The Professor in the Cage summary

At some point during our life, we’ve all encountered a bully. Most people will have met one when they were still a child, while playing at school.

But bullying goes far beyond the playground; it happens in societies around the world because it’s universally effective. By picking on weaker members of society, bullies can boost their social status at the expense of their victims, without running the risk of facing retaliation.

In recent decades, our conceptions of men and women have changed radically. Gender stereotypes dictating that women stay at home to care for children while men work to provide for their families are being dismantled.

However, there’s one thing that definitely separates the sexes, namely the interplay between competition, violence and masculinity. In fact, there’s a clear evolutionary reason that males are more competitive and violent than females: reproductive differences.

Often when you see boys playing, it involves some kind of fight or competitive game. In contrast, girls tend to play together, rather than against each other.

This difference in playing style is observable from a very young age. Because of these different styles, the sexes tend to play separately from the get-go. Preschoolers are three times more likely to play with children of their own sex – by the age of six, this likelihood will have increased elevenfold.

Have you ever felt yourself wishing for the other team to be obliterated while playing a sport or cheering on your favorite team?

That’s because many sports are ritualized forms of warfare.

Have you ever seen the film Gladiator? If you have, you’ll know just how much people were entranced by violence in the past.

Indeed, there’s lots of evidence to suggest people have had a long-standing love affair with the spectacle of violence. In the Coliseum, the Romans watched gladiators fight to the death, and prisoners of war battle for their lives against wild animals. And in the Middle Ages, even children were taken to public executions to watch criminals being burned or buried alive.

We’ve seen that sports have a direct link to war and violence. But this doesn’t mean that all sports are created equal – in fact, one sport stands above the rest.

MMA is the most brutal, hierarchical and realistic of modern combat sports.