Males Are the Secondary Sex
Don't believe me? Let me walk you through it.
In this essay, I discuss the fact that males are the secondary sex, and that patriarchy is a perversion of evolution, and as such, can only lead to the total destruction of humankind. Ready to jump in? Here we go.
Patriarchy Only Took ~10,000 Years to Destroy Homo Sapiens
Let’s start with the timeline. The system of patriarchy didn’t exist for 97% of the history of human beings. Our species, Homo Sapiens, has been around for at least 260,000 years. Once patriarchy makes its appearance, we follow a very quick path to pervasive violence and destruction via climate change, nuclear bombs, oppressive religion, forced starvation, preventable disease, etc.. And we’re not just destroying humankind, we’re destroying thousands of other species too. Picture it: we managed to go along for ~250,000 years, then we introduce patriarchy and we can’t even make it ~10,000 years without bringing our species to the brink of total annihilation. Patriarchy is very bad for humankind, and for the Earth as a whole.
What is it about patriarchy that makes it so harmful? I’ll tell you. Patriarchy is built on hierarchy, competition, and domination, which is how we get horrors like white supremacy and racism, class systems, war, unregulated capitalism, pervasive violence, and rape culture. Patriarchy is also harmful because it puts males in charge of everything. But males are the secondary sex and aren’t supposed to be in charge of anything.
You may not like hearing that males are the secondary sex. But indeed they are. And this isn’t coming from me. The secondary role of males was determined by nature, evolution, God—whoever or whatever you think created all of this.
The Secondary Sex
In nature, males are interchangeable and somewhat disposable laborers, while females are primary, and essential for a community to thrive and grow. Females are so essential that human DNA perpetually preserves the maternal line—females pass down an unbroken genetic chain that is traceable by lineage, while “interchangeable” males do not. Mitochondrial DNA is passed from mother to child without recombination. Autosomal (or nuclear) DNA is contributed by both parents, but every generation it gets recombined, so it doesn’t preserve a single unbroken ancestral line.
Males play a secondary role across species. It’s very easy to observe. In bee populations, the males do their work, then abruptly get kicked out. Once their contribution is complete, they no longer offer anything of value to the community, so they’re removed in order for the community to thrive. Male lions are known as the king of the jungle, but it’s a myth. The lionesses are the consistent and central figures in the pride, while the male’s power is limited.
Some species of spiders kill and eat the male after fertilization. He made his small contribution and now the only value he has in the community is as sustenance. Female orcas (killer whales) live, on average, decades longer than male orcas—the females live longer to teach, lead, and provide continuity to the younger whales. Elephant herds are led by elder females who guide social cohesion, resource distribution, and group decision-making, while male elephants live solitary or loosely connected lives.
Those are just a few examples, but the point is: The norm isn’t patriarchy. The norm in nature, by far, is matriarchy. The norm is female choice and coalition building. There are a few cases where it looks like males dominate, but those are exceptions to the rule, and even in those instances, it’s unclear if we’re just framing things through human patriarchal assumptions.
Men Actually Hate Being in Charge
Males are supposed to play a secondary role in the human world as well. Our great downfall is that we allowed men to try and act as the primary sex—an experiment that was bound to fail. It goes against everything we know about animals (including human animals), nature, and evolution.
The reality is, patriarchy makes human males miserable—it puts them in charge and keeps them constantly competing for resources. But human males are not supposed to be in charge, and the vast majority hate being in charge. Under patriarchy, they might like the cultural position that being in charge gives them, but they don’t like the planning, the organization, the work, the decision making, and the responsibilities of actual leadership.
Nature makes clear that males are supposed to take on what we could call a “drone” roll—they are happy to take direction as long as they receive appreciation from fellow males, and have their physical needs (food, shelter, sex) provided for. It’s easy to see that most human males gravitate toward a drone roll. Let’s go through some examples:
It’s common to see men abandoning their families because they can’t handle the responsibilities of providing and parenting. Related, commitment is a huge issue for many males because of its direct connection to responsibility. We have hundreds of books written by men, begging women to understand that “men are simple creatures” who are happy and content to work, as long as they have food and sex and no nagging (nagging = responsibility). You may have heard of the invisible labor of women—it’s when men choose to be blissfully unaware of most of the tasks that keep their families and the world running; men can’t see the trash needs emptying, they have to be told. While women have 50 tabs open in their brain at any given time, most men’s brains can only handle one tab at a time. All of those things are drone behavior.
