War and Sex and Human Destiny is a small book, perhaps more of an extended essay. But it is the result of a lifetime of experience and study. I won’t, for that reason, be able to thank just a few recently influential people. Being female, with lots of interests and inclinations in my youth that were acceptable at that time only for a male in my society, and being raised in a patriarchy, my attention was directed from an early age to issues of gender, gender differences, and gender inequalities. For example, in high school I wanted to take a “shop” class where I could work on car motors. I was told that shop class was only for boys, and my choice had to be home economics, the class designed for girls. As a result of many such experiences, my interests in many subjects, including animal behavior, always included in the background, sensitivity to the theme of sex and society.
Keeping that in mind, I want to thank a great many people who, through the years at one point or another, added to my knowledge about human nature or provided me with encouragement and support, especially in my “unusual” choices. Here I will acknowledge just some of the many whose input informs all of War and Sex and Human Destiny.
It was my great good fortune to have a life partner who supported me in every way, from the moment we began dating. My husband, Harold Hand, was a Los Angeles Police Department detective, my friend, lover, confidant, and fellow adventurer. This book reflects what he taught me about good men, and a fairly macho male view of life.
Two colleagues who read drafts of this book critically improved it by finding errors, suggesting useful references, or engaging in dialogue about ideas being expressed on this very complex subject. They don’t agree with me on everything, but were willing to dialogue in ways that make the book so much better. They are Harvard anthropologist Richard Wrangham and University of Kansas professor of ecology and evolutionary biology Raymond Pierotti.
I am deeply grateful to my professor at UCLA, Thomas R. Howell, who accepted me as a doctoral student when others there “were not taking female candidates.” Eugene S. Morton sponsored my post-doctoral fellowship at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. where I made Laughing Gull observations of egalitarian conflict resolution. These served as the important basis for my early papers on social conflict resolution by means other than physical force. These men were “gatekeepers” who let me into the world of science and biology.
My first book on the subject of women and war was Women, Power, and the Biology of Peace. That book owes its existence to my friend and colleague Peggy Lang who has, through many years, unswervingly encouraged me, supported me, and engaged with me in hours of dialogue. I was also generously given time by individuals who criticized sections or full drafts of that book: Stephanie Budin, Drusilla Campbell, Mark Clements, Donna Erickson, Barry Friedman, Robert Goodman, Sara Blaffer Hrdy, Pete Johnson, Deanna LeCoco, Sheila Mahoney, Raymond Pierotti, Jay Sheppard, and Paul Shen-Brown. They didn’t all agree with everything I had to say, but the comments of all greatly improved my effort and educated me.
This is also true for others whose valuable talents and insights contributed to my second book on this subject, Shift: The Beginning of War, The Ending of War: Kathleen Barry, A.B. Curtiss, Douglas Fry, Joseph R. Jehl, Judith Levine, Mary Liston Leopold, Winslow Myers, Irene Pepperberg, Peter Verbeek, and Maynard Wade. To Clarence Williams I owe a special debt for his painstaking and insightful comments and suggestions on drafts of that book.
The name I used in Shift to embrace the concept of a global people’s movement to end war is F.A.C.E.. It's an acronym of “For All Children Everywhere.” I am grateful for its creation to Annamaria Alfonso, A. B. Curtiss, Donna Erickson, Robert Goodman, Nicole Jones, Peggy Lang, and Andre Sheldon. Together we decided on it over wine and a companionable dinner. We picked it because of our conviction that the single shared deeply held passion of all people, regardless of race, religion, nationality, gender, or political pursuasion, is love for their children and the desire to build a better future for ours and those to come. Founded on that shared passion, you could build a movement to end war.
Over many years my work on the website A Future Without War.org was made easier by the advice, skills, and professional approach of Ame Stanko, my website creator and manager and a good friend.
I am especially grateful to my colleague Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, not only for her seminal works on women in her books Mother Nature: a History of Mothers, Infants, and Natural Selection and Mothers and Others: On the Origins of Mutual Understanding. These greatly influenced my thinking. But I am also deeply thankful for her encouragement and moral support.
Grateful thanks also go to anthropologist Douglas P. Fry, now at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, whose books The Human Potential for Peace: an Anthropological Challenge to Assumptions about War and Violence and Beyond War: the Human Potential for Peace similarly influenced my thinking. They gave me a foundation to build on. As an editor he shepherded my paper, “To Abolish War,” through publication in the Journal of Aggression, Conflict, and Peace Research. We continue to share in the search for a sustainable peace.
I extend a special “thank you” to authors of secondary sources listed in the bibliography. I chose these references with the intention that, if possible, this book’s readers should be able to access these works from any good central library. Where possible, I provide links to resources available on the Internet. Finally, I acknowledge and thank, posthumously, Joan B. Kroc for her foresight and generosity in funding the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice in San Diego. The Kroc Institute’s Women PeaceMakers Program has brought peacemaking men and women from all over the world to San Diego, and I could not have done my work without this extraordinary resource.