EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY AND FEMINISM ON GENDER RELATIONS
Evolutionary psychology and feminism are two of the more comprehensive approaches to gender relations and gender communication. Evolutionary psychologists believe that scientific research clearly favors the conclusion that male and female mating behaviors are divergent due to each sex having confronted different adaptive problems during the period of biological evolution. The common perception is that if evolutionary psychology makes sense, then feminism does not. Or if feminist philosophy makes valid points, then evolutionary psychology does not. In other words, human beings are the product of either nature or nurture. Nevertheless, there are also theorists that have tried to find bridges between the two approaches. The most important and consequential debate between advocates of evolutionary psychology and feminism has taken place in the area of gender roles. The issue is whether biology or social structure is the primary cause of the gender roles that we find in human societies.
Evolutionary psychologists deny that male and female behavior is totally the outcome of social conditioning. Instead, they propose that there is a distinctive human nature. The behavior of men and women is the outcome of human psychology that is based on the biological division of the sexes. Human beings are not a “blank slate” filled in by the different social and cultural forces that operate in various societies. Each sex has dispositions to behave that are the product of evolution through natural selection. The distinctive social roles assigned to each sex are not merely social constructions; innate differences in psychology between males and females make it more likely that social roles in harmony with evolutionary biology will be established. Evolutionary psychologists do not assert that culture has no influence on behavior. Their claim is that the various cultures of the world are themselves influenced by human nature and that cultures whose practices are in harmony with human nature are more likely to flourish and endure.
Feminists tend to accept the idea of the social construction of reality. Therefore, they often view social and cultural realities as human creations that are independent of biological factors. But there are also feminists who reject both evolutionary psychology and social constructionism. They take a third view, a biosocial perspective in which the mutual impact of biology and society upon each other is recognized. From this standpoint, social roles play the greatest part in influencing human action. Yet, biology is crucial in its impact upon what social roles are put in place within particular societies. In addition, hormones are one of the three major factors that affect human action in addition to identity considerations and the expectations of others.
In examining the similarities and differences between evolutionary psychology and feminism, the biosocial position will be considered as one of the most persuasive and well-established feminist approaches. The biosocial theory is close to the evolutionary psychology position in two important ways: it utilizes objective knowledge while situating itself within the positivist tradition, and it recognizes that biology interacts with society and culture in the formation of human behavior. In this sense, the biosocial approach reflects a feminist position that has enough in common with evolutionary psychology for a fruitful debate to take place between them.
Evolutionary explanations of gender differences
A leading evolutionary psychologist, David Buss has claimed that feminists and evolutionary psychology are in agreement on several important points. In his view, they agree that men monopolize resources and power all over the world, men often control women through the resources they possess, and control over sexuality and reproduction is a central feature of men’s dominance over women (Buss, 1996).
To back his claim that men usually have control of resources and power worldwide, Buss states: “Scientists have tried for years to discover a culture in which men did not dominate women in the domains of overt political power and material resources. Although many people have heard rumors about cultures in which women dominate men, none has ever been documented in the literature” (Buss, 1996, p. 297). Thus, all cultures or almost all cultures are patriarchal. Yet, women do gain considerable power such as the ability to choose mates, having the right to divorce in particular circumstances, limiting men’s access to women’s sexuality, and exerting personal influence over family members. Still, the generalization that men universally control resources and power holds. In the United States, for example, men do better economically than women, have greater political power, and occupy the highest positions in the business world, even though we can point to many individual exceptions (Buss, 1996).
Buss also believes that men often control women through their possession of resources. “If men possess the resources that women want or need, then men can use those resources to control women. In the mating domain, men use their resources to attract women. Within relationships, women lacking economic resources often feel at the mercy of their husbands or boyfriends for fear of the loss of those resources. As in other domains, the golden rule probably applies: He who has the gold makes the rule” (Buss, 1996, p. 298).
In particular, Buss maintains that men are often most interested in controlling women’s sexuality and reproduction. “In a cross-cultural perspective, the ways in which men attempt to control women’s sexuality is nothing short of bewildering. Veiling a woman’s face is an attempt to conceal a woman’s sexual signals from other men. Placing women in harems gives a king or emperor potentially exclusive sexual and reproductive access to those women. Forms of genital mutilation, such as clitoridectomy and infibulation, seem designed to dissuade women from seeking sexual pleasure or pursuing sexual relationships with men other than their husbands, although these methods of controlling women’s sexuality are often used by the woman’s own kin and may even be undergone ‘voluntarily’ by a women to enhance her desirability to men. Within our culture, men, and especially jealous men, control women’s sexuality by restricting contact with other men, by monopolizing all of a woman’s time, by threatening harm to the woman or a rival man for cues to infidelity, and by insisting that the woman wear possessive ornamentation. Despite the variability of the tactics men employ, it is clear that men’s attempts to control women often center on their sexuality, and both feminists and evolutionary psychologists agree on this point” (Buss, 1996, pp. 298–299).
Differential parental investment
There are two important concepts that form the basis of the evolutionary psychologists’ understanding of sex differences: differential parental investment and sexual selection. “Differential parental investment refers to the fact that males and females differ in the amount of resources they invest in offspring. Eggs are generally more costly to produce than sperm. In mammals, this small initial difference is compounded by a lengthy internal gestation. A mammalian female carries a fetus that requires a large amniotic sac, and takes first priority on her nutritional intake for several months. Following birth, the female nurses the newborn, again sacrificing her own nutritional intake to feed her progeny. In some species, such as humans, offspring must be fed and cared for even after they are weaned. Therefore, the minimum parental investment for female mammals is quite large” (Kenrick et al., 2004).
In contrast, men can get by with much less investment when they father children. They need only the energy to engage in sexual intercourse. Differential parental investment, though, is not sufficient to explain some of the more important physical differences between men and women. It is also necessary to invoke the concept of sexual selection.
Sexual selection
“Sexual selection is the process that promotes the evolution of characters that provide individuals with a competitive advantage in gaining mate success, mates with high fecundity, and ultimately, fertilization success. Sexual selection differs from natural selection because the latter is the process involved in the evolution of traits that promote fecundity and survival. Charles Darwin was puzzled by the presence of a range of traits, most often in adult males, such as exuberant coloration, extravagant vocalizations and displays, exaggerated size, and adornments such as horns, tusks, and antlers. These traits seemed to have a deleterious effect on male survival prospects, raising the issue how they could have evolved and be maintained in the face of viability costs. The solution to this problem was that such traits might have evolved either through mate choice, usually by females, and/or through competition among individuals of the same sex, usually males, for access to and control of fertilization of individuals of the other sex. Typically, male traits related to the presence of weaponry, or sheer size, have evolved and are being maintained by male-male competition, while visual and vocal displays are involved in mate choice, although exceptions occur” (Moller, 2008, pp. 77–78).
Evolution of sex differences in psychologies of mating
Keeping these two concepts of differential parental investment and sexual selection in mind, it is possible to explain the evolution of sex roles. “Sex roles in the context of mating evolve due to a sex difference in potential reproductive rates, that is, the number of offspring that each sex can possibly reproduce per unit of time. This is because a sex differential in potential reproductive rates means that there is not a one-to-one operational sex ratio; that is, the number of sexually receptive males does not equal the number of sexually receptive females at any one time. As a result, there are a relatively large number of individuals among one sex in competition to mate with a relatively small number of individuals among the other sex. This leads to sex roles in which members of the former sex compete more intensely for mates, and members of the latter sex are more scrupulous in their choice of mates” (Davies & Shackelford, 2008, p. 263).
