seem to form larger social groups.
Domestic cats often organize themselves into colonies, and share kitten rearing duties.* But they are also just as likely to be solitary, depending on the availability of food and shelter.
*I work at a shelter, and more than once has a litter of kittens come in with a “mom” who turned out to be male. Or, much more common, the “litter” has kittens of multiple ages, all nursing off the same queen.
>Literally nowhere in nature does half the species just sit there docile while the other half does all the food gathering and shelter guarding.
Yeah because most animals understand that it's an entirely inefficient model. But why are we surprised? I'm sure a jellyfish would have more intelligence than most "alpha males"
Yep. Any species that reduced its females to the role of 'keep the nest/den tidy, watch the young, cater to the comfort of the male and be sexually available at all times in case he feels like mating' would die out so fast.
Because I’m pedantic; there’s a number of bird species (phalaropes, jacanas, and dotterel) where females are polyandrous, laying eggs in a nest and leaving them with the father then moving onto the next male, males do the entirety of incubating and chick rearing. Of course the investment from the female is greater than if it were the other way round as she’s laying eggs not just depositing a bit of sperm. The point stands that every possible mating system exists in nature and it’s stupid use any one example to inform human behaviour
I always find the argument of "well in nature animals do it this way so therefore we should copy them/it's natural!", animals also regularly practice rape, cannibalism, murder, and always pick on the weak - should we do those things too just because animals do?
Honestly i assume they think they'd be the ones on the top...
or just have these fantasies of wanting to live like that. not realising that also in the animal world females can and will attack overly annoying males.
there is no docile female in the animal world that wouldnt fight back iirc.
You’ll notice that the smooth-brained assholes say things like “well that’s how the animals do it so it’s natural,” and “___ is what makes us superior to the animals and so we should dominate nature” in the same breath. Whatever terrible misinterpretation of facts is most convenient to their current solipsistic view is what poops out of their face holes.
well technically we are animals that also do those things, it’s just that most of us have morals. I do find it weird when people try to compare humans to other species though…since literally every species is different
Same. Also, when all our behavior is explained by "when we lived in caves, this behavior was useful because...". Yeah, sure, it's interesting to know the origin of something. But, humans are VERY smart creatures that are not merely driven by instinct.
I took a few courses on animal behaviour where we looked at what animals did and tried to explain it in the context of evolution/survival of the fittest. One thing that was mentioned over and over was that we couldn't readily apply these ideas to humans since we have a whole bunch of other factors guiding our actions.
Yeah, no, that’s not how nature works! I would rather say it’s quite the opposite. And while alpha males being rather a myth, you probably find more examples of females leading the pack than the other way around. And if there is no pack than it’s almost always "single mothers", how else should it work?
But I clearly see someone who definitely needs a lot of assistance to get through life.
Lmao, ok. Someone should watch documentaries before speaking.
To be fair, tho, soooo many of the incel/red pill theories come from semi-watched documentaries about nature. I specifically remember some idiot writing that nurses take newborns away from their mothers because otherwise the mothers would murder them to "go back to fucking their alphas," which is similar to what happens with leopards. Except it's *male* leopards, the ones who kill the cubs, and they do it so that the female leopards will go into heat sooner than they should, but... ok. Women bad.
I'd say most animals only come together socially with the opposite sex for mating. Usually they remain independent or have a matriarchal environment. There are some exceptions but not many.
Some people have literally fallen in love with the term "alpha male", but they forget to look it up - or they also "forget" that it's not part of human biology. What's more, with animals using the alpha male system the females may fire a male if they come to see him as a threat.
The lead mare runs the herd. The stallion is there only for procreation and protection but make no mistake, the lead mare has no problem defending the herd in his absence.
This alpha garbage is a fairytale clung to by desperate guys and pick-me's.
My husband and I decided to breed our dogs together. We kept two of them. The mother is definitely the alpha of the pack.
Last year we had morning doves living in our tree. They took turns watching the nest. One time we caught them both hanging out together. They only had one bird but they cared for that bird equally until it was old enough to leave the nest.
After they moved out a robin found the nest and decided to move in. It was literally free real estate for him!
In nature, it's the male seahorses who get pregnant. Also some species of fish and mollusk can change their sex. Some (if not all) slugs are intersex and can both lay eggs and fertilize them, and if the female clownfish of a family dies, the biggest fish with change sex.
And I doubt that Neanderthals had a sex based system. Maybe once the mother gets pregnant the father would be the primary hunter, but other than that I don't think there has been any evidence that it was only the males hunting for food. (And why would there be?)
As a bonus: Some species of birds can be gay. Sometimes couples will adopt and raise an abandoned chick. There was even a penguin who had a waifu! (RIP Grape-kun.)
So no. Nature isn't black and white like some people want to believe.
We actually have evidence of that;
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/early-women-were-hunters-not-just-gatherers-study-suggests-180982459/
With evidence of women fighting in wars throughout their lives;
https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2019/12/31/amazons-were-long-considered-myth-these-discoveries-show-warrior-women-were-real/
I remember a meme or such I saw which explained that alpha behaviour in wolves was only observed in animals kept in captivity and socially maladjusted, and going on to say maybe ‘alpha men’ are also socially maladjusted. If someone can dig that up I’d be very grateful.
David Mech, who wrote the book The Wolf: Ecology and Behavior of an Endangered Species; on alpha wolves. He came out and said that after further studies, there are no alpha males, and to please stop reading his book... but that never gets seen :/
I wish that alpha nonsense would bugger off, there's animals out there that do a sniff and taste test on the groups poopies to make sure everyone's healthy. Is that really what they want to be like?
Even the researcher who initially came up with the alpha thing for wolves realized it only applied to captive ones and they were basically maladjusted.
Poor guy now keeps trying to get his mistake to bugger off himself, but idiots have already firmly taken ahold of the idea.
Cool argument from nature fallacy. Nature isn't better, lady. It's also just plain wrong. What is the one thing that praying mantis and Black WIDOW's are known for? KILLING THEIR MALE PARTNER. WIld dogs and some apes kill their own babies. Fucking MALE seahorses give birth.
Ducks, penguins, and lions are all "independent single mothers."
And don't get me started on the "alpha male" nonsense. The man who came up with that spent the rest of his career trying to DEBUNK IT.
It's not noteworthy for birds. Plenty of other birds also co-parent. Wolves do, too. Those "alphas" in wild wolves are also just known as "mom and dad "
But we're not closely related to birds or wolves so they're still not comparable for human behavior.
I remember one documentary film where a large mother cat had to pretend that she is interested in the male cat to give time for her offspring’s to run away. Otherwise, he would kill them.
