Study Finds Sexism Rampant In Nature

[Zywiec]

SAN DIEGO—According to a University of California–San Diego study released Monday, sexism is rampant throughout the natural world, particularly among the highest classes of vertebrates.

"When we first decided to examine attitudes and behaviors toward gender roles among non-humans, we were wholly unprepared for what we would find," said Jennifer Tannen, leader of the UCSD research team, a joint venture between the school's zoology and women's studies departments. "Females living in the wild routinely fall victim to everything from stereotyping to exclusion from pack activities to sexual harassment."

Nowhere is the natural world's gender inequity more transparent, Tannen said, than in the unfair burden females assume for the rearing of offspring.

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"During the act of mating, the female moose is subject to excessive biting, nipping, and herding," Tannen said. "The male has no qualms about using sheer, brute force to overpower his sex partner, and the female, accustomed to this sort of rough treatment after millions of years of it, doesn't even realize there's something wrong."

"Then, when it's time for the bull moose to complete the sexual act," Tannen continued, "it's over in about five seconds, with no regard to female pleasure whatsoever. Typical."

Adding insult to injury, Tannen said, the bull moose then heads off to mate with dozens more females over a period of two to three weeks, justifying his behavior as "part of the Mardi Gras-like atmosphere of 'mating season.'"

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http://www.theonion.com/content/node/27908