Insights on Sex and Gender

Many scientists often shy away from attributing differences between the sexes to
evolution and biology, out of concern that such a connection would lead to a reinforcement of
stereotypes.
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, its a social construct of a
duck. The fashionable claims about the social construction of gender are no less bizarre. Men
and women look unalike, walk unalike, talk unalike. They differ in who is more competitive,
single-minded and risk-taking; who is more likely to climb Everest, drive too fast, become
President of the country, commit a murder, or win a Nobel prize; in what triggers their sexual
jealousy, erotic fantasies, status envy. Differences such as these are universal, transcending
culture, class, ethnicity, religion, education, and politics. They manifest themselves in all
societies, across the modern world, and in every known record back through time. Above all,
they are differences that any student of evolutionary theory could predict and explain. And yet, it
has been said that so-called gender differences are just a social construct, a mere cultural
artifact, as arbitrary, unwarranted and pointless as pink for girls and blue for boys and therefore,
when it comes to explaining male-female differences, an evolutionary understanding is irrelevant
or marginal.
The fashion for denying biological sex differences stems, I believe, from good intentions.
There is a fear that if sex differences are in the genes, then a just and fair society, women and
men having equal status, is unattainable; instead, both sexes will be inexorably condemned to
what is naturalwomen minding babies and kitchen sinks, men striding forth into the world to
run it; and thus socially constructed gender is the only safe sex. Well, the intentions are good;
but the science is bad.
From the automata view follows a further misconception: that to change human
behavior we would need to change our genes. If our genetic endowment really did exert a grip so
impervious to environment, then it would perhaps be true that little short of genetic engineering
could deliver the world that we desire. But, given that our behavioral propensities are designed to
be sensitive to our circumstances, often exquisitely so, we do not have to re-jig our genes in
order to influence outcomes
In response to evidence of universality of sex differences, it is commonly urged that the
differences within the sexes are greater than the differences between them. The implicit
conclusion, I assume, is that many women are likely to be at the male end of the axis and vice
versa. But, even if this is true, it is seriously misleading if equity of outcome is at stake. For it
would still be the case that the outliers would be almost exclusively of one sex. Thus any
positions that are necessarily rationed to one or a fewfrom presidents to prize-winnerswould
be vanishingly unlikely to be shared equally between the sexes.
It is discrimination that is iniquitous, not sex differences. If the aim is to combat inequity,
then it is inequity, not science that should be opposed. Indeed, a scientific understanding should
be welcomed. Science cannot dictate values; it cannot tell us what our goals should be. But it can
help us to achieve those goals. Scientific understanding of how the sexes differ can help us to
devise policies that are fair to both sexes.