Sex and Gender

A Biopsychological Approach

Heidi R. Riggio

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780367479787
• eBook ISBN: 9781000066302
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Human Sexuality in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Using both scientific and feminist approaches in its analysis, Sex and Gender: A Biopsychological Approach provides a current and comprehensive understanding of its titular topics, making it an invaluable textbook for instructors and students.

Sex and gender can only be properly understood when examined in the contexts of biological, psychological, and social processes and the interactions between those processes. The structure of this book facilitates this necessary exhaustive discussion:

• First section: a biological analysis that discusses evolutionary, cellular, and genetic processes, and their effects on physical and behavioral development
• Second section: a psychological and sociological analysis that discusses stereotypes, sexism, and theories of gender
• Final section: a discussion of the current global challenges surrounding sex and gender, such as discrimination and religious and social oppression of various groups
• Across chapters: bonus features that can be used as discussion topics, student essay topics, or special topics for instructors to expand the text's discussion into the classroom

The text's unique focus on biological, psychological, and social processes – as separate entities and interacting processes – make Sex and Gender crucial for a comprehensive and advanced understanding of the subject. This is an essential resource for instructors who want to bring a thorough and complex analysis of sex and gender studies to their classrooms.

1Human Evolution

The Beginnings of Life on Earth

Evolution: Basic Principles, Supporting Evidence

Evolution of Human: Hominids and Early Homo Species

Modern Human Variation

The Evolution Controversy

INEQUALITIES AND INJUSTICES

Intimate Partner Violence in the Cave?

Human beings have a violent history. Homicide is a leading cause of premature death among young adults in the United States (Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, 2010), and war after war have been fought across time. People fight over territory, possessions, and people, and violence occurs between people who are in the same family, people we are supposed to love. Even in the modern, civilized world, with laws prohibiting violence and law enforcement and courts punishing violence, violence is a major social issue around the world. If modern humans are so violent, what were ancient humans like? Human skeletal remains from fossil remains of campsites and group living areas provide data on the violent behavior of ancient people. An anthropologist who examined research on antemortem (before death) and perimortem (at death) skeletal injuries among ancient human remains, Phillip L. Walker (2001), asserts that the human species has always been quite violent, especially men. Throughout the history of Homo Sapiens, cannibalism was a regular and widespread practice, and there is plentiful evidence of mass killings and individual homicides/assaults across the globe. With humans having a tendency toward aggression and interpersonal violence, how would this come into play in intimate relationships among ancient peoples? The average man is much bigger and stronger than the average woman; this fact alone allows men to control women with violence. In the cave, with no formal laws and fewer sophisticated ideas on the importance of equality between the sexes, it is clear that cave men used physical force to control their cave women. Anthropological research must continue to gather evidence of physical violence used against women as a means of controlling the other half of the human race, beginning in the cave.

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Early Hominid and Homo Groups

This entire book isn’t long enough to describe every group representing human evolution over time. There are many other early hominid and early Homo groups that you might be interested in reading about. Here is a list for you to check out, groups we missed in our chapter:

Orrorin tugenensis

Ardipithecus ramidus

Australopithecus anamensis

Kenyanthropus platyops

Australopithecus garhi

Australopithecus sediba

Australopithecus aethiopicus

Australopithecus robustus

Australopithecus boisei

Homo georgicus

Homo ergaster

Homo sapiens idaltu

Critical Thinking

Top Ten Myths about Evolution

Top 10 Myths about Evolution (Skeptics Society, 2010)

www.skeptic.com/downloads/top-10-evolution-myths.pdf

1.If Humans Came from Apes, Why Aren’t Apes Evolving into Humans?

Human beings and apes evolved from a common ancestor about six to seven million years ago. Apes are our cousins; we did not evolve from them.

2.There Are Too Many Gaps in the Fossil Record for Evolution to Be True

There are of course gaps in the fossil record; fossils have only been systematically collected for about 200 years. In addition, accurately describing fossil finds takes time. Many intermediate fossils exist, including interesting creatures like the Tiktaalik, intermediate between fish and amphibians. Multiple intermediate forms in the evolution of humans have also been found. As more discoveries are made, the progression of evolution becomes clearer.

3.If Evolution Happened Gradually over Millions of Years, Why Doesn’t the Fossil Record Show Gradual Change?

Most successful species live for relatively long periods of time. The history of life shows long periods of stability with little change, with speciational change happening rather rapidly. The equilibrium of life is thus punctuated by bursts of change.

4.No One Has Ever Seen Evolution Happen

This is first an appeal to ignorance, a poor argument tactic. Secondly, if there are no witnesses to an event, that doesn’t mean people cannot figure out what happened. For example, accident reconstruction specialists determine what happened in traffic accidents based on evidence at the scene. Crime scene specialists and law enforcement experts recreate crimes, including sequences of events, causes of injuries, even the mindset of perpetrators. Understanding something from evidence left behind is reasonable and logical; eyewitnesses are not necessary (and sometimes not all that accurate; Loftus & Palmer, 1996). Finally, independent observations and evidence from every branch of science support that evolution is a fact. Strong, consistent, and continuing convergence of evidence strongly supports that evolution is indeed the process by which life evolved on our planet.

5.Science Claims That Evolution Happens by Random Chance

This argument is completely false. Natural selection is not random at all; rather, survival is determined by individual qualities that enhance ability to survive and reproduce in a particular environment. There is nothing random about that.

