Debunking the myth of the male hunter
When you think of “hunter-gatherer” societies, you probably think of men as the hunters and women as the gatherers (and caretakers of children). At least, that’s how scientists told us it was. And this gendered way of dividing labor has persisted to today, informing — even subconsciously — some of the ways we assign work.
But a new anthropological study has debunked “The Myth of Man the Hunter,” as its title says. Cara Wall-Scheffler, co-chair of biology at Seattle Pacific University, and her team of researchers surveyed anthropological studies of 63 societies’ hunting practices and found evidence of women hunting in almost 80% of them.
“Women were going out every day with the purpose of hunting, taking their favorite weapons with them,” Wall-Scheffler said.
People who study hunting practices have known for a while that women hunted, but Wall-Scheffler’s study compiled all the evidence together for the first time, painting a picture of the highly diverse hunting practices across societies.
“I think it’s worrisome — and I might even say damaging — to think that you are doing a task because you have evolved to do that task,” Wall-Scheffler said. “Being flexible is your evolved purpose in life.”
“Marketplace” host Kai Ryssdal talked to Wall-Scheffler about women hunters’ experience and what they can teach us about how we divide labor today. Below is an edited transcript of their conversation.
Cara Wall-Scheffler: The day-to-day was something we were pretty excited about. Up to this point, people had talked about women going out every day and opportunistically grabbing something if they saw it scuttle across their paths. But when we went back to the original articles, the original literature, what we really found is that women were going out every day with the purpose of hunting, taking their favorite weapons with them. Children don’t just learn this when they turn 18. Children are learning their skills from the very beginning because they’re going along on these expeditions with their parents.
Kai Ryssdal: So let me get all Marketplace on you here. This is about a gendered labor force, right? That’s really what we’re talking about.
Wall-Scheffler: Yeah, absolutely.
Ryssdal: So, discuss for a little bit. Because I mean, look, it exists to this day in this society, let alone, you know, thousands of years ago.
Wall-Scheffler: Yeah. So, a couple of things. One is that we differentiate between big things that happen once or twice or three times a year that might be ritualistic. I kind of liken this to you having a really big meal at Christmas. You don’t have those big meals every single day. And those sort of day-to-day decisions about how people get little bits of food every day, those in many — not every, but in many — cultures are done by women, and the women are doing all the different varieties of things. They’re hunting, they’re gathering, they’re doing all of those little things every day. And yes, there might be some large-scale, big events where everybody goes out all together and brings back something that can feed the entire group for one big feast. That’s not the sort of day-to-day skills and labor that we see create a functioning society.
Ryssdal: With the acknowledgment that you’re an anthropologist and not an economist, what this really is, it’s about economic strategies, right? It’s about how societies organize themselves to survive when there is so much work to be done, and everybody’s got to do it.
Wall-Scheffler: Right, yeah. And I think that the key thing, especially from an economic perspective, is that you have to be flexible. These strategies represent a dynamic community, not a community that says, “Well, that’s not really your job today, so therefore, we’re just all not going to eat today.” I mean, this is a situation where when things get lean, everybody goes out — the children are out, the parents are out, the grandmas, they’re out because that flexibility is what keeps people alive in a diverse and changing world.
Ryssdal: So what we really need to do is get away from the whole “men are hunters and the women are gatherers” thing, and just everybody’s out there foraging, doing what it takes, right?
Wall-Scheffler: Yeah. I think it’s worrisome, and I might even say damaging, to think that you are doing a task because you have evolved to do that task, and therefore trying something new is going against your evolved purpose in life. Being flexible is your evolved purpose in life. That is what humans do. They are flexible to figure out how best to manage the health of their community. And sticking to some rigid notion of what that evolved duty is will prevent us from serving all of the members of our community.
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