Ignoring Sex Differences Harms Women and Men Alike
A new review of A Billion Years of Sex Differences in The New Statesman
The latest review of A Billion Years of Sex Differences is out!
It’s by Hannah Barnes in The New Statesman, and I’m happy to report that it’s very positive. I’m particularly excited about this one because The New Statesman leans progressive, so I was bracing myself for a bumpy ride. I’m therefore over the moon that it went down so well. (Admittedly, part of my excitement might be the extra-shot latte I just downed.)
Barnes’s piece is titled “Ignoring sex differences harms us all: The tendency to ignore sex variations harms men and women both – and damages scientific credibility.” Here’s an excerpt:
Men and women are different. But saying so has become taboo, according to the evolutionary psychologist Steve Stewart-Williams. A vocal minority, he states, sees positing the existence of sex differences as “a moral transgression”, to which the typical response is to “cancel, punish and shun”. This is particularly pronounced in academia, where biases distort discussion, he argues. In the Western world, there’s a predisposition towards minimising sex differences. There are other biases. “Studies finding anti-female bias are shouted from the rooftops,” while “those finding no bias or bias against men are reported in a whisper or simply ignored”, Stewart-Williams writes in his new book, A Billion Years of Sex Differences.
This lack of honesty matters. “If we want to make the world a better place, we need good science,” he maintains. That’s not possible “if scientists are afraid to diverge from the pre-specified conclusions of an academic political monoculture”. He argues that not only are there clear differences between the sexes, but the basis for them – in large part – is our “million-year journey of human evolutionary history”. This goes for everything from dating and toy preference to mental and physical health.
“In large part” is key. Stewart-Williams is no gender traditionalist. He rejects those who “exaggerate” differences between men and women. So too, the sex difference-minimisers who argue that if differences exist they’re “a product of discrimination and socialisation” – and that equality requires their abolition. Both views lack balance and fall foul of the science, he says.
Stewart-Williams advocates for a third way: one that acknowledges both nature and nurture, and which neither overstates nor underplays sex differences…
[T]his is an important book. In A Billion Years of Sex Differences, Stewart-Williams is making a more profound argument: magnifying or minimising sex differences doesn’t just ignore science, it leads to harm. By failing to treat us as individuals, we end up discriminating against men and women. In medicine, both exaggerating and denying sex differences can be dangerous: doctors overlook gender atypical problems or presentations, for example missing eating disorders in men and heart attacks in women.
Gender-role individualism is Stewart-Williams’s proffered solution. We should “establish a fair and level playing field”, and let people make informed choices. We can work towards eliminating sex differences “created or amplified by unjust bias or barriers”. But we must acknowledge that “the sexes do differ on average, and we can’t just lie about that”, he says. Instead, we should “tell the truth carefully”.
This is the book’s ultimate message. Truth matters. If we deny differences that “everyone can see with their own two eyes”, the public simply won’t trust scientists on “politically charged topics”. Perhaps that ship has already sailed. Trust in “experts” has been in freefall for years. But an environment in which scientists, politicians, academics and others feel able to tell the truth – however uncomfortable – and not to be punished for doing so, is worth fighting for.
You can read Hannah Barnes’s full review here.
And if you’d like to pick up a copy of A Billion Years of Sex Differences, you can order it here.
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Thanks!
Steve