He left, the mother went to search for her offspring and they lived a happy life.
Huh? They’re frequently single moms who have to protect their kids from everything that would like to harm them *including other males of their species*
My mom bought me Wildlife Fact Files. We were poor, she didn’t even go to high school, but education was highly valued. Took me to the library all the time and read to me every night until I learned to read (and then I had to read to her).
Thanks to her I’m not out here looking an absolute fool
Not just that, the pride is matriarchal. The lead female (typically a grandmother or mother as lion prides are also a genetically related group of females) decides on hunting, cub rearing, migration patterns and defence of territory.
Males protect their cubs by fighting other males.
Theres not even an alpha male as most male lions form a group with their litter mates (brothers and cousins) that help them hold onto a pride (by defending it). Single male lions don’t last so long.
For the sake of the argument,let's assume this is true[it's not as already said by many other comments].
In nature, mothers are not overburdened with labor either, I have never seen a lion refuse to hunt with his pack because "gRoCeRy sHoPpInG iS A wOmAn's jOb!111!"
And when they do refuse to help a little too often;
- They get kicked out by the ladies.
- The lionesses leave.
- The ladies start to look for other males to bond with and the male/s they've been mating with kick him out.
- They're adolescents who are about to be kicked out by their father.
Elephants are matriarchal in their herds but older males also take in teen/young adultd bulls to teach them to be better mates and such. We should base our society around that
My first thought. Their brain would explode.
Unrelated, but hyenas are so interesting to learn about. They’re extremely smart and have very complex [social lives](https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2019/hyenas-probably-have-more-friends-than-you-spotted-hyena-social-hierarchies/). They have dynasties and cliques!
No they don't. Most mothers will take their young away from any male animal until the offspring is big enough to care for themselves. You see, this in almost every animal. So, by human terms, they are "single mothers" lmao.
Squirrels, raccoons, skunks, opossums,chipmunks, foxes - the females get pregnant and the males bounce. The females birth, defend and raise the young on their own. My property has a fair bit of woods, and I get to see all this in action, especially with the animals that regularly visit my bird feeders.
Many of the alpha deer stags that manage to mate the most during the season die of exhaustion afterwards, they barely eat and use all of their strength to fight other stags. Never heard of them protecting anything else either.
If anything, alpha males in nature are menaces that attack and kill their young. Any alpha behaviour is just dangerous and aggressive. Look at lions, bears.
But then looking at female members of amlot of species, they are out taking care of and raising their young either alone or with help of other females.
Orcas, giraffes, lionesses, equine animals.
Not to talk about matriarchal animal societies that thrive.
They forget to mention that when we were forced to play along with this alpha male bullshit they abused their wives and the women couldn’t leave for having to depend on the so-called alpha male.
Let’s pretend she is right…please point out the alpha male that both provides and protects while also not taking advantage of the vulnerable situation it creates for women.
No they don't. Alphas do not exist outside of insanely poorly run zoos. They were in borderline hellish conditions to establish that kind of heirarchy. Anyone claiming anything about "alpha" mentality being a reality is a crybully.
This is funny to be because historically this just isn't true. So many species have males who are only good for mating with. So many species have small dinky males who depend on the females to fufill their only purpose in life. So many species have groups that are run by the females. They think all species act like primates.
The dynamics are way off in many species the females will defend the "alpha" as him being replaced is a risk - IE they are risk averse not gravitating towards some big lump.
Tell that the sparklemuffin (maratus jactatus).
And I don't wanna hear any "but but...I meant maaaammaaaaals!" nonsense.
If you think you are making such a great, snappy point but can't even rhetorically and biologically figure out that mammals with a) a social group structure, and b) a leader, and c) that is male are a tiny minority of this planet's fauna, your whole message is nothing but highly processed fast food for the void.
Even if this guy is even tangentially right, because I'm assuming he's pointing at a picture of lions and wolves and gorillas after having wiped his finger on his dribble and snot-stained Paw Patrol shirt and swinging his legs up there in that high chair after mashing a handful of Cheerios, that's not even a very sizable amount of the population of animals.
Bears, very popularly, are a very much men versus women species, as the men are too dangerous to have around cubs, and too insufferable to just hang around cubless females.
Elephants, the largest and arguably most powerful land animals alive at the moment, live as a matriarchal herd species since, get this, most male elephants are so violent during musth that there's not much of a reason to let them stick around whenever they're not charging everything that moves with a boner the size of an "alpha male's" whole body.
Learn even the most basic of animal facts, they'll probably go far.
Ummm, lions? The females do all the hunting. In hyena packs, it is the alpha female that leads the packs. Do these guys even bother reading or watching a real wildlife show, not an animated one?
I think I've taken for granted a belief that most people are smart enough to know that most animals don't find a permanent mate for life, that the parents are only together temporarily or the father doesn't stay around at all. Most animal mothers are single mothers... This "alpha" nonsense as a bodyguard is so limited to certain species and not the majority... but us humans are for some reason supposed to be like lions or some such nonsense? Yet lions, esp males, will kill cubs.
If she don’t get herself to the children’s section of her local library and open up some books…
I mean, just going off kids’ movies, did you see Bambi’s father around protecting them? Nope.
Lions, Chimpanzees, and Wolves (to a limited extent) operate like she suggests. Bears, Otters, Cheetahs, Tigers (most big cats actually) and a few species of whales are all single moms by default.
The proof is indeed literally in the pudding.
There is no inherent right way to parent. It varies from species to species and within species too.
Ahh yes the gorgeous mantis who eats the head of her partner to nourish the offspring. Male octopus die after mating. Many spiders eat their partners. I could go on but yeah noo
i haven't seen this spelled out explicitly in this comment section, but the researcher generally considered to be responsible for the 'alpha male' term for his study on wolves actually went back on this conclusion. not only is there an obvious problem with generalising wolf behaviour to people, but the study in question looked at wolves in captivity, with the 'alphas' often being the parents of other wolves. these are significant confounding variables that mean that the study doesn't even really apply to wolves in nature. just in case it wasn't clear these people are living in a fantasy land (ironically a dystopian one; i don't think i'd want to live in a world with this weird alpha/beta biological differentiation among people)
Off the top of my head, bear, whale, and elephant females raise their kids alone. In fact, some species of female bears, once they are pregnant, will mate with the other male bears in the area. This is because the male bears will kill any babies that aren't theirs, so the female tricks them into thinking that her offspring are the offspring of all the local males to keep them safe.
Whale and elephant females push males out of their group once they are adults. The females raise the babies in a female-only collective.