Many men join the military specifically because they crave following orders; they want to be able to ditch accountability because they were “just doing their job.” A not insignificant number of males find true contentment doing nothing but gaming for all of their waking hours. We all know men who believe they are head of the household but don’t know their own children’s birthdates. Men are often indifferent to taking care of themselves, and abandon basic grooming to the point of becoming ill. Incels are so hungry to be mindless followers, they eagerly offer obedience and allegiance to pathetic figures like Jordan Peterson, Andrew Tate, and Elon Musk. All of these things are drone behavior.
Some men argue that physical strength makes males the primary sex, but physical strength is actually a sign of the secondary sex. Physical strength illustrates males are designed for basic labor. It doesn’t imply or increase leadership ability. Male obsession with physical strength is drone behavior. So is the male approach to sex. It turns out that men will have sex with literally anything—people of any sex or gender, people in comas, corpses, babies, toddlers, children, teens, pets, sheep, goats, and all farm animals, plants, grapefruit, peaches, warm apple pie, dolls, fleshlights, socks, and more.
Male willingness to have sex with anything is drone behavior. Letting their dick rule their decisions is drone behavior. Putting their immediate sexual gratification above the safety of their partner (like pressuring to have sex within days of giving birth), that’s drone behavior. It’s the opposite of leadership. Leadership is being community minded, it involves a ton of listening and learning without ego. It means making decisions that will most benefit the whole community, not just the individual person making the decision. It’s not attention seeking. The vast majority of men are not capable of leadership. And they don’t want it. Most men love being drones.
Some men argue that the male role of “protector” makes males the primary sex. But obviously that’s nonsense because males are not protectors. In many species, females have to ward off males so that the males don’t eat or attack their own offspring. In human males, it’s not any better. Consider the case of Gisèle Pelicot, where her husband invited dozens of men to rape her, and hundreds more knew she was being raped, and did nothing about it. Or the group chat on Telegram, with 70,000(!) men who sought advice from each other on how best to rape their wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters.
In human males, self preservation is the instinct, not protection of the community. In fact, the most common protection we see men offer, is protection of shitty men. And this is just another version of self-preservation, because it gives permission for all men to behave like shit without accountability or consequences.
Across nature, it’s females who do the protecting.
Patriarchy Makes No Sense
Still don’t believe that patriarchy shouldn’t exist? Then let’s talk about how patriarchy makes no sense through the lens of evolution. Some examples:
Under patriarchy, everything about menstruation and ovulation is shamed. It’s treated as dirty and gross. People are taught to hide it, not talk about, ignore it, pretend it’s not happening. When menstruating, people are often excluded from social activities. People are taught to be embarrassed to purchase pads and tampons. A period leak in public is considered to be highly embarrassing. Talking about period side effects gets an eyeroll. The medical community has depressingly little knowledge and research about a bodily function that 50% of the population experiences.
This makes no sense. Evolution really want species to reproduce, but heavily shaming everything around menstruation only discourages reproduction. Obviously, it’s not supposed to work this way. We can only assume humans evolved to highly appreciate and highly value menstruation, and to eagerly amass knowledge about this incredibly important part of life. Patriarchy erased that knowledge and value. Patriarchy shouldn’t exist.
Under patriarchy, resources are hoarded by a few people. This leads to less reproduction, lower birth weights, shorter life spans, and increased human suffering and death for the vast majority of humanity. Evolution doesn’t want that.
Under patriarchy, we see men become so harmful and unattractive that systems have to be created to force women to marry, and then trap them in marriages. Men are so awful under patriarchy, that when women have a choice, they increasingly choose living independently without men, and would rather run into a bear in the wild than a man. Evolution doesn’t want that.
Under patriarchy, our embrace of violence is so pervasive that we created horrors like chattel slavery, and a vast network of pedophilia. The stress and trauma from violence like this is passed down at the cell level. It affects lifespan and health outcomes for generations. Evolution doesn’t want that.
Under patriarchy, we see middle-aged men trying to mate with women who are 20 years their junior, causing pregnancy problems and lifelong health problem for their offspring, due to their aged, faulty sperm. We see incest, where men impregnate their own offspring, causing developmental disorders. Evolution doesn’t want that.
