ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the future of gender research, and examines how the nature-nurture debate relates to real-life public policy questions. It examines the nature-nurture debate in relation to a number of current real-life controversies that swirl around the topic of gender. The nature-nurture debate is relevant to this real-life problem in the following sense: If biological predispositions, for example toward greater male sexual urgency, dominance, and aggressiveness-contribute to the problem of male sexual violence and coercion, then special educational and legal programs that particularly target young men may be required. Gender results from a complex cascade of biological and social-environmental factors. The causal cascades that influence sex differences in behavior and individual differences in masculinity and femininity may differ. Analyzing the relationship between sex differences and within-sex variations in gender-related behavior, across cultures, provides new information about the influence of nature and nurture on gender.
