Solitude
- Frederic Leighton (1830-1896)
In
a mixed group, women become quieter, less assertive, and more compliant. This
deference is shown only to men and not to other women in the group. A related
phenomenon is the sex gap in self-esteem: women tend to feel less self-esteem in
all social settings. The gap begins at puberty and is greatest in the 15-18 age
range (Hopcroft, 2009).
Do
women learn this behavior? Why, then, do they learn it just as easily in
Western societies where constraints on female behavior are much weaker and
typically stigmatized?
In
U.S. society most of the formal institutional constraints on women have been
removed, and ideologies of the inferiority of women are publicly frowned on.
Sexual jealousy is also publicly disapproved, however much private expectation
there may be of the phenomenon. Resources inequalities between men and women
have also been reduced, although not eradicated. Certainly, male violence
against women is still a reality and may play a role promoting deference
behaviors in college-aged women. However, it seems unlikely that fear of
physical violence is enough to explain why young women typically defer to men
when involved in non-sex typed tasks in experimental settings. (Hopcroft, 2009)
Moreover,
why would this behavior be learned mainly between 15 and 18 years of age?
[...]
by many measures, girls at this age in the United States are doing objectively
better than boys — they get better grades, have fewer behavioral and
disciplinary problems, and are more likely to go to college than boys (Fisher
1999: 82). Qualitative studies also show the decline in female confidence and
certainty at adolescence (Brown and Gilligan 1992). Brown and Gilligan's (1992)
study was done in an elite private girls' school among girls who were likely to
have every opportunity in life. Why would their self confidence be eroded at
puberty? Certainly, there are few differences in resources between teenage boys
and girls. Brown and Gilligan (1992) argue that our sexist culture strikes at girls
during puberty, stripping girls of their self esteem. It seems odd that our
patriarchal culture should wait until that precise moment to ensnare girls. (Hopcroft, 2009)
Female
self-esteem seems to be hormonally influenced. It declines at puberty, reaches
its lowest levels in late adolescence, gradually increases during adulthood,
and peaks after menopause.
[...]
evidence from many cultures [shows that] post-menopausal women often enjoy a
status equal to that of men: they become in effect "honorary men."
[...] Even in the most gender restrictive societies they are freed from
menstrual taboos and purdah, often begin to inherit property and acquire
wealth, and in general have increased freedom, status, power and influence in
society. A recent experimental study of influence in small groups showed that
older women (50 and older) do not defer to older men, and that older men do not
display lack of deference to older women. (Hopcroft, 2009)
Female
deference varies not only over a woman's lifetime but also from one woman to
the next, i.e., some women are more predisposed than others. This variability
may exist for one or more reasons:
-
Not enough time has elapsed for selection to remove contrary predispositions
(non-deference) from the gene pool.
-
The selection pressure is relatively weak: contrary predispositions appear
through mutation as fast as they are removed through selection.
-
The strength or weakness of selection may vary among human populations. Gene
flow may reintroduce contrary predispositions from populations where the selection
pressure against them is relatively weak.
-
There may be frequency-dependent selection. Non-deferring women may be better
liked when less common.
Sexual selection?
For
all these reasons, evolutionary psychologist Rosemary Hopcroft (2009) argues that
female deference is an innate predisposition and not a learned behavior. It has
become widespread because sexual selection has favored deferential women. When women compete on the mate market, success
goes to the more deferential ones.
One
might point out that deferential behavior would be advantageous not only at the
time of mating but also later—during pregnancy and infant care. So, strictly
speaking, the selection pressure wouldn’t be just sexual selection.
But
Hopcroft's argument is vulnerable to a more serious objection: sexual selection
of females is the exception and not the rule in most animal species, especially
mammals. The males are the ones that have to compete for mates. This reflects differing
contributions to procreation, the female being saddled with the tasks of
pregnancy, nursing, and early infant care. Meanwhile, the male is usually free
to go back on the mate market, with the result that mateable males outnumber
mateable females at any one time.
