You know the word Alpha. You’ve likely heard people identify as Alpha Males, and you’ve likely heard critiques of that identity. Maybe you’ve heard wildlife biologists use the phrase, and wondered about whether humans have Alphas. I studied Biology, and taught it for many years. Beyond that, I’ve been researching, engaging in, and working in the field of masculinities for fifteen years, so I thought I would take a moment to try and shed some light on this sometimes murky subject. Given that one of the most prominent and influential self-described Alpha Males in the public sphere, Andrew Tate, was recently arrested, it seems like a good time to take a deeper dive.
We can track the phrase one of two ways; chronologically or scientifically. Let’s start with scientifically, and circle back around to the chronology. In the sciences, the term gained prominence in the study of primates. Frans de Waal’s 1982 book “Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex among Apes” used and popularized it, and the term is still used by many serious primate scholars, especially with regards to Chimpanzees and Gorillas. Within these species, there is an apparent social hierarchy with a single male at the top. That male is referred to as the Alpha male, and carries some of the characteristics that we associate with the pop-psychology of Alphas from Men’s magazines- most notably he is often the sole arbiter of reproductive rights, meaning that it is only with his permission that other Chimps or Gorillas can mate.
That said, Alpha status is not won by combat alone, or by having what might be described as a “dominant mindset.” Alpha status is social, and without the support of the group, especially the Elders, it cannot be attained or maintained. So Alpha males must maintain right relationships with their group in order to maintain their Alpha status, meaning they have to be nice. It is, in effect, an elected position; not at all how we are taught to think of Violent Alphas, clawing their way to the top over the bloody bodies of their competitors. Males who want to be Alpha become more pro-social, not less. They often begin tending children more, being kinder to everyone around them, and sharing food. They court respected Elders for their support, and demonstrate that they are not selfish or violent, but community-oriented. So while the word Alpha is still used by scientists in describing some primates, the reality is not at all what we have come to conceive of it as in regards to male psychology. Picture a group of male gorillas “competing” by seeing who can be nicest and most respectful to babies, Elders, and female gorillas. Now you’re imaging a much more accurate, scientifically grounded framework of what an Alpha gorilla is like.
While discussing primates, though, it is also noteworthy that while we are closely related to Chimps and more distantly related to Gorillas, our closest relative is the Bonobo. Bonobos, by any interpretation, have no Alpha males. Bonobos have Matriarchal societies which have some of the most nuanced, egalitarian, and loving relationship structures we’ve ever witnessed in nature. While this paragraph is brief, the importance of this cannot be overstated. Like humans, bonobos are a community-oriented, pro-social species. As such, if we are looking for non-human analogies to learn from, our bonobo cousins are by far the best teacher, and they practice everything from midwifery to intentional, somatic community conflict-resolution. I invite you to hold the egalitarian, non-violent, profoundly loving bonobos in mind as we continue to look at canine and human “alphas.”
Regardless of Chimps, Gorillas, and Bonobos, the term Alpha did not migrate from the study of primates into human pop psychology. Rather, it migrated from the study of Wolves. In 1947, Rudolph Schenkel wrote a paper on the behavior of wolves. In this paper, he observed competitive violence and dominance in a wolf pack, with multiple male wolves fighting for authority, and one usually on top of the social hierarchy. He dubbed this wolf the Alpha. This research was the foundation for Dr. David Mech’s wildly popular 1970 book: “The Wolf: Ecology and Behavior of an Endangered Species”. In this book, Dr. Mech further explores the idea of the dominant Alpha wolf, maintaining his Top-Dog status by beating everyone else in fierce combat, and radiating his Dominant energy so powerfully that most never dared challenge him. It was a captivating picture, and one that was very quickly picked up by pop psychology.
The rest of this history on the human side you already know. The concept of Alpha vs Beta Males, (or Sigma, or Omega, or however deep into the complex, fictional nonsense you want to get,) the idea of dominance, all of these concepts spread like wildfire over the subsequent 50 years. In my work with youth in recovery, it is the norm today for 12-18 year old men to, when meeting each other, all puff out their chests and declare that they are Alpha Males, staring into each other’s eyes aggressively. Articles and self-described “Coaches” and “Experts” on Alpha energy spend millions of hours working to dress this concept well. On the healthier side, they argue that it is about “dominance over the self first”. On the more direct side, they brag about domestic and sexual violence with a gleaming pride in their eyes; knowing that they are backed by science, and know exactly what masculinity is. The following quote is from Andrew Tate, a self-proclaimed “Alpha Male” whose videos have more than 12 billion views. Strong content warning for both domestic and sexual violence:
“…bang out the machete, boom in her face, then grip her up by the neck, you go ‘SHUT UP BITCH’ she’s shaking on the floor, panties are all wet, and you go fuck her. that’s how it goes. slap, slap, grab, choke, shut up bitch, sex.”
