It was JUST LIKE THIS. Via Hysterical Bertha @ Flickr.
If there were such a thing as a big WHOOPWHOOPWHOOP siren that would go off when people started talking shite, I have go doubt that the phrase “in cave man times” would trigger klaxons everywhere.
The article Shopping styles of men and women all down to evolution, claim scientists from the Telegraph is a unmitigated disaster on the “shite-talking” front. In a nutshell, “researchers” (scare quotes are warranted, I promise) from the University of Michigan have, after what I can only assume are obsessive, repeated viewings of One Million Years B.C., surmised that our fur-bikini-clad, hunter-gatherer past is the reason that all women love to shop, in groups, at length, while all men hate it, avoid it when possible, and only do the barest minimum, because “it’s critical to get meat home as quickly as possible.”
Uh-huh.
This, erm, study will be published in a peer-review online journal (are you fucking kidding me with this?), and head researcher Professor Thag–I mean, Kruger–insists that this is valuable science which not only is full of facticity, but can head off holiday shopping conflicts:
“It helps demystify behaviours – guys, myself included, have been puzzled by why women shop the way they do.”
“Women can have a hard time understanding a man’s aversion to it.”
Dude, what is wrong with those crazy bitches? Oh, right. Their biology. Well, whatever. Let’s go have a beer while they pick over that table of macho pants.
Is that dude in the picture RIDING a wooly mammoth?
I wish I could figure out how to type the sound of stabbing my own eyeballs with forks. I wish I was an “evolutionary social psychologist.” PhDork HOW IS THIS PERSON EMPLOYED AND PUBLISIHING? Why is this even considered a fucking field of study for anyone besides market researchers? My brain hurts for the academy. This guy also apparently does “research” into reducing ethnic disparities in health care. I shudder to think what his “findings” about ethnicity and health are.
I wonder what manly, hunter-like quality it evidences when my father collects used books at the bookstore by the dozens a month and spends hours watching QVC, and my mother always wants “nothing” for Christmas and doesn’t even know what size clothes she wears? Just anecdotal, you say? Why, I call it community-based sampling.
I really hope this pseudo scientist has a google alert for his own name and finds you making fun of him in the manner in which he deserves. Here I’ll make it easier for him: DR. DAN KRUGER BEST SMARTEST THINKER MAN IN THE WORLD.
Oh this is fun, I found his CV online. Two of his recent book chapters include:
Kruger, D.J., Fisher, M., & Jobling, I. (2005). Modern reactions to characters in British Romantic literature
reflect alternative mating strategies. In D.S. Wilson & J. Gottschall (Eds.), The Litererary Animal. Evanston,
IL: Northwestern University Press.
Oh yes, yes he did.
I am sure I’m not alone here when I say: I HATE shopping. H-A-T-E I hate malls full of screaming children in Volkswagon-sized strollers. I hate spending money on stuff I DO need, much less shit I don’t need. I hate shopping as a social activity – what is supposed to be fun about looking at random consumer goods in the presence of other people? I lived in DC for four years before I set foot in one of the malls here. I do virtually all my shopping online. I know this may blow up your super-smart hunting and gathering brain, Dr. Dan Kruger, but NOT ALL WOMEN ARE THE SAME.
My other question about evo psych is, why are they obsessed with gender? What other questions do they even consider beyond Men are from Mars Women are from Venus?
I’ve decided to become an evolutionary psychologist.
Hypothesis: All men love golf because back in cave man times cave men had to be able to hit rocks with sticks long distances in order to hit sabertoothed tigers and impress the cave ladies. So natural selection favored the cave men who were good at cave golf because they had lots of tiger meat to eat and the cave ladies all wanted to have their babies. And now every single man everywhere loves to play golf because it’s BIOLOGY.
Experiment: There is no way to test or prove my hypothesis.
Conclusion: I must be right! I have exlained the gendered mysteries of the universe.
Now who wants to publish my findings?
I think it’s the other way around, J.D.
They are obsessed with gender, and “proving” that men and women are opposites, women are inferior, etc., which is why they are attracted to that particular pseudoscience.
JDR: How this assberet has been published (more than once) is truly baffling, until you consider that, as you point out, evo-psych types already are certain that biology is destiny and girls are smelly, so they just read through garbage like this, slavering at this “proof!” of their inherent superiority, and expedite its delivery to the world.