In humans, the investment of women in carrying the fetus and raising the infant is greater than that of men. And the sex that makes the greater investment will have the lower potential reproduction rate. Therefore, competition among men will be greater than among women for a partner of the opposite sex and women will be more careful when they engage in choosing a mate. In this manner, different psychologies of mating have evolved in each sex. As a result of adaptations through natural and sexual selection, the following psychological sex differences have evolved: willingness to mate and selectivity toward sexual partners, the taking of risks and aggression, economic investment on the part of parents, role of age and physical attractiveness in mating, sexual commitment as opposed to emotional commitment, and sexual versus emotional jealousy (Davies & Shackelford, 2008).
Readiness to mate and number of sexual partners desired: “Women’s relatively low potential reproductive rate means that, in comparison to men, they gain little reproductive advantage by having multiple short-term mates. In addition, women risk both dying during childbirth and wasting their relatively large minimum parental investment if their child does not survive. Accordingly, women are expected to have evolved a psychology that causes them to be relatively hesitant to mate and choosy in their mate selection. In contrast, men’s relatively high potential reproductive rate and low minimum parental investment means that men can increase their reproductive success by having multiple mates. Accordingly, men are expected to have evolved a psychology that causes them to desire numerous, short-term sexual partners. In addition, they are hypothesized to be relatively eager to mate and indiscriminate in their mate selection, as both these traits facilitate the securing of multiple mates” (Davies & Shackelford, 2008, p. 265).
Economic parental investment: “The relatively great minimum parental investment of women, in comparison to men, means that a woman’s primary reproductive concern is expected to be ensuring that her child reaches reproductive age so that she avoids wasting this investment. Accordingly, women are expected to be especially desirous to secure a long-term mate who is able to invest economically in the raising of her children. This will include not only men who have substantial resources but also those who display high social standing or dominance, as these are typically correlated with resource acquisition” (Davies & Shackelford, 2008, p. 266).
Risk-taking and aggression in intrasexual competition: “Men’s greater potential reproductive rate means that the variance in reproductive success among men is greater than that among women. Thus, in comparison to women, intrasexual competition offers men greater reproductive gains from winning and a greater likelihood of total reproductive failure from losing. These circumstances are likely to have produced sexual selection pressures for men to evolve a psychology that makes them more willing than women to undertake risks” (Davies & Shackelford, 2008, p. 268).
Age and physical attractiveness: “Pursuing a mixed reproductive strategy is also expected to offer reproductive advantages for men. Since the viability of a child is best ensured through biparental investment, it follows that while continuing to pursue multiple short-term mates, a man should also be motivated to have at least one long-term mate and to invest in the raising of any children they produce together. In this way, men can increase their reproductive success by best ensuring the viability of some of their offspring, while possibly producing other viable offspring in which they do not invest.
Ancestral men are likely to have increased their inclusive fitness by investing in the children of a long-term partner even if the woman and her relatives has sufficient resources of their own with which to ensure the viability of the child. This is because the process of evolution is essentially competitive in the sense that it operates by selecting or filtering individuals according to their fitness relative to that of others, not according to some absolute level of fitness. Thus, children who receive a greater amount of economic parental investment than other children did are also likely to have relative greater fitness and reproductive success.
In the context of both long-and short-term mating, because men’s fertility exhibits far less variability over the life span than women’s fertility does, men are expected to place a greater emphasis on fertility than are woman. Since women between the onset of puberty and their mid- to-late-20s are most fertile, men are expected to prefer relatively young mates. In addition, as relative youth is indicated by such physical features as skin that is unwrinkled and not sagging, and hair that is not gray, men are expected to find women who possess such features as especially attractive and to be especially desirous of them as mates. This preference not only best ensures that men’s long-term mate is fertile, but it also enables them to best exploit the relatively great reproductive advantage that they gain from having multiple short-term mates. Accordingly, men are expected to place great importance on youth and physical attractiveness in both types of mates” (Davies & Shackelford, 2008, p. 270).
Sexual versus emotional commitment: “The sex difference in the type of parental investment made indicates that there are likely to have evolved additional sex differences in the context of long-term relationships. As women are internally fertilized, men can never be entirely sure that the child to whom their long-term mate gives birth is their own. It follows that, perhaps, the greatest threat to the reproductive success of a man is unknowingly directing his economic investment toward children to whom he is not genetically related because they are the result of his long-term mate being impregnated by another man. A man cuckolded, thus, not only directly furthers the reproductive success of rivals, but also has fewer resources both to invest in children to whom he is genetically related and with which to attract short-term mates. This leads to the expectation that men will have evolved a psychology that causes them to prefer as long-term mates women who indicate that they are not sexually promiscuous and are likely to be sexually faithful to them.
In contrast, perhaps the greatest threat to the reproductive success of a woman is her physiological investment in a child going to waste if the child dies as a result of her long-term mate’s withdrawal of his economic investment and his redirecting of it toward another woman. This leads to the expectation that, as a high level of emotional commitment from a mate is a reliable indicator of a willingness to continually provide resources, women will have evolved a psychology that causes them to prefer as long-term mates, men who indicate that they are emotionally attached to them” (Davies & Shackelford, 2008, p. 272).
Sexual versus emotional jealousy: “When a partner in a long-term relationship commits either a sexual or emotional infidelity, he or she is pursuing a mating strategy by which to increase his or her own reproductive success at the expense of the reproductive success of the other partner. This creates intersexual competition and, therefore, sexual selection pressures of the evolution of sex-differentiated psychological traits that facilitate individuals within one sex in impending attempts by the other sex to commit a romantic or sexual infidelity.
Since men and women differ in whether romantic or sexual infidelity poses the greater threat to their respective reproductive successes, it is expected that there will be divergent sexual selection pressures across the sexes regarding the evolution of psychological traits to prevent romantic infidelity. As a mate’s sexual infidelity poses the greater threat to the reproductive success of a man, men are expected to have evolved a psychology that makes them especially motivated to prevent their partners from being sexually unfaithful. Accordingly, men are hypothesized to be especially likely to experience sexual jealousy, such that they become especially distressed by signs, or actual instances, of their long-term mate being sexually unfaithful to them. In contrast, as a mate’s emotional infidelity poses the greater threat to the reproductive success of a woman, women are expected to have evolved a psychology that makes them especially motivated to prevent their partners from being emotionally unfaithful. Thus, women are hypothesized to be especially likely to experience emotional jealousy, in which they feel especially distressed by signs, or actual instances, of their long-term partner forming an emotional attachment to another woman” (Davies & Shackelford, 2008, pp. 273–274).
In summary, men and women faced different adaptive challenges in ancestral times that led to the development of different gender psychologies. For men, the issue is to find women that are reproductively valuable. Since they want their genes to be replicated in the next generation, they desire to have as much sexual access to fertile women as possible. A chief way of identifying fertile women is through youth and beauty. Furthermore, due to the uncertainties of knowing whether the child of a woman with whom they have had sex is their own, men are motivated to control women’s sexuality.
In the case of women, the major problem they face is to have sufficient resources while they are pregnant and nursing their offspring. The women who survive and whose children prosper are those who successfully solve this problem by finding dependable males that can provide many resources, and food resources, in particular. These reliable men would be ambitious, industrious, have high status, and display willingness to make a long-term commitment to the family. Contrasting psychologies in which men are attracted to physically desirable women and are motivated to control their sexuality, whereas women are attracted to men that provide a reliable supply of resources underlie present day patterns of coupling between men and women (Buss, 1996).
