Darwinosexism

(...) Darwin taught that human sex differences were due partly to sexual selection, specifically because men must prove themselves physically and intellectually superior to other men in the competition for women, whereas women must be superior primarily in sexual attraction. Darwin used examples of cultures that require the men to fight competitors to retain their wives to support this conclusion. Because "the strongest party always carries off the prize," the result is that "a weak man, unless he be a good hunter . . . is seldom permitted to keep a wife that a stronger man thinks worth his notice" (1896:562).

Other examples Darwin uses to illustrate his conclusion that evolutionary forces caused men to be superior to women included animal comparisons. Since humans evolved from animals, and "no one disputes that the bull differs in disposition from the cow, the wild-boar from the sow, the stallion from the mare, and, as is well known through the keepers of menageries, the males of the larger apes from the females," the same must be true with human females (Darwin, 1896:563). Further, some of the traits of women "are characteristic of the lower races, and therefore of a past and lower state of civilization" (1896:563,564).

In summary, Darwin concludes that men attain,

. . . a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up, than can women—whether requiring deep thought, reason, or imagination, or merely the use of the senses and hands. If two lists were made of the most eminent men and women in poetry, painting, sculpture, music (inclusive of both composition and performance), history, science, and philosophy, with half-a-dozen names under each subject, the two lists would not bear comparison. We may also infer, from the law of the deviation from averages, so well illustrated by Mr. Galton, in his work on "Hereditary Genius", that . . . the average of mental power in man must be above that of women (Darwin, 1896:564).

Obviously, Darwin totally ignored the influence of culture, the environment, social roles, and the relatively few opportunities that existed in his day, as well as historically, for both men and women.

The conclusion that women are evolutionarily inferior to men is at the core of Darwin's major contribution to evolutionary theory: natural anti-sexual selection. Since selection in the long term prunes out the weak, all factors which facilitate saving the weak work against evolution. Males are subjected to more selection pressures than women, including the supposed tack that, in earlier times, the stronger, quicker, and more intelligent males were more apt to survive a hunt and bring back food. Consequently, natural selection would evolve males to a greater degree than females. Since women historically have focused primarily on domestic, often menial, repetitive tasks and not on hunting, they were less affected by selection pressures. Further, the long tradition of males has been to protect women: only men went to battle, and the common war norms forbade deliberately killing women. War pruned the weaker men, and only the best survived to return home and reproduce. The eminent evolutionist, Topinard, concluded that men were superior because they fought to protect both themselves and their wives and their families. Further, Topinard taught that males have

all of the responsibility and the cares of tomorrow and are. . . constantly active in combating the environment and human rivals, and thus need . . . more brains than the woman whom he must protect and nourish . . . the sedentary women, lacking any interior occupations, whose role is to raise children, love, and be passive (quoted in Gould, 1981:104).

Women's inferiority—a fact taken for granted by most scientists in the 1800s—was a major proof of evolution by natural selection. Gould claims that there were actually "few egalitarian scientists" at this time. Almost all believed that "Negroes and women" were intellectually inferior. These scientists were not repeating prejudices without extensive work and thought; they were attempting to verify this major plank in evolutionary theory by trying to prove, scientifically, that women were inferior. (...)

(http://www.icr.org/article/378/)

In the grand scheme of time, wasn't it just the other day the scientists and leading thinkers, of which all were men, thought the world was flat?