@clevernickname and @shkkmo you both have valid points and if you read carefully what you say you could agree. clevernickname is right on his points on sexual dimorphism; the hormonal and genetic differences that lead to changes in body shape/function and structural brain differences with certain tradeoffs do shape two different forms of our species geared towards different tasks. Now gender roles will depend on the environment that you throw the humans into (if shkkmo mentioned that, it would make sense). Is the environment hostile and hunting requires bringing down big strong animals? Then if women need to hunt alongside with men, this has an impact in the number of offsprings that can be reared (neanderthals). So in that case it was beneficial to have a structure where males hunt and women were gatherers this in turn may have selected for genes that make males better hunters and women better gatherers further increasing sexual dimorphism. In any case if humans are put in an environment where females have a more important role then cultural adaptations that would free up time for females to pursue this, would ensue as it has probably already happened in several occasions in the past as shkkmo mentions.
> Now gender roles will depend on the environment that you throw the humans into (if shkkmo mentioned that, it would make sense)
I believe I did:
>> "There are 'baked-in' DNA traits, that have emergently caused cultures to adopt those gender roles in their historical contexts."
However,
> you both have valid points and if you read carefully what you say you could agree
The only thing that I am disagreeing with him on is whether "it is safe to assume that gender roles are baked into our DNA".
Gender roles are a complex property that emerge from the interaction between our DNA, our culture and our environment.
To claim that gender roles are 'baked in' to our DNA indicates that gender roles are determined by our DNA in such a way as to be inflexible and unchanging. Assuming this is true is a dangerous assumption that is not backed up by history or science and does not encourage sexual equality.
>The only thing that I am disagreeing with him on is whether "it is safe to assume that gender roles are baked into our DNA".
Ah, now I understand. You're practicing the common internet commenter behavior of picking out a single strongly worded statement and ignoring everything else the person said. Uncharitably reading my comments as "hurr durr women belong in the kitchen" instead of putting some faith in the author that they might have simply meant "hey, maybe it's not just a whim of culture that women are traditionally the caretakers in just about every single successful society." All because I didn't wrap a particular sentence in 3 paragraphs of qualifications and apologies.
Thank you for understanding what I'm getting at, but I think you are misreading @shkkmo. They seem to completely reject the idea that there are sex-specific genetic factors that influence psychology and neurochemistry, or that gender roles and their genetic predisposition can be a self-perpetuating system.
But in regards to your hypothesis that changing society will change our (self-imposed) fitness criteria and result in a more convergent evolutionary path for both sexes, I partially agree. Partially, because 1. while evolution can and does happen on short time scales, its most prominent effects are shaped over aeons. Just because we are not hunter gatherers living in the woods today, does not mean that the evolutionary pressure that all of the generations of our ancestors underwent in those conditions can be subverted on a timescale meaningful to us.
And 2. because no matter how postmodern and liberal you think your culture is, we still need to have babies and raise them into functioning adults. If women are both gifted in this role and feel a psychological need to perform it, it makes no sense for them not to do it. That doesn't mean that women should be barred from the workplace, but it might mean that women taking less involved and prestigious roles in the workplace so that they may have more time to raise their children or look after grandchildren or what have you could be a good thing for society and not something to squawk about.
> They seem to completely reject the idea that there are sex-specific genetic factors that influence psychology and neurochemistry, or that gender roles and their genetic predisposition can be a self-perpetuating system.
Where did I reject that?
> we still need to have babies and raise them into functioning adults. If women are both gifted in this role and feel a psychological need to perform it, it makes no sense for them not to do it. That doesn't mean that women should be barred from the workplace, but it might mean that women taking less involved and prestigious roles in the workplace so that they may have more time to raise their children or look after grandchildren or what have you
The child rearing role is valuable and we should support people who choose to make that their role in life, regardless of their gender.
Gender does have a genetic impact on the traits that assist with child rearing. Like physical traits such as height, there is a large amount of overlap and thus there are many women who are less suited to child-rearing than the average male.
I would guess that it is likely that in a world with full equality for both genders, that you would still find some gender disparity in some roles. (See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11220916)
However, if you think that the current gender disparity is not primarily the result of gender inequality and disparate expectations, you need to take look at the data and talk to some of the women who have left the field.
Thus this disparity is not a good thing for society and is something we should squawk about because we are missing out on optimally utilizing a large portion of our population and we are discouraging them from realizing their full potential