Although these gender preferences for particular qualities in a mate are innately determined, decisions concerning mates are not solely influenced by evolutionary factors. The contribution of evolution is that such mate preferences function as a disposition toward certain behaviors. But social psychological factors also play a role in choices of mates. Similarity in intelligence, interests, and values plus greater familiarity with the partner in some societies can affect the inclination of men to seek attractive women and of women to seek men who command resources (Fernald, 2008). Therefore, evolutionary psychology explains gender differences in personality and attitudes toward mating as the result of evolutionary factors that can be moderated by social and cultural variations.
Using evolutionary psychology to explain male violence
An excellent example of the ways in which evolutionary psychologists explain behavior is that of male violence. Buss maintains that “aggression is not a unitary, monolithic, or context-blind strategy. Rather, aggression is likely to be highly context specific, triggered only in contexts that resemble those in which our ancestors confronted certain adaptive problems and reaped particular benefits” (Buss, 1999a, pp. 283–284). He gives the example of men who batter their spouses as a way to solve the adaptive problem of a woman’s potential infidelity. The reason why men deal with this problem in such an aggressive manner is that the potential for infidelity in their situation is much greater. Such men may have a lower mate value than their wives or have recently lost resources that women value thereby reducing their desirability as mates. We can predict that men under such circumstances are likely to act more aggressively than men whose wives are not as likely to be unfaithful or to exit the relationship.
Buss also emphasizes the need to recognize the costs of aggression when evaluating the adaptive benefits of such behavior. And these vary according to the culture and subculture. In cultures of honor, killing a daughter who has engaged in premarital sex and defiled the family’s honor may enhance the status of the person performing the murder. Among academics though, resorting to violence may lead to ostracism since it violates behavioral norms. An example of a situation where costs are low is when bullies pick on children who cannot or will not retaliate. In such cases, the costs of aggression are generally low, and this heightens the possibility of bullying. The reverse situation is when there are strong males in the family of a married woman. In this context, it is less likely that the husband will engage in domestic violence due to the high possibility of retaliation.
Buss concludes that variability does not supply counterexamples to biological theories and does not provide support for theories based solely on learning. Evolutionary psychology does not have to deal with this issue of biology versus learning because it offers an interactional model in which “aggression is invoked by particular adaptive problems confronted in particular cost-benefit contexts. In principle, the mechanisms producing aggression could remain dormant for the entire life of an individual, if the relevant contexts are not encountered. Aggression, on this account, is based on evolved psychological mechanisms, but is not rigid or invariant and does not get ‘pushed out’ regardless of circumstances” (Buss, 1999a, p. 285).
Malamuth (1996) has made a similar attempt to formulate a comprehensive theory of male sexual aggression against women that combines the influence of evolutionary processes and social learning. In his theory, the mind designed by evolutionary processes is viewed as interacting with the physical environment and the cultures that human minds have themselves produced. Men’s tendency to prefer intercourse with a larger number of sexual partners than women means that men and women have different orientations to impersonal sex. From the evolutionary psychology perspective, ‘the male mind is ‘primed’ by evolution, to a greater degree than the female mind, to engage in impersonal sex that does not involve emotional bonds” (Malamuth, 1996, p. 276). But this orientation toward impersonal sex by itself is not sufficient to account for cases in which males have engaged in sexual violence against women. Obviously, not all males sexually coerce women so it becomes necessary to specify the conditions under which sexual coercion is more likely.
The conditions that lead to sexual aggression against women can be understood by examining proximate causes such as environmental influences in addition to the distal cause of sexuality mechanisms. For evolutionary reasons, men are more likely to have an impersonal attitude toward sex, but this ultimate cause must interact with socialization and learning for sexually aggressive actions such as rape to occur. There is a personality profile of hostile masculinity that develops in males who have experienced hurt and rejection at the hands of women. Such experiences are highly correlated with anger toward women and a desire to dominate them. Thus, hostile masculinity can be divided into two components: “(1) an insecure, defensive, and hostile/distrustful orientation, particularly toward women; and (2) gratification from controlling or dominating women” (Malamuth, 1996, p. 282).
Malamuth (1996) describes the motivations for such actions in terms of power struggles and desire to protect male superiority that resemble feminist accounts. For example, women with sex appeal have power and control that threatens males with a hostile masculinity profile. Sexually coercing such women helps hostile males to reduce the anxiety of potential rejection, while depriving women of the power to choose gives them dominance. By denigrating women, they reduce the power and ability of women to exercise control. In this area of great personal vulnerability, rape also allows the hostile male to feel that he is in charge as he lives up to expectations of male superiority.
The ways in which Buss and Malamuth explain male violence illustrates the point that if we want to understand male and female communication, it is necessary to examine the role of both evolutionary and sociocultural factors that underlie such behavior. Nonetheless, evolutionary psychologists reject explanations of gender differences that emphasize the importance of social roles. Although these feminist explanations are based on the idea that biological and social factors interact with each other as causes of human behavior, evolutionary psychologists do not assign social roles the same level of causal efficacy as feminist theorists. They also believe that biosocial theorists focusing on social roles are correct in their emphasis on biological factors such as hormones but are mistaken in their rejection of the role of evolutionary biology in the explanation of gender differences.
The critique of social role theory by Davies and Shackelford demonstrates the distinct evolutionary psychology perspective on gender differences that is incompatible with the biosocial approach. They criticize biosocial theorists for only recognizing the evolutionary origins of physical differences between the sexes, while failing to note the equally important evolutionary origins of psychological differences between the sexes. “How is it possible that divergent selection pressures across the sexes shaped the formation of the human body but that the formation of the human brain evaded these same divergent selection pressures?” (Davies & Shackelford, 2008, p. 276). They further point out that “in contradiction of the biosocial model but in accordance with the evolutionary psychological model, neuropsychological evidence strongly indicates the existence of sex differences in the design and functioning of the human brain” (Davies & Shackelford, 2008, p. 277).
Biosocial explanation of gender differences
Critics of evolutionary psychology often use anthropological data to raise questions about the vast generalizations that evolutionary psychologists make about human behavior. They ask whether all the different cultural patterns that have been observed by anthropologists can be reduced to one deep structure of thought that reflects our evolutionary adaptation to environmental conditions during the Pleistocene period. From the perspective of anthropologically informed feminists, evolutionary psychologists have taken more recent trends of human thought and behavior within industrial societies and claimed that such patterns derive largely from human nature rather than history and culture. Evolutionary psychologists believe that many of our present behaviors (e.g., behaviors related to sex) were formed during the extremely long hunting and gathering stage of human history. But some scholars familiar with anthropological evidence deny that our biological evolution as a species has largely made us who we are (McKinnon, 2005).
Social structural view of patriarchy
The research on foraging societies in which the economy is centered on hunting and gathering societies is open to alternative explanations. One-third of the foraging societies that have been observed are distinguished by approximate equality, including equal gender relations. These non-patriarchal societies have patterns of complementary equality in which male dominance in one area is offset by female dominance in another area. The definition of an egalitarian society is that its members have individual freedom and equal opportunity to gain resources and power. Based on this definition, the anthropological evidence shows that there are societies without gender hierarchies. As a result, patriarchy is not universal, even though it prevails in the vast majority of societies (Wood & Eagly, 2002).
The biosocial position maintains that differences between the sexes are partially the result of anatomical differences in the sexes, and particularly the fact that females are the childbearing sex. These biological differences interact with economic and social structural features of societies. “Physical sex differences, in interaction with social and ecological conditions, influence the roles held by men and women because certain activities are more efficiently accomplished by one sex. It can thus be easier for one sex rather than the other to perform certain activities of daily life under given conditions. The benefits of this greater efficiency emerge because men and women are allied in complementary relationships in societies and engage in a division of labor (Wood & Eagly, 2002, p. 702).” Biosocial theorists see social roles as the proximate or immediate causes of men’s and women’s behavior, while they locate the distal or ultimate causes of such behavior in biology and social structure.
