Did you know that women might have been driven by evolution to be “bitchy”, that is, aggressive, competitive, and insulting towards other women? An article in The Atlantic presents a couple of evo-psych studies — the usual stuff, Western college students given culturally specific choices, and then makes absurd universal conclusions about human nature and evolution. I hated it.
But at least, buried in the middle of the article, are a couple of paragraphs that state the rational response to the succession of maddening EP bullshit.
Many of the recent headlines around the research on female indirect aggression purport that women have “evolved” to be this way. But some scholars of indirect aggression argue that just because the slut-shaming Vaillancourt discovered is one of the oldest tricks in the book, doesn’t mean it’s evolutionary or “hard-wired.”
“Why are these women doing this? I think there are many ways we could explain that,” Agustin Fuentes, chair of the department of anthropology at the University of Notre Dame, told me. “In our society, if you’re given the choice between these images, you’re going to say, ‘I don’t want my guy next to a girl with a short skirt.’ But that’s not because, evolutionarily speaking, your guy is more likely to cheat on you with the short-skirt girl.”
He argues that though this and other studies show how important physical appearance is to the way women respond to each other, there’s too much cultural baggage at play to say it all comes from our primate ancestors. The short-skirt-boots combo, for example, is already a “meaning-laden image,” he said.
I’m pretty sure that humans didn’t evolve out of ancient hominin populations that battled over short vs. long skirts. I don’t think you can even extrapolate from midwestern North American undergraduates to other extant cultures. You can’t even draw meaningful conclusions within midwestern North American undergraduates in such artificially exaggerated experimental procedures which basically ignore individual variation.
And if you’re trying to derive the origins of human universals, why focus on “bitchiness” in women when men are entirely capable of exactly the same kind of social nastiness?
The article ends on the opinion of one of the worst evo-psych offenders, unfortunately.
He said curbing the bitchiness is one area in which men can be a help, rather than simply the object of the competition.
The only way it might change is if men stopped valuing sexual fidelity and physical attractiveness in long-term mates,he said.
That’s unlikely to happen,though, sincethese evolved mate preferences in men are as ‘hard-wired’ as evolved food preferences for stuff rich in fat and sugar.
Jebus. That these specific details of mate preferences are evolved
and hard-wired
is an assumption that has not been demonstrated! Once again, evo-psych demonstrates its awesome ability to pretend that narrow, contingent stereotypes of modern American social mores are deeply rooted in our evolution, while ignoring all diversity in order to support the idea that conservative values are biologically coded.
Hated it. I think I already said that, but I’ll say it again: hated it.
Going off the physics book previous post, you could probably publish a small ebook selling for $2 debunking most of Evo Psych for lay folk. I’d buy it.
Huh? In queer women’s (then: lesbian) communities of which I was apart from 89 to about 94 there was a series of running battles about short skirts vs. long skirts, strap-ons and/or BDSM vs “anti-patriarchal” sex, and more.
And you know what? The dykes who mentored me said those battles were going on forever.
Of course, the queers evolved out of it, but I think it’s clear that straight women descended from a reproductively isolated population and are still in the ancestral state. It’s the only way to explain these results.
From the article:
But…isn’t this the phenomenon the authors are claiming to explain, rather than simply produce? How do these results indicate an evolutionary account for this behaviour? Surely, to do that one would have to demonstrate this cross-culturally, and show that it arises in tests that don’t involve conscious cognition (such as implicit bias tasks), and a host of all sorts of other controls. All this shows at best is that the phenomenon merely exists.
And since studies showed that men also engaged in the insulting of potential rivals, why oh why is this called “bitchiness” to begin with? It’s notable that the researchers of the above study didn’t include males, which meant that any such culturally negative result would be labeled with a gender-specific term.
You are apparently evolved to be susceptible to circular reasoning.
But I prefer raw carrot to custard. How is this possible if my tastes are evolutionarily hardwired to prefer fats and sugars???
AKA pathetic footnotes.
I haven’t really been following the evo psych thing too closely, so it’s possible this is just a selection bias based on the fact that I only see it coming up in places like this, but, is it just me, or does there seem to be a strong bias toward “reasons why women are/do [bad thing]” among evo psych studies and arguments?
Well, you see, that’s because the ability to construct complex arguments justifying the lower social status of potential (female*) mates was strongly selected for amongst our savanna-dwelling primate ancestors: if you can convince a potential (female*) mate to incorrectly evaluate their own social status, then they’ll be more likely to mate with a lower status (male*) candidate than they otherwise would. That’s why “negging” works!
