Sex and Gender Across the Primate Spectrum (Frans De Waal)
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- čas přidán 26. 08. 2024
- The Michael Shermer Show # 274
What is gender? How different are men and women? Are differences due to biological sex or to culture? How do they compare with what is known about our fellow primates? Do apes also culturally learn their sex roles or is “gender” uniquely human?
Shermer and de Waal discuss: sex and gender in humans, primates, and mammals • who you identify as vs. who you’re attracted to • binary vs. nonbinary vs. continuum: how fuzzy can human sex categories be for a sexually reproducing species? • gender differences in physical and mental characteristics • why would homosexuality evolve? • chimpanzees and bonobos • what is the “purpose” of orgasms in women, nipples in men? • myths of the demure female • rape in humans and other primates: what is the purpose - sex, power or both? • murder, and human violence: how do men and women differ? • dominance and power • rivalry, friendship, competition and cooperation • maternal and paternal care of the young • same-sex sex • monogamy, polygamy, polyandry, etc. in humans, primates & mammals • grandmother hypothesis • primates & primatologists, humans & anthropologists: bias in science • the future of primates and primatology.
Frans de Waal has been named one of TIME magazine’s 100 Most Influential People. The author of Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? among many other works, he is the C. H. Candler Professor in Emory University’s Psychology Department and director of the Living Links Center at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
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This is one of the best conversations. I was glued to Frans De Waal's explanation. Time to get the book.
34:56 - 36:11
Women, like their male counterparts, are only human. Some, in the very worst of ways.
54:55
"From the females also, there's a lot of sneakiness."
Equality has its consequences.
I think your comment is funny because it shows the male petty spitefulness. In other gender related videos, especially Joe Rogan's, men are very emotionally enraged. Men seem to hog up the conversation accusing women of being emotional, yet the primary emotion that has caused a millennia of war and destruction is... anger, the male emotion that testosterone amplifies.
If you notice children's behaviour, you'll see the boy trying to provoke but when disciplined will scream "they started it!. With little girls, they'll be frustrated but apologize.
Another example is all the incel forums and youtubers. Women don't behave like that, maybe we're just better :)
@ Anna
Your misandrist comment provides a textbook example of the duplicity of feminism. Attempting to insidiously promote the upside of women by unscrupulously cherry-picking the downside of men. The feminist movement was never about equality among the sexes. It was about women exclusively and advantageously having their sweet, pristine cake while slyly eating it too.
@ Anna
You've never met an unscrupulous woman? I did. As I read your previous comments.
Humbeto Maturana, chilean biologist, had studied the development of language and came to the conclusion that one key factor, not directly related to biology itself, was the need of cooperation, not competition, among individuals of a group.
1:20:37
"I think language is a big deal. And, of course, it permeates everything we do. Also, our thinking. Our thinking is shaped, to some degree, by language."
As the show host and guest alluded to during a 10-minute exchange beginning at the 18-minute mark in the podcast, those who control the meaning and the use of words control the discourse. Accordingly, the recent, deliberate manipulation and eroding of language by the regressive Left has been a human detriment.
It’s interesting how when you ask an expert a question in a field outside but adjacent to their field of expertise, they emphasise “I’m not an expert but…”
What a perfect pair for a fascinating conversation!!!!!!
John Money did not invent the term 'gender'. It was introduced by Robert J. Stoller in his book conveniently called 'Sex and Gender'. Money footnotes Stoller for the term, but Money a) had a higher profile and b) published faster. Stoller was a Freudian psychoanalyst (Professor of Psychology at UCLA) and his idea of gender was actually a Freudian concept. Money taking it over and popularizing it has created a huge cultural disaster.
💯
I think when you would confront Frans de Waal with the ways he's quoted sometimes his reaction would be: well, actually it's a bit more complicated..
Within the past year I read an article referencing peer-reviewed research which claimed that almost 1 million females in the USA are unable to become pregnant because they are not standard XX females. They (and their husbands) usually have no idea about their true genetic state until they request reproductive medical assistance. To me, that stat alone makes this whole topic extremely complicated. Discussions like this program help to clear the muddy waters so thanks.
If they are not XX, what are they? XY? That would make them male right?
