VII. Moving toward integrative feminist evolutionary behavioral sciences

Abstract

There is a long history of mostly antagonist interactions between feminist and evolutionary scholarship in the behavioral sciences. However, recent theoretical and empirical advances have highlighted that “nature” and “nurture” are not mutually exclusive, or even divorceable, levels of explanation. New developments in evolutionary theory, articulated under the name of “the extended synthesis,” show significant promise for integrating feminist and evolutionary approaches to the study of human behavior. The extended synthesis provides feminist inquiry and research an expanded ground on which to enter the conversation, such as with the inclusion of “fast” evolution – the idea that genetic and epigenetic (environmentally influenced gene expression) traits can change within a generation – which demonstrates that there has in fact been evolutionary time to (adaptively) alter behavior and physiology. This integration has the potential to lead to new research paradigms that bridge the old divide between “nature” and “nurture”, resulting in transdisciplinary frameworks that show the interaction effects between each. Feminism and feminist psychology will be more complete descriptors and analyzers of human behavior in this model, and crucial interaction effects historically ignored by both the sciences and humanities may now receive due consideration.