Tate is more than just words. After years of publicly posting videos of himself domestically abusing dozens of women who he enslaved in his home, he was finally caught and arrested on sex trafficking, enslavement, and assault charges last week. It is noteworthy that to the Alpha Male psyche, Tate enslaving and abusing women is not a bug- it is a fantasy. Following the release of the evidence of his crimes, this self-proclaimed “King of Toxic Masculinity” gained over half a million followers.
Let’s return to Dr. Mech, the person widely credited with bringing the term Alpha out of the sciences and into common parlance. Dr. Mech is a good scientist, which means that he continues to learn from reality and can adjust his positions to fit facts. Immediately following the publication of his book, he learned that Schenkel’s ‘47 paper which much of his book was based on was faulty, in many ways. The wolves Schenkel was observing were not in the wild. They were in a 30×60 ft cage in a zoo. Of equal importance, they were not a natural pack. Humans had captured a bunch of individuals from all over the place who had no prior contact and put them in a zoo together. Their resulting competition and violence was then interpreted as the nature of Wolves, and provided the foundation for the concept of Alpha dominance.
It was the equivalent of kidnapping ten random humans from all over the world, locking them in a room, and then interpreting the fact that some of these traumatized, stressed humans were kind of ass holes as representative of healthy human nature.
Wolves in the wild simply do not behave the same way. They do not demonstrate the qualities of Alpha described in Schenkel’s observations or Mech’s subsequent book. What they do have is extended family groups with parents. Serious wolf researchers and aficionados today, including Dr. Mech, use the much more scientifically accurate term “parents”. Front and center in Dr. Mech’s personal website is an explanation and series of interviews on this subject, in which he describes his decades of work to get his own very successful book removed from print due to it’s glaring inaccuracies and contribution to such caustic and popular misconceptions. He writes: “We have learned more about wolves in the last 40 years than in all of previous history. One of the outdated pieces of information is the concept of the alpha wolf. ‘Alpha’ implies competing with others and becoming top dog by winning a contest or battle. However, most wolves who lead packs achieved their position simply by mating and producing pups, which then became their pack.”
The dedicated followers of the Alpha myth will no doubt insist that the only way to become a successful parent wolf, or to breed, is through competition and violence. It is no accident that this is the exact same mindset and reproductive strategy of Andrew Tate, the gentleman with such an endearing earlier quote about how to treat women.
One can track Dr. Mech’s progression of perspective when comparing that current quote, in which he outright states that the whole concept of “alpha” is outdated and erroneous, to this quote from a 2013 paper of his, titled: “Alpha Status, Dominance, and Division of Labor in Wolf Packs.”
“Labeling a high-ranking wolf alpha emphasizes its rank in a dominance hierarchy. However, in natural wolf packs, the alpha male or female are merely the breeding animals, the parents of the pack, and dominance contests with other wolves are rare, if they exist at all. During my 13 summers observing the Ellesmere Island pack, I saw none. Thus, calling a wolf an alpha is usually no more appropriate than referring to a human parent or a doe deer as an alpha. Any parent is dominant to its young offspring, so “alpha” adds no information. Why not refer to an alpha female as the female parent, the breeding female, the matriarch, or simply the mother? Such a designation emphasizes not the animal’s ‘dominant’ status, which is trivial information, but its role as pack progenitor, which is critical information.”
In this paper from a decade ago he was still using the term, but one can feel his growing skepticism. As he recounts 13 years of personal observations of wild wolf packs with zero dominance contests, he clearly began to wonder whether the whole ‘Dominant Alpha maintaining position by combat and strength’ narrative made any sense at all. Dr. Mech, at 85 years old with half a century of wolf study under his belt, has grown. Conversely, one can hear Mr. Tate screaming from the prison he is currently rotting in for sex trafficking and abuse that when an Alpha is SO ALPHA, they never need to engage in contests, because the sheer force of their Alpha energy is so powerful that no other wolf would ever dare challenge them for this sacred and revered position. Hyperbole aside, this is a serious argument made by the Alpha adherents; they genuinely believe that if one simply becomes dominant enough, that dominance will negate the need for violence. It is the same logic as someone saying that sure, their car frame is rusty, but if they just make it even rustier- then it will become safe and whole again.
Both Tate and the other adherents to the Alpha Male myth maintain their dogmatic dedication to violence by ignoring actual wolves and actual humans. In actual wolf packs, successful mating is usually the result of pro-social behavior, not anti-social. Recent studies are showing that wolves are more prosocial than dogs, suggesting that altruism and social support are foundational qualities for canines. This same pattern is well-documented in humans; we select mates based on pro-social behavior. As we covered earlier, even Chimps and gorillas seeking higher social status don’t go around trying to “dominate” others, behavior which would be guaranteed to make their community hate them, in exactly the same way that we all feel when some dude starts trying to “dominate” people in the bar.