@@Mevlinous what's referenced is androgen insensitivity syndrome. These are genetic males who are phenotypically female. Strictly speaking, they are males. They have male sexual organs within their bodies that never fully develop. However they also have a blind vagina as a result of embryologic development which is by default phenotypically female.
The main point in an evolutionary sense and a quite frankly a reproductive sense is they can not procreate. Therefore they lost, so this statistically insignificant outlier doesn’t make the rule. There genes will not be passed on to the next generation. Come on guys what are they teaching you?
De Waal is fascinating and brilliant
6:18 start
Awesome, I own and read his book "Mama's last hug" , a must read IMHO!
I’ve tried to clean it up but I’m getting a headache just from this small correction of text. Apologies.
So why do women oppose abortion?
At rates not too different from men either
No matter how many diplomas, how many books written, how many papers and research years... there's always the possibility that you ultimately utter a moronic stupidity like "men should not dictate women what to do with their bodies". Which is correct and undoubtedly true. The abortion issue has to do with what happens with the body women carry in their womb. And the answer is to respect the baby. Simple
Ok, respect it by carrying it yourself.
And who is speaking for the millions of sperm that men senselessly murder all the time?
@@globalist1990 wtf
@@globalist1990 or respect yourself by not having sex, or using birth control properly, if you can’t raise a child
@@hsmd4533 great solution, going back in time.
I'm in line to get this book! Will be a big help in my monograph.
Looking forward to this Thank You
I just listened to an interview with a sexologist who said that the first finding of male birth order correlating with homosexual men led to further investigation which resulted in finding regardless of whether a pregnancy was carried to term, miscarried, etc, the birth order phenomena persisted which indicted a biological cause rather than a social one and what they ended up discovering was it depended on the mothers immune response to the second & subsequent male pregnancies and likely related to the alien (to the mother) Y chromosome. This was confirmed by scans, but I can’t remember the detail of that.
Fascinating hypothesis regarding there being some sort of link between pleasure from orgasms and increased sexual intercourse. Never would have thought that.
I would love to know if autism can be observed in primates
I never understood the people vs things argument as I reflect from my experiences as a woman. Yes, I like being around people vs being alone so I can get my preference for being with people from many different careers providing the social environment of where I’m performing my work allows for interaction, whether that interaction is occurring in the performance of my work, or interaction is happening in the pauses like lunch & coffee breaks. I was a nurse for many years too, but I didn’t choose it because of “I like people over things careers” reasons, but because the flexibility in work times over the 24hr/7days nature of the job for raising kids with a 9-5 M-F working husband. That it included people was a bonus, & also that I loved the stimulation of the work, but it wasn’t the reason I chose it. I could have got the people & stimulation from many other professions.
There’s a difference between a human or other primate male not conforming to male typical behaviour and a female not conforming to female typical behaviour, which we have a phrase for “gender non-conformity”, and concluding a human or other primate being the opposite sex which is what the argument being presented to us and the justification for interfering with pubertal development of teenagers using drugs and surgeries. I think we should be indifferent to gender non-conformity and sceptical of claims people can be born in the wrong body & that the right solution for teenagers making that claim is to affirm their belief by stopping their puberty, giving them opposite sex hormones & surgically altering them so their body resembles the body they believe they were supposed to have had at birth.
What happened to abortion should be rare and safe? How did a choice become a decision?
Leftists want abortion on demand, and a lot of it.
56:15
Michael Shermer and Frans de Waal are “mostly heterosexual”. 👌🏻
I'm a coffee driinker, but I think I really like tea.
It was not a decision just made by men. There are lots of conservative women who desired it to be overturned. To say it's a male decision is not exactly honest. Plus, there were lots of men who didn't want it to be overturned. Smart guest. Lazy remark.
As for when women were seen as active sexual beings with desire and agency is that they WERE seen that way, in most cultures, for the vast majority of human history.
The idea that they are (or ought to be) void ofsexual desire and agency is restricted to a very brief period of time and place.
"Why did it take so long" is a question that betrays profound ignorance of how women were regarded outside of Victorian Europe and America.
There are no stupid questions...but I had to tap out of the conversation at that point.
