Women build coalitions too and they matter!
– by Maud Mouginot
Coalitions — two or more people cooperating in a competitive context at the expense of a third party — are a widespread strategy among mammals and a basic building block of human social life. In mammals, coalitions for between-group competition is heavily male-biased, however, within-group coalitions are formed by either sex in many species (e.g., banded mongooses, African wild dogs, hanuman langurs, olive baboons, white-faced capuchins). Yet in human subsistence societies, studies on coalitions have concentrated on men. Women’s cooperation is well documented in childcare, foraging and food sharing, however women’s coalitions have often been thought to be limited to the households.
Coalitions along the Omo River
We collected data from Kwegu, Kara and Nyangatom communities, three subsistence groups along the Omo River in southwest Ethiopia. Those communities are all polygynous, patrilineal, patrilocal and patriarchal, with male elders holding the highest social status. Focus groups in each community identified three contexts in which both men and women described joining forces against a third party: interpersonal disagreements, group decision-making, and motivating the opposite gender to work. We carried those contexts into structured interviews with 142 people in one Kwegu community (82 women, 60 men), asking about participation, preferred partner attributes, and preferred number of partners.
We tested three hypotheses. A household-based hypothesis: women’s coalitions are confined largely to the household and to kin, while men can widely choose coalition partners. A women-biased hypothesis: because women compete over more shareable resources, coalition returns are more predictable for them, favoring more coalition formation compared to men. And a gender-neutral hypothesis: both genders form coalitions to a similar extent, with preferences varying by context rather than by gender.
Are women choosier than men?
When it comes to forming coalitions, we found no strong effect of gender, meaning that gender did not predict reporting participation in coalitions. Preferences for coalitionary partners vary across the three coalition types, but our analyses revealed distinct gender-based patterns. Women reported stronger preferences than men for partners of the same clan and with kinship ties; a trend in the same direction appeared for same-age-group partners. Both genders preferred higher-status partners, but especially men. Finally, men preferred a larger number of coalitionary partners than women, while women reported a stronger preference for same-gender partners.
A fundamental feature of our social organization
Each hypothesis received partial support and none was fully confirmed. Both men and women participate in the 3 coalitionary contexts we studied at a similar rate. Preferences for coalitionary partners vary across those contexts but we still identified some patterns. Our results show that women exhibit greater selectivity than men in their choice of coalitionary partners. Importantly, contrary to work hypothesizing that women’s coalitions tend to be with relatives, we found that they clearly extend beyond the household to the community level.
This study covers only three communities in southwest Ethiopia, but the findings highlight how far women’s support systems are underrecognized in subsistence societies. Differences in partner preferences may shape group dynamics, with women influencing social processes within their communities in ways that differ from men, through group decision-making, interpersonal disputes and interactions with the opposite gender. These results support a growing body of literature indicating that women’s cooperative behavior encompasses scales and domains typically associated with men.
None of this makes women unusual among mammals. Coalitions for within-group competition occur in both sexes across many species, including non-human primates. Even among our two closest relatives, females form coalitions: rarely in chimpanzees, frequently in bonobos. As in other mammals, then, female coalitions in humans may be a fundamental feature of our social organization.
