The Birds and Bees and the Women's March in Washington

"Not all creatures are smart.  Cows are not terribly brilliant.  If they were to be given opposable thumbs and human dexterity they still would not be able to send a cow to Mars.  On the other hand, neither would cows manufacture guns with which to kill each other.  Good thing people are not stupid, like cows."

T. Quidd.  P. 976, Women, What They Want and Why They Still Don't Have It.  Trump Clean Air and Publishing Company, Riner, Virginia, U.S.A., 1981.

 

For some reason males around the world have long believed themselves to be the more entitled to positions of governance and power within their various societies.  That belief can have arisen from only one truth:  apart from a small number of dedicated and confirmed weenie-poos like the guys on The Big Bang Theory TV show, males are bigger and have greater upper body strength than females.  There is a reason for that, and nature provided it. 

Throughout nature the role of the male is reproductive and defensive.  And in cases of tribal or societal defense there is both logic and necessity that males assume a role wherein they call the shots, literally.  However, it does not follow that males dominate and take charge of all aspects of societal life.  In fact, the notion that they should is ridiculous.  Nature doesn’t work that way.  Nature does tell us, on the other hand, that the females, who nurture and rear the young must also have the greater role in forming the kind of society to be passed on to future generations.  They are, after all, always preparing the next generation.

In civilizations both past and present, male dominance has led to the development of nations which pour a disproportionate amount of their resources into defensive competences and offensive expertise.  The ability of a society to defend itself is necessary to its survival, but protection is only one of the two primary reasons for the existence of the male; the other reason being reproduction.  However, strong defensive capabilities and reproduction alone do not insure the progress or even the very survival of a society.   Numerous civilizations have vanished without military defeat.  To flourish, a culture needs a well-educated population, unity of purpose and the ability to provide for human well-being and the advancement of their own positive potentials.  Too much focus on muscle has a tendency to lead to the use of that muscle; too often offensively.

Nature likes her creatures acting the roles laid out for them.  That point is perhaps no better exemplified than in the case of the humble honeybee.  The queen does what queens do, rules the colony.  The workers, performing all their various functions are females.  Sure, some are prettier, hotter if you prefer than others, but that doesn’t lead any passive aggressive behavior or bitch-slapping in the ladies’ room.  And you won’t find any rolling of their multiple eyes when a foraging bee makes a clumsy landing returning to the hive.  None of that stuff.  Custodial bees don’t talk trash the nurse bees and nurse bees don’t sit around preening their wings and mocking the ladies in waiting who care for and feed the queen.  No.  Some females, and they are not members of the apiary’s LGBT community or girlie vixens, even wait hand and foot on the male drones.  But honeybee societies, unlike human ones, have not allowed their males to take the upper hand in all things just because they’re bigger.  And they are bigger.  And they don’t work.  They sit around in their clubs and lounges smoking cigars, sipping on honey and talking a little pussy-grabbing.  Yes, they talk big, but they don’t make the rules.  In fact, their only function is to mate with new queens who will reign supreme in other colonies.  Their death immediately follows coitus.  Their little thingies are ripped out and they fall like tiny bags of wet cement onto the ground below.  No bragging, no locker room talk, no swaggering or tweeting. 

The guys back at the hive’s Ce’ Bon Lounge will assume when a drone fails to return to the hive that he banged a virgin and died a drone’s noble death in the service of his colony.  They’ll raise a cup of honey and toast his grand conquest, but even that may be nothing more than braggadocio because he may have just been eaten by a bird.  Still, the females of the hive let them have their fantasies of grandeur.  That’s a good thing.  Good because those drones who do not come to a glorious post-coital demise are in for a severe October surprise.  The time for new queens to be hatched, mated and crowned is over.  The reigning queen will soon only lay eggs for next year’s workers and drones.  It no longer makes sense to waste good honey on big talking, lazy males who no longer have a purpose beneficial to the hive. 

The girls get together.  It’s a strategy meeting.  Like the ones that take place on Girl’s Night Out gatherings in pubs, restaurants, clubs and malls all around the world.  But bees follow through.  When the meeting’s over they take advantage of their strength in numbers and push the bigger males out of the hive.  Out on their derrieres into the cold winds of October where they will soon freeze or starve to death.  A couple of the drones may talk about forcing their way back in and showing those females a thing or two about men; but it doesn’t work.  They get stung and die right away leaving their carcasses to be unceremoniously dumped.  They’re males.  They have a purpose but nature did not create them to dominate over everything. 

The great silver back gorilla is there to protect and to serve, to pass on his genetic supremacy to future generations.  The male lion may be king of the jungle, but he’s far from omnipotent.  Male penguins get it, so they provide, protect, share in caring for the egg of their mate and don’t even try to call all the shots.  As a result, they’re allowed to slide on their bellies and make fools of themselves when they feel like it and watch football on TV.  If their chores are done and if they had TVs. 

So, when so many women her and around the world put themselves out to march, demonstrate and make a point, the world needs to listen.  The world needs to recognize their power and their importance.  The world needs to recognize their contributions.  And the world of men in particular needs to realize that brawn, bullying, and unequal governance is not necessary, useful or smart.  Women have brains, power and numbers.  They are, and have been making a diplomatic offer for equality; but it may not always be a munificent offer, and it may not always be peaceful if they’re not heard very, very soon.  Drones could only wish for that kind of deal.