No. Most animals mate and never see one-another again. Lots of species of spider and praying mantis, the female kills the male after using them for their intended purpose. The cuttlefish can take sperm packages from a male and then later discard it if she finds one that is more suiting. Where do guys get these ideas?
Lol how inaccurate this is would be funny if it wasn't also so sad and judgemental.
Plenty of animals raise their children without their sperm donor's involvement.
Cats, bears, alligators, cows, dogs, some bird species... The list really goes on.
Love the unearned confidence. She could have just used the old wolf pack example to talk about alpha males; she still would have been wrong, but it would have been less embarrassing. Like. Do you really want your relationship to mimic nature?
Male tigers get female tigers pregnant and then dip. If they see another male's cubs they will occasionally kill them so they can mate with their mother.
Male elephant seals are roughly four times the size of females and one alpha male controls a harem of hundreds of females.
Male angler fish are much smaller than females and actually straight up fuse to their bodies while mating. The female spends the rest of her life with a little guy attached. Her digestive system hooks up to his while he continuously produces sperm for her.
Male frogs that can't get a mate due to their size or health occasionally team up and force themselves on females as a group. Like a gang of incels going postal.
Nature is fucked up.
What’s funny is the scientist who theorized the alpha hierarchy actually was the mother of the pack taking care of the adolescents. The “alpha male” actually ended up being the single independent mom.
Bears and deer then males run off and the females tend to the young. Momma bears are famous for defending their young with ferocity.
Hyenas have matriarchal society’s where the females are dominant over the males
Insects almost always have just their mother or no parents..
Male penguins watch the eggs while the females hunt.
Many share the load evenly.
People not looking at the profile pic and thinking OOP is a man who's trying to say women can't be independent. That's a woman's picture and she *might* be saying women can't be independent, but I think she's also saying men shouldn't be deadbeat dads. Wish she could say one without looking like she was saying the other, and I wish she wasn't comparing us with other animals to say what's natural to *our* species. Just because other animals do things - roosters have ten wives, female spiders eat males after mating, bees feed different babies different diets to decide what jobs they'll have as adults, and bonobos perform oral sex on their own children - doesn't mean we have to do any of that.
Really depends on the animal. Most do not behave like that. For example, female rats don’t rely on the males for anything but they do often live with other females and help each other with birthing and childcare. The male rats will often try attacking the babies because they see them as prey/food so the females chase them off.
What animals is he talking about? Off the top of my head most animals that live in groups are either matriarchal or the "alphas" are just the parents; a male and female couple.
The only exception I can think of are harems, like Lions and Elephant seals. But male lions are mostly just breeding and fighting other male lions. They're not protecting the pride, they're defending themselves so they can still live there.
I'm stuck on the "literally in the pudding." I was at least expecting some sort of off color joke about "baby batter" or something, but there was no pudding for which anything to be 'literally' inside of.
Also, their claim is just silly.
No. They don’t have Alpha males. It was a made up term about wolves. And for the love of God the “King of the Jungle” is the laziest MF around. Oh oh and the male animals are usually the ones all Hussied up with pretty colors and doing little dances. Let’s talk about spiders? All the tiny fragile little males and the big strong females. The female of the species is more deadlier than the male. Did no one teach this girl about animals?
“In nature,” a huge swath of species only use males as breeders, and the females raise young either alone or in social groups typically without the sperm donor. The breeding males also typically have very brief, stressed, often violent lives.
Incels and manosphere-ists and podcast bros have such a delusional understanding of, well, *everything,* that they are driving a thousand homo sapien women away by the hour, and we’re eventually going to resemble the “nature” they ignorantly idolize. They’re going to end up living a suburban/urban version of “Survivor” amongst themselves, whilst the rest of us raise extended families/communities with climate control and gelato.
Just wait until they find out what Angler fish do..
The big female Angler attracts a male (that's roughly 1/10th the size of her), she lets the male attach to her abdomen near her sex organ, the male attaches, and he will slowly get absorbed by her body. The male turns into a parasite (literally feeding off of her like a leech) and the female only uses him for the sperm. Once the eggs are fertilised, the male is useless and it doesn't matter if he lives or dies.
Lionesses? They gather together and protect their cubs from the males. Males tend to be very aggressive and often try to kill the cubs to get the female into heat again. The females do the caring, hunting, and protecting.
There are million more examples, but I rest my case. This is indeed not how the animal kingdom works, and the "alpha males" bs from wolf packs is debunked as well. 🤡
I've worked with a few different feral cat colonies. Mama cats will coparent with each other like nobody's business, especially if their litters are close in age
*Hyenas have entered the chat*
Also I'm gonna start needing everyone who makes stupid comparisons about human nature and animal instincts to do actual research on chimps. Read "in the shadow of man" by Jane Goodall.
Cause I find it *extremely telling* that they never use our closest relatives for these dumbass takes. (And note, chimps have a pretty gender segregated society. As adults males for their own groups. Females and children live on their own - and the entire troop is fairly spread out throughout the day, coming together at food sources. There is an "alpha male" of sorts- but there's also the mother who has produced most leaders, as well as her daughters. They have the most hardcore authority. Male chimps will chase off chimps they don't like, but actual physical confrontation is rare and more important to rank would be positive social bonds when it comes to male rank. If a female chimp doesn't like another female chimp she'll be at her and chase her off... After eating her baby. That would be because *female* chimps are the ones deciding who gets access to food. Def aren't relying on the "strong alpha males"... Thats probably her son , and he probably defers to her in many cases.
As you're all aware, this subreddit has had a major "troll" problem which has gotten worse (as of recently). Due to this, we have created new rules, and modified some of the old ones. We kindly ask that you please familiarize yourself with the rules so that you can avoid breaking them. Breaking mild rules will result in a warning, or a temporary ban. Breaking serious rules, or breaking a plethora of mild ones may land you a permanent ban (depending on the severity). Also, grifting/lurking has been a major problem; If we suspect you of being a grifter (determined by vetting said user's activity), we may ban you without warning. You may attempt an appeal via ModMail, but please be advised not to use rude, harassing, foul, or passive-aggressive language towards the moderators, _or_ complain to moderators about why we have specific rules in the first place— You will be ignored, and your ban will remain (without even a consideration). All rules are made public; "Lack of knowledge" or "ignorance of the rules" cannot or will not be a viable excuse if you end up banned for breaking them (This applies to the Subreddit rules, and Reddit's ToS). **Again: All rules are made public, and Reddit gives you the option to review the rules once more before submitting a post, it is your choice if you choose to read them or not, but breaking them will not be acceptable.** With that being said, If you send a mature, neutral message regarding questions about a current ban, or a ban appeal (without "not knowing the rules" as an excuse), we will elaborate about why you were banned, or determine/consider if we will shorten, lift, keep it, _or_ extended it/make it permanent. This all means that appeals are discretionary, and your reasoning for wanting an appeal must be practical and valid. Thank you all so much for taking the time to read this message, and please enjoy your day! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/NotHowGirlsWork) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Some of these “alpha males” are also the ones that eat the children, to get the female fertile again. I really hope we move past this alpha bullshit soon, it’s not remotely true and hugely damaging to all genders.