From the biosocial perspective, women’s reproductive activities and men’s strength and size have effects that can be predicted on the basis of social, economic, and ecological conditions. The effects of physical sexual differences are either enhanced or diminished, depending on social, economic, and ecological factors. There is evidence from the cross-cultural literature that the division of labor based on sex is universal. In this division of labor, most tasks are largely performed by one or the other sex within a particular society. For most tasks, though, there is considerable variability regarding which sex performs the task and much flexibility in economic roles across cultures. The only activities that men predominantly or exclusively perform are hunting of large animals, mining, lumbering, and clearing land. Women largely or exclusively carry out only the economic roles of cooking, preparing vegetables, and getting water.
In Buss’s account, there is no contradiction between the universality of patriarchy and the fact that women in some hunter-gatherer societies contribute 60 to 80% of the calories through their searching out food. But feminist theorists draw far different conclusions than Buss concerning this fact. McKinnon analyzes the !Kung San society of the Kalahari, where women provide the vegetables that are the staple of the diet. Since the meat acquired through men’s hunting is only sporadically available, the family would not survive without the women’s steady food contributions. And most importantly, these women have control over the resources that they themselves have gained. Clearly, this instance of female control over food resources contradicts the evolutionary psychologists’ claim that women are everywhere dependent upon the resources of men in order to sustain their lives (McKinnon, 2005).
A broader view of what such nonpatriarchal societies are like is available from an account of the Vanatinai, a small hunting and gathering island society in the South Pacific. The Vanatinai do not believe in male superiority, and men have no formal authority or power over women. Physical violence is heavily frowned upon and rarely occurs. “The matrilineal kinship structure of this society gives women considerable access to material resources and significant participation in activities that are economically and ritually important. The bilocal residence pattern of this group, by which couples and their children alternate their residence between the hamlets of the wife’s and husband’s families, give both sexes sources of social and kin support. Although there are no chiefs with formal authority, both sexes have access to a ‘big man’ or ‘big woman’ role of gia, which confers informal authority and influence (Wood & Eagly, 2002, p. 711).”
In light of the anthropological evidence, Wood and Eagly conclude that women are likely to have higher status in societies in which they make contributions to the market economy. In societies where they only contribute to the domestic economy, their status tends to be low. They also note that anthropologists point to four key factors that are associated with strongly patriarchal societies: the prevalence of warfare, the development of agriculture, advances in technology, and control of women’s sexuality. Women’s reproductive activities plus men’s greater physical strength enabled men to play a more central role in the production of food and goods in societies that no longer rely mainly on hunting and gathering for subsistence. The same holds true for warfare (Wood & Eagly, 2002).
In the biosocial perspective, the various aspects of patriarchy such as male control over female sexuality, the double standard, male concern over paternity certainty, and expressions of sexual jealousy are products of particular historical circumstances. For example, sexual control and anxiety over paternity uncertainty only become an issue when certain socioeconomic structures come into existence. Child bearing has economic importance for men only after social practices develop that equate children with property. And such practices emerge with the introduction of intensive agriculture, the development of the institution of private property, technological progress, and greater social stratification. In particular, “paternity certainty acquires economic impact when property is inherited through male lines, and control over women’s sexuality becomes one way for men to ensure such certainty and consequent economic advantage” (Wood & Eagly, 2002, p. 715).
The distinctive feature of the biosocial approach is that it refers to biological conditions such as women’s childbearing ability and smaller size and less physical strength for its explanation of women’s oppression without claiming that biology largely accounts for social life. Instead, biosocial theorists use biology as a foundation from which to explain why particular social structures led to women’s inequality. They follow Engels in attributing the defeat of women and loss of power historically to the rise in large-scale agriculture and the introduction of private property, while using differences in biology to explain why such results occurred.
The biosocial perspective refers to distal causes in order to explain the relatively high incidence of male domination among the different societies of the world. It provides an alternative explanation for observed gender differences in behavior to the evolutionary psychology explanation based on genetic adaptations to an ancestral environment. From the biosocial perspective, historic changes that took place in the economic structure of society account for the establishment of patriarchy. The claim of evolutionary psychologists that all societies are patriarchal is demonstrably false when we examine the evidence from anthropological accounts. The situation of women is relative to the economic relations and social roles that have been institutionalized within particular societies. Biology should only be invoked to explain why there are no existing societies dominated by women and why the large majority of societies are oppressive toward women.
Buss contrasts the evolutionary meta-theory of gender difference with that of the biosocial theory. For example, the evolutionary meta-theory of gender differences postulates that women and men differ in the basic architecture of their evolved psychology around adaptive solutions to gender-differentiated problems of mating. The “biosocial theory” allows for evolved physical differences, which then society acts upon to assign social roles, and assumes that the underlying evolved psychological architecture of mating is fundamentally sexually monomorphic.
Social role theory
Wood and Eagly are feminist theorists that take a biosocial position on gender differences. They maintain that the distal causes of gender differences are the biological divergences between men and women that produced the sexual division of labor and led to gender inequality. To explain why most men and women behave differently in all societies, they invoke social role theory. Social role theory enables them to show the origin of the gender differences that account for male and female psychologies of mate selection.
What gender roles are and what they do: Wood and Eagly provide an overview of the origin, development, and persistence of gender differences. “Gender role beliefs arise from the specific social roles occupied by women and men — that is, from the division of labor in society. Most social behavior is embedded in the performance of specific roles, and gender roles serve as a backdrop that pervades the performance of such specific roles. Because in all cultures women and men tend to specialize in different behaviors, people have different beliefs about what each sex can and should do. These beliefs constitute socially shared stereotypes within a society. In essence, gender roles are reflected in a society’s stereotypes about men and women. Thus, women may be viewed as kind and compassionate and men as bold and fearless. Gender stereotypes might also include specific skills, such as women having the ability to weave baskets and men to tend crops, or vice versa” (Wood and Eagly, 2010, pp. 631–632).
What then do gender roles do? “Gender roles specify what men and women usually do and what they should do — that is, roles are descriptive and prescriptive. The descriptive aspect of gender roles indicates what is typical for each sex. People rely on this descriptive information when they are concerned about what is normal for their sex. Especially if a situation is ambiguous or confusing, people tend to enact sex–typical behaviors. The prescriptive aspect of gender roles describes what is desirable and admirable for each sex. People rely on this prescriptive information when they are motivated to gain social approval or to bolster their own esteem” (Wood & Eagly, 2010, p. 632).
Gender beliefs and stereotypes: For Wood and Eagly, research tells us about the gender beliefs that people usually have about men and women. “Most people’s beliefs about men and women can be summarized in two dimensions, which are most often labeled agency, or self — assertion, and communion, or connection with others. These basic dimensions, in various forms, underlie people’s beliefs about different social groups. Men, more than women, are thought to be agentic — that is, masterful, assertive, competitive, and dominant. Women, more than men, are thought to be communal — that is, friendly, unselfish, concerned with others, and emotionally expressive. The expressiveness accorded to women extends to a range of emotions, including sadness, embarrassment, fear, distress, sympathy, love, and happiness, but not to anger and pride, which are ascribed more to men than to women” (Wood & Eagly, 2010, p. 632).