Religious pundits most likely. No specific religion. Any.
Pls be a repudiation of the bioessntialist position
I don't think transsexuality is something natural. It's a sociological phenomenon, not a biological one. What can be observed in animals, particularly primates, is masculine behavior in females and feminine behavior in males. Although "sex" is almost exclusively binary - about 1-2 percent of individuals cannot be clearly assigned to one of the two sexes - "gender" can actually be represented as a spectrum, and differences can be observed physiologically in the brain. However, this does not apply to gender identity, because "identity" is a purely human, sociological phenomenon. I don't believe, that chimps have a concept of "identity" and therefore I certainly doubt that animals have anything like a gender identity. Nor do they mind if their genitals don't match their temperament and behavior. They also do not require pubery blockers, hormone preparations or surgical interventions.There is nothing natural or biological about puberty blockers, hormone drugs and surgery. Gender dysphoria is a purely sociological phenomenon related to gender norms.
Well, there are cases of animals acting like the opposite gender:
"Five wild lionesses grow a mane and start acting like males"
We can't know if they actually believe they're male lions, but they sure act like they are.
@@5driedgrams Just because a woman behaves like a stereotypical man, does that mean she stops being a woman? Have you ever heard of tomboys?
@@elefant5772 sometimes. In the case of the lion I don't know, I'm not omniscient.
Awesome! Thank you! Very interesting topic. I wish Frans had gone more into the differences between sex and gender and how testosterone influences gender. As I understand it as a biologist, for the most part, people identify as manly or womanly. Yes, you can be in the middle. Gender is a continuum because the human brain develops as female by default and with increasing levels of testosterone during development, it becomes more male. Males and females (sex) can fall all along this continuum of gender but are heavily skewed towards the tails of the distribution (female-----male) even though they are either male or female when looking at chromosomes. It's plausible to think that during development in a female, there's too much testosterone in some cases and her brain becomes more masculinized. The outcome can be that this female is a lesbian or in other circumstances a "male" gender because that part of the brain responsible for gender is more masculine. It's a result of a testosterone titration curve during development. The same goes for males. If there's too little testosterone at critical points in brain development, the male's brain stays female (because that's the default) and we end up with gay males or males that identify as the female gender because those parts of the brain responsible for sexual attraction and/or gender are more feminine. We have girly girls, regular girls, tomboys, bisexuals, feminine men, regular men, and really manly men. Sex on the other hand, is binary except for XXY, XYY individuals. Because you can have lesbians and gay men who identify as a male or female gender, there are probably two separate parts of the brain responsible for this although I'm not sure it's been solved yet. I.e., One part of the brain determines sexual preference, the other, gender and both are influenced by prenatal testosterone levels. Summary: We need some education to the masses to understand the difference between biological ‘sex’ and ‘gender’. Sex is fixed at male or female due to chromosomes in humans. Gender is the masculinity/femininity imparted on certain brain structures by testosterone during parts of brain development. Gender can be messed up during development if things don’t go according to the normal protocols for a number of unknown reasons. Sex is fixed (except for klinefelter, etc.).
there is no such thing as "gender." At least the way the woke left has come to quite recently define it.
Not to long ago, gender and sex were interchangeable.
Anyway, there is no such thing as this "social gender" phenomenon, yes the expectations of men and women shift over the years however they do not stop BEING MAN or WOMAN.
If we are to; as the left claims to want, destroy the oppressive structure of "gender," then why are we going along with those dynamics and worrying when someone uses the "wrong" pronouns. You have to see how this is not a logically consistent ideology, and is entirely structured around protecting the fragile feelings of so-called "transgender" people.
@@Strange9952 I see where you are coming from but in listening to these transgender people describe themselves, it's not as simple as just sexual attraction (which is towards another person). There needs to be a way to describe how the person feels themselves (masculine or feminine). I think we use the word "gender" to describe this. People are definitely confusing biological sex with gender. No doubt. What follows in quotes are some definitions from an LGBTQ website. It makes sense to me that there are two parts of the brain, one that determines your sexual preference and one that determines gender as they aren't always in congruent. "Sexual orientation describes a person's enduring physical, romantic, and/or emotional attraction to another person (for example: straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual), while gender identity describes a person's, internal, personal sense of being a man or a woman, or someone outside of the gender binary.
