Tofu feminism: can feminist theory absorb evolutionary psychology?

Kelly, S.

doi:10.1007/s10624-014-9353-2

Cited by 13 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…However and in line with other feminist critique (see e.g. Allen et al, 1975;Hoquet, 2010;Kelly, 2014;Rose and Rose, 2001), the analysis of the lecture in Intervention 3 illustrates how the Stone Age discourse risks reproducing an essentialist, deterministic and androcentric notion of gender that is potentially limiting, damaging and denigrating for both women and men. On the one hand, the Stone Age discourse in this context positioned women as inferior and problematic, resonating with Birke's assertion that biomedical practices in general have been "notoriously negative in its descriptions of women's bodies" (Birke, 2003: 43).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 63%

“…From within the field of evolutionary theory, feminist evolutionary psychology (FEP) and feminist sociobiology is critical of the paucity of focus on, and the minimisation of, women in human evolution (Fehr, 2012;Hrdy, 1981;Hubbard, 1983; and see also Sokol-Chang and Fisher, 2013), Critiques have also been concerned with how evolutionary theories, specifically EP and sociobiology, tend to be essentialist, deterministic and androcentric (see e.g. Allen et al, 1975;Fausto-Sterling, 1992;Hoquet, 2010;Kelly, 2014;Rose and Rose, 2001),with political consequences that have the potential to exacerbate social injustices (Higgs and Jones, 2003;Jackson and Rees, 2007; see also Choi, 2001). Jackson and Rees (2007) argue that in the context of the "siren" narratives of human development in evolutionary accounts, "[c]ultural complexity and behavioural diversity are sidelined, becoming irrelevant as the 'universal' elements of human development are revealed" (Jackson and Rees, 2007: 922).…”

Section: An Evolutional Approach To Health Promotionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Gender and evolutionary theory in workplace health promotion

Björklund

Wright

2017

Health Education Journal

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Objective: Ideas from evolutionary theories are increasingly taken up in health promotion. This article seeks to demonstrate how such a trend has the potential to embed essentialist and limiting stereotypes of women and men in health promotion practice. Design: We draw on material gathered for a larger ethnographic study that examined how discourses of health were re-contextualised in four workplace health promotion interventions in Sweden. Method: This study provided the opportunity to investigate how ideas derived from evolutionary theories produced particular constructs of the healthy employee. A Foucauldian notion of governmentality was used to examine the rationalities, truths and techniques that informed what we have called a 'Stone Age' discourse as these contributed to shaping the desires, actions and beliefs of lecturers and participants in the interventions. Results: We focus on one intervention which used the Stone Age discourse as an organising idea to constitute differences in women's and men's health through references to women as gatherers and men as hunters, thereby positioning men as the physical, emotional and mental ideal and women as the problematic and lacking 'other'. Conclusion: The paper concludes by discussing the implications of such ideas about health and gender for interventions aimed at changing behaviour and lifestyles. This article seeks to demonstrate how such a trend has the potential to embed essentialist and limiting stereotypes of women and men in health promotion practice. Design: We draw on material gathered for a larger ethnographic study that examined how discourses of health were re-contextualised in four workplace health promotion interventions in Sweden. Disciplines Education | Social and Behavioral SciencesMethod: This study provided the opportunity to investigate how ideas derived from evolutionary theories produced particular constructs of the healthy employee. A Foucauldian notion of governmentality was utilised to examine the specific rationalities, truths and techniques that informed what we have called a "Stone Age" discourse, as these contributed to shaping the desires, actions and beliefs of lecturers and participants in the interventions. Results:The second half of the article focuses on one intervention which used the Stone Age discourse as an organising idea to constitute differences in women and men's health through references to women as gatherers and men as hunters, thereby positioning men as the physical, emotional and mental ideal and women as the problematic and lacking "other". Conclusion: This paper concludes with the implications of such ideas about health and gender for interventions aimed at changing behaviour and lifestyles.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 63%

Section: An Evolutional Approach To Health Promotionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender and evolutionary theory in workplace health promotion

Björklund

Wright

2017

Health Education Journal

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“…general psychology and evolutionary biology. This criticism often comes from feminists (Kelly, 2014), qualitative researchers, and people who are gay or bisexual (Jonason and Schmitt, 2016).…”

Section: Evolutionary Psychology and Lgbtq+ Issues: A Qualitative Stumentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Feminist critics assert that evolutionary psychology is the newest tool used to uphold the status quo (Kelly, 2014). Rose and Rose (2010) claim that EP continues a history of biology being used to "justify forms of social domination, from discrimination and exclusion to genocide."…”

Section: Evolutionary Psychology and Lgbtq+ Issues: A Qualitative Stumentioning

confidence: 99%

“…EP scholars also argue that the field does take culture and social learning into account, and that both genes and environment are involved in any manifest human behaviour (Confer et al, 2010;Buss & Schmitt, 2011). While some scholars, such as Feminist Evolutionary Psychologists (Sokol-Chang & Fisher, 2013), try to bridge the divide between the two sides, others assert that feminism and EP are and will always be incompatible (Kelly, 2014).…”

Section: Evolutionary Psychology and Lgbtq+ Issues: A Qualitative Stumentioning

confidence: 99%

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Evolutionary Psychology and LGBTQ+ Issues: A Qualitative Study of Queer Women’s Perspectives on Research Results

Burchell¹,

Firth²,

Robinson³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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This study examines reactions to a recent evolutionary psychology article that uses self-report data to claim that same-sex attraction in women evolved because men find it a desirable quality in a mate. Our study explores a novel perspective on the article by interviewing 29 women with attraction to women in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Participants read a news article about the original study, then the original article, and were then asked about their thoughts and feelings. Our research questions were as follows: 1) What cognitive and emotional reactions to the article do women with attraction to women experience? 2) Why did this article generate a lot of online criticism, from the perspective of women who are attracted to women? 3) Do papers like this cause women with attraction to women to change their opinions about psychological journals and/or psychological research? Using thematic analysis, we found seven themes: Negative emotion, identity threat, failure to address sociocultural explanations, male/hetero-centric, differences in paradigms, sensationalized news article, and contextualizing. The proliferation of articles like these represents one of many small stressors women attracted to women deal with as a minority population, and this stress can have important implications for health.

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Evolutionary Biology and Feminism

Fisher¹,

Burch²

2019

Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science

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Tofu feminism: can feminist theory absorb evolutionary psychology?

Cited by 13 publications

References 27 publications

Gender and evolutionary theory in workplace health promotion

Gender and evolutionary theory in workplace health promotion

Evolutionary Psychology and LGBTQ+ Issues: A Qualitative Study of Queer Women’s Perspectives on Research Results

Evolutionary Biology and Feminism

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