Let's Keep Talking About Sex Differences
How evolution shaped male and female minds: My appearance on the Keep Talking podcast
A Billion Years is Out!
My new book, A Billion Years of Sex Differences, is finally on the shelves.
It's about how evolution shaped the minds of men and women - and why it matters today.
After finishing my previous book, The Ape That Understood the Universe, I swore I’d never write another. But then I was stuck at home during the pandemic, and I had an idea for a book that I couldn’t shake off. So I thought, “Fine, just one more...”
And now, five years later, it’s a real thing in the world. It feels great!
This is the last one, though...
If you’d like to read a sample or pick up a copy of A Billion Years of Sex Differences, you can do so here.
My Appearance on the Keep Talking Podcast
In other news, the first interview I recorded for A Billion Years was released today, to coincide with the release of the book. It was on Dan Riley’s excellent Keep Talking podcast. These are some of the many topics we covered:
How I fell in love with the evolutionary psychology of sex differences
Whether A Billion Years of Sex Differences will destroy my career
The main sex differences in our species
Why human sex differences are relatively modest compared to those in most other mammals
My controversial paper on sex differences in STEM
My crazy plan to start a Substack so I wouldn’t be financially dependent on my academic job - and how, by some kind of miracle, it actually worked
Why the science of sex differences matters
How we should respond to sex differences as individuals and as a society: gender-role traditionalism vs. gender-role progressivism vs. gender-role individualism
The episode is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find it on Dan’s Keep Talking Substack and Keep Talking YouTube channel.
A New Review of A Billion Years
Last but not least, the latest review of A Billion Years of Sex Differences has just appeared in Male Psychology magazine. It’s written by Dr. John Barry, whose groundbreaking work is discussed in the book. Here’s an excerpt.
[P]eople who don’t like evolutionary psychology, or those who are wed to the idea that gender roles should be rejected on principle, are probably going to find reasons not to like this book. But for everyone else, it’s hard to find examples of where Stewart-Williams puts a foot badly wrong. This book is a mine of interesting and sensible information, engagingly written, and I thoroughly recommend it.
You can read the whole review here. And you can check out previous reviews of the book in The Times and The Guardian.
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Related Reading from the Archive
12 Things Everyone Should Know About Evolutionary Psychology
This is the latest post in my “12 Things Everyone Should Know” series. You can access the full collection here.
A Billion Years of Sex Differences
I recently gave a professorial lecture at my university, focused on some of my theoretical work on the evolution of human sex differences. The following is a lightly edited transcript of the lecture.
The First Law of Behavior Genetics
This is the first part of a five-part series about the Four Laws of Behavior Genetics and why they matter. I’ll be releasing one new part a month. In this first part, I’ll give an overview of the Four Laws, then do a deep dive into the First Law. The overview is free; the deep dive is for paid subscribers. Check out the other benefits of a paid subscription
I am really enjoying your book despite the gremlins of computerdom besetting my day. Well done sir!
You write, "How I fell in love with the evolutionary psychology of sex differences". I discovered this evolutionary psychology in researching sex differences for a chapter on Achilles's rage in my dissertation on the role the goddess Athena plays in the life of the male Greek hero.
I wanted to show why a female deity performs the civilizing role in Greek myth. (My Phd is in Mythology.)
In writing about Achilles's rage, I discover Wrangham and Peterson's Demonic Males. Soon I was reading David Buss and Leda Cosmides...
Looking forward to your book.