One of the worst things I've done as a parent is take my then four year old son to see Disney's documentary-style nature film African Cats. In it, Samuel Jackson and Patrick Stewart narrate the partially successful struggle of a mother cheetah to raise her cubs and the unsuccessful struggle of an alpha male lion, Fang (so named for a hideously looking broken tooth that juts out of his mouth) to protect his family.
The narration around Fang concerning the successful coup by his replacement alpha male, Kali, is almost surreal. We get all of these "Lion King" type quips about the noble role male lions play in protecting the female lions and their cubs, even as the female lions are really doing all of the work hunting the food and raising the babies. For 95% of the time the male lion just lies around doing nothing and/or taking food away from his family.
The only way Jackson/Stewart are able to make this have any resemblance to Mufasa and Simba from the Lion King is by stressing how the male lion protects the female lions. But what on earth could a female lion need protection from? I mean, they are just these incredible killing machines. Very slowly in the movie it begins to dawn on you that the only thing male lions protect female lions and their cubs from is the vile depredations other male lions.
Anyhow, it's a good thing that human gender norms are nothing at all like that. We'd be in terrible shape if they were.
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