A weird thing about furry species stereotypes is that elephants and AWDs are both pretty matriarchal and yet big badass girlsonas are typically spotted hyenas and wolves.
@gulfie I'd misremembered African Wild Dogs/Cape Hunting Dogs as being matriarchal (they're not).
@Leucrotta How much of this is because they're represented as transgressive compared to other mammals (especially in the same locales) in the same ways that human men are expected to behave within the framework of multi-generational toxic masculinity?
@moonlit probably most of it. It’s kinda weird that we don’t have a similar thing with coyotes (LeGuin excepted). Maybe coyotes though vilified aren’t as obviously burly.
Our cultural assumptions sure seem to skew male for orcas and elephants and female for hippos; that sure sounds like a gender studies paper on its own!
@Leucrotta AWDs?