¿Por qué Importan

las Diferencias Entre los Sexos?

La Mirada Darwiniana

Helena Cronin

London School of Economics

Why sex differences matter

• Why sex differences?

• Sex differences in humans

• Today‟s science, tomorrow‟s agendas

Why sex differences?

Vervets‟ choice of toys

Newborns…

• Girls prefer human faces; boys prefer

mechanical mobiles

• Girls cry more than boys when another

baby cries

Sex differences

• Not recent, artificial, arbitrary

• Too early, reliable, cross-species,

cross-cultural, over historical and

evolutionary time

• Evolution

Why sex differences?

Reproductive investment

– Males specialise in competing

– Females specialise in caring

Sex differences

Evolved differences:

Question is never:

„Are there evolved differences?‟

But:

„What do they look like in this species?‟

Sex differences

in humans

Sex differences

„On average‟

• not differences between individuals

• differences between groups …

• … in distribution of characteristics

• not „all men, no women‟ (or vice versa)

• overlapping curves

Cycling backwards while playing violin

World Beard and Moustache Championships

Extreme Ironing

Control panels:

Man, Woman

Tails

Tails

More dumbbells

but more Nobels

Tails

Sex differences are

crucially about tails

Today‟s science,

tomorrow‟s agendas

Today‟s science,

tomorrow‟s agendas

If human nature is fixed, isn‟t policy

pointless?

Today‟s science,

tomorrow‟s agendas

Confusing equality and sameness

Today‟s science,

tomorrow‟s agendas

Confusing equality and sameness

“You can‟t have equality without

sameness”

Today‟s science,

tomorrow‟s agendas

Confusing equality and sameness

Bias and barriers

The 50% delusion

Today‟s science,

tomorrow‟s agendas

The case of the missing money:

The „gender gap in pay‟

Today‟s science,

tomorrow‟s agendas

„Gender-neutral‟:

Unfair to one or unworkable for both?

If we want to change the

world…

• … we need first to understand it

• Darwinian science is indispensable