Out of Order

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Sulloway: "Well, I'm on the side of rational thinking and hypothesis-testing. There are, however, many stories from religious texts that fit my model. Cain--the elder brother--slew Abel; you would not expect it to be the other way around. Firstborns are more jealous of parental attention; they are also more physically aggressive and in fact more likely to inflict pain on their siblings. For example, I have extremely rigorous data on the Protestant Reformation. It shows that younger siblings were 48 times more likely to be burned at the stake for heresy than firstborns.

Author of numerous books that mix feminism, Buddhism, and postmodern cultural theory with keen insights into racial relations.

BIRTH ORDER: middle child of seven siblings.

"I was definitely the rebellious kid in my family. Part of it was that I wanted to do everything that my brother, born just nine months before me, did--so when my parents tried to lay gender roles on us, I bore the brunt of trying to rebel against that. As the only son, my brother was the infinitely more desired child. I always tease him that he didn't have six sisters, he had six slaves. But it seems to me that it's impossible to separate birth order from class and other factors. Part of why my birth order is important, for instance, is that my parents were beginning to feel the strain of running a large, working-class family."

Sulloway: "If bell hooks was indeed discriminated against because of her gender, that would tend to make her more liberal. For example, I've done a thorough analysis of the civil rights movement and, in general, the middle children, including Martin Luther King, are the most inclined to support nonviolent types of reform. Now, what about the fact that Malcom X was also a middle child? Well, he had an immediately older brother who was light-skinned, while Malcom X was dark-skinned. And his mother favored the older brother over him. It seems to be a reasonable hypothesis that if your mother discriminates against you--whether it's for skin color or gender--you're less likely to be a middleborn peacenik."

Molefi Kete Asante 

Author of dozens of books about the African-American community, including Afrocentricity and The Afrocentric Idea.

BIRTH ORDER: fourth child--and first son--in a family of 16 siblings.

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