Gender stereotypes, however, involve much more than just agency and communion. “People also take into account contrasting features of male and female bodies. They regard men as muscular, strong, and tall and women as pretty, sexy, and petite. With respect to the mind, intellectual ability is regarded as having subtly different contours in women and men, with women being more creative and verbally skilled and men more analytical and quantitatively skilled. Sheer intelligence is ascribed somewhat more to women than men in contemporary U.S. representative surveys, as opposed to the earlier tendency to ascribe greater intelligence to men” (Wood & Eagly, 2010, p. 632).
The common perceptions of gender roles and the stereotypes they lead to are the deeply rooted products of the division of labor within a society. Since people see men and women involved in different pursuits and behaviors, they develop ideas about the qualities of women and men and about their personality traits, in particular. They move from their observations of actual behaviors to ideas about personal qualities by first assuming that people’s behaviors reflect their intrinsic characteristics. This is a cognitive process in which traits are inferred from observations of behavior. This process is called correspondent inference or correspondence bias. “For example, on observing an act of kindness, perceivers automatically identify the behavior in trait terms and characterize the actor by the trait that is implied — as a nice, caring person. By making this inference, people commit the fundamental attribution error by assuming that people are what they do. This process is widespread and largely spontaneous. From observations of individuals, perceivers then generalize to the traits of entire groups of people — that is, to group stereotypes” (Wood & Eagly, 2010, p. 633).
Gender stereotypes are based on observations that arise from the division of labor between largely female domestic work and largely male wage labor. As a result, people often see women and men doing different things. “They tend to see women engaged in supportive, nurturing behaviors in their domestic role and in occupations (e.g., teacher and nurse) that emphasize communal characteristics. Also, people tend to see men in family roles of provider and head of household, as well as in certain occupations that foster assertive, task — oriented behaviors. Additionally important are indirect observations provided by media portrayals and cultural lore. Given repeated observations of men and women engaging in different types of behaviors, gender roles effortlessly emerge” (Wood & Eagly, 2010, p. 633).
When male and female roles are observed, some social psychologists maintain that the key difference between them is that of social status. “People often observe men in higher — status roles and women in lower — status ones — for example, male executives interacting with female secretaries and clerks. Accordingly, perceivers infer that men have the correspondent attributes of competitiveness and agency and women have the attributes of compliance and supportiveness. However, status is more strongly related to agency than to communion and thus is more suited to explaining stereotypes of men. The perception that women are communal can be traced largely to their cooperative interdependence with other groups. These helpful and supportive social relationships underlie the ‘women are wonderful’ effect, whereby the female stereotype is often more favorable than the male stereotype” (Wood & Eagly, 2010, pp. 633–634).
Accuracy of gender stereotypes: “Are gender stereotypes accurate? Yes and no. To the extent that stereotypes are grounded in reality, they inevitably possess a kernel of truth. People’s frequent observations of male and female behavior provide myriad opportunities to correct biased beliefs. Moreover, categorizing people as female and male would not be useful unless the meanings associated with the categories were at least broadly accurate. But saying ‘yes, stereotypes are accurate on average,’ could mean ‘no’ for any specific instance. An intelligent answer separates the accuracy of beliefs about a category from those about individual category members. Beliefs about groups may be quite accurate based on group averages (e.g., men like to shop for tools) but inaccurate when applied to individuals within the groups (e.g., Steve is a man, so he will enjoy tool shopping). For people not typical of their sex, stereotypical judgments are necessarily inaccurate” (Wood & Eagly, 2010, p ).
Gender stereotypes about the sexes can be related to the sex differences and similarities that research has established. “Participants’ beliefs about the direction and magnitude of sex differences are moderately correlated with the findings of meta–analyses of studies that compared the sexes on a range of personality traits, abilities, and social behaviors. For example, people believe that women smile more than men, and research has found this to be a sex difference. Also suggesting accuracy, gender stereotypical beliefs were correlated with men’s and women’s experiences of the emotions of anger, fear, love, joy, and sadness. In addition, people can successfully estimate the social attitudes held by men and women on various topics” (Wood & Eagly, 2010, p. 634).
There is evidence that stereotypes have a considerable kernel of truth. But this correspondence between gender stereotypes at the group level and social reality does not imply that these stereotypes play a positive role in our lives. Since stereotypes limit our behavior and provide a rationale for criticizing those who behave differently, they restrict our freedom of action and reinforce traditional ways of life. “Gender stereotypes derive from observing women and men enacting a division of labor and in turn hold people into the very roles that make up the division of labor” (Wood & Eagly, 2010, p. 635).
The social role theory utilized by Wood and Eagly helps to make a point emphasized by many feminist theorists. Gender differences in society are not the outcome of differences between the sexes that exist in nature. Biological differences have enabled men to organize the vast majority of societies on the basis of gender hierarchies that give them power and control over resources. Nevertheless, the social roles that reflect these gender hierarchies are produced by culture rather than by nature. We have a choice concerning the type of society we prefer, and there are no inherent differences between the sexes other than hormonal ones that serve as justification for social roles that are organized according to a gender hierarchy.
In fact, recent changes in the division of labor and the gender hierarchy have altered social expectations about the behavior of men and women. Higher rates of female employment in many societies have led to a redefinition of the standards of appropriate behavior for men and women. Inasmuch as women’s social roles are becoming closer to those of men, women are showing greater tendencies to take risks and to assert themselves (traditionally male forms of behavior). These changes can be viewed as the result of women’s increased participation in the labor force and less concentration on child care and home-making (Eagly, et al., 2004).
Wood and Eagly also have a reply to evolutionary psychologists who believe that sexual selection pressures are the causes of sex differences in both human psychology and physical attributes. In their view, comparative research with primates leads to a different conclusion. When we examine other anthropoid primate species, we find that the differences in body weight and the size and shape of teeth between men and women are fairly small. In all primate species large physical differences between male and female correspond with polygynous mating and male — male competition, yet such sex differences among humans are low. In species like humans with small physical differences between the sexes, there are a variety of ways of mating and different levels of competition. Therefore, it appears that such small differences in humans do not imply that sexual selection accounts for specific human physical or psychological characteristics. Also undermining sexual selection accounts is evidence that both size and canine dimorphism were likely influenced by selection of females, as well as males. They conclude that “the distal, evolutionary causes of male and female psychology lie in the ways that men’s physical attributes and women’s reproductive activities interact with sociocultural conditions. As we have argued, the resulting division of labor and associated gender role beliefs in turn frame the interactions among hormonal processes, self-regulatory mechanisms, and social expectations that produce sex differences in behavior” (Wood & Eagly, 2010, p. 650).
Evolutionary psychology and workplace equality
The social sciences tend to view differences between the sexes as the result of the ways in which humans have organized their societies. In other words, gender differences are social constructions. But evolutionary psychologists believe that evidence from evolutionary biology and psychology demonstrates that physical and mental sexual differences are the outcome of selection pressures that humans experienced in ancestral times. This was the era in which human biological evolution largely occurred. For evolutionary psychologists, the division of labor between the sexes is a cultural universal that is partly the result of biological differences between the sexes.
This position does not imply that cultural factors play no role in influencing male and female behavior within human societies. But evolutionary psychologists that write on workplace issues such as Kingsley Browne place importance on the role of sexual selection in producing sexual differences in behavior. For them, the impact of biology places limits on the plasticity and malleability of human nature. While Browne acknowledges that cultural changes affecting gender roles are taking place, these departures from traditional sex roles have not been complete and are likely to remain less than sweeping. “Women are sparsely represented at the highest levels of corporate hierarchies; many jobs continue to be largely sex-segregated; and female employees earn, on average, less than men” (Browne, 2002, p. 1). The implications for policy decisions are that government should not attempt to impose requirements of gender equality in areas where sexual differences make similar behavior on the part of men and women unlikely.
