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editCopied from Demonic Males
The authors present chimp society as extremely patriarchal, in that no adult male chimpanzee is subordinate to any female of any rank. They present evidence that most dominant human civilizations have always been likewise behaviorally patriarchal, and that male humans share male chimpanzees' innate propensity for dominance, gratuitous violence, war, rape, and murder. They claim that the brain's prefrontal cortex is also a factor, as humans have been shown experimentally to make decisions based both on logic and prefrontal cortex-mediated emotion.
To contrast chimp societies, in the chapter "The Peaceful Ape", the authors contrast chimpanzee behaviors with those of the bonobo, presenting logical biological reasons for the more pacific (although also aggressive and antagonistic) behaviors of the latter. Reasons given for this include a bonobo female social organization that does not tolerate male aggression, the evolutionary forces of the invisibility of bonobo ovulation (in chimps, ovulation has both olfactory and genital swelling manifestations. This diversity in female reproductive cycles then leads to ferocious male competition for mating), and overall social organization, whereby male bonobos do not form alliances as male chimps do, though this has been contested.
Bonobos are dominated by a matriarchal system, and are unique for their female-biased dispersal relationships that instill resolution and peace making tactics among the group and avoid such things as violence and war. The divers evolutionary experiences of these primates that all relate to humans, is measured through their individual accumulation of their mentalities and morals from geographic experiences and resource availability. Such connections can be made to human subcultures such as Hippies, and their ideology of making love, not war. Bonobo social structure rejects this aggression and focuses on the power of female gender roles and their hyper socio-sextual behaviors, and its benefits to the overall survival of the group as situations are diffused with sextual actions.