Feminism is broad; one shouldn’t generalize a particular aspect of the feminism school by stating that they are anti-something or pro-something. However, one can safely say that almost all of the schools in feminism are anti-Darwinian – as much as one can say that we Muslims are anti-Darwinian. One particular school of feminism that caught my attention off late is the evolutionary feminism school. At first glance, it seems that this school will hold views that have nothing in common with my ideals. Just consider, if the word feminism itself is not enough to evoke my self-defense mechanism, add evolution on top of that and you get the icing on top of the cake.

However, as I read writings of some figures in this feminism school, my initial prejudiced view about them has changed – to certain extend. Actually, their arguments, which are based on knowledge in relatively new fields such as evolutionary psychology, cognitive science, behavioral biology, and genetics, add fresh ideas to the feminists discourse. I think sometimes our reactionary attitude towards Darwinian-based theories is baseless and this is due to our shallow understanding of the subject-matter. We should be able to distinguish between the science and the philosophy of the science. So if we disagree with the philosophy behind the science, we can systematically disregard them without making the mistake of refuting the science itself for no valid reason. Of course each case is different, indeed there are pseudo-sciences out there, I am just saying: Be careful before you pass a judgment on something.

One thing that we should recognize is that in the fields of evolutionary psychology, cognitive science, behavioral biology, and genetics, there is a big concern about understanding the fitra (nature) of human being. I believe this trend can be the bedrock to refute some post-modern relativism thought. The basic argument is that: If we human being have a fitra state, then we should cater for the fitra in our policy-making decisions, arts, law, economic planning, etcetera; we cannot just say anything goes or everything is relative. For example in arts, post-modernism thought deliberately made art incomprehensible or ugly or shocking – mainly due to Skinnerian idea that our predilections for attractive faces, landscape, colors and so on are reversible social constructions. Today ‘beauty’ is reintroduced in art as many scholars and experts that have natural sciences background pointed out that ultimately arts depend on human nature. Of course, in the end I believe that the syari’ah is the only path that truly caters the human fitra, but the recognition of the fact that policy-makers should consider the human nature in making their policies is a step forward from absolute relativism. Well, maybe I am just dreaming – this is just a far-fetched pseudo-theory – wake me up please.

Dr. Helena Cronin, researcher at Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science (LSE) has a pretty controversial view about feminism:

What originally inspired feminism was the idea that women shouldn’t be discriminated against qua women – where it was irrelevant that they were women: being barred from attending universities or owning property or having the vote not because they were incapable but because they were women. But the original inspiration ends up seriously distorted when you deny evolved sex differences. Things have got to the point where there’s expected to be some kind of fifty/fifty representation of men and women everywhere – universities, workplace, politics, sport, child care. So if women are not equally represented it’s put down to sexism alone. Well, whether or not sexism is operating, evolved sex differences certainly will be – differences in dispositions, skills, values, interests, and ambition. Women are likely to make systematically different choices from men. And it’s those different preferences, not blanket fifty/fifty distributions, that we should expect fair policies reflect.

One big argument among feminists to support their fifty/fifty distribution theory is “the differences within the sexes are greater than the differences between them.” This mean, one cannot generalize anything about the men or women (women are softer and less capable physically than men) as they argue that the differences within the sex itself (there are super women out there) override such generalization. Dr. Helena Cronin argues that such generalization has its place according to her Darwinian theories, as the difference between the sexes is an undeniable fact and it is part of the nature of our species. While I may not be hundred percent in agreement with her Darwinian philosophy, I find that her arguments – especially those regarding social ramification and policy-making – make a lot of sense, and – ironically - she sounds so traditionalist.

Another counter-point she pointed out is: “If there are wide differences within, then women aren’t very homogenous - there’s a wide spread of abilities and dispositions – and some proportion of women will be in the male end of the distribution.” That may include hormone level, which of course wouldn’t make sense – how can one argues against the fact that women tend to have more estrogens and men tend to have more testosterone? Another question that can be asked to counter the “differences within” theory is: Why do women high-achievers in traditionally male dominant pursuit such as engineering are emphasized to be “role models” for other women by the feminists? Most feminists argue that it is only male prejudice and self doubt that hold other women back. She countered back by showing that argument actually shows the logical fallacy in their “differences within” theory:  “But maybe these women are the extremes of those “differences within” that feminists themselves emphasize, and so they’re not just like the next woman.”

Of course she admits that sex differences are only statistical generalizations and these generalizations don’t hold true for all individuals. However, she said glass ceiling in statistics is an important factor that most feminists – mistakenly – dismiss it as just a statistical generalization: “Statistical generalizations are exactly what many feminist issues are all about.” As I have mentioned earlier, her view about policy-making is what caught my attention the most. With the world pushing for sex blind policy and regards it as the epitome of equality and fairness, she has a different view:

All policy-making should incorporate an understanding of human nature, and that means both female and male nature. Remember that if policy-makers want to change behavior, they have to change the environment appropriately. And what’s appropriate can be very different for women and for men.

So she argues that sex blind policy isn’t more fair; in fact, sometimes it is less so. She gives a rather pseudo-example about boys and girls learning pattern to justify her view – nevertheless it is an interesting and fresh view:

If you look at say mathematics, the academic areas in which sex differences are most extreme, the boys’ advantage probably rests on their innate superiority in mechanical and three-dimensional thinking. There’s some evidence that girls improve considerably if they’re taught in ways that circumvent this. That’s the kind of consideration that a fair education policy should be concerned with. And the same goes for the law, for the workplace, for the economic planning – for whatever field social policy is being devised.

Furthermore, she gives the example that unemployment may mean different social crisis – not just financial one – for men and women: It means loss of job for women, but lost of status for men. She pointed out that misattributed paternity is as low as 1 percent among very high-status American males but up to 30 percent among unemployed, deprived, inner city males. Although her argument is based mainly on the “criminal genes” theory – which I omit most of the part in this article as it is pretty technical – the gist of her recommendation challenges the norm of the West’s notion about equality:

Our social policies need to cope with a world that is rapidly changing, and those changes include the relations between the sexes. There’s the increase in male unemployment. There’s women finally having the resources to go it alone as parents. And women finding that their own status rises, the pool of potential partners shrinks. There are increasing inequalities, consigning substantial proportions of men to permanently low status. And there’s growing acceptance that legal systems should not treat women as the chattel of men. How will our evolved psychology react to these changes? What will be significant for men and for women?

One can only imagine that Dr. Helena Corlin is a pretty controversial figure, especially among feminists. However, I believe she is not alone with her controversial ideas, as other leading thinkers and researchers in evolutionary psychology, cognitive science, and other related fields also put emphasis in understanding human nature and devising policies that cater towards them; rather than disregarding our nature altogether in our bid to achieve a false notion of equality. I find this emerging trend among the so called ‘new humanists’ as interesting, as it may provide the bedrock to reform the West’s thought about equality. But to me, people who talk about policy and society by excluding Revelation are also controversial: Our understanding of human nature is – and will always be – incomplete.

Reference:

John Brockman. The New Humanist: Science at the Edge. Sterling 2003