The glass ceiling
“The relatively low representation of women at the highest level of corporate (and other) hierarchies is commonly attributed to invisible barriers that impede their progress. The glass-ceiling metaphor results in a search for causes within institutions, but a full understanding of the statistical pattern requires an understanding of the psychology of individuals as well.
Successful executives of both sexes are characterized by a constellation of stereotypically male traits such as competitiveness, assertiveness, and willingness to take risks. Indeed, willingness to take moderate risks (in both performance of the job and acceptance of assignments) appears to be a primary determinant of success. Men often view risk as opportunity, while women are more likely to view it as danger.
Women are disproportionately represented in positions from which ascension to the corporate boardroom is less likely. They are more likely than men to work in the public and nonprofit sectors, and even within the private sector they are more likely to hold staff jobs, such as public relations, than line jobs, such as running a plant.
Achievement of the highest positions typically takes decades of single-minded devotion to career, including long hours and frequent relocations. Men are, on average, more willing than women to make such an investment in part because they tend to value the fruits of that investment more. Nonetheless, most men who desire such positions, like their female counterparts, fail to obtain them. Among the self-employed, where women create their own environments rather than having to work within a corporation, even greater sex differences in hours worked and in compensation exist than are found among employed women.
The impact of families on women’s representation at the highest levels is substantial, but commonly blamed factors such as inadequate day care are not likely explanations for the withdrawal of so many women from the executive track. Despite their ability to purchase child care, many find that a high-powered career is incompatible with the level of involvement with their children that they desire” (Browne, 2002, p. 35).
Occupational segregation
“Although many previously male occupations have been integrated — indeed some have gone from being predominantly male to predominantly female — some scientific fields and many blue-collar occupations remain stubbornly male. Although discrimination is often blamed, it is usually simply assumed from the existence of the disparities. Moreover, invocation of sexism and discrimination does not explain why physics and firefighting have remained mostly male, while biology and law have not.
A full understanding of occupational patterns requires a consideration of the intersection of cognitive abilities and occupational interests. The male advantage in spatial, mathematical, and mechanical pursuits, coupled with occupational interests oriented toward “things,” inclines men in different directions from women, with their advantage in some verbal pursuits and their more social orientation.
Female participation in some fields declines as they progress through the educational system. Boys and girls participate approximately equally in math and science classes through high school. With increasing educational level, female participation in fields such as physics and mathematics declines. The two most influential factors leading to the varying representation of women in science at the doctoral level are the math-intensiveness of the field and the extent of the field’s social dimension, a pattern that holds even within disciplines.
Blue-collar occupations have remained even more stubbornly male than the sciences. The primary reason is the very large sex difference on the ‘Realistic’ occupational dimension, which taps an interest in building, repairing, and working outdoors. Large sex differences in mechanical ability and physical strength also contribute to the disparity.
Many blue-collar jobs have attributes that women tend disproportionately not to like. They often have fixed hours (perhaps entailing shift work) and they tend to have worse working conditions than white-collar jobs. Many blue-collar jobs are physically dangerous, as well, and the most dangerous of them are overwhelmingly male.
Existing occupational patterns will change even if men and women do not, as job demands change over time. Strength will become less important in many jobs, and computerization of production processes may mean that more-skilled women will take the position of less-skilled men” (Browne, 2002, pp. 50–51).
The gender gap in compensation
“The average full-time female employee has approximately three-quarters the earnings of a full-time male employee. Few students of this ‘gender gap’ believe that most of it is due to employers’ paying women less than men for performing the same work.
Most of the contributors to the wage gap are unsurprising. Men tend to have more job-related education, training, and experience, and they tend to work substantially more hours than women, even within occupational categories. Greater mathematical ability — disproportionately possessed by men — also adds value in today’s workplace.
Men and women tend to value different attributes of jobs, with men attaching more importance to financial success and women attaching more importance to helping others. Women place more weight on having flexible hours, shorter commutes, pleasant physical surroundings, and safe working conditions. Because an employer must generally pay employees more to do risky and unpleasant work than safe and pleasant work, these differences in preferences have economic consequences. Women also appear less likely to seek out and possess information relevant to the bargaining process.
Like the glass ceiling, much of the wage gap is an effect of marriage and families. Single women without children have earnings roughly comparable to single men, but married women with children earn only about 60 percent of married men’s pay. Thus, the primary gap is not between men and women but rather between women with children and everybody else. Mothers, on average, work fewer hours and have more and longer extended absences from the labor force. Unlike women, men tend to work longer hours after becoming parents.
The wage gap will continue to close if women’s work-force behavior increasingly resembles men’s, although there is reason to doubt that it will disappear. It is questionable, however, whether equalization of earnings of men and women is a sensible policy goal, as long as women tend to trade higher pay for shorter hours, lower risks, and more pleasant working conditions” (Browne, 2002, p. 68).
Conclusion
In Browne’s evolutionary psychology perspective, the glass ceiling, occupational segregation, and the gender gap in compensation cannot be largely attributed to gender discrimination or male abuse of power. To accurately understand such phenomena, we must invoke sexual differences in temperament and cognition. And public policy should be based on an accurate knowledge of the causes of such workplace patterns.
The implication of Browne’s position is not that women are inherently unequal. He does not think that the acknowledgement of sexual differences leads to an endorsement of subordinate status for women. He states: “It would be a mistake to interpret average temperamental or cognitive sex differences as limitations on the potential of individual girls and women” (Browne, 2002, p. 215). This means that since men and women seek different workplace rewards, their preferences and abilities will lead to different behaviors and outcomes on the job. Women dislike dirty and dangerous jobs, prefer less competition and risk than men, and give greater relative importance to family and to nurturance. As long as it is a matter of preference and choice, we can expect that men will attain most of the higher positions in the work hierarchy as long as many years of intense dedication to one’s profession are qualifications for such rewards.
For Browne, this conclusion is unpalatable only if we believe that women’s actual choices in the workplace are less than optimal and have been imposed on them by a variety of social forces in a patriarchal order. But if we believe that women have agency and are able to make good use of their freedom to choose, then we must accept that their choices are rational and responsible and reflect their temperaments, abilities, and wishes. The present distribution of rewards in the workplace is the cumulative result of millions of individual choices made by men and women in systematically different ways due to their sexually distinctive mentalities. As long as there is equal opportunity, the difference in outcomes is not unfair. Both sexes are getting what they want. Men are more willing than women to accept the trade-offs that go with the achievement of higher-status positions: longer hours, greater emphasis on work, and willingness to do certain types of jobs. Therefore, what takes place in the employment market is more a matter of choice than a reflection of gender discrimination (Browne, 2002).
A feminist position on workplace equality
Alice Eagly and Linda Carli are leading feminist advocates for workplace equality. From a biosocial perspective, they use social role theory to carry out their analysis. They have no doubt that a problem exists concerning women in leadership positions. Although women have made much progress in the workforce and women managers are more than 40% of the total in the United States), they are rarely among the top executives of Fortune 500 companies. Women comprise only 6% of these highest-paid executives. And women are only 2% of the CEOs, and only 15% of the members of the boards of directors (Eagly & Carli, 2007b).
With regard to the highest levels of corporate management, we can ask why there are so few women. The answer commonly put forward in the 1980s and 1990s was the existence of a glass ceiling. But Eagly and Carli do not think this answer is still appropriate. “Prejudice and discrimination that slow and sometimes completely block women’s advancement have surely not disappeared, but the idea of a glass ceiling with its portrayal of inflexible limits, has lingered too long. The facts demand a new image” (Eagly & Carli, 2007a, p. 1).
