(1) Do you consider yourself to be a feminist, or not?

(2) A feminist is someone who believes in social, political, and economic equality of the sexes. Do you think of yourself as a feminist or not?

If you’re like many people from a study my RAs and I conducted recently and those polled by CBS News in 2005, then your answer to question one bore little resemblance to your answer to question two. In CBS’s nationwide random sample of 1,150 U.S. adults, 65% of women and 58% of men identified as feminist when an equal-rights definition was provided, but only 24% of women and 14% of men considered themselves feminist in the absence of a definition (Alfano, 2009, February 11).

At first glance this is paradoxical. Why did nearly two-thirds of people polled consider themselves feminists in the presence of the definition but less than one-in-five do so when the definition was omitted? What is feminism other than the belief in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes? Regrettably to feminists like myself, far too many other feminists believe that being one means believing in far more than equality for women. These “gender feminists” cling to an ideologically driven, theoretically unsound, and empirically unsupported perspective on the origin and development of differences (Kuhle, 2012). To paraphrase New Jersey philosopher J. B. Jovi, they give feminism a bad name. In so doing, they have discouraged women and men who support sexual equality from self-identifying as feminists. When less than a quarter of your prime constituents (women) are willing to support your cause by identifying outright as feminists, your movement has a huge public relations problem. Delve deeper into the CBS poll and the scope of the PR nightmare becomes even more stark: 17% of women reported that calling a fellow woman a feminist was an INSULT! (While only 12% saw the label as a compliment.) The reluctance most women and men have to embrace the feminist label in the absence of a definitional nudge is due in no small part to feminists’ untenable position on sex differences.

As an evolutionary psychologist, I believe that much light can be shed on psychology by considering how the information-processing mechanisms underlying our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors affected our ancestors’ abilities to survive and reproduce. As an “equity feminist” (Sommers, 1994), I believe that women should have the full civil and social equalities that are afforded men. Equity feminism has no a priori stance on the origin or existence of differences between the sexes; it is solely a sociopolitical desire for men’s and women’s legal and social equality. Defined in these ways, there is no rational reason why one cannot be both an evolutionary psychologist and a feminist.

According to gender feminism and its unwarranted claims about human nature, psychological sex differences are uniquely immune to natural selection. This convoluted conceptualization of evolution misunderstands how adaptations are fashioned and function. An adaptation is an “inherited and reliably developing characteristic that came into existence as a feature of a species through natural selection because it helped to directly or indirectly facilitate reproduction during the period of its evolution” (Buss, Haselton, Shackelford, Bleske, & Wakefield, 1998, p. 535). In domains in which the sexes recurrently faced different adaptive problems, selection is likely to have fashioned different adaptive solutions. These adaptations often involve the intertwining of physical and psychological traits.

An example of the complementary nature of physical and psychological adaptations can be seen in sickness. Just as women, but not men, faced the adaptive problem of avoiding the ingestion of teratogens that could harm a developing fetus, women but not men evolved physiological adaptations (e.g., vomiting to expel teratogens) and psychological adaptations (e.g., food-specific disgust to avoid teratogens) to help solve the problem (Profet, 1988, 1992). Similarly, just as men, but not women, faced the adaptive problems of sperm and cuckoldry, men but not women evolved physiological adaptations (e.g., variations in sperm production and insemination as a function of time spent apart from partner; Baker & Bellis, 1995) and psychological adaptations (e.g., variation in desire to copulate with partner as a function of time spent apart from partner; Shackelford, Goetz, McKibbin, & Starratt, 2007) to help solve the problems, thereby reducing their likelihood of being duped into raising offspring that weren't theirs (Shackelford, Pound, & Goetz, 2005).

An important question for future research is why gender feminists unnecessarily wed themselves to a dualistic conceptualization of evolution and human nature that is theoretically untenable and empirically unsupported. I suspect that their 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 (Buss, 2012; Confer, Easton, Fleischman, Goetz, Lewis, Perilloux, & Buss, 2010).

The first misunderstanding, the myth of immutability, is evidenced when one erroneously concludes that “if it’s evolutionary, then we can’t change it.” As has been discussed at length elsewhere, evolutionary psychology does not view human behavior as impervious to change. In fact, evolutionary psychologists have cogently argued that knowledge of the informational inputs to evolved psychological mechanisms is a crucial first step toward changing the behavioral output of these mechanisms (Buss, 1996; Buss, 2012; Confer et al., 2010; DeKay & Buss, 1992; Geher, 2006).

The second pervasive misunderstanding is the naturalistic fallacy, which rears its illogical head when one concludes that “if it’s evolutionary and hence natural, then it’s okay and hence good.” Numerous evolutionary psychologists have unpacked the mistaken inference that if something is the case then it ought to be the case (Buss, 2003; Geher, 2006; Pinker, 2002). Evolutionary psychology does not excuse, justify, or rationalize any human’s thoughts, feelings, or actions (Buss, 1996; Geher, 2006). It merely seeks to discover and detail the design of the information-processing mechanisms that underlie our psychology.

