The Uncomfortable Science Of Sex Differences - Steve Stewart-Williams - #1120
7/6/20262 hr 33 min
Steve Stewart-Williams is an evolutionary psychologist, a professor, and an author.
Why is it so difficult to talk about the differences between men and women today? It's important to recognize that men and women deserve equal respect and opportunity, but that does not mean they are exactly the same. There are differences between the sexes that can be meaningful, valuable, and even beautiful. So what are those differences, and why has discussing them become so polarising?
Expect to learn why talking about sex differences is so controversial, what the actual definition of sex is, why there are challenges to the binary idea of sex, the largest sex differences between men and women, how sex differences reveal themselves via personality, the danger of denying and/or not respecting the differences in sex, and much more…
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsChris Williamson· Host0:00
Do you think that you could have published this book six years ago?
Steve Stewart-Williams· Guest0:02
I think that I could have, but it would have been a less wise move. [chuckles] I think it would have gone down, uh, a, a lot worse six years ago. Things have kind of cooled off a little bit, I think.
Chris Williamson· Host0:12
Why is talking about sex differences so controversial?
Steve Stewart-Williams· Guest0:15
Well, it's a good question, and I think that it's a few things. I mean, sometimes it surprises me because sometimes I think a lot of the differences that we're talking about, they're really quite modest differences. Um, they are often differences in preferences rather than cognitive abilities, so they're kind of neutral as far as I'm concerned. Um, and if anything, I think probably they put men in a worse light than women. Um, so sometimes it surprises me, but I think really the main reason is our long history of sexism against women, and I think that we've got quite a long... Science as well has a bit of a sordid history in terms of how we've spoken about women, especially in the 1800s.
Chris Williamson· Host0:54
Mm.
Steve Stewart-Williams· Guest0:54
I've, I've got a quote, one of my favorite quotes, one of my favorite examples of this is from, um, scientist by the name of Gustave Le Bon, and he, he wrote that, uh, "Sure, there are some women who are as intellectually accomplished as your typical man, but they're about as rare as a, as a two-headed gorilla, and so therefore we don't really need to think about, think about them." Um, so with stuff like that in our background, it's, uh, I guess, not surprising that people are a little bit w- little, little bit nervous about talking about evolved sex differences, a little bit worried that if we start doing that, it's going to open the door to that kind of, that kind of sexism. Um, I think they're wrong to worry about