Do non-feminists on here agree with the statement: "On the aggregate, men are more violent, because sexually dimorphic species tend to produce males that are predisposed to violence."

How do Bonobos act when they are half-starved and a neighboring Bonobo clan is doing well? We have limited data on this.

Probably pretty aggressive and opportunistic, they're still primates. Their natural environment and most zoo or research enclosures are fairly lush so it's a valid point. However I'd wager that since the females hunt, and that's unheard of in other chimps, that under such circumstances we might see a sharp spike in male and female aggression in Bonobos.

Still, let's assume that Bonobos are always peaceful. This is still consistent with a hypothesis of the form "male primates are always 5x more likely to conduct violence than females of the same species". In the case of Bonobos, the incidence of violence is 0% for both males and females, but 0=5x0 so the hypothesis isn't falsified.

Actually my point was specifically that they are aggressive, but female aggression is more on par with male aggression: "Don't think they aren't aggressive, one of the egalitarian traits is that unlike other chimps the females are likely to hunt meat" They are more dimorphic than we are and seem less gender differentiated socially than most human societies. Further both of us are on the very low end of dimorphism for primate species and we can expect gendered factors to be fairly minimal.

All I'm saying is primates are a complex and varied group, if this were an analysis of herd animals than dimorphism would probably be much more important. Heck I bet Geladas have pretty strong dimorphism (males average 18.5 kg (40.8 lb) while females average 11 kg (24.3 lb) apparently), but we're pretty far removed from Geladas.

One argument about Bonobos that has yet to be tested is that their differences from other chimps are mostly cultural, stemming from their enviroment and history, not something innate to their biology.

Consider these baboons: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/13/science/no-time-for-bullies-baboons-retool-their-culture.html

Any cultural spin aside the issue seems to show culture accounts for a lot in primate species. I suspect humans have differing innate tendencies but that they are fairly slight.

/r/FeMRADebates Thread Parent