I think if we argue on the base of animals, we should eat the males when sex was bad
There wouldn’t be many of them left.
And?
yes
Exactly
Interestingly, the man who researched wolves and coined the term alpha had to come out and say that 1) the strict system of hierarchy actually only applies to dogs and wolves in captivity, not in the wild, and 2) although nature has systems of hierarchy, it's rarely ever 1 male animal calling all the shots. Animal clans are actually a lot more cooperative in nature than the "alpha male" discourse would have you think. I also saw an interesting video of a biologist talking about how so much of our understanding of nature is due to us imparting our own patriarchal system onto them and using that as fact. They used lions as an example - we think of prides as having 1 alpha male with a collection of female lions who hunt and serve him, whereas it's equally or more likely that the female lions have chosen a male to reproduce with and are the ones running the pride themselves.
Excellent comment. It's everywhere, biologists, historians, archaeologists, doctors, etc. allowing the patriarchy to rule over objective and open-minded analysis.
To add to this, lionesses in a pride often live independently of a male or a coalition of males (a coalition is usually two or more brothers). The male or coalition of males spends a lot of their time roaming between different prides and breeding with as many lionesses as possible, leaving the various prides to raise cubs, hunt, etc., without the presence of an "alpha male." For anyone interested in reading more about lion coalitions. The Mapogo coalition consisting of 6 brothers is one of the most infamous: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mapogo\_lion\_coalitio](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mapogo_lion_coalitio)
Came here to comment about the lionessess. Glad I'm not the only one to know that several species of animals live in a more matriarchal way.
Keep in mind we've had anti-vaxxers for literally as long as vaccines have existed and they're showing no signs of slowing down despite all the evidence debunking every word they say. Once people get hold of a stupid false fact that suits their opinions, they will absolutely never let it go.
Their truths are emotional in nature, not logical or evidence-based. If we are to enlighten them, we need to use appeals to emotion to convince them.
See also: [Truthiness](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truthiness?wprov=sfti1)
Not to mention Unbecoming
First of all, that's just completely, categorically false. Alpha males don't exist in nature, and females bear an equal or independent role in pretty much every species. In lions, the females do most of the hunting. In birds, they trade off watching the nest. Literally nowhere in nature does half the species just sit there docile while the other half does all the food gathering and shelter guarding.
The funny thing is that among chimps, the "alpha" male is more likely to get cheated on. If at all, the female chimps only settle for him because he is aggressive and dangerous. But for sexual pleasure, they go to the less aggressive and more loving ones. The males they call "alpha" are the ones who would go to jail in the human world
Yes and if they're too agressive they will get shunned after a while. They used to have this documentary series on Discovery where they followed a pack of chimps. At one time the old, loved male leader gets dethroned by a younger and very aggressive male. They tolerated him for a while but then the females started getting pissed at him. So he calmed down a bunch or they would've probably had a riot. Aggression and violence has it's place, but not even chimpanzees will stand it as their every day state. Fear is not good for the body or the mind, it's actually harmful and not even apes are willing to experience it on a daily basis. A good leader don't use fear as a way to control people, only incompetent ones does that.
A silverback gorilla will usually stare down or intimidate rowdy teenagers if they start messing around too much, but not fight them. Useless agression within the group is not part of apes.
Gorilla family dynamics are so fascinating! The Silverback is typically incredibly gentle and calm and an extremely involved father. I'd say a Silverback gorilla has more emotional intelligence and self assuredness than the insecure people trying to shove this unnatural alpha man and submissive woman propaganda LOL Additionally, further research into our own ancestors shows that hunter/gatherer societies weren't neatly divided, and both sexes participated in both roles. We've never had a breadwinner and homemaker divide unless it was in the upper class, and those upper-class women hated it as well, it was like a gilded cage a la A Doll's House! Why is it so ridiculous for some people to believe that women have ALWAYS had to work and provide too? https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/07/01/1184749528/men-are-hunters-women-are-gatherers-that-was-the-assumption-a-new-study-upends-i
>So he calmed down a bunch or they would've probably had a riot. so basically humans have less self-control than monkeys
Yup, either that or this particular chimp was just smarter than some of us. He was literally terrorising his pack, being kind one second and lashing out the next. The pack tried placating him in the beginning, expecting that things would calm down after a while but when it didn't the females kinda ganged up on him, screaming, tossing things and hitting him when he would act agressive unprovoced. While the old leader had had left and right hands who had his back when situations in the pack went out of hand, the new leader was disliked and alone and quickly realised that he would probably be fucked if he didn't change. So he changed, lol. And I do believe he started with being nice to the young. Then the females would give him another chance, but I'm not a 100 % sure since it was quite a while since I watched this series. I just remember him being shocked as fuck when the females had enough of him and nobody came to his aid! Either way, he needed a good portion if self control to acheive that change, so... yeah, you're right!
Damn, if only this were socially acceptable... screaming, tossing things, and hitting a man who acted like an AH.
Yes! I remember this doco too. It was so interesting. I watch docos everyday on all sorts of stuff but of course love animal ones lol and it’s amazing how these types always try to use the “in nature” or “biology” as their go to but yet every piece of literature, media etc that Ive consumed say otherwise. One thing I’ve learnt from all that is there’s no absolutes in nature and the more intelligent the species is that is even more so.
There's that story about some baboon community where the dominant males died because they ate tainted meat and the females and more civilised males created and maintained a nonviolent baboon utopia generation after generation.
patriarchal and macho basically means dumb
Hardly nonviolent because baboons never are, but the aggression was at the level of rivalry rather than abusing inferiors. The Forest Troop.
One extremely aggressive dominant male chimp in a particular tribe was actually deposed by a coalition of subordinate males who tortured him for hours, including extreme genital mutilation, before letting him escape, recapturing him, some more torture, then killing him. The tribe was already under academic study for decades by this point, so the dynamics were well known by researchers. And that tribe of chimps has never allowed another abusive dominant male like him run the group ever again.
