I meta, therefore I am.

[bandgeek]

So I've been reading about feminist criticism of Hamlet for my Lit Studies class. But what I'm interested in isn't so much the Hamlet stuff itself (although I'm sure we can all ruminate on Ophelia until the cows come home). What I'd really like to know more about is this

Comments

[thisficklemob]

Hee hee hee. I wish I could remember where I read about this, but it was years ago. On the other side, my strange science teacher (like that narrows it down) once gave me an article to read about differences in female and male brains... women have more links between the right and left brain, or a thicker connector thingy, or something like that. They speculated that this was the basis for "women's intuition." This was even longer ago. So I guess one could find... or at least posit... evidence either way.

Of course, it could be both. If males have had a dominant social position in most of human and human ancestor societies for long enough... which may or may not be the case... then the greater survivorship of empathic females may have lead evolutionarily to their genes surviving more, and therefore that trait being selected for.

I kind of doubt it, though. Especially since we know next to nothing about most of human history... and there's some evidence that matriarchal and goddess-centered societies were more prevalent before the rise of monotheism, (perhaps before men figured out they were involved in conception?). The physical anthropology supporting any kind of patriarchal or male-dominated society among early hominids is sketchy (and I think it's mostly assumption and projection), simply because evidence of any kind is scarce. Add in the fact that things like heartiness, cleverness, and attractiveness would have far greater effects on someone's survival... and I doubt it's heavily evolutionarily weighted. But who knows.

[bandgeek]

I've often wondered just why it is that so many societies are patriarchal. I mean, aside from the fact that men tend to be bigger and stronger, there just doesn't seem to be much of a logical reason for this to be the case over and over again. And because of the factors you mentioned -- like women's fertility and intuition -- it would almost seem more likely that women would be the dominant sex.

As for the brain chemistry ... well, I just don't know. I'll have to poke my finger around in there and see if I've got this connector thingy ... ;)