I’ve always been bugged by lionesses in prides doing all the hunting, and the males muscling in on dinner without having done a lick of work. Lioness Lib!!!
And as usual in biological revisionism it turns out that was an exaggeration of the actual situation 
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In this case it is the reverse of the earlier cited sexist bias in biologists and probably derives from a simpler tendency - black and white thinking. Females are much more visible hunters as they tend to hunt cooperatively and in more open ground. Combine that with the much larger and stronger males visibly dominating kills and you get a surface view of a binary division of labor where the females hunt and raise the young, while males just procreate and maintain territorial boundaries.
But apparently that was too simplistic a model - males can and do hunt for themselves in addition to feeding off of female kills. And it makes sense. After all young males spend some time alone with each other after maturing and being pushed out of the pride. Obviously they have to hunt to survive in that limbo in bachelor exile between being junior pack members and senior pride leaders. No reason that instinct and habit would disappear completely after taking over a pride. Reduced perhaps by more abundant food, but not eliminated.
I’m still hoping to hear the song, I am a Lioness, Hear Me Roar.
In most species, the gender division of labor is mostly that the males take on the more dangerous tasks, while the females take on the safer tasks. For humans, at least early, low-tech humans, hunting was dangerous, so it ended up male-dominated. For a lion, though, hunting is relatively safe, but competing against hyenas (whether stealing their kills, or preventing them from stealing your kills) is dangerous. So the females end up hunting while the males deal with the hyenas.
I’m not saying you’re wrong, but I think there’s an equal chance that this is based on generations of sexist beliefs about nature as that it’s based on rigorous science. So I guess I’m wondering, is there an actual cite for this claim?
I’m not sure I accept that premise. Lions preferentially go for large prey that are capable of putting up a fight. Mortality from that activity is not high, but not zero either - a broken jaw is usually going to be fatal.
Spotted hyenas meanwhile do not kill lions in any numbers and then only trapped cubs, not adults. Lions by contrast are one of the largest (and in some areas THE largest) source of mortality for hyenas. Large numbers of hyenas can occasionally push small numbers of lions off a kill. But in general it is a very one-sided conflict - lions dominate.
If you exclude anthropogenic factors (trophy-hunting for example is a major source of male mortality), by far the largest source of male mortality is…other males. Either infanticide of cubs, premature expulsion of juvenile males from the pride (before they can hunt properly) or senescent males being directly killed or pushed out to die by younger males. While males in general have higher mortality rates than females (much of that anthropogenic), it is hard to say it is because they have taken on more dangerous external biological duties. Mostly they kill one another.
I believe that different bird species may take on different roles in incubating their young - some where males and females seem to share the duties of nesting and feeding, others where males may do most of what in humans are considered maternal duties.
Yes. The “dangerous” thing male lions do to “earn their keep” is fight for territory against other males. Male lions will go and kill the young of other males, so defending against that is a male lion’s main (mane?) job. (The pun is actually appropriate here - lion manes are thick armor, preventing another male from getting his jaws around your neck. Male lions are well evolved to do this job).
Male lions will also massacare hyenas in their territory, so population control is part of it for sure, but a full grown male lion can take on a pack of hyenas of almost any size.
Yeah, my impression was that male lions don’t earn their keep so much as get away with taking a chunk of the kill. And lionesses put up with them for sex, and because the father of her cubs will defend them against other males.
Yup. Really, the only “dangerous task” in most species that is exclusively or primarily the province of adult males is simply fighting off other adult males of the same species.
It kinda reminds me of feudalism, which I guess makes The Lion King pretty apt. The peasants work the land and give up a portion of their harvest to their feudal lord in exchange for that lord’s protection. But if we drill down a bit, the main thing the lords are protecting their peasants from is neighboring lords who wish to replace the local lord as the protectors (and resource extractors) of the populace. In other words, if the system of feudal lords didn’t exist, the protection offered by feudal lords wouldn’t be necessary.
It’s kind of funny how lions were always associated with nobility or royalty for various superficial characteristics, but in fact their behavior and social dynamics line up pretty well too.
If a male lion has his own pride, then the females actually do the “lion’s share of the work”. Sorry, LOL
However, many male lions do not have a pride of their own. They have to do their own hunting or starve to death.
Well, that too. It’s certainly one of the major male-dominated jobs among humans.
And the fable that gives us the expression “lion’s share” makes it pretty clear that lions are greedy thieving bullies.
While that is one option, and male lions are certainly capable of hunting, they do have other alternatives open to them, and quite often scavenge more than they hunt. Male lions are more than capable of chasing off a score or more hyenas off a kill, and they do so with gusto. Hyenas’ reputation as scavengers is undeserved - in many African wildlife parks where such behavior is tracked, they hunt and kill much more of their own food than lions do. Often, however, male lions will chase them off the kill as soon as they’ve made it, eat the choicest parts, then leave the rest for the hyenas.
Well, we’re not that different from them after all. LOL
Well, maybe just a bit different:
In captivity lions often breed every year, but in the wild they usually breed no more than once in two years. Females are receptive to mating for three or four days within a widely variable reproductive cycle. During this time a pair generally mates every 20–30 minutes, with up to 50 copulations per 24 hours.
Outside of Africa, Lions were once present in much of Europe and Asia.
Now only the Lions of India survive.
The Asiatic Lion (Lion of India) is related to the African Lion but many of the social behaviors above are not found in the Asiatic Lion. For examples females live separately in small groups and males only join during mating season.
I wonder how much lions behavior is driven by ecological pressure that something intrinsic to gender roles.
I think there is a bit of projecting going on here or maybe we have a human bias when we are looking at Lion gender roles. Not my area of expertise though.
I would argue that you are right, but backwards. Ecological factors certainly affect pride dynamics, but it is the asiatic lions in their fragmanted and resource limited habitat that have their behavior shaped by the ecology, going into smaller groups and with males unable to control a pride full time, defending it from other males - the environment doesn’t support large prides, or frequent bouts between males.
So you’re saying there is an overabundance of male lions? Too many cats, as it were?
This is a misunderstanding. Wildlife crews and people in general observed hunts in the open grasslands where lionesses hunted in groups.
Male lions are ambush hunters and do their hunts in tall grasses or areas beyond human views.
I am all for women lib, but lions or lionesses got nothing to do with that