Simply put: sexual orientation is about who you are attracted to and fall in love with; gender identity is about who you are.
Like everyone else, transgender people have a sexual orientation. Transgender people may be straight, lesbian, gay, bisexual, or queer. For example, a person who transitions from male to female and is attracted solely to men would typically identify as a straight woman. A person who transitions from female to male and is attracted solely to men would typically identify as a gay man."
If this is how these people are describing themselves, I have to take them at their word.
The western male put invisible Burqa on there females,eastern male-muslims with very visible burqa on their female(so that they can control their own desires).Prof.Dr Nasir Fazal Cambridge USA 🇺🇸
I don't quite understand why Michael would bring up the example along the lines of "when a boy starts to like boys, maybe he isn't a boy after all - no, he might just be gay" as if that is something commonly said among people advocating for gender identity being fluid/socially constructed. They understand that sexual orientation and gender identity are separate. Being trans is independent of sexual interest.
Felt a little bit like a strawman, but overall a very good discussion.
He's oversimplifying his original idea i think. His idea was more that adolescents can be really confused when discovering who they are/growing up and they can easily be convinced for a period of time by a popular idea, just to realize that was a mistake. That is obviously not saying that some people can not be transgender, but i think in general this is discovered before adolescence, although I'm not sure.
His claim is that kids who seem to be trans are often just gay and going through a phase but are then pushed by society to transition. He called it a social contagion. He really fixates on that in many videos without much data to back it up. I thought De Waal's response was good by essentially saying that is the exception, not the norm.
@@infinitemonkey917
Yeah, it's also the impression I got that it's not "pushed by society" but rather evaluated by doctors under long term supervision.
@@taiwanesecats
Firstly, I obviously recognize that all of these things aren't totally independent from another, biological and sociocultural influences are always present everywhere, there isn't this sharp divide between sex being 100 % biological and gender being 100 % social (as mentioned in the video). For example in twins where one twin is trans, then they're more likely to be fraternal twins rather than identical (proportionally speaking).
Secondly, yes these things are distinct from another. Men who cross dress for sexual pleasure often times are cisgender heterosexual men, some of them even happily married. Their gender identity (as men) is not affected by this fetish. It's also distinct from dragqueens who are into the pegeantry and glamor and makeup and showmanship aspect, rather than it being sexual. Dragqueens are usually cis as well.
When I say being trans is independent of sexual interest, what I mean is that various combinations are possible and actually being occupied by people (trans and straight, trans and gay, cis and gay, trans and being into crossdressing for sexual reasons, cis and being into crossdressing etc.). But like I said, on a fundamental level I do recognize that everything is indirectly dependent in some complex fashion. We do observe some correlations here and there that indicate some directions but generally speaking, just because somebody likes to crossdress we can't assume they're being trans for example. They might still identify as cis.
I like Frans but I feel he doesn’t understand the current trans/gender situation well. The angle he is coming from is not accurate to what is actually happening.
Great nominative determinism re gender differences professor called "Dick Swab" !!! WTF!
There is a quantitative and qualitative difference between human primates and chimpanzee primates. Humans have a hugely more complex brain. Given that complexity, there is more chance for different configurations of neural networks, including sex identity. This is called gender identity. Someone can be born with XX chromosomes and be biologically a female, but identify mentally as a male - they feel like a male in a female body. It can be the other way around, an XY-male with male genitalia who identifies and feels like a female in a male's body.
Until we find neurological evidence, we can’t say with certainty why that might happen.
How does a male know what Female feels like?
Good point. Badly phrased. Going by what my trans niece/nephew described, I would say it is a set of things. Relate to boys as one of them, feeling natural around boys. Relating to girls as not like them, etc.
@@georgegrubbs2966 lol, poor syntax, good point.
However a person describes their feeling, and however strongly, its not going to be any more substantial than that.
We don't necessarily feel like our sex, we just are.
LOL. “We just are.” How do you know what other people subjectively experience? There is no way you can know a first-person experience.
Is this just two guys patting each other on the back about how politically enlightened they are or is it worth listening to?
