by DAVID C. GEARY
Boys and girls are not infinitely malleable, socially constructed products of the patriarchy.
Much remains to be learned about the nature and origins of various sex differences, but more is known than most people realize. Much of the current confusion is generated by activists who suppress, attack, and distort information on sex differences in order to reinforce their preferred ideological narratives. These ideology-driven distortions are helpfully illustrated by a recent New York Times essay by Chelsea Conaboy, which announces that the maternal instinct is a “myth”—a social construct generated and upheld by the patriarchy to impel women to raise children and keep them out of the workforce.
Read an adapted excerpt of Mother Brain in the New York Times, about the myth of maternal instinct, where it came from and why it’s so harmful: https://t.co/q3H3lrGQSn— Chelsea Conaboy (@cconaboy) August 26, 2022
Maternal instinct and the patriarchy
Conaboy’s goal, apparently, is to undo 200 million years of mammalian evolution, which produced maternal investment in offspring. She correctly points out that, in the past, Western societies discouraged and often excluded women from entering higher education and professional jobs. But while this continues to occur in many parts of the world, in highly developed Western societies women now outnumber men in higher education. Jerry Coyne has provided a valuable rejoinder on this point and several others in Conaboy’s essay, to which I will add a few more here.
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