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摘要
摘要
Named one of CHOICE Magazine's Outstanding Academic Title
Does biology help explain why women, on average, earn less money than men? Is there any evolutionary basis for the scarcity of female CEOs in Fortune 500 companies? According to Kingsley Browne, the answer may be yes.
Biology at Work brings an evolutionary perspective to bear on issues of women in the workplace: the "glass ceiling," the "gender gap" in pay, sexual harassment, and occupational segregation. While acknowledging the role of discrimination and sexist socialization, Browne suggests that until we factor real biological differences between men and women into the equation, the explanation remains incomplete.
Browne looks at behavioral differences between men and women as products of different evolutionary pressures facing them throughout human history. Womens biological investment in their offspring has led them to be on average more nurturing and risk averse, and to value relationships over competition. Men have been biologically rewarded, over human history, for displays of strength and skill, risk taking, and status acquisition. These behavioral differences have numerous workplace consequences. Not surprisingly, sex differences in the drive for status lead to sex differences in the achievement of status.
Browne argues that decision makers should recognize that policies based on the assumption of a single androgynous human nature are unlikely to be successful. Simply removing barriers to inequality will not achieve equality, as women and men typically value different things in the workplace and will make different workplace choices based on their different preferences.
Rather than simply putting forward the "nature" side of the debate, Browne suggests that dichotomies such as nature/nurture have impeded our understanding of the origins of human behavior. Through evolutionary biology we can understand not only how natural selection has created predispositions toward certain types of behavior but also how the social environment interacts with these predispositions to produce observed behavioral patterns.
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Choice 评论
Browne (law, Wayne State Univ.) offers a thoughtful and thought-provoking examination of factors that may contribute to patterns of workplace employment in the US and elsewhere. He builds a case for biological differences between males and females contributing significantly to continuing disparity in the proportion of men and women in male-dominated and female-dominated jobs. These biological differences account for significant average differences in cognitive and temperamental characteristics of males and females, which ultimately contribute to different average preferences for type and amount of marketplace work desired. The author presents a great deal of data, generated by male and female scholars in many fields, to support his argument that public policy should take these differences into account rather than ignore them in favor of ideologies that deny these facts. He argues against affirmative action to equalize the number of males and females in "unbalanced" fields (e.g., physical sciences and blue collar jobs) because it is detrimental to both sexes as well as to society as a whole. Browne's novel approach to sexuality and sexual harassment in the workplace is scholarly but not pedantic in style. Excellent bibliography and index. Upper-division undergraduates and above; general readers. S. S. Glenn University of North Texas