Are We Apes?

Barbara Smuts’ “Apes of Wrath”, discusses the similarities of male dominance over female. In this essay she describes the process of showing dominance of various species of apes. The majority of these apes control the females by fear and force; the reason being that they will “be more likely to surrender to his subsequent sexual advances.” And although there have been cases when female apes have banded together to go against aggressive males, the event of any group of female apes forming together is rare. There are also cases where female primates form friendships with males so they could protective them in return for sexual favors. Smuts then connects primate society to human society, saying that this is male-dominance behavior is similar to the male-female relationship between humans. For example, similar to forming bands to go against aggressive male apes, in a community in Belize, women form bonds with their female friends in order to prevent male dominance by banding together.

In our society, women have been primarily shown in media as vulnerable people. Although media is starting to drift away from this traditional image of women, people’s first impression on women would be either of vulnerable or fragile. Often you hear of women being kidnapped, raped, or abused by males, which sounds very similar to the ape society. And you see feminists banding together to go after a cause to help bring more power to women. I know that in the Chinese culture, men are the ones who provide the women with support, while women provide maintenance; the stereotype being: men make the money, women take care of their lives. This traditional view, however, is breaking and a new view of women is forming in this era. Many things have changed, such as better women taking higher roles in society, yet many things have stayed the same, such as men abusing their wives. Are we still apes? Have we really evolved?

Response to “Apes of Wrath”

Barbara Smuts is a psychologist, anthropologist, author, and researcher who teaches at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.  Her article “Apes of Wrath” was first published in 1995 in Discover Magazine and deals with the fundamental problem that many women have faced for centuries in which they are inferior to their male counterparts and are often beaten and abused by them.  Opening the piece and this idea she explains to the reader a time during the 70’s when he was doing research in Africa on chimpanzees and other similar species of apes.  This anecdote explains a personal experience that she has had with the abuse of females that occurs in other species than humans.  Part of the recounting of her experience deals with the fact that often the chimps would beat the female up prior to mating to make them feel inferior to them, or will force the females to “leave their birth communities at adolescence and spend the rest of their lives cut off from their female kin.” in order to avoid resistance from the other females when they abuse their “mates” (79).  But there isn’t always a lack of resistance on the female’s part.  Often they will form a bond with a male in the community and will then use him as an alliance when coercion arises, although the drawback is that he receives sexual gratification in return.  Occasionally, such as in the group for the “Tai Forest on the Ivory Coast,” females will form bonds with one another and fight the power, but this is only one small example and is not commonly true (80).  To close the essay, Smuts relates her findings in apes back to humans and explains possible reasons as for the similarities and differences that we have gained in our community and lives in regards to female abuse to the apes.  Discussing the fact that, not as much in today’s world, but in the past, women have commonly been labeled in-superior to men and are the less dominate sex.  That humans have been known to form “sisterhoods” with their female friends in order to protect one another as if they really were sisters (82).  She also states that since we are clearly more advanced in regards to reasoning and rationalized thinking when compared to the chimps that these are the reasons as to why females are more equal to males in our societies today whereas the story is different in the primates lives.  Smuts final statement is an ultimatum to women in society basically stating that they have to stand up to the males and take action, form alliances, and gain the respect that they deserve.

I found this essay to be rather interesting because when I first read it I thought it was strictly going to be discussing the topic of apes and their sexual interactions and harassment patterns.  When Smuts began to tie in the comparison between apes and humans I was intrigued to see the similarities that existed between our “close relatives” and us.  I am aware that this piece is rather old, but I still don’t feel that such a problem of sexual abuse and injustice exists as much as Smuts is conveying in her essay.  There are always the cases of an abusive relationship and while it is true that many times it is the male who is the abusive one, the female can be equally abusive, especially in today’s world.  With that aside I think she did a good job of using narration in the first half of her essay by explaining her personal experience in the field when she was researching the apes of Africa, and then compared that to humans very well too.  By citing Jane Goodall’s book on page 78 she gives an example that she has read and knows her reader can understand regarding a study on the abusive habits of chimpanzees, and she does define certain anatomical terms regarding the chimps and apes numerous times within her writing.  Her closing doesn’t directly speak to the reader, but it does give them a mission to complete.  Clearly Smuts feels that women deserve more justice than they have and she’s telling them how to get it.  While I don’t completely agree with this, I do think that she clearly and strongly gets that point across.