The outcomes of patriarchy are inevitably harmful and make no sense. Evolution doesn’t want patriarchy to exist.
Patriarchy Promotes & Protects Violence
Males, as the secondary sex, are unfit for most leadership. Because of this, under patriarchy, which puts men in charge, violence thrives. Under patriarchy, violent people are not removed or rehabilitated. Once in awhile there’s an exception, and a violent person is put in prison, but generally, patriarchal societies do not seek to punish violence. We protect violence. Sometimes we hide it to protect it, sometimes we celebrate it and make it seem like an accomplishment, in order to protect it.
It’s been confirmed in the Epstein Files that we are surrounded by violent males—in our government, in our churches, in our schools, in our neighborhoods. These violent men are given more protection than any child or any vulnerable person in the community.
But for communities to thrive and for humanity to progress, violent members must be removed. Which leads us to the research of Stanford neurobiologist, R. Sopolsky, on stressed baboons. He describes a typical baboon troop he observed, where the troop suddenly lost all its aggressive, dominant males. These violent males contracted TB from scavenged meat, which they didn’t share with the rest of the troop (I assume because aggressive males are selfish and not protectors). The violent males all died from the TB, leaving the troop with twice as many females as males.
And guess what happened? Violence among individuals was dramatically reduced, and social activities like grooming increased. When new males joined this troop, they learned the non-violent culture, and for decades, this baboon troop has been more peaceful and more social than other baboon troops. They passed the peaceful culture down through generations, and now, all of the baboons in this troop have drastically less stress than other baboons, and are much healthier due to the reduced stress. It’s a great reminder that nature doesn’t like patriarchy, and communities function poorly under patriarchy.
Here’s another story as told by LeafJen:
“I raise dairy goats. Something I’ve noticed over the years is that if you don’t give them enough of something—food, shelter from the rain and snow, space—the meanest ones will still do just fine. They won’t be the best, or the most productive, or the ones with the correct feet and legs... they will be the most aggressive, and that’s it.
The ones that live and thrive will be the bullies who slam others into the side of the barn, breaking their ribs, for no reason. The ones who viciously attack newborn kids that aren’t theirs. The ones who shove in and eat everything and stand on the hay and then crap all over it rather than letting anyone else eat it. They take whatever they can and then ruin the rest for the others.
The others get sick from the sheer stress and anxiety of it all, long before food scarcity is an issue. The best milkers, and the does who have triplets, usually suffer first, because producing milk and kids requires a lot of calories. The gentlest, kindest, friendliest ones suffer also.
If you don’t manage the situation, you end up with mean, half feral animals who produce only enough milk for the one or two kids they have every year. Horrible, gruesome injuries become a regular occurrence, and the ones who aren’t dominant have a constant expression of anxiety and hyper-vigilance about them.
In a goat herd, you get rid of the mean ones right away. They go to the freezer and the reign of terror ends. No more gored eyes, no more disemboweled goats or udders ripped wide open. Overnight, the rest of the herd breathes a sigh of relief. They timidly approach to eat their hay in peace.
And people can condemn that if they want to, but what’s better? Letting the bullies live and do whatever they want? Or getting rid of a fraction that makes the others a nervous, agitated wreck, barely surviving?”
From a natural selection and community health perspective, it makes sense for males who are violent toward the community, to be removed from the community.
“Removed” might mean physically kicked out of the community. We can imagine in a primitive human community, that perhaps the expelled male would have wandered alone and quickly died because drones don’t do well on their own, and can’t properly care for themselves. “Removed” in a primitive human community might also mean killed. It would be a practical solution, no different than if a rabid bear was attacking a community. In such a case, the community would think: This isn’t healthy bear behavior, something is wrong, and the community is at risk. We must kill the bear. The same thinking could apply for a violent male. (I mention primitive communities here, but what should “removal” look like in a contemporary non-patriarchal community? That’s up for discussion.)
Under patriarchy, if we could make one change, removing violent men would be the one to focus on. Remove all males who show signs of violence toward the community. (Feel free to remove violent females too, though based on data, there are far fewer violent women than men.) Admittedly, right now this would be a huge number of people being removed. There are a lot of violent people out there—some who were seemingly born with unexplained violence like the goats, some who were raised under violence and who learned to adopt violence themselves. But, the next generation would be raised without violence, and only a tiny number of violent people would need to be removed for every successive generation. This would be the most drastic positive change we could make.
