Even the monkeys know it!

 It is no surprise that the mother is regarded as the first teacher.

Female teachers seem to be preferred over males in the monkey world. Research by Erica van de Wall and colleagues have demonstrated in the wild that the Vervet monkeys seem to prefer females as tutor :) The work was published in Proc Royal Soc B (March 17th 2010).

Selective attention to philopatric models causes directed social learning in wild vervet monkeys 

Also see this


The females enjoy a higher social status in most larger social mammalian groups with the exception of humans (maybe). The females are often the 'core group members' or 'group leaders' (elephant matriarchs). Their superior knowledge of food and water locations and the fact that they return to their natal group are a few among many reasons for this supremacy of status. This is an interesting piece of work for its implications and insights to the evolution of societies in larger mammals and of course social learning.

In humans, however, matriarchal societies are much rarer. Women are far less allowed to lead the families and opinions of women rarely taken seriously (even in educated families). So the question really is, where did we, in the course of evolution unlearn this important lesson? How and why did the females position in the society drop so dramatically?

There could be several life-history, social and biological explanations to this. I will not even plunge into the dirty waters of the social causes. From the life history point of view, to me, the reason that appeals the most is that women in human societites do not return to their natal group. However, as one may agree the social reasons are probably far more convincing than this.

Men, time to learn from the monkeys how to fetch a banana!