The study in gender feminists’ ideological crosshairs this time is an exploration of observable cues to sexual exploitability and their link to sexual by evolutionary psychologists Cari Goetz, Judy Easton, David Lewis, and David Buss. Shortly after stating that men’s use of sexually exploitative tactics is “morally reprehensible” and sometimes "criminal," Goetz et al. emphasize that, “This study provides a first step towards understanding the psychological mechanisms underlying men's sexually exploitative strategies. By examining the specific design features of mechanisms for sexual exploitation, this research reveals particular cues that activate these mechanisms, allowing the prediction of which cues put women at risk for sexual exploitation.” Goetz et al. do not rationalize, excuse, or justify some men’s strategic use of visual and behavioral cues to identify women to target for opportunistic casual sex. Rather, they seek to understand the nature of men’s evolved psychological mechanisms as a means of protecting women from the morally reprehensible and (sometimes) criminal behavioral output of these mechanisms, which includes rape. Goetz et al. eschew the naturalistic fallacy and myth of immutability and instead look to curb of women by fleshing-out a mechanism that may give rise to it in certain situations.

I wish gender feminists were as careful as Goetz et al. were to avoid promulgating such fallacies and myths. But they are not. In fact, they commonly employ strategic use of both canards when they encounter findings that counter their theoretically and empirically bankrupt contention that evolution has molded identical sexual psychologies in women and men. For example, Jezebel’s humorous but misguided blog on Goetz et al.’s study appears motivated to misunderstand the study’s intentions by embracing instead of avoiding the naturalistic fallacy and myth of immutability. The blog’s gist could easily be summarized with (insert indignant tone here): 'How dare these weird evolutionary psychologists suggest in their iditoic study that women naturally want meaningless casual romps less than men do! That’s ridiculous! Worse still, these weirdos argue that it’s men’s natural right to sexually exploit women and that, due to evolution, they can’t help but do otherwise!' I suppose this passes for logical when your perspective on sex differences is so illogical.

So, to recap: A female journalist with apparent gender feminist leanings writing for a gender feminist blog about women's issues has attacked an idiotic study co-authored by two weirdos female scientists that may help women avoid falling prey to predatory sexual abuse by men. If that passes for feminism, then what in the world constitutes misogyny? Is there really any wonder why the overwhelming majority of American women and men want nothing to do with the feminist label? Why one-in-five people consider calling someone a feminist an insult?

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Sources

Portions of this blog were taken from Kuhle, 2012.

"Naturalistic Fallacy Ahead" drawing taken from Paula Wright's Darwinian Gender Studies Blog.

Recommended Readings

For level-headed blogs on Goetz et al.’s important article on sexual exploitability, see Jesse Bering’s piece at Slate and Jamie Krems’ offering at Bang! Those interested in reading Goetz et al.’s actual article can find it here. Gad Saad’s insighful PT blog on “The Pros and Cons of Feminism” can be found here.

References

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Buss, D. M. (1996). Sexual conflict: Evolutionary insights into feminism and the “battle of the sexes.” In D. M. Buss and N. M. Malamuth (Eds.), Sex, power, conflict: Evolutionary and feminist perspectives (pp. 296-318). New York: Oxford University Press.

Buss, D. M. (2003). The evolution of desire: Strategies of human mating (Revised edition). New York: Basic Books.

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Ryan, E. G. (2012, May 24). How to look dumb and slutty enough for a one night stand. Retrieved from http://jezebel.com/5912975/how-to-look-dumb-and-slutty-enough-for-a-one-night-stand

Shackelford, T. K., Goetz, A. T., McKibbin, W. F., & Starratt, V. G. (2007). Absence makes the adaptations grow fonder: Proportion of time apart from partner, male sexual psychology, and sperm competition in humans (Homo sapiens). Journal of Comparative Psychology, 121, 214-220.

Shackelford, T. K., Pound, N., & Goetz, A. T. (2005). Psychological and physiological adaptations to sperm competition in humans. Review of General Psychology, 9, 228–248.

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Vandermassen, G. (2008). Can Darwinian feminism save female autonomy and in egalitarian society? Sex Roles, 59, 482-491.

Vandermassen, G. (2011). Evolution and rape: A feminist Darwinian perspective. Sex Roles, 64, 732-747.

Copyright © 2012 Barry X. Kuhle. All rights reserved.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog do not necessarily reflect the views of Psychology Today and the University of Scranton, or my friends, family, probation officer, gut bacteria, darkest thoughts, and personal mohel.