JennyK: I am delighted to inform you that you have been awarded a grant from the Institute of Deep Thinkering and the PGA. Please look for a big fat check in your mail, and thank you for your contribution to Science.
@PhDork: evo-psych types already are certain that biology is destiny and girls are smelly, so they just read through garbage like this, slavering at this “proof!” of their inherent superiority, and expedite its delivery to the world.
That approached worked well for centuries with theologists and Scripture, so I’m not surprised others are co-opting it!
Thanks PhDork, I will devote my big fact check to funding my next seminal study: Hey, What’s the deal with Women?
I’m honestly perplexed at this reaction to this study. I’ve heard this theory before, and I’ve observed it countless times in myself and my friends, and in the customers at the bookstore where I work, though of course not in everyone. I can give examples if you’d like.
Where are you reading that anyone’s calling the “female” method inferior to the “male” method? Seriously, where are you seeing that? They’re just different. Both are valuable, in fact the female method is arguably more valuable, and was certainly more relied upon in hunter-gatherer times.
And I haven’t read the study, but I’m sure that nowhere does he state that EVERY man and EVERY woman is precisely this or that way.
Perhaps you think it’s still too soon to be talking about how men and women are different, because of the cultural assumption that women are inferior? But *you’re* reading that into the article. I swear it’s not there.
Flame away.
*headdesk*
I’d heard of the B.A. in BS, but who knew it was available at the doctorate level too? Of course, my expectations dropped exponentially when I noted that the “most viewed in Science” included “First Born Children Are More Successful” and “Dogs are Better than Cats.”
And my poor professors wonder why no one takes science seriously . . .
Christine, I actually find it hard to believe you’re for real, but giving you the benefit of the doubt:
Evo psych has a history of ridiculous methodology (sample size: 17 white frat boys? Obviously a representative sample of the entire nation!) and conclusions that are nothing more than regurgitated 60s gender stereotypes (In cave-man days, women carried their babies everywhere! Clearly, modern women are miserable because they aren’t around babies enough!)
For those of us trained in actual science, the entire field is an insult. I recognize that studying human beings cannot be as clearcut as studying inorganic chemicals, but psychologists and anthropologists, and hell, even market researchers have been developing methodologies rigorous standards and procedures for a very long time now, and to have the press breathlessly report on Evo Psych studies as if they were the same thing is an insult to many researchers who have worked very, very hard to come up with good ways to study humans.
For people trained in gender studies, the fact that Evo Psych in the media is always “proving” some tired stereotype is a huge red flag. I’ve never seen a study that fails to uphold some truism about how women want babies and a good provider and men are wired to play the field.
You cannot judge this one “study,” which doesn’t appear to have included any actual interviews, just the authors observations while on vacation in Prague, without understanding the field it comes from.
Additionally, any article published in a journal in which the author is one of the two editors is deeply suspect, from a peer review point of view.
Forgive me if I have this wrong (I am suffering from a minor bout of food poisoning), but does the article imply that women have an innate, biological sense of when things are going to go on sale?
Heh. Heh heh.
BWHAHAHAHAAAA!
Thank you, Av0, that was clear and concise.
I’m left wondering if Christine has seen cave-wimmenz evolving into shopaholics in her very own book store, or if in fact she is herself a pure manifestation of unproven assertions about How Things Were Back in Olden Tymes.
Hmmm. I really enjoy wearing my favorite clothes and do enjoy style. But I hate shopping. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN FOR MY STATUS AS A WOMAN? Do I not have enough estrogen? Am I a lesbian? A metrosexual man with an accidental vagina?
Ugh. Me hate shopping. Yet me have lady parts.
On the other hand, the male person in my household is an inveterate shopper. When we go to the mall together, I bring a book so that when I have grabbed what I need I can sit in the car and read while I wait.
This question will no doubt appear ignorant, but in my defense I’ll blame my lack of scientific knowledge on a rather shitty public school education.
How does a trait such as the ability to differentiate ripe berries from the unripe become sex linked? How can something like only show up in women? Or is it somehow a trait that’s activated by lack of testosterone? In other words, if humans have evolved to have the ability to somehow learn which fruit is ripe and which is unripe, and a sophisticated enough memory to remember which berries are edible and which are poisonous, wouldn’t all humans have this ability? Why would it only be available to the XX chromosomed?