(*Don’t ask why it only works this way around.)
(Excuse me, I must now go and scrub my brain.)
How does one get a degree in Evo Psych without encountering that bit in Psych 1-oh-fucking-1 that almost nothing* is “hard-wired,” and we can learn, enhance, forget, or diminish basically any skill in our skillset?
*Critical biological functions aside.
Mini vs Midi vs Maxi, the tip of the Iceberg! (My tongue is firmly in cheek here.)
Yes, but where does that leave us trouser-wearing female human-type people?
I still don’t get this sort of article when it is trivially easy to use Google to find societies that don’t fit the author’s understanding of female sexuality. The Na or Mosu at least appear to have had that as acceptable in earlier generations. They are not alone.
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/12/female_promiscuity_in_primates_when_do_women_have_multiple_partners.2.html
In the article, it is all “I don’t see men bitching about other men being promiscuous because they will still date promiscuous men.” Since when the heck did his experiences represent all human societies? A Roman man who enjoyed sex too much and had too many sexual partners was considered effeminate. They thought effeminate men were more interested in sex than the more masculine men. It showed a womenly lack of self control to them.
where does that leave us trouser-wearing female human-type people?
Until fairly recently, you were perverts. But now you’re OK. Because DSM says so.
@Lesbian Catnip
I think they hear it, then forget about it as they go further. In fact, I’d bet a number of them take a perverse kind of pride in being the supposed “truth tellers” to all those “politically incorrect Blank Slate people”, like Steve Pinker does. Sort of like the misogynistic libertarian crowd that unfortunately shares Atheism with the rest of us.
It doesn’t help the Random Genetic Drift hasn’t penetrated the popular consciousness in the way that Natural Selection (sort of) has, so most people still seem to believe that Natural Selection = Selecting Positively for Traits = Evolution.
@athywren:
Strong bias? Hard to say. There’s almost certainly a bias that direction, but selection bias plays a huge role in what you see if you’re not reading every paper in every journal. Here we have some people competent in feminism, the outrageousness of certain evopsych bullshit is more likely to get torn apart than the outrageousness of certain other bits of evopsych bullshit.
So, “bias towards researching why women do/are bad” + “bias for tearing apart sexist science” = even stronger bias that Athywren will see articles ripping on sexist evopsych.
Who knows what the actual level of bias is. Frankly, I’m not interested in calculating the differential threat to women. Just nuke evopsych from orbit – it’s the only way to be sure.
I think that men would act exactly the same if they had to decide between their wife/girlfriend standing next to an attractive hunk versus someone much less attractive.
athywren
No, it’S not just “women are really lesser beings”. You’re forgetting the whole area of “why men have evolved to be assholes and can therefore not be held responsible”.
Actually, *my* experience with these things is that if everyone at colleges started wearing underwear on their heads, and sniffing each other’s farts, the Evo-Psych people would be right there to explain to us how this is some sort of wondrous evolved trait. Its not that they have a bias towards stupid nonsense about women behaving badly, or men being evolved to be, not just have, dicks, but that those things seem to be sufficiently prevalent among those they “study”, that they have convinced themselves that a) these are a normal human traits, and b) must be explained as an evolutionary advantage. The very idea that its, at best, only very indirectly, tied to competition, if at all, and otherwise entirely a societal derived morass of stupidities, driven by momentum, and a lack of any real attempt to prevent them, instead of some sort of clear “survival” mechanism is nuts.
Or, to put it another way. Someone studying “specifically” apes would conclude, “They evolved the capacity to make primitive tools, though they do not always figure out how to apply the skill.” The same apes, examined by “Evo Psych” people would look at one group using tree branches to fish out termites and conclude, “This group seems to have evolved the ability to use sticks to fish for termites!” Its the difference between recognizing that you can derive a behavior, because you have the adaptation that lets you invent it, vs. some sort of Lemarkian idiocy, by which you can learn to blow your nose, but figuring out how to use your shirt sleeve to wipe it is a “new evolved trait”, and that handkerchief are even farther along. I can even see the stupid argument they would make – “First came the realization that their nose was dripping, then they rubbed it on leaves, then.. they suddenly realized they could remove on of the leaves, and carry it with them instead!!! Isn’t it an amazing evolved trait?!!”
The level of absolute absurdity involved with **needing** to explain everything as its own trait, instead of a derived result of a brain able to invent new ideas, is just.. breath taking (its hard to breath, after all, if you laugh that hard, for that long), or, maybe head banging, in PZes case. lol