I know I’m getting a seat on the lifeboat.
You see, men’s large-group social structure may provide them with big rewards, but it also comes with a big cost: male expendability, or the “women and children first” dynamic. Patriarchy has led men to the boardroom, but also to the bottom of the ocean and the cold dirt of a battlefield.
So why are men disposable?
Male expendability makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. For a species struggling for survival, every woman counts. But one man can do the job of many. In the words of Dr. Greg Hampikian in the New York Times, “If all the men on earth died tonight, the species could continue on frozen sperm. If the women disappear, it’s extinction.”
According to social psychologist, Dr. Roy F. Baumeister, this male expendability traditionally meant that men could engage in riskier behaviors. These risks could have been for good (standing in a lightning storm with a kite to discover electricity) or bad (mustering up in a warzone). So the next time your boyfriend talks about the male need to “spread his seed,” just remind him that his ability makes him disposable to society (and then give him a hug).
Curiously, patriarchy may have evolved as a disproportionate backlash against this male disposability. If their disposability breeds insecurity, then perhaps our male ancestors desired increasing levels of control over societies as a means of securing their futures within it. Or, more generously, the biological need to care for women may have morphed into restrictions on their rights. As explained by this non-academic-yet-very-thought-provoking YouTube contributor, Karen: “The drive to protect women from harm has resulted in extreme limits being placed on women’s mobility, their agency, and their power of decision to direct their own lives all throughout history...”
Fast forward to the 19th century, and women’s rights movements began the long struggle against these limits on their rights. Feminism - a movement I proudly support - is a backlash against patriarchy. I remain deeply indebted to the courageous women who came before me, who stood up for the radical idea that I should be thought of as equal to my husband. And the Feminist mission is hardly complete. The quest for equal gender rights continues today, in distant corners of the world and in the minds of our political leaders speaking on TV.
But male expendability is something that modern Feminism has not addressed, and I think it’s a significant omission. As YouTube Karen explains, the omission of male disposability pollutes the Feminist mission:
Feminism’s greatest victories have only reinforced in everyone that society still owes women provisions, protection, health and support just because they’re women... [It] teaches us to put women’s needs to the forefront of every single issue, whether that issue is domestic violence law, sexual assault, institutional sexism, [etc.]... Feminism has done nothing but exploit this dynamic, this expectation on men to put everybody else before themselves, especially women.
She also addresses female privilege, which is a byproduct of male disposability:
Feminists will insist that... restrictions placed on women...are the ultimate form of objectification. You lock up your possessions to make sure that they will never be...harmed. Honestly, if I were a guy on a battlefield, I might appreciate being objectified that way. If I’m going to be an object, I’d rather be a sexual one.
This omission of male expendability is a very first-world, 21st-century feminist problem. To even consider it presumes the evolution of women’s rights to an acceptable point. I can hardly imagine rape victims in the Congo or Elizabeth Cady Stanton considering men’s rights in this way.
But male disposability is still a feminist issue that needs to be addressed. If women seek gender equality, then we need to acknowledge our disadvantages and our privileges. Men may run the world for now, but they also run into battle for us. To get to the boardroom, women might need to give up our seat on the lifeboat.
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