According to this researcher, no male could exhibit such a skill. Any male chefs, male produce managers, male botanists, or men who learn foraging as part of survival training are somehow flawed and feminized, I suppose. And let’s not leave out agriculture: according to this scientist, the ability to understand how stuff grows and when to harvest it is purely within the female domain. Makes one wonder why one always hears about “the farmer and the farmer’s wife” rather than “the farmer and her husband”.
Oh, and Christine: I’ve observed in my job as a librarian that a majority of the visitors to public libraries are female. Of the men I see, a disproportionate number are elderly. I suppose this proves that most men are illiterate or have little interest in reading or research or knowledge, but as testosterone declines with age, men become more feminine and acquire the desire to read books. Or, perhaps, that men are somehow so goal-oriented and cocksure that the book they desire somehow magically appears in their hand. But only the specific book that they desire: browsing is a feminine trait, and men are biologically incapable of browsing a bookstore to see if anything sparks their interest. In fact, in the rare case that a man does browse, it’s an example of intellectual curiosity and showcases their mental superiority and logic, but when a woman does so she’s acting out a primal and mindless gathering strategy older than civilization.
Note also how adroitly Prof. Kruger avoids having to prove anything at all in his very scientific piece of non-research. Because, as he so perceptively notes, we already *know* that women love shopping! This much is a given. After all, as he perceptively remarks, he has trouble understanding the enthusiasm that all womenkind everywhere so obviously exhibit for shopping and women for their part in their totality cannot begin to comprehend “a man’s” (which man’s?) aversion for it. QED. The tricky question now is why and it is this mystery that Kruger steps in to help us unpack. Funny how the answer to this however cannot be scientifically proven or researched. Unless of course we wish to move the question to the area of the social sciences, in which case I’m sure I could come up with a number of convincing explanations myself…
Maybe this also answers Christine’s objection: it isn’t just a question of superiority/inferiority, it is the assumption that there is a difference in the “male” and “female” approaches to shopping and that there is a clear dividing line between the two sexes. The assumptions that evo-psych pseudo-scientists make about human behaviour are very suspicious, if not for any other reason because they resemble too closely the image we in the modern western world have about the two sexes and their assigned gender roles. If there are any perceived differences between the behaviour exhibited by men and women we would do well to look closer to home first for the reasons behind them. It is absurd to investigate the “evolutionary explanation” of how people behave in malls – not every trait is inherited and if the human brain has evolved in any why (which obviously it has) then that is to form it as a malleable organ capable of generating diverging responses depending on the circumstances within which it finds itself… Not least, of course, the social ones.
(apologies for dripping sarcasm and know-alliness all over what is just my second comment here at Harpyness…)
Ooh, btw, this also reminds me of
this post and chart I came across a while back on the subject of evo-psych which sums it all up oh-so-very-well!
Love that bingo chart, Fuschia! Esp. the “free space.”
I think that evolutionary psychology could potentially offer valuable insights* if people would just stop pretending that they come from a position of pure objectivity and account for their own personal & cultural biases. This is just terrible science, across the board.
For the record, I hate shopping unless it is for books or art supplies or possibly kitchen appliances, and on the rare occasions my boyfriend and I shop together, I have a verbal countdown to when we need to get the eff out of dodge.
*I say this because I once read about a study concerning humans cross-culturally choosing similar living environments if given the opportunity, and that this ideal living environment resembles the savanna. I thought that was very interesting, and filed it into my “maybe evo psych doesn’t NEED to be b.s.” file.
@Christine – let’s use Occam’s razor here. We know the following facts:
1) There is very little certain knowledge of how humanity’s ancestors operated in pre-historic times, given that they weren’t creating very many artifacts that can be studied by anthropologists.
2) Shopping — i.e. participating in public commerce — has not always been a “woman’s” job in every culture across space and time. Indeed, there are some kinds of shopping (especially for consumer technology, cars, and stocks) that are very much coded as “men’s” shopping even though the actual techniques used for deciding on a computer don’t vary much from those used for deciding on a dress.
