@alfayruz
Jasey - I’m no anthropologist, but it seems obvious to me that as the child-bearing sex, women since the beginning of time have had to negotiate life differently to men. A lot of ‘social constructs’ such as family structures (whether it’s the nuclear family or plural wives) would have been a double-edged sword of enduring survival and protecting women and their children, but also ensuring paternity. Over time, this morphs into control and all the manifestations of the patriarchy as it plays out in virtually all societies across the globe. Religion is devised (by men) as a way of sublimating and institutionalising it all and the rest is obvious.
Yep, there is (as I’ve said) a degree of ‘social reaction to biological imperatives’ in gender roles. But there are other factors at play that undermine the idea that all of these and in particular how we ‘feel’ about them are the direct result of biology.
For example, you cited ‘ensuring paternity’ as a biological imperative, but is it? Is there evidence that it’s innate biology, rather than, say, a response to the environmental factor that there isn’t much food, there’s a fucking sabre tooth cat outside, need to decide who to prioritise, this group looks like a sensible grouping. (And that group will still differ across cultures based on social norms.) I’m not sure there’s any evidence that men have a different biological response to children who aren’t biologically theirs (ie there isn’t a pheromone issue, etc.) It’s the idea of their child that’s the driver, and I think there is a decent argument that it’s more about desire and imperative for power and authority.
There’s much we don’t know. But a couple of good rules of thumb:
- When it comes to gender roles, the rapid unwinding of previously supposedly ‘innate’ female roles as soon as women had a way to avoid pregnancy is a signal that many of the roles and norms thrust upon women were not in fact driven by their own biology, and their biological difference from men, but from society’s response to their biological difference from men.
Another way to look at it is by culture - take the contention put forward by some that girls are more innately drawn to humanities, and boys to STEM. If you look at studies and surveys of British children, you’d certainly think that was supported. But those rates vary vastly across countries, and absent a massive biological difference in, for example, Russian girls and British girls, our concepts of what boys and girls are ‘good at’ or ‘are drawn to’ are largely constructed by us and imposed on our children at a young age. (Depressingly consistent is the fact that as more women enter a field, pay rates decline.)
- There are plenty of social constructs that aren’t gender based and where it is incredibly difficult to apply a biologically-driven lens to some of the constructs we’ve invented. Numerous people have mentioned race; there are others. The idea of adulthood, for example, is an example of a social construct that has shifted considerably (for both men and women) over time. Again, there is a biological component (sexual maturity) involved but it’s not the sole or even the determining factor in different concepts of adulthood across societies and over time.