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Date: Fri, 7 Oct 2005 13:51:03 -0400
To: improvetheworld &AElig umich.edu
From: "David Morris, PhD" <thecat &AElig umich.edu>
Subject: Re: NYtimes article: Many women at elite colleges set career path to  Motherhood
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> The basis of our present
> societal structure, which our beloved President would no doubt call
> "the nucular family" does have some historic roots going back a few
> hundred thousand years, and I am not totally convinced that its origins
> were entirely dependent on our brutish and club-wielding male ancestors
> ramming it down the throats of their unwilling mates. The fact that
> females get pregnant, give birth to babies and nurse them, while males
> are more muscular, more aggressive, can go out and bring home the bacon
> more successfully, does have some character-forming consequences which
> did get built into the human genome over the millennia.

I would certainly agree with this. I think our stereotypes do exist for 
a reason and that in many cases that is perfectly valid. But I would 
also argue that just like we don't let ourselves be ruled by our innate 
evolutionarily built in tendencies such as greed and violence, even 
though they are quite natural and there for good evolutionary reasons, 
that we also consider going against our innate tendencies of 
stereotypical roles in parenting and careers. We are in a day and age 
where the reasons for which those those tendencies were built in are 
now almost universally obsolete. Like our ability to overcome our 
animal natures in other regards has provided a clear benefit in a 
stable civilization (okay, we're still working at it, but we're getting 
there), allowing women and men to break out of their default gender 
roles, even if they are evolutionarily programmed in, may in many cases 
provide benefits, some of which we may not yet even be aware of as 
fixed in those roles as we are, that exceed the costs of going against 
our natures in this regard.

In all of these things, including violence and greed as well as desire 
to parent or work, I'd argue that as a society and as individuals we 
need to constantly balance between our base natures and alternate 
natures which we can rationally choose, and constantly adjust how much 
of our base natures, and how much of and which alternate natures, we 
allow ourselves to be.   I think there are aspects where we've already 
gone too far in getting away from our base natures, though that's 
another discussion. We should be continually striving to improve our 
understanding of ourselves and adjusting accordingly.


I'd certainly draw the line in favor of our base natures well before 
any sort of uniformly applied chemical or genetic modification of 
personalities and physiques, as tempted as I have been from time to 
time to support introducing birth control into the water supply. :-) 
I'm more in favor of self-imposed modifications.

Dave