My Stand-Up Debut!

Looking forward to my first stand-up gig at #brightclub #newcastle tomorrow where I will talk about how orthodox feminism has sorely abused the humble breast!

'Woman' Is Not My Slave Name - The Musical!

Taking aim for the 2014 Edinburgh Fringe, 'Woman' Is NOT My Slave Name is a show combining music, comedy, drama, social science, bad feminism and Darwinian gender studies.

It's the battle of the sexes laid bare.

Ladies and gentleman, we are at phwoarrr!

50 Shades of Human Sexuality?

Trying to unpick the arguments here but am struck (is it just my imagination?) by the conflation of 'men' and 'rapist' referent. At face value, the man she describes in this passage is very likely a sociopath, but she seems to be saying that this is a trait of masculinity itself - I think.

There is an unequivical grey area with rape which is absent from other crimes. For one, a person does not generally meet someone, feel an attraction, then proceed to share out the contents of their wallets with that person - change their mind - and then get mugged. In other words, in no other crime does the victim climb into bed with the attacker (as with aqualintance rape, the most common rape in the West). Right there is the 'grey area'. It isn't a grey area when a sociopath targets a victim; it is when humans misread signs.

It also occurs to me in her discussion of social signals and misreading of signs that women also misread the signs these men are giving out. Why else would they put themselves into such vulnerable positions with men, if they did not trust them? It would be nice to discount the grey area in rape, but in human terms, it simply is not possible. Also the statistics used in the piece aren't sourced and are not reliable.

We also need to take the title with a pinch of salt as when cases come to court (in the UK at least) jury's convict over 50% of the time. I really have no idea why many feminists don't want to publicise this as it would be very likely to increase incidence of reporting.

Comments most welcome!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/7442785/Rape-conviction-rate-figures-misleading.html

The Stern Report

Giving feminism a bad name?

More from Barry Kuhle in his Psychology Today blog

Religious/athiest fun...

Elephant in the religious room?

Evolutionary Politics: Pinker, Politics, and the Decline of Violence: Rou...

Evolutionary Politics: Pinker, Politics, and the Decline of Violence: Rou...: Steven Pinker's book, " The Better Angels of Our Nature ," has been getting substantial media attention this year, and it makes what man...

EP Ahoy!

This was a response to a recent study which seemed to suggest that the chivalry of 'women and children first' as reported on the Titanic was exceptional, rather than the general rule. The concept will be familiar to EP'ers.

New cartoons!

Very proud to reveal five new cartoons which will be in the next edition of Baumeister and Bushman's Social Psychology and Human Nature published by Cengage. Big thanks to Roy, Brad and Jeremy at Cengage. Cartoons are copyright Cengage Learning.

'Bystander Effect'

'Cake Versus Pi' - illustrating high/low thinking which is a concept Roy discusses in his recent bestseller 'Willpower'

'Thumbs'

'Panda Love' illustrating error management theory and the tendency for men to mistake friendliness for sexual interest.

'Savannah Stereotypes'

Reasons to be cheerful.

Part 1

The Dissent of Women - Robert Wright

"What feminists can learn from Darwinism." A rather mischeviously titled paper by Robert Wright (no relation) in the fab EP resource from Demos - Matters of Life and Death: The world view from evolutionary psychology. Page 51.  And a pretty routine feminist response to this paper by Lynne Segal here

Apologies for the lack of new content in the site. I've recently suffered a family bereavement and seem to be on a 'go slow'. Will get up to speed soon! Keep checking and thanks for your continued support!!

Shameless self promotion!

This isn't particularly related to DGS but I am very proud of it non-the-less. Love the vocals from the great Robert Pickens!

