Sunday 30 November 2014

Sex stereotyping is useful

Male - female behaviour is different in most species.  We didn't just fall out of a tree like this. The differences are there because they have been job-tested for thousands of years and tend towards survival.  Some are baked into genes and some are transmitted by cultural software.   Sex differences optimize issues of foraging, competition, reproduction, health, food, shelter, defence and property.

To call male-female behaviour a cultural construct can be defended on this ground: The rules of survival for mankind have changed and with it the optimum culture.  

Source
Today, many of us can live in shelters without warriors, can survive without our kinfolk's help, can expect a baby will live eighty years, can see our children's children after investing just a few years in menstruation, and can forage successfully with a debit card after a few hours training.  Raising kids is as important as ever but you don't need to start eight or nine to raise a couple to adulthood.  It makes sense then that the roles of the sexes are changing and may be less important going forward.   They won't be going away.   There's no need to belittle them.  They have worked longer than you or I.

I will continue to open the door for my wife, offer to carry heavy things, feel happy when my arms are about her, and call her sweetheart.


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