So it begins to look like the whole idea of an Alpha male, in the way that it has become an everyday concept being sold to and bought by men, only exists in one place, and that is the fantasies of wounded men seeking to paint their wounds as “natural.” Their fictional “Alpha males” have virtually no relationship to the Alpha male gorillas and chimps, who are specifically pro-social, easily playfully with babies, and cooperative with other males. Their fantasy “Alpha male”dominates everyone around them, either through violence or through their sheer Alpha vibes that no one dares threaten. Beyond that, this fantastic Alpha male is quintessentially and forever alone. Like they said in the equally fictional Highlander movies; “There can be only one!” This begins to get to the heart of the appeal of the fantastic Alpha mythos.
Men in our society feel alone. Our emotional vocabulary, vibrant and rich in childhood, is stripped from us in the socialization of puberty, leaving us emotionally stunted and hobbled. Our socially-sanctioned avenues for peer relationships are emotional wastelands of mindless loyalty to sports teams or arbitrary forms of productivity. (This is absolutely not to say that work is not a meaningful avenue for peer relationships; but work without emotional vulnerability and connection cannot fill the void.) Most men lack emotionally connective friendships or connection of any kind. Male friendship in our society is often a shared loneliness, not a connection or bond that facilitates genuine sharing, vulnerability, or growth. We may enjoy each other’s company, and may feel better when we hang out and watch a game or drink a beer, but we’re not sharing about what makes us sad, or how our fears are impacting our relationship the way that women can and do. So we are alone. Many of us only have close emotional intimacy with our romantic partner. While the fact that we can be real with our partner, if we can, is excellent, it is the exception that proves the rule. Beyond that, this means that our relationship is also effectively alone; we are not in a supported network of relationships that contextualize and support our primary romantic partnership; we’re just alone with our partner.
So men are used to being alone. In many ways, being alone is the heart of modern masculinity. Perhaps this is why we cling to the idea of Lone Wolves. But lone wolves are not a natural expression of how wolves exist either- we now know, in part from Dr. Mech’s ongoing research, that lone wolves are simple looking for a new family, or pack. One could call this a method of gene dispersal, or one could just call it how wolves like to live; traveling a little in search of new connections, as many humans do. But again- the stretch from the reality of wolves who travel a little for new connections to the myth of the Lone Wolf as isolated men use it to try and glorify their unhealthy isolation is problematic. Neither wolves nor men are meant to be alone for long.
It begins to become clear why as the term has waned in scientific circles, so it has waxed in men’s pop psychology. In my work with both inmates and teens struggling with addiction, it was rare to meet any member of either population who did not vociferously self-identify as an Alpha in front of their peers, often while literally hitting their chests. Contrary to all science and actual psychology, more and more men insist on identifying as Dominant, or Alphas, or Monsters, or Warriors.
Concurrently, two other things are happening. The first is that as our society has become safer, women need men less. Within my mother’s lifetime, she gained the legal right to hold a credit card in her own name, the pay gap lessened, and acceptance of LGBTQ has risen. So women need men less today than they ever have in western civilization; they can hold a job, date another woman or no one, and be completely fine. The second is that simultaneously, fewer and fewer young men can find women willing to date them; to the point where they are literally traveling overseas to try and find victims – ahem – I mean partners.
Looking at all these variables together, it begins to seem as though the deeply patriarchal, dominant, violent form of masculinity which so quickly snatched up the misconception of Alphas and remains completely committed to that myth having some validity is not, in fact, what women want at all. In fact, it begins to seem as though maybe, violent, dominant, insecure men are not what women have ever wanted. It seems that when women have actual freedom and consent, they simply do not want what we were all taught to think of as “Traditionally masculine” men, in the sense of being dominant, emotionally-stunted, dissociated, explosive kegs of unaddressed trauma. All these guys trying to be aloof, dominant alphas are just dodging their own wounds and healing in ways that makes them profoundly unappealing partners. What men think of as being Alpha is not human nature
Humans are an evolutionarily communal species, meaning that our survival strategy is to rely on one another in community. As a communal species, we’re inherently pro-social; we’re neurologically wired almost entirely for communication, sympathy, and connection. Thus, Anti-social behaviors such as dominance or violence have never been central to the identities or relationships of any healthy human community. What men think of as being Alpha is nothing to do with human nature; it’s just a coping mechanism to try and make us feel better about the traumas we’ve both suffered and often perpetrated.
So not only do alphas not exist in wolves or humans, the bizarrely resilient myth of Alpha Males is proving to be an actual threat to the continuation of the human race, as statistically significant numbers of young men can’t find anyone willing to date them because of their harmful, nonsensical ideologies about gender and masculinity. Jordan Peterson’s response to this crisis to is argue, as he did last month, that women should be legally considered property again and that women should sexually give themselves to violent men in order to decrease male violence. Ok, that’s one proposal, Dr Peterson- we go full-on, no-holds-barred structural sexual assault and dehumanization of women for the sake of maintaining your fragile little Alpha/Monster mythology about what masculinity is.
We all know that there is another option. We see it in our cousins the bonobos, and I hope we all carried their lessons as we looked at all these other pieces. Together, let us undertake the difficult, world-healing path of healing masculinity and again wholly becoming the pro-social, community-minded species that we are.