Abstract
The rise of research in behavior genetics, endocrinology, neurotransmitter systems, brain imaging, and evolutionary psychology bears witness to psychology’s increasingly biological stance. This approach has been fiercely opposed by some academic feminists. This paper examines and responds to three of their key objections: determinism (the brain as an evolved organ is unresponsive to its environment), politics (the demonstration of sex differences obstructs the goal of gender equality), and epistemology (notions of cause and effect should be replaced by the study of the social construction of gender). The second part of the paper suggests some areas of convergence between the interests of feminists and biologically minded researchers. These include the role of neuropeptides in modulating sex differences; male-female conflict at a genetic and behavioral level; the functions and social impact of peer group sex segregation; the evolution and contemporary effects of cultural transmission and the role of higher-order cognitive systems in modulating the expression of evolved emotional adaptations.
References
(2000). Sex differences in aggression between heterosexual partners: A meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin, 126, 651–680.
(2005). Sexual conflict. New Jersey, NJ: Princeton University Press.
(1998). Gender and social psychology. London, UK: Routledge.
(1990). Feminists and psychological practice. London, UK: Sage.
(1999). Social-cognitive theory of gender development and differentiation. Psychological Review, 106, 676–713.
(2006). Why sex matters for neuroscience. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 7, 477–484.
(2002). A mind of her own: The evolutionary psychology of women. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
(2010). Oxytocin and human social behaviour. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 14, 281–295.
(
2012 ). The Dark Triad, attractiveness, and men’s mating strategy. Manuscript in preparation.(2003). Influence of life stress on depression: Moderation by a polymorphism in the 5-HTT gene. Science, 301, 386–389.
(2006). Evolutionary psychology as public science and boundary work. Public Understanding of Science, 15, 175–205.
(2007). The (sexual) politics of evolution: Popular controversy in the late 20th-century United Kingdom. History of Psychology, 10, 199–226.
(2008). Feminist biologies: Revising feminist strategies and biological science. Sex Roles, 59, 492–503.
(2011). Women’s aggression. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 16, 390–398.
(2011). Do scientific theories affect men’s evaluations of sex crimes? Aggressive Behavior, 37, 440–449.
(2011). Feminist contributions to understanding woman abuse: Myths, controversies, and realities. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 16, 297–302.
(2010). Effects of intranasal oxytocin on emotional face processing in women. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 35, 83–93.
(1987). Sex differences in social behavior: A social role interpretation. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
(2011). Feminism and the evolution of sex differences and similarities. Sex Roles, 64, 758–767.
(2009). Endocrinology of social relationships. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
(2008). Dual-processing accounts of reasoning, judgement and social cognition. Annual Review of Psychology, 59, 255–278.
(2007). Neuroendocrinological foundation of human affiliation: Plasma oxytocin levels across pregnancy and the postpartum period predict mother-infant bonding. Psychological Science, 18, 965–970.
(2009). Control tactics and partner violence in heterosexual relationships. Evolution and Human Behavior, 30, 445–452.
(1989). Parent-specific gene expression and the triploid endosperm. American Naturalist, 134, 147–155.
(2008). Gendered political behavior: A Darwinian feminist approach. Sex Roles, 59, 465–475.
(1995). Where is the child’s environment? A group socialisation theory of development. Psychological Review, 102, 458–489.
(2009). Interactive effects of sex hormones and gender stereotypes on cognitive sex differences: A psychobiosocial approach. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 34, 389–401.
(2006). A single administration of testosterone reduces fear potentiated startle in humans. Biological Psychiatry, 59, 872–874.
(2004). Brain gender. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
(2010). Sex-related variation in human behavior and the brain. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 14, 448–456.
(1999). Mother nature: Natural selection and the female of the species. London, UK: Chatto & Windus.
(2000). Why do females mate multiply? A review of the genetic benefits. Biological Reviews, 75, 21–64.
(2001). Resisting the new evolutionism. Women: A Cultural Review, 12, 1–8.
(1990). Resisting the discipline. In , Feminists and psychological practice (pp. 119–136). London, UK: Sage.
(2011). The relationship between familial resemblance and sexual attraction: An update on Westermarck, Freud and the incest taboo. Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 1229–1232.
(2007). Women, behavior, and evolution: Understanding the debate between feminist evolutionists and evolutionary psychologists. Politics and the Life Sciences, 26, 51–70.
(1991). Parents’ differential socialization of boys and girls: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 109, 267–296.
(1987). Gender segregation in childhood. Advances in Child Development and Behavior, 20, 239–287.
(2008). Effortful control, explicit processing, and the regulation of human evolved predispositions. Psychological Review, 115, 1012–1031.
(1986). Exploring the experiences of women managers: Towards rigour in qualitative research. In , Feminist social psychology: Developing theory and practice (pp. 193–209). Milton Keynes, UK: Open University Press.
(2002). Cognitive theories of early gender development. Psychological Bulletin, 128, 903–933.
(2011). Reframing sexual differentiation of the brain. Nature Neuroscience, 14, 677–683.
(1998). Biology. In , Gender and Psychology (pp. 55–65). London, UK: Arnold.
(1997). Differences between males and females in rates of serotonin synthesis in human brain. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 94, 5308–5313.
(1992). Sexually antagonistic genes: Experimental evidence. Science, 256, 1436–1439.
(1996). Sexually antagonistic male evolution triggered by experimental arrest of female evolution. Nature, 361, 232–234.
(1983). Hormonal theories for sex differences – politics disguised as science: A reply to DeBold and Luria. Sex Roles, 9, 1109–1113.
(2000). Introduction. In , Alas poor Darwin: Arguments against evolutionary psychology (pp. 1–13). London, UK: Harmony Books.
(1982). Biological politics: Feminist and anti-feminist perspectives. London, UK: Tavistock.
(2011). Female competition and its evolutionary consequences in mammals. Biological Reviews, 86, 341–366.
(1985). A sexually dimorphic nucleus in the human brain. Science, 228, 1112–1115.
(2006). Tend and befriend: Biobehavioral bases of affiliation under stress. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 15, 273–277.
(2000). Biobehavioral responses to tress in females: Tend-and-befriend, not fight-or-flight. Psychological Review, 107, 411–429.
(2007). Testing the controversy: An empirical examination of adaptationists’ attitudes toward politics and science. Human Nature, 18, 313–328.
(2008). Can Darwinian feminism save female autonomy and leadership in egalitarian society? Sex Roles, 59, 482–491.
(2011). Sex differences in neural correlates of emotion: Evidence from neuroimaging. Biological Psychology, 87, 319–333.
(1996). Feminist social psychologies: International perspectives. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press.
(2002). A cross-cultural analysis of the behaviour of women and men: Implications for the origins of sex differences. Psychological Bulletin, 128, 699–727.
