British author and lecturer on evolutionary theory who holds scientifically unorthodox opinions, and who started to write at the end of the 1960s at the height of the women’s movement. She saw the story of creation and similar male myths of the past, as well as evolutionary explanations of the development of humankind to have all, in their various ways, marginalized the contribution of females.
Morgan asserts that a high proportion of scientific thinking about our past has remained androcentric. The impression given by the common usage of the male pronoun for both sexes has confused “man as species” with “man as male”; the mental image portrayed is still very much a male one. The prehominid male has been made the great hero of the evolutionary story. “He,” the Tarzanlike figure of the Mighty Hunter, was preeminent, while “She” was portrayed as the Hunter’s mate. Everything worthwhile about our species was held to have developed out of the male lifestyle: We walked erect because the Mighty Hunter had to stand tall to scan the horizon for his prey; bipedalism enabled him to race after game while carrying a weapon; we learned to use our hands because the making and use of weapons was necessary for hunting; we lived in caves because the Mighty Hunter needed a base to come home to; we learned to speak because the Mighty Hunter needed to communicate the happenings of his day and to plan strategy for the next safari with others.