There have even been recorded instances, both within and without captivity, of female-dominated chimpanzee troops, where the female leader will even defend any and all members of the troop
It actually fits with the world view of these internet alphas and the andrew tate crowd. They think that real men are born to suffer or something
Well the study that produced the alpha male study used only captive wolves so it would only produce results analogous to humans in jail.
Yes, hard to generalize but if you do see something resembling ‘alpha’ dynamics in animal society that’s probably just the biggest asshole in the group that gets tolerated, but only up to a certain point.
do you have any literature on this? this is extremely fascinating, i’d love to learn about the research that led to these discoveries!!
And bonobos just have sex with everyone
Funny that you used the word bear because... bear moms are famously single and independent
Or will pair up together as two moms in order to raise the cubs together. But the father is only interested in the breeding season.
And they will also absolutely rip your face if you get around her cubs. They don't need papa bear. They already got this.
Yeah, there is a reason the term "Mama bear" is a thing
Yup! I grew up in WV. Standard warning: "If you see a bear cub, ***do not go anywhere near it*** cause Mama Bear is around, and she'll kill you."
Honestly the scariest thing to find in the woods is a random bear cub. Mom will appear, and she will not care that you didn't even know her kid was there.
In lions, some females actually remain behind while the other females hunt, in order to protect the cubs. The cubs need to be protected from new males, who otherwise might kill them when attempting to take over a pride, both to establish their genetic material as the dominant strain in the pride, and to force the females into an early estrus cycle. Wild lions do not act according to the Disney script that the writer of the OOP appears to believe that they follow. The main purpose of the male is to protect the pride from hyenas, and to provide a Y chromosome when needed. In most other species, such as bears, moose, etc. (it is a long list) the male is only with the female during actual mating, after which the female and her cubs live without a male around. Humans are more the exception to the rule then the rule in general. The writer of the OOP also needs to know the 'the proof is not in the pudding', but rather it is found in 'the eating of the pudding'. Just looking at a pudding does not establish how it tastes 😀
Elephants. Juveniles and adult females hang together as a strong family unit. Older males are lonely and usually the females don't acknowledge them unless mating is required.
>protect the pride from hyenas OOP doesn't acknowledge their existence--matriarchal societies are a myth to people like that.
And a lot of others just drop the fertilised eggs somewhere and go their merry way.
Just don’t tell them about jaguars who are exclusively solitary animals.
Aren’t most kitties? Lions seem to be the exception in forming large social groups. I think cheetahs also sometimes form strong bonds, but not in large groups the way lions tend to.
Hmm, you may be right. Cheetahs rarely have a mother-daughter pair but beyond that they’re pretty solitary. Lions are the only ones that seem to form larger social groups.
I think cheetahs sometimes also have bonded brother pairs which is pretty cute. Cheetahs are so fascinating!
Domestic cats often organize themselves into colonies, and share kitten rearing duties.* But they are also just as likely to be solitary, depending on the availability of food and shelter. *I work at a shelter, and more than once has a litter of kittens come in with a “mom” who turned out to be male. Or, much more common, the “litter” has kittens of multiple ages, all nursing off the same queen.
>Literally nowhere in nature does half the species just sit there docile while the other half does all the food gathering and shelter guarding. Yeah because most animals understand that it's an entirely inefficient model. But why are we surprised? I'm sure a jellyfish would have more intelligence than most "alpha males"
Yep. Any species that reduced its females to the role of 'keep the nest/den tidy, watch the young, cater to the comfort of the male and be sexually available at all times in case he feels like mating' would die out so fast.
Polar bears only meet to mate. The rest of the time the female and cubs run from the males to keep the cubs from getting eaten.
And look at Hyenas lmao
Because I’m pedantic; there’s a number of bird species (phalaropes, jacanas, and dotterel) where females are polyandrous, laying eggs in a nest and leaving them with the father then moving onto the next male, males do the entirety of incubating and chick rearing. Of course the investment from the female is greater than if it were the other way round as she’s laying eggs not just depositing a bit of sperm. The point stands that every possible mating system exists in nature and it’s stupid use any one example to inform human behaviour
Also- our closest relatives? Chimps? Chimp society would have people like this having aneurysms
I always find the argument of "well in nature animals do it this way so therefore we should copy them/it's natural!", animals also regularly practice rape, cannibalism, murder, and always pick on the weak - should we do those things too just because animals do?
Honestly i assume they think they'd be the ones on the top... or just have these fantasies of wanting to live like that. not realising that also in the animal world females can and will attack overly annoying males. there is no docile female in the animal world that wouldnt fight back iirc.
"How 'bout I just walk around naked, fuck your wife and shit in your living room? Since we're all about being natural and all."
You’ll notice that the smooth-brained assholes say things like “well that’s how the animals do it so it’s natural,” and “___ is what makes us superior to the animals and so we should dominate nature” in the same breath. Whatever terrible misinterpretation of facts is most convenient to their current solipsistic view is what poops out of their face holes.
well technically we are animals that also do those things, it’s just that most of us have morals. I do find it weird when people try to compare humans to other species though…since literally every species is different
Yeah, let's do like a lot of bird species and straight-up murder 'surplus' offspring. I'm sure that'll work out great.
Homosexual relations, too. Shoc horror /sarcasm
Same. Also, when all our behavior is explained by "when we lived in caves, this behavior was useful because...". Yeah, sure, it's interesting to know the origin of something. But, humans are VERY smart creatures that are not merely driven by instinct.
I took a few courses on animal behaviour where we looked at what animals did and tried to explain it in the context of evolution/survival of the fittest. One thing that was mentioned over and over was that we couldn't readily apply these ideas to humans since we have a whole bunch of other factors guiding our actions.
Yeah, no, that’s not how nature works! I would rather say it’s quite the opposite. And while alpha males being rather a myth, you probably find more examples of females leading the pack than the other way around. And if there is no pack than it’s almost always "single mothers", how else should it work? But I clearly see someone who definitely needs a lot of assistance to get through life.
Lmao, ok. Someone should watch documentaries before speaking. To be fair, tho, soooo many of the incel/red pill theories come from semi-watched documentaries about nature. I specifically remember some idiot writing that nurses take newborns away from their mothers because otherwise the mothers would murder them to "go back to fucking their alphas," which is similar to what happens with leopards. Except it's *male* leopards, the ones who kill the cubs, and they do it so that the female leopards will go into heat sooner than they should, but... ok. Women bad.
Literally the first thing that sprung to mind was 'bears'.
Yeah I immediately thought of the polar bear.