Introduction to Human Behavioral Biology by Robert Sapolsky

More brilliant resources on Youtube 

Part 2 here

Evolutionary psychology is compatible with equity feminism, but not with gender feminism

Great paper by Barry X. Kuhle 

Abstract

I comment on Eagly and Wood’s biosocial constructionist evolutionary theory (2011; DOI: 10.1007/s11199-011-9949-9). Although this gender feminist theory allows for evolved physical differences between men and women and evolved psychological similarities for men and women, it fails to consider evolutionary accounts of psychological sex differences. I hypothesize that gender feminists’ reluctance to acknowledge that evolution has left different fingerprints on men’s and women’s bodies and brains stems from two common misunderstandings of evolutionary psychology: the myth of immutability and the naturalistic fallacy. I conclude that although evolutionary psychology is eminently compatible with equity feminism, evolutionary psychology and feminist psychology will conflict as long as the latter adheres to gender feminism and its unwillingness to acknowledge the evidence for evolved psychological sex differences.  Gender feminism’s dualistic view of evolution hinders the search for and understanding of the proximate and ultimate causes of inequality. Feminist psychology needs to evolve by embracing equity feminism, which has no a priori stance on the origin or existence of differences between the sexes.

Susan Pinker in conversation with Allan Gregg

Speaking about the gender pay gap
Here

A question of research?

"Talking to an ageing Don Juan the other day, I was struck by his sudden defence of his behaviour…  

"It's in our genes," he said comfortably. "I could impregnate every woman in this room, but you couldn't have a child with every man in this room. So men evolved to be really, really promiscuous."

"And doesn't that make you feel good," I said.  

"Sure," he said happily.

In the 19th century, that same man might have believed that God made men to be leaders and women to be followers."
Roses are Red - So What

This quote aptly illustrates everything feminists hate about Darwinism. It links two concepts, which orthodox feminists erroneoulsy believe are inextricably linked with evolutionary theory; male chauvinism and biological determinism. It’s crafted to instantly trigger a thousand feminist stress responses, the message: know thy enemy!

The shame of this article - the unchallenged claim of Walter’s ageing Don Juan, that he could impregnate every women in the room, that such a feat was ‘in his genes’ - is that it is false and either Walter knew this and published it anyway, or she didn’t conduct even the most cursory research on the claim. Either way, the ethics of both acts are rather suspect and unfortunately typical of feminist scholarship in this area.

David Buss and Richard Dawkins in discussion re EP

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8.

DGS cartoons!

Some cartoons I have been working on which illustrate some of the common issues I come across as a Darwinian feminist. Please feel free to disseminate on the net and in blogs and in talks/lectures. This one illustrates female intrasexual competition within the sisterhood - the elephant in the room.
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I have a work in progress highlighting evolutionary themes in Shakespeare (I am also a professional actor and love Shakespeare - it was a toss up between him and Darwin as who to dedicate a life studying); specifically mate guarding, paternal insecurity, etc - the nuts and bolts of Darwinian gender studies. This is just a little skit about 'radical' gender feminism.
 Next blog post on this subject. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A riff on the above. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Basic cautionary measures for cross-disciplinary talks from the natural to the social sciences? -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jill and John, slightly tweaked after some notes from David Buss. This hopefully illustrates convergent strategies as well as divergent ones. After all, men and women ostensibly want the same things - to survive and thrive!

Fundraising!!

I have been offered a place at one of the UK's top universities to study evolutionary anthropology on a PhD pathway. I need to raise funds for postgraduate study. If you are a fan of this blog and can donate anything, please get in touch. I will of course provide proofs. email me at porlawright[at]msn.com Thanks for listening!

'Woman' Is Not My Slave Name

I agreed with Naomi McAuliffe in her worry that feminism is doing itself no favours with its choice of high profile campaigns this year in Is the Muff March a cunning stunt? (For more on cunning stunts masquerading as feminism see this blog post) Where we differed was with the principle behind the march; in this case “the very real issue of cosmetic genital surgery.”

A real issue? I understand the personal is supposed to be political, but this is just a bit too personal. It may be the statistical case that “Labiaplasty, vaginal tightening, and hymen reconstruction are all on the increase”, but if women are choosing to do these things with their own highly evolved brains, where is the issue? The (apparently) oppressed women inside the Harley Street clinics were not privileged a voice to enlighten us. If they had, a curt, 'Get stuffed and mind your own muff business', might have been the response.