Por qu 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
Todays science, tomorrows 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

Todays science,
tomorrows agendas

Todays science,
tomorrows agendas

If human nature is fixed, isnt policy

pointless?

Todays science,
tomorrows agendas

Confusing equality and sameness

Todays science,
tomorrows agendas

Confusing equality and sameness

You cant have equality without
sameness

Todays science,
tomorrows agendas

Confusing equality and sameness

Bias and barriers
The 50% delusion

Todays science,
tomorrows agendas

The case of the missing money:

The gender gap in pay

Todays science,
tomorrows 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