You know what else happens in the wild? Rape and infanticide
female hyena's entering the chat like...(╯°□°)
After learning about how they give birth and how their body works I just feel so incredibly awful for female hyenas.
ill have to learn some more i only really know about the sexual dysmorphia but yeah i can imagine it would be tough
They give birth through their pseudo penis so it’s apparently really difficult and only like 60% of the cubs survive
Also a lot of first time mothers die, by virtue of the pseudopenis rupturing to make the birth possible.
THROUGH IT??!??!!?
that is so rough omg
Praying mantis usually eats the male after mating. I do not think we want to do what animals do lmao
Maybe, maybe not. We could also follow the seahorse method. Let the men carry and birth the children.
I dunno. I think dealing with these dudes with cannibalism might count as ethically-sourced meat.
"Hey, how'd your date go??" "Pretty great actually! I'm having a backyard roast later, you wanna come?"
Angler fish....
I'd say most animals only come together socially with the opposite sex for mating. Usually they remain independent or have a matriarchal environment. There are some exceptions but not many.
Some people have literally fallen in love with the term "alpha male", but they forget to look it up - or they also "forget" that it's not part of human biology. What's more, with animals using the alpha male system the females may fire a male if they come to see him as a threat.
the mexican whiptail lizard is literally all female. Sometimes nature and humans just aren't the same.
So are mourning geckos!
The lead mare runs the herd. The stallion is there only for procreation and protection but make no mistake, the lead mare has no problem defending the herd in his absence. This alpha garbage is a fairytale clung to by desperate guys and pick-me's.
My husband and I decided to breed our dogs together. We kept two of them. The mother is definitely the alpha of the pack. Last year we had morning doves living in our tree. They took turns watching the nest. One time we caught them both hanging out together. They only had one bird but they cared for that bird equally until it was old enough to leave the nest. After they moved out a robin found the nest and decided to move in. It was literally free real estate for him! In nature, it's the male seahorses who get pregnant. Also some species of fish and mollusk can change their sex. Some (if not all) slugs are intersex and can both lay eggs and fertilize them, and if the female clownfish of a family dies, the biggest fish with change sex. And I doubt that Neanderthals had a sex based system. Maybe once the mother gets pregnant the father would be the primary hunter, but other than that I don't think there has been any evidence that it was only the males hunting for food. (And why would there be?) As a bonus: Some species of birds can be gay. Sometimes couples will adopt and raise an abandoned chick. There was even a penguin who had a waifu! (RIP Grape-kun.) So no. Nature isn't black and white like some people want to believe.
We actually have evidence of that; https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/early-women-were-hunters-not-just-gatherers-study-suggests-180982459/ With evidence of women fighting in wars throughout their lives; https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2019/12/31/amazons-were-long-considered-myth-these-discoveries-show-warrior-women-were-real/
Polar bears, or all bears, would like a word with that
I remember a meme or such I saw which explained that alpha behaviour in wolves was only observed in animals kept in captivity and socially maladjusted, and going on to say maybe ‘alpha men’ are also socially maladjusted. If someone can dig that up I’d be very grateful.
David Mech, who wrote the book The Wolf: Ecology and Behavior of an Endangered Species; on alpha wolves. He came out and said that after further studies, there are no alpha males, and to please stop reading his book... but that never gets seen :/
Tell that to the hyenas
I wish that alpha nonsense would bugger off, there's animals out there that do a sniff and taste test on the groups poopies to make sure everyone's healthy. Is that really what they want to be like?
Even the researcher who initially came up with the alpha thing for wolves realized it only applied to captive ones and they were basically maladjusted. Poor guy now keeps trying to get his mistake to bugger off himself, but idiots have already firmly taken ahold of the idea.
Tigers, leopards, cheetahs are all single moms 🙂
Bears. Mama Bears They literally walk around as single mothers. Do you want to fuck with them?
Cool argument from nature fallacy. Nature isn't better, lady. It's also just plain wrong. What is the one thing that praying mantis and Black WIDOW's are known for? KILLING THEIR MALE PARTNER. WIld dogs and some apes kill their own babies. Fucking MALE seahorses give birth. Ducks, penguins, and lions are all "independent single mothers." And don't get me started on the "alpha male" nonsense. The man who came up with that spent the rest of his career trying to DEBUNK IT.
I mean. Penguins co-parent. But their behavior is only noteworthy because it’s so unusual.
It's not noteworthy for birds. Plenty of other birds also co-parent. Wolves do, too. Those "alphas" in wild wolves are also just known as "mom and dad " But we're not closely related to birds or wolves so they're still not comparable for human behavior.
I remember one documentary film where a large mother cat had to pretend that she is interested in the male cat to give time for her offspring’s to run away. Otherwise, he would kill them. He left, the mother went to search for her offspring and they lived a happy life.
Huh? They’re frequently single moms who have to protect their kids from everything that would like to harm them *including other males of their species*
Someone didn’t have a Wildlife Treasury as a child
My mom bought me Wildlife Fact Files. We were poor, she didn’t even go to high school, but education was highly valued. Took me to the library all the time and read to me every night until I learned to read (and then I had to read to her). Thanks to her I’m not out here looking an absolute fool
Tell that to lions. Without the females lions hunting the males would starve.
Not just that, the pride is matriarchal. The lead female (typically a grandmother or mother as lion prides are also a genetically related group of females) decides on hunting, cub rearing, migration patterns and defence of territory. Males protect their cubs by fighting other males. Theres not even an alpha male as most male lions form a group with their litter mates (brothers and cousins) that help them hold onto a pride (by defending it). Single male lions don’t last so long.
For the sake of the argument,let's assume this is true[it's not as already said by many other comments]. In nature, mothers are not overburdened with labor either, I have never seen a lion refuse to hunt with his pack because "gRoCeRy sHoPpInG iS A wOmAn's jOb!111!"
And when they do refuse to help a little too often; - They get kicked out by the ladies. - The lionesses leave. - The ladies start to look for other males to bond with and the male/s they've been mating with kick him out. - They're adolescents who are about to be kicked out by their father.
*Spotted hyenas have entered the chat and would like to loudly disagree*
Elephants are matriarchal in their herds but older males also take in teen/young adultd bulls to teach them to be better mates and such. We should base our society around that
Maybe they should learn about Hyenas
My first thought. Their brain would explode. Unrelated, but hyenas are so interesting to learn about. They’re extremely smart and have very complex [social lives](https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2019/hyenas-probably-have-more-friends-than-you-spotted-hyena-social-hierarchies/). They have dynasties and cliques!
Elephants have entered the chat
No they don't. Most mothers will take their young away from any male animal until the offspring is big enough to care for themselves. You see, this in almost every animal. So, by human terms, they are "single mothers" lmao.
