Works in ChatGPT, Claude, or Any AI
Add semantic quote search to your AI assistant via MCP. One command setup.
" "When it comes to the traits we consider most important in a long-term mate, human beings are largely monomorphic. This is one of the most significant findings of these studies; however, it is easily overlooked when the discussion becomes fixated on traits that people consider less important but where sex differences are found. By shining a spotlight on these traits, we may create an inaccurate picture of our species, even though the differences are real. Our picture of human nature may be built on a foundation of exceptions to the rule. The rule — the fact that males and females in our species are surprisingly similar in many ways — may be relegated to the background. By taking genuine differences and then exaggerating their importance, our picture of our evolved nature may become a caricature: It may contain a recognizable grain of truth but distort its object.
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) is a Professor of Psychology in the School of Psychology at the University of Nottingham Malaysia, and author of the books Darwin, God and the Meaning of Life (2010) and The Ape That Understood the Universe (2018). He was born in Wellington, New Zealand. He studied at Massey university, where he completed a PhD in psychology and philosophy.
Add semantic quote search to your AI assistant via MCP. One command setup.
Related quotes. More quotes will automatically load as you scroll down, or you can use the load more buttons.
Why should any individual woman today be advantaged over any individual man just because other men were advantaged over other women in the past? Reversing historical injustices does not erase them; it merely adds to the total number of injustices in the world. The question we face today, therefore, is this: Is the appropriate response to injustice to try to eliminate it, or to turn it on its head?
A growing body of work suggests that, in nations with greater wealth and higher levels of gender equality, sex differences are often larger than they are in less wealthy, less equal nations... [R]ather than being products of a sexist or oppressive society, these differences may be indicators of the opposite: a comparatively free and fair one. If so, this casts society’s efforts to minimize the sex differences in an entirely new light. Rather than furthering gender equality, such efforts may involve attacking a positive symptom of gender equality. By mistaking the fruits of our freedom for evidence of oppression, we may institute policies that, at best, burn up time and resources in a futile effort to cure a “disease” that isn’t actually a disease, and at worst actively limit people’s freedom to pursue their own interests and ambitions on a fair and level playing field.