Gender and evolution: why it matters for contemporary life

"Offering new research and analysis on the relation between gender and evolution, this book explains conflict between the sexes and the frequent emergence and stubborn continuation of patriarchal regimes that serve to control the behavior of women in societies around the world, both past and present. Women and men are different, on average. But that does not mean they are unequal. Indeed, understanding average differences is key to the full realization of equality in health care and other dimensions of social life. Hopcroft shows that gender differences in physiology, psychology, and behavior can be traced to slight differences in evolved traits between men and women. These differences exist because of sex differences in investment in offspring, which meant that, in the environment of evolution, some adaptive problems were more important for men to solve than for women, and vice versa."--

Part I: Introduction. Evolutionary theory and the sociology of gender : a bad beginning -- Part II: Sex differences in evolved mating strategies. Gender and evolution ; Women's evolved long-term mating strategies ; Men's evolved long-term mating strategies ; What is beauty? Why do we want it? ; Sex differences in short-term mating strategies -- Part III: Women and men. Evolutionary origins of patriarchy : control of women through the ages ; Physiological differences between the sexes ; Cognitive differences between the sexes ; An evolutionary view of the reproductive life course of women ; Sex differences in aggression and criminality ; Sex differences in stats striving ; Gender and emotion -- Part IV: Implications of sex differences. Parental strategies : differences by child's gender ; Boys and girls in school ; Conflict between the sexes ; But can they talk it out? Problems of communication -- Conclusion.