3) There are a ton of messages on TV, in print ads, and in the general discourse saying that women love shopping! Love love love shopping! If you’re a woman, shopping is your favorite thing to do!!!
Now, considering these facts, which is more likely: that humanity evolved in such a way that women are genetically predisposed to like shopping more than men, or that women in our specific cultural context are taught to view shopping as our purview and men are taught to view it as boring and emasculating?
@vtm – That was delightful. I want to buy you a drink and listen to you talk for a while.
Thank you to those few who responded to me politely. I don’t know Evolutionary Psychology from Creationism, so thanks for that education, too. When I’ve come across “studies” that “prove” that I must want babies and a rich man because I have a uterus, I just snort and move on. Whatever.
I’m simply not seeing what, it seems, most of you are seeing in *this* article and *this* study (whatever it was they supposedly studied, it doesn’t say). What it reminded me of were studies I had read about on the different methodology of the typical female shopper vs. the typical male shopper. Men tend to buy the first thing that meets their criteria, whereas women tend to want to know the range of what’s available, compare, and learn what they want that way.
I take all studies with a grain of salt, especially ones that speculate about something as unverifiable as prehistoric humans. But to me it’s just fun to speculate on where such trends might come from. No one ever taught me how to shop – I hate shopping, too, in fact – but I definitely shop the “female” way most of the time.
I also don’t see this article stating that some scientist has proven that “girlz love to shop.” The title even says “shopping *styles*.” And while I agree that articles like this shouldn’t make it sound like *all* men are like this, *all* women are like that, I do believe that’s implied.
I don’t think that noticing trends in male and female behavior equals believing that sweeping generalizations are true 100% of the time. I mean, duh. Nor that the “female” way is, by implication, inferior, though that implication is undeniably out there.
Christine, I think it’s hard to say without seeing the actual study that the article is talking about. The article makes it seem like the “study” is based on the assumption that men and women have different attitudes about shopping, based on the researcher’s personal observations. Perhaps he actually did some kind of experiment or survey using broad samples to establish the point that men and women shop differently. But it doesn’t sound like it. The researcher then goes on to assume that the source of the alleged differences in shopping attitudes is biological rather than social. Again, maybe he has some way to prove that it is, but it doesn’t seem like it from the article. Then he also goes on the assume that prehistoric societies divided tasks along gender lines (it’s unclear if that was actually the case) and that these divisions eventually became engrained in our genetic makeup. All of these assumptions just happen to adhere to traditional, patriarchal ideas and lead the researcher to conclude that those patriarchal ideas are rooted in unavoidable biology. Forgive me if this pseudoscience appears laughable and suspicious.
@Christine – The thing is, no one is debating that there are different shopping styles, some of which are primarily associated with women and some of which are primarily associated with men. But what the study is claiming is that these associations aren’t cultural or specific to a context, rather they are genetically ingrained by gender. That’s an absurd claim and it’s demonstrably false. Sure, you may think that men tend to buy the first thing that meets their criteria — but is that really true in all cases? I think there are a lot of men who want to know the range of what’s available in, for example, cars or cell phones or computers, and compare, and learn, and then make a decision. The very fact that many men tend to use that style when they are shopping for things that are coded male whereas many women tend to use that style when they are shopping for things coded female is strongly indicative of the fact that these patterns are 100% culturally determined and have nothing to do with biology. It is insulting to science as a discipline for researchers to make claims under the banner of science that are demonstrably false, without having collected any evidence in support of their claim, or really followed the scientific method at all.
JennyK, I totally get that, and totally agree with you.
I’ve remembered where I’ve seen this shopping-methodology thing before. It’s in Martha Barletta’s “Marketing to Women.” I don’t have time to pull out the studies she relied on, but basically she was saying the same thing – that men and women shop differently, yet only men are marketed to, even though women make the bulk of purchasing decisions in a typical family.
