ABSTRACT
Paradoxically, contemporary evolutionary biology provides an impartial way to study the contradiction, in corntemporary Western democracies, between egalitarian political principles and practices discriminating between men and women. After developing the cost-benefit approach to ‘inclusive fitness,” and showing that it does not entail genetic reductionism, differences in male and female gender roles are explored from an evolutionary perspective. Human societies have varied from the equality and complementary of the two sexes among hunter-gatherers like the !Kung to the radical inequality of females in hypergynous systems like that of traditional India. Two environmental variables—social stratification and the reliability of resources—are critical in the emergence of the attitudes and practices conventionally described as “male chauvinism.” In industrial societies of relative abundance and security, such discrimination against females is shown to be an anachronism correlated with those social strata characterized by psychological insecurity and the desire to protect acquired status and material wealth.