I don’t believe we can currently fathom what an impact removing violent people would have. At a minimum, the community would experience far less stress overall, leading to longer, happier, healthier lives.
Let’s Imagine & Build a Better World
So what now? Well, if patriarchy is no good, let’s talk about matriarchy. There are many scholars who focus on matriarchy—I’m not one of them—but here’s how I understand it. A lot of people seem to think matriarchy is just the world as it is now, but with men and women swapped—250 years of only women presidents, jobs that are usually done by men, getting done by women instead. But that’s not it. That would still be patriarchy—it would still feature hierarchy and domination. The same world we have now, but with women in charge, might be an improvement (I mean for sure it would be an improvement, who are we kidding), but it’s not matriarchy. Men tend to fear matriarchy because they think it means men being treated the same way men currently treat women. But they need not fear.
Patriarchy centers men, and as I’ve mentioned, it’s built on hierarchy, competition, and domination. Under patriarchy, children are an oppressed class. In contrast, matriarchy centers children. Matriarchy is community led, and built on connection, consensus, and responsibility. It’s not about one person being in charge, and seeking out glory, it’s about working as a community, with the goal of solving problems.
Under patriarchy, caregiving is treated like a weakness. It’s often unpaid and not valued. Under matriarchy, caregiving is central—everything is built around care— which ensures everyone thrives; children, the elderly, and everyone in between (yes, even men!).
Under matriarchy, leaders are those who’ve demonstrated experience, emotional stability, and contributions to the community—based on those factors, if we were to institute a matriarchy right now, it’s clear Black women would be the community leaders. Would men ever get to be leaders under matriarchy? Certainly. Because males are the secondary sex, most men won’t gravitate toward leadership, but once in awhile, I have no doubt a Buttigieg will appear. The organizing we’re seeing in Minnesota is a great example of whatnmatriarchy can look like (more on that in this video).
Matriarchy is great for the Earth too. The priority of a matriarchy is long-term survival of the community, so decisions are made with future generations in mind. This means resources, including people and land, are protected.
What about conflict? I’ve seen several approaches to dealing with violence under matriarchy, with a general consensus that violence should be metabolized and dealt with, never ignored or hidden. Currently I favor a no tolerance response to violence. My instinct, as I described above, is to remove the violent person from the community. But that could be because I’m extremely angry right now that none of the men in the Epstein files have seen even a tiny bit of consequence for their monstrous actions. Maybe under a matriarchy, where violence is rare, I would favor a different approach.
Right now, while our systems our crumbling, and hidden violence is coming to light, we have a great opportunity to build something new. I would love to see all the world-building writers and thinkers out there embrace the task of envisioning the best possible world-without-patriarchy. How should communities be set up so that everyone can thrive, while also preserving sustainability? What should systems of care look like? How should violence be handled?
Problem-solving activities, like world-building, are inherently hopeful. And at the moment, we can use all the hope we can get.
In conclusion: Patriarchy is unnatural and makes no sense—especially considering that males are the secondary sex and don’t like being in charge. Patriarchy was never supposed to happen. It has set humanity back, caused endless violence and suffering, and brought us to the brink of total annihilation of the human race. It’s time to end patriarchy, before it’s too late.
[Yes, I’m making sweeping generalizations here, and obviously there are always exceptions—some things I say about men, might apply to some women. I did attempt to say “most men” or “some men” in the essay, but I didn’t prioritize it. If I write something about men, and it doesn’t apply to you, then I’m not talking about you.]
Related Commentary I Think You’ll Appreciate
As an addendum, here’s some related commentary I’ve collected for you.
The whole community suffers when we protect violence:
Males are the secondary sex:
Patriarchy makes no sense and shouldn’t exist:
Men are not protectors:
Imagining a better world:
That’s all for now.
kisses,
Gabrielle
There are violent women but they are often the product of violence against them by men. So many women murderers in prison murdered their abusive partners after the police or courts or the community failed to stop the abuse.
This was the essay I needed to wake up to today. Yes! It explains so clearly my instinct that all of the systems around us being destroyed is finally an opportunity to create something better.