Elaine and Nancy and Co. found their basherts by design. The bridging or “mate-switching” strategy is one women can use when ecological and environmental conditions are right: when they have kin or peer support to buffer them from blowback—think of Elaine’s dad slipping her cash or her girlfriend helping her move out. Or when the ideology in place and the division of labor dictates that dependent women should segue from one man to another or, in Druckerman’s apt formulation, from the protection of their fathers to the protection of a series of husbands and lovers. Or when a powerful
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