...and I look forward to reading the comments from those on the fringes of these sorts of things!

But basically it can be summed up as follows.

1. The male chimps that bring the most food are more likely to "get some" from the females.

2. The female chimps get angry when the males don't share.

One would ask questions:

Since chimps have a panmixia matting arrangement, isn't it already known that all of the males will get some (from every female), and that the higher producing gatherer males will get more than the males that gather less?

In a tight-nit panmixia social setting, wouldn't any woman get irate if a particular male didn't want to share food?

Are the stingy male chimps more generous to particular females?

If the male chimps are showing preference in which females they will share food with, what appears to be the determining factors in their selection; age, health, weight, climbing ability...?

If the study answered these questions, it might bear more food for thought.

TFC once again demonstrates how dangerous a little knowledge can be.

If TFC wanted to look into these issues serious, as opposed to trolling readers with tabloid fluff to generate ad revenue for Salon, she'd do some extensive reading on the subject of primatology. Unfortunately, cherry picking primate behavior and evolution out of context is nothing new. Take Social Darwinism for example, which directly contradicts and ignores what Darwin actually wrote regarding morality and reciprocal altruism as fitness traits.

If TFC wants to discuss the "sex trade" in apes then bonobos would be the more appropriate example considering their culture is heavily based in sexual trade. They copulate exponentially more often than chimpanzees, to resolve conflicts, trade food, or just to say hello. From one perspective they make peace not war. From another perspective they're a species of sexual prostitutes.

I suspect a faux feminist like TFC won't honestly address the "sex trade" in bonobos, becasue they're usually touted as an example of a matriarchal, highly homoerotic, and peaceful species.

Because the sex-for-meat exchange takes place over an extended period of time, it suggests that male chimps have the ability to plan and invest in future chances to spread their seed, and that females can keep track of the benefactors of the gifts they've gobbled down.

Actually, what that suggests is the origins of morality and reciprocal altruism in social species.

it's true

btw, the majority of a chimp diet is not meat. Meat is a high value food, a delicacy, in keeping with the scarcity principle.

Resources which are of desirable and scarce, such as meat, will be more highly valued that resources which are of even greater necessity, but highly abundant, such as oxygen or water or common edible leaves.

Meat sharing is, ironically, perhaps one of the most fundamental origins of morality, beside child rearing for another example. Both require a sense of empathy and higher intelligence, in addition to specialized skills and physical attributes.

Meat sharing requires hunting, often in group coordination, which requires aggression/bravery, which is also related to territorial defense and other useful traits.

To this day we often say someone must "bring home the bacon" particularly a man, and meal sharing is one of our favorite social activities for social bonding, with relationships commonly beginning with dinner dates. While some may split the check, it's far more common for men to pay than women.

Which makes sense in many ways. Women planning to have children will likely have earning ability reduced and many other responsibilities such as pregnancy and breast feeding, and most likely be the primary childcare provider. Hence it makes sense to seek a man who will be the primary earner in many cases.

is that men (the male chimps) are driven, forced, to pursue acquisitive tactics to be able to supply resources to the women (the female chimps) in order to be given permission to REPRODUCE.

so feminism is basically a JOKE. I know this to be the case, but unwittingly your article directly puts the arrow through the heart of all that feminism stands for. that we men are equal to you women, that people can change and not be judged and driven by biological imperatives, that the sexes are interchangeable.

nothing could be further from the truth. men know this, women increasingly know this, and feminism stands there and tries to pervert, POISON, the discussion with ever more lies and fabrications.

We men are TRAPPED into being Success Objects and some honoring of that role would help to defuse the current corrosive and growing war between the sexes that you women seem all too happy to keep waging against us men.

Now it happens that the patriarchy exists between chimpanzees too. Salon writers are dismayed. All their life believing that gender differences are cultural (more specifically, caused by male oppression) and now they happen to be biological (not the only study, there are tons of them). But an irrational faith, like feminism, is not going to pay attention to scientific facts. If the reality goes against the theory, too bad for the reality.

So there is an outrage between these empowered WYMMIN because of the oppression of their chimps counterparts who share 99% of their ADN. These male chauvinistic chimpanzees, oppressors of their females, that objectify female chimps by trading meat for sex! So oppressive! They should be like human divorced men, who trade meat (alimony, child support) for... nothing.

But this is going to change. With the imminent appearance of a version of Broadsheet (TM) for chimps, all the female chimps will leave this dirty stay-at-home chimp trade and will become career chimps, able to earn their meat by theirselves. All the male chimps would be confined to reeducation camps where they will be forced to listen the translation to chimpanzish of The Femnine Mystique.

When feminists gather, all the oppressions to females end! So take that male chimps! Your patriarchy (chimpanzy??!) is coming to an end. Tremble! Tremble! The strong independent WIMMIN and CHIMPMIN are on their way.