27. On Female Dominance

Newly Beloved*,

When I wrote a letter about male dominance my philosopher daughter immediately challenged me to write about female dominance and how we might identify dominant females. But, being male and unfamiliar with all female groups this was difficult for me. Furthermore many females are now making their way in what was formerly a man's world of office or other work and it is difficult to decide if the female behaviour one observes is a recent adaptation to having to interact with males on a day to day basis or if it is indeed dominance behaviour exclusive to the female. 

My daughter ventured the view that male and female dominance behaviour will differ depending whether they are interacting in a same sex group or with the opposite sex. Furthermore dominance may both be more structured and more personally significant to the individual in the same sex group.

 Of course Chaucer set out the female case in The Wife of Bath's Tale in which she sets out that she wants sovereignty over her Lord, (her husband) and over her lovers,

1038 Wommen desiren to have sovereynetee

1039 As wel over hir housbond as hir love,

1040 And for to been in maistrie hym above.

I always love reading the journalist Jo Ellison's pieces on fashion in The Financial Times because they admit me to an unknown world and a secret garden full of beautifully costumed people who suffer a need to be noticed by the rest of the world. It is a world of which I would otherwise be totally unaware.

In a recent article I was fascinated by a woman who apparently regards sunglasses as normative and even wears them when seated next to the Queen. I wear sunglasses to protect my eyes and prevent further crystallisation of my cornea by ultra-violent light. I was reared to believe it rude to wear them when interacting with others because people cannot see your eyes and you are effectively hiding from them.

One conclusion is that dominant females intimidate their interlocutors by ignoring or cutting them. Indeed old (bourgeois) etiquette set out that a women may cut a man (ie discontinue or decline to initiate social contact with a man) but a man may never cut a women. I have noted that the few dominant women whom I know, initiate a campaign of short-sightedness against all comers except those who they wish to influence or manipulate. One supposes that wearing sunglasses is a very efficient way of doing the same thing without having to physically turn away and in so doing, admit that the sub-dominant has even been noticed.

I remember a children's opera group which was managed by a couple. The busy and energetic female was referred to by other women as "a queen bee". As soon as she took over she defined a select group of children.  The select group were taken on special trips, the remainder were excluded and left behind.

This "cut out" behaviour of dominant women is very different to that of dominant men who are often quietly desperate for the support of any other men who care to give it.

My suspicion is that cutting people out of social groups has evolved during the time when we were hunter-gatherers and a female was mainly orientated to supporting her own family or extended family and survival required that the group be as small and and as select as possible so that they alone would receive the benefit of any gathered provender. Others would be cut out of the distribution of food and excluded from social contact. 

But then, what do I know, I'm a mere man.

Peace,

Paul.

*This is a newly completed piece and was not submitted to St Clement's Church.



Grand Duchess Catherine Alexeevna by L.Caravaque (1745, Gatchina museum).jpg

She conducted a coup d'etat against her huband Peter III of Russia to become better known as Catherine the Great.

Creative Commons, Wikipedia.

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