Then I look at my female cats, each one well-fed on expensive Science Diet, each one with a plush and shiny coat. But what is it that I see them do most often? They hunt. Like crazy. Obsessively, compulsively hunt. Mice and birds beware when Donnasue is on the prowl. She can leap over five feet in the air and snatch juncos off the feeder platform with ease.

Domestic cats evolved as more or less solitary hunters. The male is only present at mating; he only needs to meet his own needs and can easily do so. The female cat, called a queen, raises litters of usually three to five kittens. She must hunt and do it well to support herself through pregnancy and nursing and then must help teach her kittens to hunt. Cats are famous for playing with weakened prey, a behavior grounded in kittenhood learning.

Human behaviors evolved differently. Primitive human societies lived in small family groups of hunter-gatherers. As social roles developed, women--who bore and nursed the infants--foraged closer to whatever shelter served as their base. They dug roots, picked berries and other edible plants. Men went on hunting parties, but women worked.

But didn’t women pick up turtles? Forage for eggs in nests? Find a fawn hiding in brush? When opportunity presented itself, they clubbed a rabbit or bird. And because early people were often nomadic, moving to better food or water sources, women, carrying babies strapped to their backs and sides, moved alongside the men.

Scientists discuss how these events evolved into our present day gender roles, where traditionally man has been the hunter or provider, and woman has been the home-keeper, the child-rearer. Though we are challenging these roles today, gender identity is rooted in our past.

Scientists often comment about how the male and the female brain are different. Are females more capable of multi-tasking because once upon a time, we picked berries while watching the children while also watching for tigers and bears and wolves? Is that why we can jiggle a baby while we talk on the phone while we fry bacon? Is the male brain more single minded because to hunt requires an intense form of concentration where he shuts out everything but the prey he is concentrating on? Is that why he doesn’t hear a word you say while he is watching television?

Back to kitty-cats, in a classic experiment, a scientist recorded the brain waves of a cat as it listened to the rhythmic clicking of a metronome. At every click, a peak in brain activity was plotted on a graph. Then, a mouse was introduced to the cat. Suddenly the brain wave pattern went crazy. The metronome was still clicking, but the cat shut it out as she concentrated on her prey.

How does all this pertain to us, the modern woman who either chooses to hunt or like myself, is driven to hunt? Do I possess this drive because, like the queen, I am biologically hard-wired to provide?

It is interesting and noteworthy to consider what hunting guides say about women in the field. I have had the privilege of hunting in all-female camps, of hunting in mixed-gender camps, and of being the only woman in camps. Discussions around the campfire lead me to believe that a consensus among guides, booking agents, hunt consultants and outfitters—at least those who have hunted with women—is that women may make superior hunters.

One man told me that the women he had hunted with were always better at it than the men. That is, if you took a female hunter in camp and compared her to the male hunter, she might have more qualities that make her better. Things like patience. Things like doing what the guide says and not arguing about it. Things like meticulous attention to detail in our clothes and our gear. Refusal to take risky, potentially crippling shots. Things like not complaining in the face of foul weather and rough terrain. Things like not being a show-off or a game hog and of using her brain to make up for less physical strength or speed.

Doesn’t our ability to do all these things we need to be doing while avoiding the things we should not be doing reflect our multi-tasking brain? Gathering mushrooms while watching toddlers while keeping an eye out for saber-toothed tigers?

Once I was in camp full of women run by two ex-military men who had run covert ops in Afghanistan in the eighties. Men who had taken bullets and seen horrors. One of them told me, "These women hunt harder than any man I’ve ever been out with." His assessment was that the men stayed in when the weather was bad, playing cards, drinking and napping. The women were going out and hunting all day in bad weather, whether they were seeing game or not.

I’m not belittling the male hunters, though I have been offended by a few.

Apparently on one hunt I was the first female the outfitter had hosted, and he had been reluctant to have the guide drop me alone in an area as I’d requested. When the morning was over, I had killed one gobbler, passed on a second and been working on a third when the guide stumbled into my set-up, spooking my tom.

The outfitter never said anything until I was settling up with him after the hunt. There was another woman coming in his next group of hunters and I knew her (it’s a small world).

He seemed a little embarrassed when he asked me, "Uh, is she as good as you are? I mean, the guides heard you call and they said you were exceptionally good, excellent. Is she going to be…okay? Can we take her out and leave her like we did you?"

"She doesn’t have as much experience as I do but she does great," I assured him.

"Well, I mean, we’ve never had a woman before and I really didn’t know what to expect," he said.

Well now you do, I thought!

Think about it while you are hunting and the woods are too still. What things are you better at and why? What things is he better at and why? And don’t our differences ultimately compliment each other?

You betcha!

Would you want to be any different?

Not me!