Why Are Differences Between Men and Women Being Denied?
My appearance on the Modern Wisdom podcast with Chris Williamson
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Modern Wisdom
I recently went on Chris Williamson’s excellent Modern Wisdom podcast to discuss my book The Ape That Understood the Universe and various other topics.
The episode is now available on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, and wherever else you get your podcasts. It’s also available on Chris’s Modern Wisdom YouTube channel.
Here are some of the many topics we covered:
How an alien scientist would view our species
The book I’m currently writing, tentatively titled The Peacock’s Predicament: The New Evolutionary Psychology of Sex Differences and Why It Matters
Sex differences in sexual behavior, aggression, occupational interests, and more
Whether men really did most of the hunting in ancestral societies
The ironic tendency of gender activists to tacitly bash female-typical behavior - a phenomenon Chris dubbed the soft bigotry of male expectations
…and much, much more!
Here’s the episode:
Other Bits and Pieces
Chris has been massively supportive of The Ape That Understood the Universe over the years, which I hugely appreciate. Here’s what he says about it in his Modern Wisdom Reading List:
I talk about EvPsych all the time. As far as I’m concerned it’s the closest you’re ever going to get at peering under the hood of your own behaviour and discovering why you do the things you do. SSW writes one of the easiest to read books in this entire list but delivers hammer blows of insight on every page. Why are we attracted to what we like? Why is jealousy a thing? Are we monogamous creatures? Why do we help our family more than we help others? It’s an endless barrage of jaw dropping discoveries and incredibly accessible. You’ll be highlighting every other paragraph.
And here’s a clip about TATUTU from Chris’s viral video “10 Books That Really Changed My Life.”
Korean Translation of The Ape That Understood the Universe
I just found out today that the Korean translation of TATUTU was released last year!
I recently did a video interview about it for the Korean audience, which you can watch here:
Over and out!
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Related Reading from the Archive
Here are some posts related to the topics Chris and I discussed.
Is "Man the Hunter" a Myth?
In this post, I’ll look at a recent debate in the scientific literature about sex differences in hunting in traditional hunter-gatherer societies. Did men really do all or most of it? Or were our female ancestors just as involved in hunting as our male ones?
Decoding the Gender-Equality Paradox
One of the most surprising discoveries of the last few decades is known as the gender-equality paradox. This refers to the fact that, for a large number of traits, sex differences are larger, rather than smaller, in more gender-equal nations. The finding is surprising because it seems entirely plausible that, in cultures where men and women are treated differently and play different roles in society, sex differences will tend to be magnified. Even if there’s an innate contribution to many sex differences, this seems like a reasonable expectation. But the reasonable expectation turns out to be wrong. In fact, it’s not just wrong; it has things back-to-front, at least for some traits.
Sex Differences in Work Preferences, Life Values, and Personal Views
What determines men and women’s life outcomes - the professions they go into, the goals they set themselves, the time they devote to career versus family? The short answer, of course, is “Lots of things.” But according to a recent paper by David Lubinski and colleagues, among the most important contributors are people’s work preferences, life values, and personal views. And because these things aren’t evenly distributed across the sexes, they may help to explain certain sex differences in people’s life outcomes.
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. In this post, I’d like to tell you about my favorite area in all of science: evolutionary psychology. Let’s kick things off with a question…
I liked the "Soft bigotry of male expectations" and I recently heard a woman coin something similar. Many ordinary women have expressed frustration about this obvious bias for years, but they don't have or aspire to a social media presence. I'd like to share an observation from one of the biology textbooks I had to read in university. The author makes a comment about how men in all cultures will idealize their cultural role over that of women. He cites an example: in one village men hunt rabbits which is considered the tribe's most important sustenance, and the women are considered only fit to scrabble in the earth to harvest sweet potatoes. Some distance away, sweet potatoes are considered the main sustenance therefore the men have that responsibility and the women are tasked with the lowly job of trapping rabbits. I kind of feel that that same dynamic still exists wherein "women's work" is never as important.