Hopcroft
knows this but argues that the human species is a special case because
"human fathers often invest heavily in their children." But often
they don't. What about societies where men do very little to raise their
offspring? This point doesn't disprove Hopcroft's argument. In fact, it may
provide a way to prove it, i.e., female deference should be stronger where
paternal investment is higher.
If
we look at hunter-gatherers, paternal investment tends to follow a north-south cline.
It's low in the tropical zone where women gather food year-round and can thus
provide for themselves and their children with little male assistance. It's
higher farther away from the equator, where winter limits food gathering and
makes women dependent on food that men provide through hunting. Paternal
investment is highest in the Arctic: almost all food is provided by men, and women
specialize in tasks unrelated to food procurement (garment making, shelter
building, meat processing).
This
north-south cline was maintained and in some cases accentuated when hunting
and gathering gave way to farming. In the tropical zone, farming developed out
of female food gathering and thus became women's work, as is still the case in
sub-Saharan Africa and Papua New Guinea. This sexual division of labor also
explains why tropical farmers preferred to domesticate plants for food
production. Only one animal species, the guinea fowl, has been domesticated in
sub-Saharan Africa, and it was apparently domesticated by women. All other
forms of livestock have come from elsewhere.
How universal is
female deference?
Female
deference should therefore vary within our species. In particular, it should
correlate with the degree of paternal investment in offspring and, relatedly,
the intensity of female-female competition for mates. This doesn't mean that
women are actually more deferential in societies where men are providers. It
simply means that they create an impression of deference, while continuing to
do much of the real decision-making.
This
issue is sidestepped by Hopcroft, who speaks only of 'women' and 'men'—as if
all human groups show the same pattern of female deference. She cites many
studies to prove her point, but this literature is overwhelmingly based on
Euro-American or European participants. There is one study on African
Americans, but it was limited to boys and girls 11 to 14 years old (Weisfeld et
al., 1982).
In
fact, this presumed universality of female deference was already disproven by a
study published two years earlier:
Much
feminist literature has described the relative silence of girls in classrooms
and a concomitant drop in self-esteem for girls in their early teens (Sadker &
Sadker, 1994; American Association of University Women, 1992). But other work
has noted that Black girls maintain their self-esteem and their classroom
"voice" into adolescence despite the fact that they may feel
neglected in education (Orenstein, 1994; Taylor et al., 1995). (Morris, 2007)
Over
a period of two years, Morris (2007) studied African American girls in grades 7
and 9 of an American middle school referred to as "Mathews." The
students were 46% African American and the teachers two-thirds African
American.
He
found that African American girls seemed to feel little inhibition in the
presence of boys:
Indeed,
at Matthews I often observed girls—particularly Black girls—dominating
classroom discussion.
[...]
I noticed this active participation of girls to a greater extent in English
classrooms, particularly when, as in this example, the subject concerned gender
issues or relationships. However, the topic in this example also concerned
computers and technology, areas more commonly dominated by boys. Furthermore,
girls at Matthews, especially Black girls, spoke out to ask and answer
questions in science and math classes as well, although to a lesser extent than
in English and history classes. This willingness of African American girls to
compete and stand up to others also emerged in their non-academic interactions
with boys.
[...]
Black girls at Matthews often challenged physical contact initiated by boys by
hitting and chasing them back. They did not yield to and accept this behavior
from boys, nor did they tend to seek adult authority to protect themselves and
punish the boys.
[...]
Thus, most African American girls in my observations did not hesitate to speak
up in classrooms, and stand up to boys physically. Few Black girls I observed
created disruptions in classrooms, but most consistently competed with boys and
other girls to gain teachers' positive attentions.
[..]
I observed this outspokenness at Matthews. Black girls there appeared less
restrained by the dominant, White middle-class view of femininity as docile and
compliant, and less expectant of male protection than White girls in other
educational research.
These
observations were consistent with those of the teachers, who generally
described African American girls as being confrontational, loud, and
unladylike:
Teachers,
particularly women, often scolded Black girls for supposedly subverting their
authority in the classroom.