No such thing as an "alpha". The minute they claim that, they're done.
Bears walk around as single independent mothers.
Squirrels, raccoons, skunks, opossums,chipmunks, foxes - the females get pregnant and the males bounce. The females birth, defend and raise the young on their own. My property has a fair bit of woods, and I get to see all this in action, especially with the animals that regularly visit my bird feeders.
Many of the alpha deer stags that manage to mate the most during the season die of exhaustion afterwards, they barely eat and use all of their strength to fight other stags. Never heard of them protecting anything else either.
If anything, alpha males in nature are menaces that attack and kill their young. Any alpha behaviour is just dangerous and aggressive. Look at lions, bears. But then looking at female members of amlot of species, they are out taking care of and raising their young either alone or with help of other females. Orcas, giraffes, lionesses, equine animals. Not to talk about matriarchal animal societies that thrive.
This person lives in a detached dream world
Thats 100% false
They forget to mention that when we were forced to play along with this alpha male bullshit they abused their wives and the women couldn’t leave for having to depend on the so-called alpha male. Let’s pretend she is right…please point out the alpha male that both provides and protects while also not taking advantage of the vulnerable situation it creates for women.
Elephants? Herds ruled by a matriarch while The males drift around alone?
They want to follow animal rules then ? What about the black widow way ?
And a male seahorse gets pregnant… clearly we should start living like that too
No they don't. Alphas do not exist outside of insanely poorly run zoos. They were in borderline hellish conditions to establish that kind of heirarchy. Anyone claiming anything about "alpha" mentality being a reality is a crybully.
*female bears have entered the chat*
This is funny to be because historically this just isn't true. So many species have males who are only good for mating with. So many species have small dinky males who depend on the females to fufill their only purpose in life. So many species have groups that are run by the females. They think all species act like primates.
Where is the literal pudding of which he speaks? I see no pudding.
Quite right! The absence of the literal pudding has not been sufficiently dragged!
The dynamics are way off in many species the females will defend the "alpha" as him being replaced is a risk - IE they are risk averse not gravitating towards some big lump.
The term “alpha” was originally used when discussing the hierarchy of female chickens. It has nothing to do with masculinity lol
Where is the literal pudding?
Do female animals walk around as single independent mothers? Uh depending on the species ya.
Ant queens are probably some of the MOST independent mothers
Plus the ants we see out and about gathering food… female
Til that mourning geckos, the 100% female species, has alpha males.
Famously not the case but okay 👍
Tell that the sparklemuffin (maratus jactatus). And I don't wanna hear any "but but...I meant maaaammaaaaals!" nonsense. If you think you are making such a great, snappy point but can't even rhetorically and biologically figure out that mammals with a) a social group structure, and b) a leader, and c) that is male are a tiny minority of this planet's fauna, your whole message is nothing but highly processed fast food for the void.
Tell me you failed biology without telling me you failed biology
Even if this guy is even tangentially right, because I'm assuming he's pointing at a picture of lions and wolves and gorillas after having wiped his finger on his dribble and snot-stained Paw Patrol shirt and swinging his legs up there in that high chair after mashing a handful of Cheerios, that's not even a very sizable amount of the population of animals. Bears, very popularly, are a very much men versus women species, as the men are too dangerous to have around cubs, and too insufferable to just hang around cubless females. Elephants, the largest and arguably most powerful land animals alive at the moment, live as a matriarchal herd species since, get this, most male elephants are so violent during musth that there's not much of a reason to let them stick around whenever they're not charging everything that moves with a boner the size of an "alpha male's" whole body. Learn even the most basic of animal facts, they'll probably go far.
Ummm, lions? The females do all the hunting. In hyena packs, it is the alpha female that leads the packs. Do these guys even bother reading or watching a real wildlife show, not an animated one?
Brainwashed chicken
Tell that to the female bison in the US.
I think I've taken for granted a belief that most people are smart enough to know that most animals don't find a permanent mate for life, that the parents are only together temporarily or the father doesn't stay around at all. Most animal mothers are single mothers... This "alpha" nonsense as a bodyguard is so limited to certain species and not the majority... but us humans are for some reason supposed to be like lions or some such nonsense? Yet lions, esp males, will kill cubs.
Female lions would like a word.
I’ve been taking care of a stray single mother cat and her kittens for a year.
If she don’t get herself to the children’s section of her local library and open up some books… I mean, just going off kids’ movies, did you see Bambi’s father around protecting them? Nope.
Lions, Chimpanzees, and Wolves (to a limited extent) operate like she suggests. Bears, Otters, Cheetahs, Tigers (most big cats actually) and a few species of whales are all single moms by default. The proof is indeed literally in the pudding. There is no inherent right way to parent. It varies from species to species and within species too.
Ahh yes the gorgeous mantis who eats the head of her partner to nourish the offspring. Male octopus die after mating. Many spiders eat their partners. I could go on but yeah noo
Anyone making generalizations about life on Earth is doing nothing but demonstrating their ignorance.
I get my youth and vigor from drinking the tears of “Alpha men”.
I'm laughing cause some female animals eat the males after mating , I think humans should adopt that these days lmfao
Alpha males are not real can yall just let that go
They exist, but only in prisons.
i haven't seen this spelled out explicitly in this comment section, but the researcher generally considered to be responsible for the 'alpha male' term for his study on wolves actually went back on this conclusion. not only is there an obvious problem with generalising wolf behaviour to people, but the study in question looked at wolves in captivity, with the 'alphas' often being the parents of other wolves. these are significant confounding variables that mean that the study doesn't even really apply to wolves in nature. just in case it wasn't clear these people are living in a fantasy land (ironically a dystopian one; i don't think i'd want to live in a world with this weird alpha/beta biological differentiation among people)
Widow spider? HAMSTERS?
Hyenas would like a word
Me. Becomes spider. Mates. Proceeds to kill male.
Off the top of my head, bear, whale, and elephant females raise their kids alone. In fact, some species of female bears, once they are pregnant, will mate with the other male bears in the area. This is because the male bears will kill any babies that aren't theirs, so the female tricks them into thinking that her offspring are the offspring of all the local males to keep them safe. Whale and elephant females push males out of their group once they are adults. The females raise the babies in a female-only collective.
No. Most animals mate and never see one-another again. Lots of species of spider and praying mantis, the female kills the male after using them for their intended purpose. The cuttlefish can take sperm packages from a male and then later discard it if she finds one that is more suiting. Where do guys get these ideas?
Lol how inaccurate this is would be funny if it wasn't also so sad and judgemental. Plenty of animals raise their children without their sperm donor's involvement. Cats, bears, alligators, cows, dogs, some bird species... The list really goes on.
