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Cockfighting: Are roosters responsible for patriarchy? (sports)

#1
C C Offline
https://aeon.co/essays/is-the-rooster-wi...tic-animal

EXCERPT: . . . It’s peculiar to think of such a sport as being powerful enough to drive the evolution of domestic chickens. In the US, cockfighting is now banned in all 50 states [...] Despite the perception that it is outlawed because it is cruel to roosters, it’s just as easy to make the argument that it has been outlawed because of its association with low-class, rural people, particularly in Appalachia, as well as with the Hispanic community, as the anthrozoologist Hal Herzog lays out in his book *Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It’s So Hard to Think Straight About Animals* (2010).

Chickens were selected for violence. It’s no surprise that cockfighting is correlated with masculinity

Herzog, whose psychology PhD dissertation was on human-chicken interaction, particularly in the realm of Appalachian cockfighting, discovered that rooster fighters look for three traits when breeding their birds for fighting [...] It’s not difficult to speculate that some combination of such traits is what cockfighters have sought since humans first started breeding birds for the sport. And if Sykes is right – that the bird spread worldwide for fighting, not for food – then we can reasonably draw the conclusion that for thousands of years chickens were selected for particular, violent characteristics. It’s no surprise that cockfighting is correlated with masculinity [...]

It’s hardly surprising, contends Sykes, that ‘cockfighting tends to be the preserve of patriarchal societies’. After establishing a compelling correlation between cockfighting and the spread of chickens nearly everywhere across the globe, Sykes then turns her attention to a larger, anthropological question:

"Given that most strands of evidence intimate that cockfighting was a central impetus for the domestication and spread of chickens, it is interesting that there has been little investigation into how the arrival of a cockfighting culture may have impacted upon the societies that adopted it."

It’s common to consider how human behaviour has influenced animals’ lives, but they can influence us, too, she says in her book Beastly Behaviour (2014):

"Is it possible that the introduction and establishment of domestic fowl, an exotic species whose behaviour is unlike that of any of Europe’s native fauna, could have altered human behaviour and ideology?"

To answer this, she examines the potential outcome that the ubiquity of cockfighting had on incidences of violence in Britain in particular. She suggests that chickens’ – and cockfighting’s – arrival in Britain directly affected how violence is expressed in humans. [...] As roosters start crowding our backyards, will they start to change us again?

Indeed, archaeological evidence suggests a decline in war-type injuries inflicted on human bodies, men in particular, but indicates an increase in violence against women. Evidence that reveals an increase in nasal fractures in women from Iron Age to the Roman era indicates an increase in domestic violence, since contemporary data show that nasal fractures correlate with domestic violence. Sykes argues:

"It seems feasible that a macho cockfighting culture could have arisen, potentially bringing an associated rise in female-directed violence, particularly if the sexually dominant behaviour of the cockerels was adopted by those who interacted with them."

Therefore, she concludes, ‘it is tempting to suggest’ that the prevalence of such fractures in women ‘reflect the kind of intimate terrorism often found in cockfighting societies’.

Did roosters exacerbate patriarchy? Create it, even? Did the human obsession with fighting these animals further suppress women? [...] I think of the intimate terrorism that plays out in the chicken yard, of roosters pinning hens, terrorising children. I also wonder – if so many people are keen on backyard chickens, and if so many people are unprepared for the violence of their roosters, does this mean that we’ve evolved our position on domestic violence against women (although, that’s not to say, of course, that the problem is by any means over)? As roosters start crowding our backyards, our urban and suburban neighbourhoods, will they start to change us again...

MORE: https://aeon.co/essays/is-the-rooster-wi...tic-animal
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#2
Leigha Offline
Speaking of social constructs........ Big Grin
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#4
Zinjanthropos Offline
The Jockey whips his horse to the finish line then goes home to his/her spouse.
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