2003 MEETING
JULY, 2003
“Biohistory”—Neo-Darwinism’s
Last Frontier
The Application of Biological
Approaches to Sexual Division to Human History
Historian Robert McElvaine’s 2001
book, Eve’s Seed: Biology, the Sexes, and
the Course of History proposes a new field of “biohistory,”
which seeks to gain a greater understanding of human historical developments by
taking account of the human biogram and events in
"prehistory" that historians generally ignore, but which are the
focus of archeologists and many anthropologists. McElvaine uses this approach for a broad
study of the relationships between women and men from evolution to the present,
arguing that perceptions and misperceptions of sexual differences have been the
major motive force in human history. In
addition to his book, McElvaine has presented his basic argument in an article
in The Chronicle Review of The Chronicle of Higher Education: “The
“Relevance of Biohistory,”
(http://home.millsaps.edu/~mcelvrs/Relevance_of_Biohistory.htm)
This session will explore the possibilities for a rapprochement between biology and history by examining issues of the relationship between biological sex differences on human history from both biological and historical perspectives.
Participants will be:
Robert S.
McElvaine, Professor of History,
Bobbi S.
Low, Professor of Biology, University of
Marion
Blute, Associate. Professor of Sociology,
Professor Low is the author of Why Sex Matters: A
Darwinian Look at Human Behavior (
The session will begin with a paper by Professor McElvaine, “Sex as the Basis of Biohistory,” (ABSTRACT BELOW) briefly outlining his conception of biohistory, followed by an exploration of his findings about the impact of sexual differences and perceptions of such differences on “prehistory” and early human history. Professor Low will present a paper on her work on the evolution of sex differences, “The Evolution and Ecological Variations of Sex Differences.” Professor Blute will present a paper on sexual selection, “Is the Sexual Arena a Battlefield or a Marketplace.”
Sex as the Basis of Biohistory
Robert S. McElvaine
Department of History
ABSTRACT
In my 2001 book, “Eve’s Seed: Biology, the Sexes, and the Course of History” (McGraw-Hill), I introduced a new historical approach I call “biohistory.” It is an attempt to inform historical inquiry by taking serious account of the fact that the creatures we study as historians are in fact a biological species with certain traits. Biohistory takes a radically different approach from that of social Darwinism. Social Darwinism focused on the putative differences among groups of humans; biohistory seeks to utilize a better understanding of human nature or the human biogram—the fundamental traits and predispositions that all humans share and that make us alike—to illuminate aspects of our history.
This paper will focus on the biological condition that has had the greatest effect on human history: the fundamental fact that our species reproduces sexually. Because women can do certain things that men cannot—carry, give birth to, and nourish offspring—men have always, to varying degrees, experienced feelings of inferiority that might be called, reversing Freud, womb envy and breast envy. As a result, men in cultures around the world have developed definitions of manhood based on the false notion that men are the opposite of women. The particulars vary from culture to culture, but a “real man” is always seen as the negative of a woman: “notawoman.” Men have avowed not only their polar opposition to women, but also their superiority in the false sexual dichotomy they have set up. This concept of male over female has, in turn, been used as the model on which all other forms of inequality, domination/subordination, and hierarchy have been constructed. Men as individuals or groups who assert their superiority over others always claim that they are to the alleged inferiors as man is to woman. The paper will explore how these sexual differences played out during the “prehistoric” period following the development of agriculture and so set the stage for much of recorded history.