ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the contributions of both Carol Gilligan and David Buss to the psychological explanation of gender differences. There are some ironic parallels between the feminism of Gilligan and the Darwinism of David Buss and the new generation of evolutionary psychologists. Evolutionary psychology is premised on the idea that human social behavior has evolved under natural selection pressures, and that human conduct has large instinctual foundations or elements. Christine Hoff Sommers argues that the ideological foundation for the “shrinking-girl” thesis is found in the psychological research of Harvard psychologist, Carol Gilligan. Gilligan is a student of Lawrence Kohlberg, a leading proponent of the theory of moral development. Evolutionary theory is explaining the appetites for ostentatious and violent displays and why they have the distinctive gender, age, and social configurations we find in contemporary studies of murder and robbery.