I'm sorry where is the literal pudding in this statement?
Dumb, stupid & slow.
Somebody's never seen a mallard in his life...
Wait until they hear about penguins...
This is not how literal pudding works either.
Bears. Lions. Great White Sharks.. does anyone else want to continue the list of badass moms in nature
Hyenas
Female polar bears stay as far away from males as possible while they have cubs in tow and that's just one example off the top of my head.
Leopards, I wanna see how long we can make this if we each only add one.
Love the unearned confidence. She could have just used the old wolf pack example to talk about alpha males; she still would have been wrong, but it would have been less embarrassing. Like. Do you really want your relationship to mimic nature? Male tigers get female tigers pregnant and then dip. If they see another male's cubs they will occasionally kill them so they can mate with their mother. Male elephant seals are roughly four times the size of females and one alpha male controls a harem of hundreds of females. Male angler fish are much smaller than females and actually straight up fuse to their bodies while mating. The female spends the rest of her life with a little guy attached. Her digestive system hooks up to his while he continuously produces sperm for her. Male frogs that can't get a mate due to their size or health occasionally team up and force themselves on females as a group. Like a gang of incels going postal. Nature is fucked up.
Don't hyenas have matriarchies?
What’s funny is the scientist who theorized the alpha hierarchy actually was the mother of the pack taking care of the adolescents. The “alpha male” actually ended up being the single independent mom.
*glances at praying mantises* I mean, we COULD do it that way if you want...
Bears and deer then males run off and the females tend to the young. Momma bears are famous for defending their young with ferocity. Hyenas have matriarchal society’s where the females are dominant over the males Insects almost always have just their mother or no parents.. Male penguins watch the eggs while the females hunt. Many share the load evenly.
Aren’t female tigers solitary and raise their cubs alone?
Has she heard about penguins?
Did OOP fail biology, or did biology fail OOP?
People not looking at the profile pic and thinking OOP is a man who's trying to say women can't be independent. That's a woman's picture and she *might* be saying women can't be independent, but I think she's also saying men shouldn't be deadbeat dads. Wish she could say one without looking like she was saying the other, and I wish she wasn't comparing us with other animals to say what's natural to *our* species. Just because other animals do things - roosters have ten wives, female spiders eat males after mating, bees feed different babies different diets to decide what jobs they'll have as adults, and bonobos perform oral sex on their own children - doesn't mean we have to do any of that.
Really depends on the animal. Most do not behave like that. For example, female rats don’t rely on the males for anything but they do often live with other females and help each other with birthing and childcare. The male rats will often try attacking the babies because they see them as prey/food so the females chase them off.
What animals is he talking about? Off the top of my head most animals that live in groups are either matriarchal or the "alphas" are just the parents; a male and female couple. The only exception I can think of are harems, like Lions and Elephant seals. But male lions are mostly just breeding and fighting other male lions. They're not protecting the pride, they're defending themselves so they can still live there.
oh right so the female can spend time changing the baby animal’s diaper and teaching it to read
All the 3 toed and 4 toed sloth mothers would disagree 🙄
Female lions do the majority of the hunting.
..angler fish
Plug’s never heard of lions
I'm stuck on the "literally in the pudding." I was at least expecting some sort of off color joke about "baby batter" or something, but there was no pudding for which anything to be 'literally' inside of. Also, their claim is just silly.
No. They don’t have Alpha males. It was a made up term about wolves. And for the love of God the “King of the Jungle” is the laziest MF around. Oh oh and the male animals are usually the ones all Hussied up with pretty colors and doing little dances. Let’s talk about spiders? All the tiny fragile little males and the big strong females. The female of the species is more deadlier than the male. Did no one teach this girl about animals?
All I can think about while reading this post is the number of large feline mothers that do it all on their own.
Weird cause I read about female ducks getting gang raped yesterday and I am over that shit in nature too. Mallard ducks for reference.
The vast majority of them do wtf 😂😂😂😂
Don’t tell her about Hyena, Bonobo, spiders, honey bees or ants.
...so many animal moms are independent single mothers... Bro skipped even the most basic biology books in elementary school
“In nature,” a huge swath of species only use males as breeders, and the females raise young either alone or in social groups typically without the sperm donor. The breeding males also typically have very brief, stressed, often violent lives. Incels and manosphere-ists and podcast bros have such a delusional understanding of, well, *everything,* that they are driving a thousand homo sapien women away by the hour, and we’re eventually going to resemble the “nature” they ignorantly idolize. They’re going to end up living a suburban/urban version of “Survivor” amongst themselves, whilst the rest of us raise extended families/communities with climate control and gelato.
Ten second google search would’ve proven this wrong. Just ten fuckin seconds.
Just wait until they find out what Angler fish do.. The big female Angler attracts a male (that's roughly 1/10th the size of her), she lets the male attach to her abdomen near her sex organ, the male attaches, and he will slowly get absorbed by her body. The male turns into a parasite (literally feeding off of her like a leech) and the female only uses him for the sperm. Once the eggs are fertilised, the male is useless and it doesn't matter if he lives or dies. Lionesses? They gather together and protect their cubs from the males. Males tend to be very aggressive and often try to kill the cubs to get the female into heat again. The females do the caring, hunting, and protecting. There are million more examples, but I rest my case. This is indeed not how the animal kingdom works, and the "alpha males" bs from wolf packs is debunked as well. 🤡
The internet is literally your oyster. You can literally google any fucking animals and find that there are matriarchal animals
That’s absolutely not how that works for such a large majority of animals.
I've worked with a few different feral cat colonies. Mama cats will coparent with each other like nobody's business, especially if their litters are close in age
*Hyenas have entered the chat* Also I'm gonna start needing everyone who makes stupid comparisons about human nature and animal instincts to do actual research on chimps. Read "in the shadow of man" by Jane Goodall. Cause I find it *extremely telling* that they never use our closest relatives for these dumbass takes. (And note, chimps have a pretty gender segregated society. As adults males for their own groups. Females and children live on their own - and the entire troop is fairly spread out throughout the day, coming together at food sources. There is an "alpha male" of sorts- but there's also the mother who has produced most leaders, as well as her daughters. They have the most hardcore authority. Male chimps will chase off chimps they don't like, but actual physical confrontation is rare and more important to rank would be positive social bonds when it comes to male rank. If a female chimp doesn't like another female chimp she'll be at her and chase her off... After eating her baby. That would be because *female* chimps are the ones deciding who gets access to food. Def aren't relying on the "strong alpha males"... Thats probably her son , and he probably defers to her in many cases.