In place of the glass ceiling, the authors propose the image of a labyrinth. These days, exclusionary laws against women are few. Moreover, it is considered sexist to hold negative images of powerful women and to hold beliefs that women cannot lead because they reproduce. Yet barriers remain — whether they are fuzzy ideas about gender differences or differences in household responsibilities between men and women. Thus, there are discriminatory obstacles that women who seek leadership roles often encounter. But they can be surmounted by women with great skills or by women with much luck. These women negotiate the paths of the labyrinth to positions of power and prestige, and they may do so by finding “roundabout or discontinuous or nontraditional routes to authority” (Eagly & Carli, 2007a, p.8).
Eagly and Carli take a feminist position, since they refer to discrimination as one of the major barriers to women’s advancement in their professional endeavors. Their analysis of such discrimination is largely structural, inasmuch as they do not invoke prejudice at the individual level as a major obstacle.
Their case for the reality of gender discrimination in the workplace is based on the fact that men as a group have the advantage of higher wages and faster promotions. Comprehensive survey research carried out by the U.S. Government Accountability Office from 1983 to 2000 showed that women earned 44% less than men averaged out over that period. If variables that affect earnings such as education and job experience are controlled for, the gap is reduced by about half but nevertheless remains substantial. Other studies have shown that men are promoted more quickly than women in situations where qualifications are equal. Clearly, the problem is not best described in terms of a glass ceiling, because women are disadvantaged at every level of employment in their possibilities for advancement (Eagly & Carli, 2007b).
In their analysis, Eagly and Carli focus on four aspects of structural discrimination: resistance to women’s leadership, issues of leadership style, demands of family life, and underinvestment in social capital.
Resistance to women’s leadership
Simply put, there are some widely shared associations about gender and leadership, many of them unconscious. As social role theory shows, people associate men and women with different personal characteristics. They believe that men have more of the qualities that are required of leaders. A long history of males in leadership roles makes it difficult to separate male qualities from the qualities of a leader. Men are associated more with agentic qualities such as self-reliance and individualism as well as with being more aggressive, dominant, confident, and ambitious. And these are the traits that have been historically associated with leaders. In contrast, women are linked more with communal qualities that emphasize compassion for others and being interpersonally sensitive, helpful, kind, and sympathetic.
Many studies have shown that women leaders often get caught in a bind. If they are forceful and self-promoting, then they are criticized for lacking communal qualities, whereas if they are modest, warm, and considerate, then they are viewed as deficient in agency. What may come to mind when a person encounters a woman in a leadership position is the idea that for the woman to be so effective, she cannot be very likeable or nice. In the case of effective male leaders, such associations are not so likely to come to mind (Eagly & Carli, 2007b).
Issues of leadership style
In order to deal with the dilemmas faced by women leaders over their personal qualities, women may try to combine or balance the communal qualities that people prefer in women with the agentic qualities that people expect in leaders. It is difficult to achieve this kind of balance while appearing authentic as a leader. According to research, there does appear to be a distinct female leadership style. Compared to men, women give more encouragement and support to subordinates and do more rewarding when subordinates achieved objectives. This approach reflects a transformational leadership style. Men did more correcting and disciplining when subordinates failed to meet objectives (transactional style), but were also more likely to avoid responsibility for managing (laissez-faire style). The transformational leadership style is considered superior followed by the transactional and then the laissez-faire ones. Based on this standard, women’s leadership styles are closer to the ideal than men’s (Eagly & Carli, 2007b).
Demands of family life
Women still do more part-time work, take more days off, and interrupt their careers more often than men. They also feel the pressure of family responsibilities more than men. The result is less overall job experience and less hours of work each year. In 2005, married men averaged 11 hours of housework a week, but women averaged 19 hours. So there is a great imbalance here. And even when women do have assistance for child care from husband, family members, or paid workers, employers may assume that they will be unable to devote themselves to their job to the same degree as men (Eagly & Carli, 2007b).
Underinvestment in social capital
The difficulty for many women of balancing work and family leads to a lack of time for socializing and for building the professional networks so necessary for advancement at work. Or if they are able to devote the time to networking, their status as a small minority may make it difficult to break into and benefit from such networks. One problem is that such network meetings may revolve around typically masculine pursuits such as football, hunting, or going to strip clubs (Eagly & Carli, 2007b).
Successful management interventions
For women leaders to make it through the labyrinth, they must deal with prejudices that favor men, confront resistance to women’s leadership, and find a way to balance work and family life. It is understandable that not many women have responded in just the right way that leads to the assumption of power and authority. What needs to be done according to Eagly and Carli is that organizations need to take action in order to bring more women into its top management. It is a long list. They should make people more aware of the psychology of prejudice against women leaders, make long hours no longer the norm, make performance evaluation explicit and limit the influence of decision-maker bias, recruit openly and publicly rather than rely on informal social networks and referrals to find suitable candidates for jobs, go beyond tokenism by making sure that there is a critical mass of women in executive positions, don’t have just one female member of a team, help women to build up their social capital, give women the demanding assignments that prepare them for top leadership positions, introduce human resources practices that are family-friendly, give parents with large family responsibilities more time to demonstrate their ability to assume high positions, welcome back women with great skills who had to interrupt their career, have males participate more in family-friendly benefits like parental leave and part-time work so that women alone do not use such benefits (Eagly & Carli, 2007b).
Critique of evolutionary psychology theory of male leadership
Eagly and Carli reject the evolutionary psychology position that male psychology is more suitable for leadership due to the natural male proclivities for dominant and competitive behavior. We have already discussed the biosocial approach to gender differences based on social role theory. But it is important to note that Eagly and Carli do accept the idea of gender differences in personality. And they agree with evolutionary psychologists that personality matters for leadership. In fact, they even recognize that biological factors play a role in personality and leadership. In their view, research shows that genetic factors account for one-third of the variation in who achieves leadership roles, while environmental factors account for the other two-thirds of the variation.
More important, though, is the question of which personality traits make good leaders. Eagly and Carli point out that general intelligence is required for leadership but it must be supplemented by qualities of personality. The Big Five personality traits are neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. Among these traits, extraversion corresponds most closely with leadership abilities. Yet, openness to experience also counts due to its association with creativity. And conscientiousness means the ability to complete projects, another necessary quality for leaders.
Are men or women then better suited in general for assuming positions of leadership? The assumption of evolutionary psychologists that men are better equipped by evolution to be leaders is not borne out by evidence. First of all, men and women are equal in general intelligence. Next, extraversion is basically the same in men and women, although differences exist in the components of extraversion. Men are more assertive and greater excitement seekers, whereas women are warmer, have more positive emotions, are friendlier, and more active. The other two personality traits that have a positive impact on leadership abilities, openness to experience and conscientiousness, likewise show a mixture of sex differences in relation to their components. “In summary, comparisons of men and women on extraversion, openness to experience, and conscientiousness — the Big Five traits that most promote leadership — indicate a rough gender balance” (Eagly & Carli, 2007a, p. 45).
The arguments that aggressiveness and dominance are central to leadership are out of date. At present, the old command and control model has given way to one in which the new leader influences and persuades, motivates and engages. Under such conditions, women are not at a disadvantage. Actually, an androgynous blend of personality appears to be most suitable for effective leadership. In other words, both masculine and feminine traits enhance leadership effectiveness, and people with extremely masculine or feminine personalities are less appropriate for leadership roles in today’s organizational environment (Eagly & Carli, 2007a).