Listen.
Barely 10 minutes in and they already dismiss the conservative view on abortion without any real consideration. “They SAY it’s about the child, but we know that they REALLY want to control women’s bodies”.
Pure BS.
I bet spiders who get eaten by females wish they were a little bigger.
Most of those spider species willingly sacrifice themselves after copulation. It's the male mantises that try and resist.
Hello, May I share an Old Testament Verse with you from Daniel 7:14 "And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a Kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should SERVE Him; his dominion is an Everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom shall not pass away, and His Kingdom that which shall not be destroyed." Also, can I share Isaiah 53:5 " But HE was WOUNDED For our TRANSGRESSIONS, he was BRUISED for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His STRIPES we are HEALED."
God the Father loves you so much that He sent Holy Sinless Jesus (His Holy Son) to earth to be born of a virgin.Then, to grow up and die on a cross for our sins. He was in the tomb for 3 days, then Father God raised Holy and Sinless Jesus Christ (Y'shua) to Life! He appeared to people and went back to Heaven. We must receive Sinless Jesus sincerely to be God's child(John 1:12).After we get saved by grace through faith in Christ, if we truly love the Lord Jesus Christ, then we will obey Jesus(John 14:15). Mark 1:15 "And saying, the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: Repent ye, and believe the gospel." Jesus said in John 14:15 "If you love Me, keep My commandments. "There's a real hell. It says in Revelation 21:8 "But for the cowardly, & unbelieving, and abominable, & murderers, & immoral persons sorcerers & idolaters & all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire & brimstone..." Please sincerely receive Holy Jesus and put your true faith & trust in Him today and please repent. Will you have a Real encounter with Holy Lord Jesus (Y'shua is His Hebrew Name) & stay in a Genuine relationship with Him daily please?
Emory is a fine university. But it's WOKE as hell.
Consider that in light of the statement "science is affected by culture" 16:25
I respectfully suggest that there's cultural bias influencing both sides of the abortion issue. We simply don't have the facts about the true relationship between brain development and conciousness. We have no idea about the subjective experience of a human in the womb. Nobody knows, even remotely, at what stage self-awareness begins; so we don't know when "personhood" (and the legal rights that status provides) begins.
Against the backdrop of this appalling chasm of ignorance, we substitute tribal affiliation for facts, hence the cultural perversion of science.
The honest and scientific response is "I don't know", to the question of when exactly (between fertilization and live birth) a human in the womb is experiencing itself as a sentient being.
The science of conciousness tells me unequivocally that I don't know, and that you don't either.
Isn't it wise then to err on the side of caution? Maybe a freshly fertilized egg is demonstrably unsentient, but what about after seven months? Your desire to virtue signal to your tribe shouldn't overwhelm the knowledge that there could be a person in there.
Could be...we don't know.
It is for this reason that the vast majority of people who identify as pro-choice, also support a time restriction, after which abortion is deemed unethical. And so the argument for choice is not simply a clear binary between a total ban and unrestricted female choice. So in the future don't frame the controversy as:
'Misogyny VS. Female Empowerment'.
That's lazy, oversimplified, pandering to one side. In other words, it is cultural ideology over science.
Not cool.
Gender must be a social construct as we note now in society a far larger number of people saying they are trans-gender unless we can find an environmental cause for this new social praise for the bravery of declaring yourself trans.
gender, sex ect.... these are just noises we make with our mouths. you have an xx or xy the rest is just noises, we decide what those noises mean. We need to all agree on what noises mean but they are just mouth noises.
I got the book. Reading the Chapter "Same-sex sex", 6 pages talking about birds and penguins in a book about primates. Then he talks about Rheus Monkey and Japanese macaque and some homosexual behavior of these species. Then cite other authors that support homosexual behavior in humans as normal as in some primates. He present and argument as the homosexual behavior is not voluntary in primates. "When males spend a long time together without females, as in the all male Japanese macaque troop mentioned above, sexual impulses often do find an outlet in homosexual behavior." This occurs in humans also. Bonobos have a genital handshake between them. What Frans do not mention is the length of the behavior in primates. In humans a gay has homosexual behavior only, no primates. Primates samples given by Frans are homosexual sporadic behavior, but mainly primates individual are heterosexual. Humans great different with primates is the mental fixation, some individual can have a mental fixation in this behavior. This is a missing aspect that has to be researched, since the same mental fixation allow us to work, read, invent, repeat, explore and imagine, etc.
closest relatives? then he admits we are not directly descended from Bonobos, but to a distant primate, 6 million years ago, I would not consider that "close".
