Most people are finding excuses to avoid confronting their own thoughts and behaviors. These claims are part of the general belief that “your genes made you do it,” with “it” being outlandishly open-ended. Much research towards gender has created society to believe that the two sexes are naturally unequal and this inequality is rooted in biology and evolution. The scientific support for gender differences should be examined with deep skepticism. Genes are not fixed switches that dictate behavior. Even the hope that a single gene or a fixed group of genes can explain behavior has turned out to be unfounded. The false ideas that genes shape a persons actions, decisions, and choices needs to be forgotten as this will be the only way progress can be made on the issue.
Other arguments claim our behavior is the product of Darwinian forces of survival of the fittest. One way this idea can be seen is in picking a mate. It is claimed that women are more cautious in mate selection based on prehistoric life where women needed the long term protection and hunting skills of men to survive, where as men could survive alone, thus women developed more hesitancy in picking a mate. However, modern humans beings are not subject to survival of the fittest. The truth is that humans escaped Darwinian forces thousands of years ago. All kinds of genes are passed along in situations where the male doesn’t have to fight, hunt, gather food, or build a shelter. Women choose men for reasons completely outside physical evolution, like their sense of humor or compassion. The brain is not a fixed dictator of behavior, many arguments can be created to show how the mind is more important than the brain. In the end the ideas of gender differences tends to remove free will. This is no scientific data to why people love the ones they do but there is certainly no factors in the genes a person is made up of.
Title: How Men can be Wise about Women
Source: Huffington Post
Author: Deepak Chopra
Student Researcher: Stephanie Keena
Faculty Advisor: Susan Rahman, College of Marin