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I have to disagree that it can all be explained by societal conditioning. They tried to sample every society they could in this study to see if societal factors

I have to disagree that it can all be explained by societal conditioning. They tried to sample every society they could in this study to see if societal factors could explain the preference but could not see a societal effect. While you might be able to claim that every society around the world is fundamentally sexist to explain the difference in preferences, I think in that case you would have to be able to explain why every distributed society came to be arranged in a similar way.

unknownsky 4y ago
If cultures universally share a characteristic, that does not prove that the characteristic is a hard-wired drive. That thinking has been used to make several arguments. Cultures all around the world have made pyramids, so pyramids must have a deep spiritual meaning that all humans are tuned into. Or all these cultures were working with heavy objects and gravity and they all independently discovered that a pyramid is the easiest large structure to build. Seafaring cultures all around the world have myths about mermaids, so mermaids must be real. Or people spending lots of time at sea looking at sea-life are likely to start imagining them fusing with humans. Cultures all around the world have sun gods, so a sun god must be real and we all sensed it. Or everyone around the world looked up at the sky and saw the same thing. Cultures all around the world have gender stereotypes, so they must be hard-wired. Or women everywhere are getting pregnant while men aren't, so societies shaped themselves around that fact in similar ways.
- snehk 4y ago
  You don't make any argument here? Your next line could have been: Cultures all around the world treat women and men differently so what a woman and a man do must be caused by society. Or all those things are mostly hard wired and people make decisions because of this. Just because people's observations for things have been wrong doesn't mean that all explanations are wrong. That's a bit ridiculous.
ruszki 4y ago
The reason can be even that blatantly simple as only females can be pregnant, and until 100 years ago, they were pregnant for 5-10 years in their life. This, obviously, doesn’t mean that it’s beneficial in any sense in the current world, or that this should be the case inherently.

unknownsky 4y ago

If cultures universally share a characteristic, that does not prove that the characteristic is a hard-wired drive. That thinking has been used to make several arguments. Cultures all around the world have made pyramids, so pyramids must have a deep spiritual meaning that all humans are tuned into. Or all these cultures were working with heavy objects and gravity and they all independently discovered that a pyramid is the easiest large structure to build. Seafaring cultures all around the world have myths about mermaids, so mermaids must be real. Or people spending lots of time at sea looking at sea-life are likely to start imagining them fusing with humans. Cultures all around the world have sun gods, so a sun god must be real and we all sensed it. Or everyone around the world looked up at the sky and saw the same thing. Cultures all around the world have gender stereotypes, so they must be hard-wired. Or women everywhere are getting pregnant while men aren't, so societies shaped themselves around that fact in similar ways.

snehk 4y ago
You don't make any argument here? Your next line could have been: Cultures all around the world treat women and men differently so what a woman and a man do must be caused by society. Or all those things are mostly hard wired and people make decisions because of this. Just because people's observations for things have been wrong doesn't mean that all explanations are wrong. That's a bit ridiculous.

ruszki 4y ago

The reason can be even that blatantly simple as only females can be pregnant, and until 100 years ago, they were pregnant for 5-10 years in their life. This, obviously, doesn’t mean that it’s beneficial in any sense in the current world, or that this should be the case inherently.