Published by Houghton Mifflin Company
New York, NY  1996

Review by John Maher

The history of mankind is a history of violence—murder, rape and pillage. Is it the females of our species that perpetrate these outrages? Or is it the males? We know, of course, it is males.

Crime statistics from the U.S. confirm the leading role of men in the commission of crimes. For the serious crimes of murder, forcible rape, robbery, assault, burglary, theft, and arson, the percentage of arrests that are of males runs from 67% for theft to 99% for forcible rape. Only for the less serious crimes of prostitution and runaways among legal minors do females predominate. (Data are from the Federal Bureau of Investigation for the year 1992.)

Now, these crimes by males are attributable largely to individuals or small groups. If we assign to males a dominant role in intra-national and international conflicts, then we may add to the sum of violence the massive number of deaths and  destruction caused by wars—50 million deaths estimated as a result of World War II alone.

What is the explanation for the predominant aggressive behavior of males?

We know that we are part of the total organic world of plants and animals, flora and fauna. I am told that yeast and mankind have about 20% identical genetic material (DNA). In the vegetable kingdom, lettuce and mankind overlap to the extent of 30%. We are close enough to the Drosophila fruit fly that we can predict from the fly where certain genes are that determine human functions. And, for years we have known that mice and pigs are rather close to us. Thus rodents are test animals for our drugs and medical procedures; heart valves from pigs may be accepted by humans whose hearts require repair. Then we come to our closest relatives, the large apes. Our connection to the apes and to aggression is the subject of Wrangham and Peterson's study.

We may classify ourselves among the four other primates: orangutan, gorilla, bonobo, and chimpanzee. Mankind's DNA and that of the other apes is about 96% congruent. And, as an example of relationships, consider the fact that we humans are closer to the chimpanzee than the chimpanzee is to the gorilla; put another way, we are closer to the gorilla than is the chimpanzee. And all of us large apes show several of the same aggressive traits of organized territorial aggression as well as individual acts of murder and rape and assault.

Mankind would likely benefit from a redistribution of power within society, perhaps a feminization, along with some educational reform. The bonobo society enjoys a peaceful society wherein males and females share power equally. Moreover, the bonobos indiscriminate participation in all kinds of sex with varieties of partners brings to mind that slogan of the sixties, "Make love, not war." Not a bad prescription.

Here are some of the concluding paragraphs from this excellent book: "For us, the biggest danger is not that demonic males are the rule in our species. After all, other demonic male species are not endangered at their own hands. The real danger is that our species combines demonic males with a burning intelligence—and therefore a capacity for creation and destruction without precedent. That great human brain is nature's frightening product.

"But it is simultaneously nature's best, most hopeful gift. If we are cursed with a demonic male temperament and a Machiavellian capacity to express it, we are also blessed with an intelligence that can, through the acquisition of wisdom, draw us away from the 5-milion-year stain of our ape past."

[Note: A closely related article by Andrew Sullivan appeared in the New York Times for Sunday, April 2, 2000. It deals especially with the implications from the fact that male humans have about ten times the amount of testosterone that females have and that this ratio explains an important difference in the behavior of the sexes. Moreover, within the male sex, the amount of this hormone significantly influences differential behavior. Sullivan claims to have experienced variations in his own behavior induced by changes in levels of testosterone.]