Evolution does not claim that we are decendents of bonobos. We share a common ancestor with bonobos and chimps equally. That ancestor lived around 7 million years ago and was not human, bonobo or chimp as we all have evolved separately since that time.
Your siblings are your closest relatives, so by extension...
It doesn't matter how long ago the species differentiation started to happen, even if it were 6 trillion years ago. It's still the _closest_ if there are no other differentiations with a currently living species that happened _after_ it.
closest ≠ close
Alpha Centauri is the *_closest_* star to our solar system, but 41,315,000,000,000 km is *_not close._* Still no contradiction.
You seem to be confused.
Nobody said we are. Even dogs aren't directly descended from modern wolves even though only a few 10s of thousands of years separate them from a common ancestor.
Long live Sir Woodrow wilson s legacy of segregation
Very interesting. Language has been huge to our evolutionary success.
Accordingly, the recent eroding of language by the regressive Left has been a human detriment.
@@jeffersonianideal so you think jefferson would be a republican? Lol. You don't know much about jefferson.
@@robinhood20253
Where did I reference Mr. Jefferson in my comment? Attention deficit disorder becomes you. Since you tangentially brought it up, however, Thomas Jefferson was among the nation's first libertarians. Classical liberal would also be a suitable designation.
@@jeffersonianideal your name dork
Abortion is a moral issue and a man’s opinion is no less valid than a woman’s in making law. Silly argument from this guy. This guy is ignorant when it comes to abortion laws in the USA. NPR conducted a poll and titled the article “republican woman and abortion”. 68% of these women vs 59% of men were pro life and the women were less likely to favor exemptions for rape and incest. The residents of each state vote to elect their representatives and these representatives then craft laws that the governor signs. If just women determined abortion laws in conservative states, they very well may be even more restrictive than if men crafted the laws. If you replaced the male conservatives on the Supreme Court with female conservatives, you most likely get the same result.
Such a smart researcher and his findings are very valid and scientific 🙄 We don’t need monogamy and I don’t mind gathering kids from different males that my many wives and partners have had. Nothing is more heartwarming and reinforcing of the bond between males and females than the knowledge that my wife could go on dates with many men as she desires and only comes back to me when she is in the mood, and hopefully after she had decided to be pregnant with a rich healthy guy’s kid . And living together is not even necessary since we can simply meet during travel and at sex parties. Evolution wants more babies and let me tell you: we can do that. And I like sharing my house, car and belongings with my wife’s other partners and their kids, making them ours… monogamy is stupid. Jealousy is stupid. It is not even natural but slaves used to be a natural way of living, so is violence among animals, killings, stealing and so on. But I guess we are destined when it serves us and can deviate when we don’t like it. Non monogamy is great for non alpha males too and being alpha has changed over the years but who wants to commit to one person. Women that want faithful committed males are such cockblockers, am I right? But they are the ones I would maybe love. But who needs love. It is stupid. I would never do that. We aren’t made for it. Families are overrated and I am trying to be evolved enough to cancel marriage, nuclear family, monogamy, and strong ties based on the control of desires, which is so lame. Cats and rats are much more successful at breeding and we can learn a lot from them. So come on guys, let us share the female partners. They want penises and we want vaginas and that is all that matters. And make sure you don’t fall for a needy woman that wants monogamy and a man that doesn’t like to feel the sperm of other men after she is back from her dates. What a primitive man that is!
Wow, you must have read between the lines..
Being sarcastic. I am not dumb enough to marry let alone have kids.
Wow, triggered incels are ranty, aren't they?
Dude, there’s no right or wrong in these matters. Just create what you want and love what you will.
SIMP
Every race has a right to be its own free the white aryan race
Lol. Poor baby
Every race has right to be its own. Long live the white aryan races