« Among Australian Aborigines, as well as in various populations of nomadic hunter-gatherers, there are very coercive societies deeply marked by sexual antagonism. Without going into detail, everything contributes to completely separating the world of women from the world of men. Women and men live in different homes. Men fear being infected by sex and defy everything that affects women. Boys live the first years in women's homes and then go through a series of often trying rituals, starting with circumcision, in order to erase all that is perceived as feminine. Once in the men's house, they are "breastfed" by men through oral sex, with sperm replacing women's milk. Men must never have the slightest emotional attitude towards their wives, nor show respect for any other woman; they are warriors valued by their exploits... Women undergo clitorectomy. Their initiation rituals are less numerous and less important. They must isolate themselves in menstrual huts during their periods, men having an aversion to this unclean blood. They take care of the gardens they cultivate with very rudimentary tools made by men. Humans therefore ensure total control over the means of production and reproduction. Women must take different paths or below those of men as in New Guinea. If, inadvertently, a woman crosses a man, she throws herself into the bushes and covers her head as she can. All these coercions are part of an ideology of the inferiorization of women as an absolute and dangerous antagonist of what man is. These are B- type horticultural companies. Maurice Godelier paints an accurate, documented and beautifully analyzed picture of this type of society among the Baruyas of New Guinea, so-called chiefdom or big-man societies. »

« Here are the characteristics of community reproduction at Homo. An important feature is the propensity to entrust very young children to others. This means that there is little risk of abuse or infanticide. This is done within the framework of social rules within the group. Apart from the Western fathers of the Victorian era at the end of the 20th century and like too many of those of the great agricultural or industrial civilizations in general, cluttered with their macho image under the pressure of their peers, men like to hold a baby, or even take it as in the different traditions known as the "couvade". The father walks with the newborn and, according to the customs that existed in the West only a few centuries ago, can go so far as to substitute for the mother in the bed or diaper where she gave birth to the little one. Fathers who carry children experience hormonal changes with the production of prolactin and cortisol and a decrease in testosterone levels. To say the least, the model of the "civilized" father, the paterfamilias, distant from the newborn, is far from a universal rule. Not holding a baby or keeping a distance are forms of virility in the framework of codes of male domination that govern both the relationship between men and attitudes towards women. (We will see how these behaviours, especially violence against women, are political messages inscribed in the games of domination between men and males.) Among the many societies in which fathers care for newborns are the most warlike, such as the Maasai and many others. Just because men take part in fights does not mean that they cannot have emotional relationships with other men (Greek Hoplites), their wives (the courteous knight) or their children. The image of the manly soldier indifferent to any form of empathy or affection remains an extreme and rare form of machismo. »

« The Obstetric Dilemma The classic hypothesis of conflict between the size of a woman's small pelvis and that of the newborn's head is called the obstetric dilemma. One of the questions that arises in this regard is the mechanisms by which childbirth is triggered at nine months of pregnancy. Many factors are involved, including metabolic17. The development of a fetus as large with exponential growth and all the transformations of the mother's body double its metabolic needs. The investment of the sapiens pregnant is significantly higher than that of a female great ape of the same body size. The initiation of childbirth would be a response to the hormonal signals emitted by the mother's body when it reaches its metabolic limits. It must therefore be assumed that the mother must have a social environment to ensure her metabolic needs, that she must benefit from various assistances around her during and after childbirth, and benefit from alloparental care. This has been a lot of genetic, epigenetic, anatomical, physiological, behavioural, social and cognitive transformations that have certainly not been able to occur on an ad hoc basis. The long evolution of the Erectus in the broadest sense spans at least 1 million years; it was not done gradually but in mosaic, with a lot of trial and error. »