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Showing posts from January, 2022

Column | What's So Great About "Being a Man"?

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"Be a man." "Toughen Up." "Why don't you grow a pair?" We have a million different ways of telling men that to actually 'be men', they need to have this '56-inch chest'.  But where does this idea come from?  Researchers have found that humans evolved as a gender-equal species. In hunter gatherer societies, men and women had different but equal roles. Both found food, raised children, and made decisions for the family, and community. Around 10-12,000 years ago, the invention of agriculture changed that. When humans settled on particular parcels of land and began accumulating resources, they needed to defend their homesteads from other humans. As a result, the emphasis on physical strength increased, and those communities with the physically strongest men became the most powerful and prosperous. Through the centuries, the importance of men physically protecting their societies grew stronger, especially as warfare became central to societi