This is a great post in GD

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=3964904&mesg_id=3964904

I believe that, as Plaid Adder said, popular applications of evolutionary biology are more insidious than even religion when it comes to reinforcing the gender roles that a lot of institutions have a vested interest in maintaining. Religion, despite the persistence of fundamentalism in various corners, is losing it's grip on the human imagination. Therefore something had to take it's place, and quick, to ensure a steady supply of babies to be consumers and cannon fodder.

That something is what I like to call Discovery Channel Bullshit. It's got the imprimatur of "science" on it, so it can be used to keep people entrenched in prescribed gender roles. After all, you don't want to be "unnatural" do you? Woe unto you if you are the hapless female who likes promiscuous sex or the male who is monogamously relationship-oriented. Or if you are gay. You are a deviant freak, just as you were a sinner when religion imposed the rules. It's also, as we all know, frequently used to derail and dismiss feminist arguments.

It's not that I think studies of animal and human behavior purporting to show evolutionary basis have no merit. Not at all. I just take them with a big grain of salt, because there is often an ulterior motive.

That being, in the animal kingdom, male and female are different but only in the human context does 'different' mean 'less than'. That's the part we need to get past in these discussions.

Hey, take a look everybody, yeah, physically, biologically, probably even emotionally (hormonally) and mentally female and male are not the same. Big woop. Just because female is not the same as male does not mean female isn't as good as male. Why is it only in humanity is this even a concept?

It's a bias built in to our patriarchal society that just because women are different, it means they're not as good as and in that respect, I agree with the premise that this will be used against women (big surprise, that one) as some "scientific proof" that women aren't as good, smart, capable, whatever as men.

about intelligence being proportional to brain weight, and we know what that means, don't we sisters?

The problem is that thinking has been completely debunked for decades, since the determinant of intelligence isn't size, but structure. Specifically, research has found that the more convolutions on the surface of the brain, the higher the intelligence.

Yes, this stuff is always insulting, and it is invariably used to prove women inferior.

Never gets anywhere near the same attention as the initial bogus theory either. Often gets none at all.

I don't know what science is being referred to.

this "classic" feminist article, "The Egg and the Sperm":

http://www.dac.neu.edu/womens.studies/egg&sperm.htm

You know, I have to say that, while being rather scientifically oriented myself, I can see that some people have this sort of ... oh, how do I want to say this? Idealized vision of scientists? Working around them for the past 6 years, I can tell you that they are just humans, with their own biases, prejudices, emotional baggage. In other words, they're human. I think the article I linked to expresses what I'm trying to get at. We are so indoctrinated with our society's ideas that some of that can't help but creep in, even when you're supposed to be sterily describing a biological function.

and found the perspective fascinating.

Now I will be looking for metaphors all over the place.