An article about gender equality

[erratio]

http://denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm

"Note that all those things I listed — literature, art, science, etc — are optional. Women were doing what was vital for the survival of the species. Without intimate care and nurturance, children won’t survive, and the group will die out. Women contributed the necessities of life. Men’s contributions were more optional, luxuries perhaps. But culture is a powerful engine of making life better. Across many generations, culture can create large amounts of wealth, knowledge, and power. Culture did this — but mainly in the men’s sphere.

Thus, the reason for the emergence of gender inequality may have little to do with men pushing women down in some dubious patriarchal conspiracy. Rather, it came from the fact that wealth, knowledge, and power were created in the men’s sphere. This is what pushed the men’s sphere ahead. Not oppression."

I don't like it. Every feminist/irrational instinct in me screams that this guy is biased and wrong. I really don't like the idea presented, that from an evolutionary perspective women are only good for having families while men are good for creating everything else that makes life worthwhile. But he sure does write a persuasive argument, and my more logical instincts think he probably has something there. I also think that Maslow's hierarchy is probably to blame for the opinion that creating life is less valuable than all the other stuff that men are supposedly responsible for. I also think that I'm personally influenced a lot by the fact that I'm a lot more towards the male end of the spectrum when it comes to this sort of thing than most women would be, so I take the "women are good for nurturing" line almost as a personal insult since nurturing is not one of the terms anyone would ever use to describe me.

Comments

[quantumkitty.livejournal.com]

Also, when you see an evolutionary psychology argument, pay close attention to the implied relationship between is and ought.

The value content of many such arguments is, "There is a disparity between these two groups in society, such that one group is getting the short end of the stick... But it's okay! Hey, look, I can prove both groups are just doing what they're doing because it's their biological destiny - the status quo is the way it should be!"

And also, they're ignoring how incredibly deep culture goes. (But hey, I'm a linguist - I'm more inclined to think in terms of characteristics that are universally human manifesting in specific ways based on what environment people are exposed to, than in terms of irreconcilable genetic differences between groups of humans.)

[erratio.livejournal.com]

Trust me, I did notice plenty of logic holes and handwaving towards the latter half ;) Especially the way he essentially ends up saying "some psychologists have argued that women act this way because they were brought up this way by society, but let's ignore that in favour of my theory which can explain the same facts by bringing evolutionary theory into it"

And it doesn't have to be that way. A better argument wouldn't have dismissed the nurture aspect so quickly.