[...]
By far the most common description and criticism of African American girls by
all teachers at Matthews was that they were too "loud."
[...]
For many adults at Matthews, the presumed loud and confrontational behavior of
African American girls was viewed as a defect that compromised their very
femininity. This emerged most clearly in educators castigating Black girls to behave
like "ladies."
Morris
attributed this behavioral pattern to America's history of slavery and race
relations. It would be useful to examine comparable data from sub-Saharan
Africa. Do African women show less deference to men in mixed-gender settings?
According
to a study of Akan society in Ghana, wives traditionally deferred to their
husbands, but such deference was less common than in European society because social
interactions were less frequent between husband and wife, being limited to
certain areas of family life:
Traditional
norms stipulated, for example, that the wife should not eat with the husband;
that she alone must carry the foodstuffs from the farm; take water for the
husband to the bathroom; sweep the compound; do the cooking; clean her
husband's penis after sexual intercourse; and show deference to him in speech
and action. (van der Geest, 1976)
Husbands
and wives seldom made decisions jointly:
Joint
decision-making is believed to be a departure from the past when decisions were
made in a much more autocratic way by the husband alone or when spouses decided
over their own matters separately (van der Geest, 1976).
Things were
very different in mixed-gender settings outside the family. In
the larger community, African women of all ages showed little deference to men, the
situation being similar to that of older women in European societies.
Despite
these outward rules, however, women held considerable power and commanded wide
respect. They played a role in traditional politics and religion and were
nearly always economically independent of their husbands. Moreover, women
enjoyed a high degree of freedom to enter and to terminate marital unions, and
in the matrilineal society of the Akan they were the focal points of descent
lines. (van der Geest, 1976)
It
is unclear to what degree modernization has changed these social dynamics. Van
der Geest (1976) found much interest among younger Akan in the European model
of family life, i.e., husband and wife eating and socializing together, and
making decisions together. His own study, however, failed to find a significant
difference between older and younger Akan in this respect. He concluded that
the elite were moving toward European models of behavior, but not the majority
of the population:
There
are indications that—contrary to the situation in elite circles—marriage in
lower socioeconomic groups remains an institution of secondary importance.
Spouses have relatively low expectations of their marriage partners and of
marriage in general. Men are often reluctant or unable to provide sufficient
financial support for their families, and not infrequently women bear the
burden of parenthood alone. [...] Wives remain more attached to their families
of origin than to their partners, and in almost half of all cases husband and
wife do not even constitute a residential unit. The relatively low status of
marriage in Kwahu is perhaps best reflected in the high incidence of divorce
and extramarital sex. (van der Geest, 1976)
This
is consistent with findings from other studies. The pair bond is relatively
weak in sub-Saharan Africa. Husband and wife tend to feel greater attachment to
their respective kin. The husband is more certain that his sister's offspring
are his blood relatives, whereas the wife sees her mother, sisters, and other
female relatives as more reliable sources of child care.
Poewe
found in her fieldwork that the marriage institution was highly flexible and
discouraged strong, intense, or lasting solidarity between husband and wife.
The male in these matrilineal societies did not produce for his progeny or for
himself, but usually for a matrician with whom he might or might not reside.
His role, as husband, was to sexually satisfy and impregnate his wife and to
take care of her during her pregnancies, but under no circumstances should a
man be the object of "exclusive emotional investment or focus of
attention. Instead, women are socialized to invest their emotions and material
wealth in their respective matrilineages." (Saidi, 2010, p. 16).
