Reading a novel about the ice age, more patriarchy [View all]
I got a novel by a paleontologist Bjorn Kurten, Dance of the Tiger. He wrote a book on Pleistocene mammals of North America and so I thought I could learn a few things about that time period. First error I see he talks about mammoths, with the bull in the rear of the herd. In elephant families, it is females and their female relatives, with very young males and the adult males go off on their own, so I assume mammoths are the same way.
Then I come to a part, "The man's role was to hunt, fight, beget sons, and seek the mystery of communion with the powers of the unknown; the woman's to bear and rear children, gather the harvest of forest and meadow, and obey the man who chose her to be the mother of his sons."
So the man only cares about sons and she has to obey him and he chooses her. What a bunch of patriarchy. Jeez, the author is freed from the current constraints of societal norms in discussing our earliest ancestors, so why choose to make the man again in charge, as if "father knows best". I don't think I can continue reading it.