6.Only an Intelligent Designer Could Have Made Something as Complex as an Eye (or Whatever)

Eyes are actually not well put together. They are in fact upside down and backwards. Among human beings, about 75% require some vision correction (Vision Council of America, 2017). The structure and function of eyes across species is very well understood from an evolutionary perspective, with initial primitive light-sensing cells the precursors to similarly-structured eyes across many different species.

7.Evolution Is Only a Theory

This is also a poor argument tactic called a straw person, where a solid argument is changed into something easily knocked down (“only” a theory). A theory is an explanation; good theories explain most or all of the known evidence, provide testable hypotheses, are guided by natural law, and are falsifiable. Evolution is supported by abundant, converging evidence, and guides new predictions. It is a superior theory, the singular theory that unites all of science.

8.Evidence for Human Evolution Has Turned out to Be Fake, Fraudulent, or Fanciful

Some “evidence” produced by scientists has indeed turned out to be fake. Piltdown Man, offered by Charles Dawson and Arthur Smith Woodward in England, is an example of a fake. Honest scientists also make mistakes in research, like the case of Nebraska Man. But fakes do not define all of science, and mistakes usually turn out to be useful in the progression of science. Science as a method is designed intentionally to stop fakes and frauds and to minimize mistakes. Scientific evidence is subject to peer-review and the greatest scrutiny. Mistakes often lead to new directions and discoveries, and a few fakes do not undermine the totality of evidence supporting evolution. To claim that one part or one piece invalidates an entire body of evidence is a poor argument tactic called the part-whole fallacy.

9.The Second Law of Thermodynamics Proves That Evolution Is Impossible

This physical law applies to closed, isolated systems. The Earth is an open system, with constant energy provided by the sun. The Second Law of Thermodynamics does not apply to life existing and evolving on Earth, nor to many other processes on Earth.

10.Evolution Can’t Account for Morality

Morality is observed across the animal kingdom. We see love, attachment bonds, relationships, and altruism happening among animals. For example, mothers across species care for their children, show obvious affection toward them, help them in time of need, and show great distress when they are missing or injured. Pair bonding of mates across a lifetime is also common. As social species, primates, including humans, show great respect for social processes such as reciprocity, cooperation, and sharing with others. Evidence of caretaking and kinship bonds is abundant in the fossil record of hominid groups. Morality enhances ability of a species to survive because it enhances group bonds, which aids individual survival and reproduction. Evolution can and does account for moral behavior in humans and other animals.

The Beginnings of Life on Earth

The story of the origins of life on our planet is obviously very complicated, and there is much that scientists still do not know about the origins of life. The universe is said to be over 13 billion years old (Planck Collaboration, 2015), while the Earth is said to be about 4.5 billion years old (Braterman, 2013). Evidence of early microbial life is found in rocks about 3.5 billion years old in Western Australia (Noffke, Christian, Wacey, & Hazen, 2013). Microfossils about 4 billion years old have also been found in Canada. Early bacteria are found in rocks in Greenland, about 3.7 billion years old (Nutman, Mojzsis, & Friend, 1997). Evidence of the most likely beginning of organic life on the planet comes from a series of experiments conducted by Sutherland (Powner, Gerland, & Sutherland, 2009). The young Earth was covered in oceans, with many different forms of energy present, including sunlight, lightning, volcanoes, deep-sea vents, and meteorites from space. In addition to water, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, sulphur, phosphorus, and carbon were all present, the basic elements of life. Sutherland and colleagues actually created ribonucleic acid (RNA), which is essential for protein production in living cells, in their laboratory. The earliest life was likely prokaryotic bacterial cells (cells without nuclei), such as the ones found in ancient fossils. Once life existed on Earth, it would not be stopped, and over billions of years, very slowly, everything alive that has ever existed on the planet and that exists today evolved from these earlier simpler forms. As every branch of science continues to test the predictions of evolutionary theory, including modernly, the evidence supporting evolution continues to mount. Today, the theory of evolution is largely regarded as factual. A theory is an explanation of a particular phenomenon that provides a testable hypothesis. The explanation of life provided by the theory of evolution has been supported by numerous observations since its inception over 150 years ago.

Evolution: Basic Principles, Supporting Evidence

Charles Darwin is the English naturalist who first published on evolutionary theory in his famous book, On the Origin of Species (Darwin, 1859). Darwin had traveled on his ship, The Beagle, observing various life forms in different types of ecosystems and environments all over the world. Based on his observations, Darwin concluded that life forms evolved slowly over time to survive in changing environments. For example, in the Galapagos Islands (an island group about 600 miles off the west coast of South America) he observed various types of finches, all of which belonged to the same species. The finches all originally flew from the mainland to the Islands. On some of the islands the birds ate nuts and seeds and lived on the ground. On other islands the finches ate fruit and lived in trees. On other islands the finches ate insects. Depending on their main diet, the finches possessed different features, particularly different shaped beaks, with some beaks better for cracking open seeds and other beaks adapted for drinking nectar from flowers. All the same species, yet different features had evolved over time, depending on the environment and food supply on each particular island. Darw...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Human Evolution
• 2 The Cellular Basis of Life
• 3 Genetics
• 4 Human Sexual Reproduction
• 5 Gender Stereotypes
• 6 Theories of Gender
• 7 Global, Historical Sexism
• 8 Human Sexuality
• 9 Personality, Emotions, and Health
• 10 Intimacy and Interpersonal Relationships
• 11 Aggression
• 12 Occupational Roles and Power
• 13 Current Issues and Social Problems
• Index