[Clayart] Speculation

[Jeff Lawrence]

Doug wrote:
...we see the concept of male/hunter and female/gatherer
through the lens of our culture's traditional gender roles. Like all
stereotypes there is a grain of truth behind this women and children in
camp and men on the perimeter but the risk to a culture in having all of
one knowledge or another tightly held by one gender and not another is too
high be successful. A more amorphous set of gender roles is more likely to
succeed.

Hi Doug,
Advocacy for amorphous gender roles is politically correct, but disregards
both paleontological and human physiological evidence. Someone who studied
the pattern of broken and healed bones in stone age males (sorry no
citation) found they were much like that of modern-day rodeo cowboys, with
lots of fractures due, presumably, to persuading megafauna to become
dinner. My memory is that females showed no such pattern. Modern
neurological evidence lies in the differences in male and female  brain
development; as a group, young females outstrip boys in verbal development
(an advantage in social settings like making pots in camp) while, again as
a group, boys leave girls behind in spatial orientation skills (useful to
get your broken-legged hunting partner back to camp.) While these
differences are greatest in childhood and adolescence, typical gendered
behaviors seem to flow fairly consistently from their effects during
formative years.
Jeff
Jeff Lawrence
jefflawr at gmail.com
jeffreylawrence.net
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