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Man Provides Therefore Women Need to Stay Home

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Man Provides Therefore Women Need to Stay Home
Man Provides Therefore Women Need to Stay Home

Man-the-Hunter and Evolutionary Psychology models both theorize that “basic gender differences are part of our evolutionary history” . They choose several forms of data to reconstruct ancient gender roles, one of which is the physical differences between men and women. Man-the-Hunter and Evolutionary Psychology models both argue that various physical attributes can explain the cultural roles of both sexes . Both models attempt to explain the idea, “males provide food, and protect women and children”, by stating several physical differences in male and female sexes . They also have a very androcentric view of human evolution, and do not concentrate on theories that can be explained in terms of female evolution . A similar argument is that hunting is exclusive to men . More importantly than just the activity’s exclusivity, by hunting, males provides the female with resources. Man-the-Hunter asserts that men have the advantage for several reasons. First of all, there is an obvious difference in the shape of each sex’s pelvic bone . Their argument is that a narrower pelvis is needed to run faster and thus hunt more efficiently . Human males, in general, tend to have much more narrower hips than females . The androcentric explanation that the reason men run faster is because of their narrower pelvis bone does not leave any room for an explanation as to why the female’s pelvis is wider . Bi-pedalism and larger brains affected how a women would deliver offspring . The physical delivery would have to change because of the gravitational shift of standing up . More importantly though, to accommodate a larger brained baby, evolution would force a female’s hips to widen, allowing more room for a baby to pass through, downward . Furthermore, Man-the Hunter models state that women cannot hunt because they use all of their energy on childbirth and rearing children in general. Likewise it states that men, in



References: Cited Kuhn, Steven L. and Stiner, Mary C. 2006 What’s a Mother to Do?: The Division of Labor among Neandertals and Modern Humans in Eurasia. In Current Anthropology. 47(6): 953-980. Colorado University Press.

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