Posts
Comments
Holy commentfest, this may have been said before, but replying to this point:
"Evolutionary psychology is sexist!" If you define "sexist" as "believing in some kind of difference between the sexes", this is true of at least some evo psych. For example, Bateman's Principle states that in species where females invest more energy in producing offspring, mating behavior will involve males pursuing females; this posits a natural psychological difference between the sexes. "Right, so you admit it's sexist!" "And why exactly is sexism bad?" "Because sexism claims that men are better than women and that women should have fewer rights!" "Does Bateman's principle claim that men are better than women, or that women should have fewer rights?" "Well...not really." "Then what's wrong with it?" "It's sexist!"
No...sexism is bad not just because it leads to societal power differentials, but because it's incorrect. Bateman's Principle seems to believe that there are only two sexes, leaving out the 25+ variations in between that come under intersex. When referring to humans, evolutionary psychology muddles sex and gender in its analysis, which leads to confirmation bias. The reason much of evo psych ends up with sexist results is often because the analysts are unconsciously reproducing socially-learned gender constructs in their work. For example, Darwin believed that the female of the species was naturally more sexually reticent--obvs informed significantly by his growing up in 19th century England. Similarly, most species once thought to be sexually monogamous have been found not to be (e.g. many birds, who are socially monogamous but sexually all over the place.) What up, ideology reproducing itself through science! From what I can tell this happens a lot in evo psych, which is why I think the discipline doesn't have much to offer.
Evo psych is also strange, because from what I can tell (please correct me if I'm wrong) it seems to assume an illusion of opposites between humans and nature--the latter being, well, natural, and the other not. Lewis Hyde suggested that talking about natural vs. unnatural isn't helpful, because human-created things that are commonly referred to as 'unnatural' (e.g. concrete) are now part of nature whether we like it or not, and all species are responding to them. Rather, using organic vs. inorganic is more relevant. E.g. a woman might appear to be 'naturally' more sexually reticent, but she's responding to an social environment where it isn't safe to be openly sexual. This may well be an inorganic process.