Friday, November 19, 2010

Yabba Dabba Doo

Armchair evolutionary psychologists (and many of the professional ones) can be downright hilarious at times.

Observe, following an article about Cindy McCain's laudable opposition to gay bullying and the military's discriminatory policy toward gays, commenter "stedums" opines:

"as I have said for years, the female of our species is far more community-conscience than the males. Stems from the 'cave' eras. the males were always in pursuit of better/easier hunting realms, while the female had to contend with what they left behind: kids, other members of the community(with their needs and wants); something to go with whatever the males brought home (sometimes NOTHING). females easily adapt to many social/economic situations; males need hard and fast rules to live by(because they feel insecure and NEED rules)>>>females are like 'B' and 'A' students: they just need raw materials and guidance."


Note the total cocksure confidence with which stedums here Just Tells It Like It Is that, basically, all of the earliest humans of "our species" in all geographic locations throughout the world were hunter-gatherers who kept their womenfolk in caves to tend to stuff while the men went on swashbuckling hunting expeditions and that, therefore, Because Of Evolution, this set-up explains what "males" and "females" are like today.

People who think like stedum rarely have much familiarity with anthropology or sociology (or feminism, natch), but that doesn't stop them from thinking that culling anthropological knowledge and gender essentialism from a Crackerjack box and the award-winning documentary of a real-life cave human Encino Man is totally legit.

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