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

[erratio.livejournal.com]

Given that evolutionary psychology is, as you say, more or less unproveable, do you think there's any purpose in studying it?

I'm not too sure that there is. I found the article to be interesting in and of itself but the idea of his conclusions being put into practice is the sort of thing that would give me nightmares. Interesting from a purely theoretical point of view rather than a practical I guess.

[quantumkitty.livejournal.com]

I don't know. Certainly it's worthwhile to look at the facts of psychology and come up with explanations (hopefully falsifiable ones!) for why things are that way. And I think some claims in the realm of evolutionary psychology can be falsifiable.

If evolutionary psychologists cared more about making testable claims and didn't just care about spinning a good story or justifying their biases, I'd have a higher opinion of the field.

[quantumkitty.livejournal.com]

but the idea of his conclusions being put into practice is the sort of thing that would give me nightmares.

Is to ought, again.

One might just as easily take what he says as fact and say, "Yes, there are genetic reasons for women to behave like X and men to behave like Y - but that just means that we have to work to overcome our biological nature to rise to our true potential!"

Whether "nature" or "nurture" is valued more depends on your culture and time period... and what you're talking about. :)