Research Challenges Assumptions about Gender and Sex

Last updated on: January 14, 2013 at 6:09 pm by Libby Anne

Research Challenges Assumptions about Gender and Sex 2013-01-14T18:09:33-04:00 Libby Anne

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

I grew up believing that men and women are different. I’m not talking just physically different, or just culturally different because they are socialized differently. I’m talking different. I was taught that men are designed to protect and provide, and women to care for children and nurture. I was taught that men wanted sex, and that women, being less sexual, were the gatekeepers. I was taught that men were just better at things like science and math while women were better at things like English and art.

As I left the conservative evangelicalism of my youth, I learned that many of these ideas were present in mainstream society, too. Something had changed, though. Rather than being rooted in religion, they were rooted in science. Men had evolved to be aggressive while women had evolved to nurture; men had evolved to be problem solvers while women had evolved to be communicators; and men had evolved to want sex more while women had evolved to want it less.

Anyway, in light of all of this I found a recent article in the New York Times really fascinating. In a nutshell, new data is leading scientists to question the common assumptions “[that] men are less selective about whom they’ll sleep with; [that] men like casual sex more than women; and [that] men have more sexual partners over a lifetime.” Here is an excerpt:

A COUPLE of evolutionary psychologists recently published a book about human sexual behavior in prehistory called “Sex at Dawn.” Upon hearing of the project, one colleague, dubious that a modern scholar could hope to know anything about that period, asked them, “So what do you do, close your eyes and dream?”

Actually, it’s a little more involved. Evolutionary psychologists who study mating behavior often begin with a hypothesis about how modern humans mate: say, that men think about sex more than women do. Then they gather evidence — from studies, statistics and surveys — to support that assumption. Finally, and here’s where the leap occurs, they construct an evolutionary theory to explain why men think about sex more than women, where that gender difference came from, what adaptive purpose it served in antiquity, and why we’re stuck with the consequences today.

Lately, however, a new cohort of scientists have been challenging the very existence of the gender differences in sexual behavior that Darwinians have spent the past 40 years trying to explain and justify on evolutionary grounds.

Of course, no fossilized record can really tell us how people behaved or thought back then, much less why they behaved or thought as they did. Nonetheless, something funny happens when social scientists claim that a behavior is rooted in our evolutionary past. Assumptions about that behavior take on the immutability of a physical trait — they come to seem as biologically rooted as opposable thumbs or ejaculation.

…

The fact that some gender differences can be manipulated, if not eliminated, by controlling for cultural norms suggests that the explanatory power of evolution can’t sustain itself when applied to mating behavior. This wouldn’t be the first time we’ve pushed these theories too far. How many stereotypical racial and ethnic differences, once declared evolutionarily determined under the banner of science, have been revealed instead as vestiges of power dynamics from earlier societies?

read the whole thing

This article made me think about something I learned in an undergraduate history class: namely, that during the middle ages and early modern period, women, not men, were considered to be the ones with uncontrollable sex drives. I learned in another class about how much of a sexual departure the Victorian era was, with its assumption that women were practically asexual and that men were the ones with sex drives that needed controlling. Since those classes, I’ve never been able to give much merit to attempts to explain why men “naturally” have higher sex drives than women. We are, I think, more shaped by our culture than we realize.

What do you have to add?

Feminism

gender

sex

Previous Post

January 14, 2013

Some Thoughts on Child Custody

Next Post

January 15, 2013 Beating the Shame Game: On the Stigma of Early Marriage and Young Parenting

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Atheism Evangelicalism/Fundamentalism Family Feminism Homeschool Meta Parenting Patriarchy Politics Purity Quiverfull Social Justice Uncategorized Worthwhile reads

Select a Month February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Where was Jesus Born?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Bethlehem Jerusalem Nazareth Shiloh