Canto: So we haven’t focussed on bonobos for a while – I’d love to be able to answer the question, How did bonobos become female dominant?
Jacinta: Yes, were they always that way? That would mean, presumably, that they were female dominant at the time of their split from chimpanzees, somewhere between one and two million years ago (a rather vague time-frame, for me), which would then raise the question – how did chimps become male-dominant?
Canto: Haha, a question we don’t ask ourselves, we’re so used to being male-dominant. I seem to recall that one reason, or theory, is that bonobos have evolved in a region that’s densely vegetated, plenty of fruit and nuts, not so much hunting as gathering, which doesn’t require so much physical strength and aggression.
Jacinta: Which is interesting – we humans are evolving, at least in the WEIRD world into a post-industrial species, where manual labour is being replaced by mechanisation, robotics and such, requiring less of the physical strength of old-fashioned factory work. Australia, for example has become, internally, a service economy, exporting raw materials such as iron ore and coal, and importing finished products. There are few labour-intensive jobs these days, and testosterone levels are dropping, happily.
Canto: Yes, if we can take the long view – a very difficult thing for humans – we can see that only a couple of centuries ago women couldn’t get a decent education, couldn’t participate in government or be workplace bosses – though there were always the rare exceptions – but now the gates are opened and the trickle to the top is happening. In a thousand years or so – not so long in evolutionary time – we might have achieved a bonobo-style humanity.
Jacinta: Well on that sort of happy note, let’s see if research has told us anything about bonobo femdom. The quickest click-research brings up this, from the Max Planck Institute:
Some researchers suggest that bonobo female dominance is facilitated by females forming coalitions which suppress male aggression. Others think of an evolutionary scenario in which females prefer non-aggressive males which renders male aggressiveness to a non-adaptive trait.
That’s from ten years ago, and I doubt if we’ve gone much beyond those very reasonable speculations, with both of those developments, female coalitions and less aggressive males, creating a synergistic effect.
Canto: Well, looking more closely at that fairly short article, they suggest that female attractiveness – by which they don’t mean looking like Taylor Swift or FKA Twigs, but displaying sexual receptivity through behaviour or sexual swellings, seems to soften up the males somehow:
If females display sexually attractive attributes, including sexual swellings, they win conflicts with males more easily, with the males behaving in a less aggressive way.
Which is the opposite of male chimp behaviour, so why, and when, the difference?
Jacinta: Well, the article mentions two changes – subtle differences, no doubt, in female sexuality and in male mating strategies over a million or two years. And, okay, that doesn’t tell us anything much. As to when, obviously these are changes that developed gradually. Emory University, in Atlanta Georgia, which has done a whole-genome comparison of chimps and bonobos, makes a more specific claim for the divergence:
Chimpanzees and bonobos are sister species that diverged around 1.8 million years ago as the Congo River formed a geographic boundary and they evolved in separate environments.
Canto: But is it likely that genomic comparisons will tell us much about these subtle – or, ok, not so subtle, differences in behaviour? I mean, comparing the genes of Taliban Afghans and Aussie radical lesbians isn’t going to tell us much, is it? It seems to me to be largely a cultural shift.
Jacinta: Well, the Emory website, I must say, has the most interesting little article I’ve found for a while, and it relates to diet, which we’ve looked at before, and hormone production, which we haven’t, because it’s a bit sciencey for us dilettantes. Let me quote at length from the site, as I think this will provide us with a sense of direction for our own future research, if you can call it that:
The whole genome comparison showed selection in bonobos for genes related to the production of pancreatic amylase — an enzyme that breaks down starch. Previous research has shown that human populations that began consuming more grains with the rise of agriculture show an increase in copies of a closely related gene that codes for amylase.
“Our results add to the evidence that diet and the available resources had a definite impact on bonobo evolution,” Kovalaskas says. “We can see it in the genome.”
Compared to chimpanzees, bonobos also showed differences in genetic pathways well-known to be related to social behaviors of animals — as well as humans. Bonobos had strong selection for genes in the oxytocin receptor pathway, which plays a role in promoting social bonds; serotonin, involved in modulating aggression; and gonadotropin, known to affect sexual behavior.
“The strong female bonds among bonobos, in part, may be mediated by their same-sex sexual behaviors,” says co-author James Rilling, professor and chair of Emory’s Department of Anthropology. “Our data suggest that something interesting is going on in the bonobo pathways for oxytocin, serotonin and gonadotropin and that future research into the physiological mechanisms underlying behavioral differences between bonobos and chimpanzees may want to target those specific systems.”
Canto: Yes, that’s a most interesting finding, and one to follow up – pathways for serotonin, oxytocin and gonadotrophin, think SOG. And think not testosterone. And of course it’s not about opening up these pathways artificially, with, I don’t know, hormone supplements and such, but engaging in and encouraging behaviour that takes us along those pathways….
Jacinta: Haha I think oxytocin comes first, even if it wrecks the acronym. Looks like we need a crash course in endocrinology.
Canto: Or a crash course in how to raise our levels of, or expression of, those hormones? Over the next million years or so? With lots of orgasm-inducing touchy-feelies?
Jacinta: Well I can’t see that happening for as long as we have anti-sex religions dominating many nations. I seem to remember there were a few ‘free love’ cults back in the hippy days, but things have dulled down since then. You’d think there’d be a return, what with the mechanisation of labour, and the growth of the service economy. What better service can we offer our fellows than body rubs? Mind you, the Japanese seem to be leading the way there – a notably non-religious people. And yet, still far too patriarchal….
Canto: Interesting that Japanese teams have led the way in bonobo studies. Let’s hope they’re spreading the news among their countrywomen.
Jacinta: Well the sex video industry in Japan, and its sex industry generally, is enormous, though doubtless very exploitative. I presume it’s being driven by men rather than women – not exactly the bonobo way. A country that forces its few female politicians to wear high heels is far from being female-dominant. At least that was the case in 2019, when there was a backlash against this grotesque policy. I presume it has changed, but it isn’t clear.
Canto: Well, this has been interesting. We need to look more at endocrinology and happiness, or at least pleasure-inducing practices, in future… meanwhile, Vive les bonobos!
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