For
this reason, European outsiders see parental neglect of children where Africans
see no neglect at all—simply another system of child care. As Africans move to
other parts of the world, they tend to recreate the African marriage system in
their host countries by using local people and institutions as "surrogate
kin." This is the case in England, where young African couples often place
their children in foster homes:
The
foster parents interpret the infrequent visiting of their wards'
"real" parents as signs of parental neglect and become strongly attached
to the foster children. This sometimes results in legal suits for transfer of
custody to the foster parents (Ellis 1977). Meanwhile, the African parents make
no comparable assumption that the delegation of care means they have
surrendered formal rights in children. They consider that by having made safe
and reliable arrangements for the care of children and by regular payment of
fees, they are dispatching their immediate responsibility. (Draper, 1989, p.164)
In
recent years, there has been much talk of an "adoption crisis" in
Africa, where millions of children are not being raised by both parents and thus
purportedly need to be placed in Western homes. Yet this situation is far from
new. In fact, it's unavoidable in a culture where women cannot count on male
assistance and have to make other arrangements:
In
most African communities, the concept of "adoption" does not exist in
the western sense. Children are fostered, a prevalent, culturally sanctioned
procedure whereby natal parents allow their children to be reared by adults
other than the biological parent [35] [36]. Child fostering is a reciprocal
arrangement and contributes to mutually recognised benefits for both natal and
fostering families [37]. In Tanzania, less than one quarter of children being
fostered by relatives other than their biological parent were orphans. (Foster and Williamson, 2000).
Conclusion
Evolutionary
psychologists believe that all human populations share the same genetic
influences on behavior. They defend this belief by pointing to the complexity
of behavior and the presumably long time it would take for corresponding
genetic influences to evolve coherently from scratch. But why do they have to
evolve from scratch? Evolution usually proceeds through minor modifications to
what already exists. This is no less true for genetic determinants of behavior.
For instance, an innate mental algorithm may be partially or completely
deactivated. Or its range of targets may be broadened. Or it may deactivate
more slowly with increasing age.
To
the extent that human groups differ genetically in mental makeup, the
differences are not due to some groups having completely new mental algorithms.
Instead, the differences are due to the same algorithms being modified in
various ways, often subtly so. For example, learning is primarily an infant
behavior that becomes more difficult with increasing age. People may differ in
learning capacity not because their learning algorithms differ but because
these algorithms remain fully active for a longer time in some people than in
others.
Another
example may be female deference. In early modern humans, women tended to feel
deferential in the presence of men, but this tendency was weak because a
woman's interactions with her husband were infrequent and less important for
her survival and the survival of her children. This is still the case in human
groups that never left the tropical zone.
As
humans spread beyond the tropics, this behavioral tendency became more easily
triggered, particularly during the ages of 15 to 18 when young women entered
the mate market. This evolutionary change came about because women in
non-tropical environments were more dependent on men for food, particularly in
winter. Women were, so to speak, in a weaker bargaining position than men,
first of all on the mate market and later during pregnancy and infant care.
Brown,
L.M., and C. Gilligan. (1992). Meeting at
the Crossroads: Women's Psychology and Girls' Development, Harvard
University Press.
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Draper,
P. (1989). African marriage systems: Perspectives from evolutionary ecology, Ethology and Sociobiology, 10, 145-169.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0162309589900174
Fisher,
H. (1999). The First Sex, Random
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Foster,
G., and J. Williamson. (2000). A review of current literature of the impact of
HIV/AIDS on children in sub-Saharan Africa, AIDS
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http://www.hsrc.ac.za/uploads/pageContent/1670/AreivewofcurrentliteratureontheimpactoforphansinAfrica.pdf
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https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236707130_Gender_Inequality_in_Interaction__An_Evolutionary_Account
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E.W. (2007). "Ladies" or "Loudies"? Perceptions and
experiences of black girls in classrooms, Youth
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http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Edward_Morris7/publication/258200296_Ladies_or_Loudies_Perceptions_and_Experiences_of_Black_Girls_in_Classrooms/links/54be6b4e0cf218d4a16a60ac.pdf
Saidi,
C. (2010). Women's Authority and Society
in Early East-Central Africa, University of Rochester Press.
https://books.google.ru/books?id=_dQcIsFvkfwC&printsec=frontcover&hl=ru#v=onepage&q&f=false
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der Geest, S. (1976). Role relationships between husband and wife in rural
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http://sjaakvandergeest.socsci.uva.nl/pdf/ghana/kwahu_marriage.pdf
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