The Age Of Scientific Sexism: How Evolutionary Psychology Promotes Gender Profiling And Fans The Battle Of The Sexes

Description

We trust our sciences to operate on a plane of objectivity and fact in a world of subjectivity and cultural ideologies, but should we? In The Age of Scientific Sexism, philosopher Mari Ruti offers a sharp critique of the gender profiling tendencies of evolutionary psychology, untangling the insidious threads of various gender mythologies that have infiltrated-or perhaps even define-this faux-science. Selling stereotypes as scientific facts, evolutionary psychology continually brings retrograde models of sexuality into mainstream culture: it insists that men and women live in two completely different psychological, emotional, and sexual universes, and that they will consequently always be locked in a vicious battle of the sexes. Among these regressive arguments is the assumption that men's sexuality is urgent and indiscriminate, whereas women are “naturally” reluctant, reticent, and choosy-a concept constructed to justify masculine behavior, such as cheating, that women have historically found painful. On its most basic level, The Age of Scientific Sexism explores our impulse to “explain” romantic behavior through science: in the increasingly egalitarian gender landscape of our society, why are we so eager to embrace the rampant gender profiling that evolutionary psychology promotes? Perhaps these simplistic gender caricatures owe their popularity, at least in part, to our overly pragmatic society pragmatic society, which encourages us to search for easy answers to complex questions. FC......Page 1 Half title......Page 2 Title......Page 4 Copyright......Page 5 Quote......Page 6 Contents......Page 8 Introduction......Page 10 1 The Myopia of Men vs Women......Page 32 2 The Ideology of Gender Difference......Page 62 3 The Arrogance of the Backlash......Page 92 4 The Downfall of the Coy Female......Page 122 5 The Cruelty of Optimism......Page 158 Conclusion......Page 194 Notes......Page 203 Index......Page 218