Men, the hunters; women, the gatherers

A new study suggests that to get the same work done, men often expend 70% more energy than women. So tell us — the exasperated wives, infuriated women colleagues, impatient female friends, irritated sisters — what we didn’t know already.

A study of mushroom gatherers by the National Autonomous University of Mexico, to be published in Evolution and Human Behaviour, shows how men spread out far and wide, tackling difficult terrain, vigorously sweating it out to collect the same amount of mushroom as the women did, pottering about effortlessly on easy ground.

Apparently men went looking for mushroom-dense patches, never mind how far or how difficult to reach, whereas women quietly collected mushrooms from patches which could be sparser but easier to reach and more frequently found. At the end of the day, the men and women had the same amount of mushrooms.

It’s all because of our hunter-gatherer past. Men, the primary hunters, are good at chasing a distant target, while women, primarily nurturers and gatherers, make the best of what they have closer at hand. This fits in very well with the study published in the British Journal of Psychology last year showing how men were better at focusing on objects at a distance while women were better at focusing on areas closer at hand.

With or without mushrooms, most women could vouch for the authenticity of this conclusion. We encounter the end-product of thousands of years of energetic hunting every day. You know how every little task that you would fit into your odd-jobs schedule without even thinking twice becomes a big, stand-alone project for him? It would have to be just perfect, he would research and investigate and finally get from several miles away what you would normally pick up on your way back home, with the fruit and vegetables and milk.

Or when he decides to cook. How every few minutes he (or for more privileged hunter-gatherers, someone else) would have to rush off to the neighbourhood grocer or vegetable seller to get that one particular ingredient that is so essential to the dish, how every possible utensil would be used and tossed into the kitchen sink overflowing with discarded bowls and plates and sundry cooking implements, how every kitchen gadget would be used with scientific precision and enormous concentration for jobs that a lowly knife does rather well, how everything has to be just so.

Besides, the hunters are not particularly good with found objects. They like the thrill of the chase. Unlike us gatherers, who happily gather from the refrigerator bits and pieces of leftovers and make a quick new dish out of them. Not for us the rather unnecessary spirited adventures of the hunter that would deplete our energies further. Our adventures are for fun, not survival.

But not all women would admit to this. Because it hints at a certain — dare I say it? — efficiency. Expending almost three times your energy to get the same result isn’t astoundingly efficient. But the gatherers wouldn’t want their hunters to know that. We are so much more comfortable allowing the hunters to believe that they are far more competent in every way.

Oh no, of course not, the smarter gatherers would say within the hunter’s earshot, he’s so much more efficient than I could ever be! They would say this in an honest and grateful way, with a straight face and an inner wink that only women can detect.

I look forward to more studies on hunter gatherers. They would unravel the curious mysteries of needlessly adventurous office colleagues. More importantly, they would promote greater understanding in our domestic lives.