Evolutionary Psychology

The discussion of evolutionary theory and feminist ideology has existed for decades and has been obstructed by assumptions, generalizations, misunderstandings, and omissions from both points of view. Terminology, in particular, has had important consequences for comprehension. We note, like Barkow (2006), that there is no term that accurately captures the variety of work of those applying Darwinian theory to the study of human behavior. We apply “evolutionary psychology” here as it is a prevalent term that is used currently, but it also reinforces the goal of focusing on human nature as an outcome of biological evolution (Barkow, 2006). To provide as much clarity and simplicity as possible in this chapter, we will refer to evolutionary scientists as “evolutionists” and feminist scholars as “feminists” as they were in Hrdy (1981/1999).

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Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge Handbook of Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Behavior , pp. 378 - 392
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108131797.032 [Opens in a new window]
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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