Evolutionary psychology on the problem of gender equality and progress
Steven Pinker (2002) distinguishes between two visions of human nature, the tragic and the utopian. “In the Tragic Vision, humans are inherently limited in knowledge, wisdom, and virtue, and all social arrangements must acknowledge those limits” (Pinker, 2002, p. 287). The realism of the tragic outlook is offset by the idealism of the utopian mentality. “In the Utopian Vision, psychological limitations are artifacts that come from our social arrangements, and we should not allow them to restrict our gaze from what is possible in a better world (Pinker, 2002, p. 287).” Radical feminists clearly fall into the camp of the utopian vision, whereas evolutionary psychologists, in Pinker’s view, are located within the camp of those who uphold a tragic vision. But he does not believe that similarities between the tragic vision and the outlook of evolutionary psychology force evolutionary psychologists into upholding an antifeminist ideology.
Pinker goes on to note that in the Tragic Vision, our ethical sensibilities are considered an overlay on a fundamentally selfish human nature that is concerned with one’s own well-being. From the tragic perspective, since human nature does not change, what has been handed down over the generations is of great value and should not be lightly discarded. A perfect society in which all social problems have been solved is not possible, because there are always trade-offs where one person’s gain is another person’s loss. The Utopian Vision takes the opposite position on these issues. From the utopian perspective, human nature changes as societies change. Tradition and the wisdom of the past must not be blindly accepted. Rather, they should be rationally evaluated with reference to ethical criteria so that injustice and suffering can be minimized. People should not resign themselves to the existing evil in the world, and they should root out practices such as slavery, war, authoritarian government, and patriarchy that harm human beings and cause them unnecessary suffering.
The conclusion that Pinker draws from his examination of ideological visions in the light of evolutionary psychology and what he calls the “new sciences of human nature” is that a version of the Tragic Vision is vindicated and the Utopian Vision is undermined. But this does not mean that evolutionary psychologists believe that no social change is possible. In fact, Pinker makes the important claim there is “no incompatibility between the principles of feminism and the possibility that men and women are not psychologically identical” (Pinker, 2002, p. 340). For him, equality does not mean that men and women are psychologically alike. In his view, equality is the “moral principle that individuals should not be judged or constrained by the average properties of their group” (Pinker, 2002, p. 340). Consequently, gender equality does not require that the sexes be indistinguishable, and gender discrimination cannot be justified by invoking sex differences.
Pinker supports liberal feminism or what has also been termed “equity feminism.” Equity feminism is opposed to gender feminism that assumes a radical feminist outlook. Equity feminism focuses on unfairness and discrimination against women and can be regarded as part of the liberal and humanist tradition that came out of the Enlightenment. It is based on a moral stance and takes no position on issues of biology and psychology in cases where sufficient evidence is lacking. Gender feminism, however, views women as enslaved by a system of male dominance that socializes women to be subordinate. It assumes that differences between male and females are socially constructed, that power is the single motive governing the dynamics of social life, and that human interactions are the result of motives exercised at the group rather than the individual level (e.g., the gender group of males dominating the group of females).
It is clear to Pinker that the claims of radical and gender feminists are empirically false. But he believes that the position of equity feminists has much in its favor, especially its open-minded stance toward empirical issues of biology and psychology. After reviewing the evidence about sex differences, he concludes that social constructionists are mistaken. Moreover, he reiterates that the factual situation regarding sex differences has no bearing on the way the sexes should be treated from a moral perspective. “Of course, just because many sex differences are rooted in biology does not mean that one sex is superior, that the differences will emerge for all people in all circumstances, that discrimination based on sex is justified, or that people should be coerced into doing things typical of their sex” (Pinker, 2002, pp. 350–351).
Differences between evolutionary psychology and feminism
The differences between the outlooks of the two theoretical positions are considerable. There are practical consequences of these differences as well. Most feminists, whether feminist anthropologists or biosocial theorists, place greater importance on environmental influences of human behavior than on the role of biology. Their desire to tame the oppressive exercise of male power leads them to support social change and the weakening of patriarchal structures. In contrast, some evolutionary psychologists criticize attempts to bring about changes in the social order that they believe are in conflict with human nature. Thus, feminists are generally more optimistic about human nature and thereby more likely to advocate social change, the abandonment of the status quo, and the need to rethink gender relations. On the other hand, evolutionary psychologists are more likely to believe that the current state of gender relations is in harmony with human nature.
Nevertheless, there are several counterclaims made by evolutionary psychologists that need to be addressed. For example, some say evolutionary psychologists are usually politically progressive and just as progressive or liberal as people who are not evolutionary psychologists. This claim may be valid, but evolutionary psychologists on the whole are more conservative in their political and cultural values than feminists tend to be. Eagly and Carli are not radical feminists, but they strongly oppose Browne’s attempt to justify the current state of affairs in the workplace as largely the outcome of human nature. Evolutionary psychologists may generally oppose racism, sexism, and all forms of oppression, but they often conceptualize oppression and inequality differently than feminists. Since they believe that biological differences between men and women make it unlikely that men and women will be equally represented in all jobs and will have equal incomes, they alter the definition of equality. For example, Browne criticizes the feminist insistence on equality of results which he unfavorably contrasts with the notion of equal opportunity. That is to say, he argues that men and women do not have to be the same in order to be equal. They only need to have the same freedom to choose their own path in life.
A variation on this theme is that feminist biosocial theorists do not believe that psychological sameness exists between males and females. However, they uphold the need to eliminate discrimination in order to bring about equality of results in the workplace. They argue, unlike Browne, that the qualities of women (mostly the outcome of environmental factors) do not put women at a disadvantage in today’s workplace. Consequently, the current inequality of workplace results can be attributed to discrimination to a considerable degree.
Buss attempts to meet some of the feminist criticisms of evolutionary psychology on the question of patriarchy by viewing men’s competitive strategies and women’s mate preferences as having co-evolved. Women were not the passive victims of male efforts to monopolize resources. Rather, male and female actions reflect the co-evolution of patriarchy. As Buss is aware, attributing equal responsibility to both sexes for the creation of patriarchy appears to be blaming the victim. And the implication of Buss’s evolutionary account is that the present unequal distribution of resources reflects human nature, because the same differential gender psychologies that led to patriarchy are still in operation today.
Yet, Buss also maintains that such evolutionary analysis neither leads to the denial of sexism nor a belief in the inevitability of patriarchy. “This analysis of resource inequality does not deny the existence of other contributing causes such as the sexist practice of giving women and men unequal pay for the same work. Nor does this analysis imply that men’s greater control of resources is inevitable or justifiable” (Buss, 1996, p. 309). Therefore, it is possible that an evolutionary psychologist might advocate that men and women should have equal representation in a particular area for non-scientific reasons. In fact, Baron-Cohen, a theorist and researcher of sex differences in the brain, states that it may be desirable to bring about such equal outcomes through social policy. He thinks research shows that male brains are more suitable for math and physics, but social policy should make possible a relatively equal number of men and women in these areas (Baron-Cohen, 2007).
In any case, evolutionary psychologists give discrimination and sexism much less importance as sources for current gender differences within society than feminists. For example, Buss believes that it makes more sense to see media messages as exploiting the psychological mechanisms of the respective sexes than to see them as contributors to male victimization of females. The valorization of male aggression and the negative view of female aggression in the media reflect the actual psychology of men and women; they do not play a major role in creating that psychology (Buss, 1999b).
The difference it makes
The practical importance of theoretical postures is that they affect every aspect of our thinking about gender. Theory can have a major impact on thinking about our own gender and our relation to those of the same or the other gender. If we prefer to take our life in our own hands in the realm of gender, theorizing provides a means for informed decision-making. Evolutionary psychology and feminism are two theories that can serve as the basis of a thoughtful gender outlook. And this outlook will have a great influence on our gender communication as well as on the effectiveness of this communication.
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