In the context of so-called Evolutionary Psychology justifying patriarchy, I can see where the virulent response came from. It’s just that this theory, that men and women tend to shop differently, is not totally unsupported, is not new, and does not imply anything, to my mind, except that men and women tend to shop differently. *shrug*
as an anthropologist, who has studied hunter-gatherer cultures and men’s and women’s roles in the archaeological record, I find this insane! the man isn’t even a damn anthropologist! what the hell is he doing?!
second, as a woman, I am pissed in general.
but honestly, I am significantly more enraged by his lack of training in anthropology. just because one is a social scientist (as his cv professes: http://www.sph.umich.edu/iscr/faculty/profile.cfm?uniqname=kruger) does not necessarily mean that he has a credible knowledge base on hunter-gatherer groups, let alone analyzed piles of artifacts from archaeological assemblages.
there is a ton of research on the roles of men and women in hunter-gatherer groups in archaeology and a lot of them do not paint a picture like he has. in fact there has been a huge shift from just focusing on “man the hunter” to addressing women’s roles. also, most studies identify how limited the man’s role is in the survival of the group. this jerks perspective really just reinforces negative sterotypes from a psuedoscientific manner.
sorry for the rant
PhDArchaeologist, thanks for your perspective. As a layperson with virtually no knowledge of anthropology, I am very curious about the origins and development of gendered divisions of labor. Do you have any recommendations for relatively accessible reading (print or online) on that topic?
@JennyK
there is a lot actually on the Woman the Gatherer concept, by Frances Dahlberg, this book was done in the 70s but there are a lot of articles currently by archaeologists addressing gender in archaeology sites. I am not sure if there is any popular literature on this topic, but I would assume in feminist or women’s studies departments there would be a lot of information. I can find articles on specific archaeology sites, but I am not sure that would be what you are interested in.
I did find a website though, with a number of books listed that maybe worth checking out. I have read a number of the authors in other contexts but I think if you are interested, beginning in your library would be best and a good way to just expand your knowledge. http://home1.gte.net/ericjw1/gender.html
I hope this is of use to you.
Fuschia: Thank you for making me giggle.
Odonata: The kind of study you’re talking about could just as easily have come from a reputable anthropology journal. We already have a field of study about how people used to behave and the similarities (and differences) across culture. It’s just not political enough for the evo psych types.
Christine: And the kind of studies you’re talking about were market research which is hugely different. It doesn’t care why something is true and it doesn’t care if it’s entirely true. It just cares that it’s true for a slim majority, and therefore the best way to earn money. Where this study departs from that is that it does claim to know why it’s true, and because it thinks that reason is genetic, it’s claiming that these shopping “styles” are the norm and anyone who deviates is abnormal and wrong. That’s offensive.
PhDArchaeologist: Let’s not even call him a social scientist. As a chemist, I joke about the soft sciences, but they’re orders of magnitude more credible than this guy or his journal.
JennyK: Because gender roles have been renegotiated through history, there are different eras to look at. I took a great class in college about the post-pioneer era in America and how women’s roles shrunk as men took more control of the economic sphere, which led to the glorification of housekeeping, which led to the fifties, which led to modern feminism.
I apparently feel very lecture-y today.
@Christine: It may be that your male customers have done their research prior to coming into your store. so although they may have browsed on the internet, say, when they come in they’ve decided what they want and just pick it up.
Or maybe this so-called researcher has been reading too many Dockers ads.
Hunting/Gathering rules for Bellacoker’s Tribe:
Only people who bring back food get to eat. So, go hunt all you want, but if you see some berries along the way, you’d better grab those too.
Dr. Kruger, you’re a little late to the party. The dude who wrote and starred in the one-man comedy show “Defending the Caveman” tried to sell me this theory years ago. Little did he know that I am a humorless feminist who doesn’t enjoy shopping – ooga booga!
PhDArchaelogist, Thank you so much! I will definitely pick a book from that list to check out. I wish I could go back to college and study this stuff all the time.
Av0gadro, yes I think it’s interesting to look back at a more agrarian time in history when the family was a business and the husband and wife basically ran it together (albeit usually with different roles) and how the industrial revolution drew labor away from homes and families an into cities and factories. Fascinating stuff!
I will be the first to admit that i enjoy shopping to some extent but i would not limit this to shopping for beauty needs and clothes. I also realize that my “shopping” moods are born less out of a desire to find the new Fall Trendz and more out of the ability to be at my own lesisure and time schedule-which is so rarely afford to me being a full time student and working part-time.
To some degree i feel like this might be true of people in general: yes it’s nice to have some company on a stroll through the grocery store or Best Buy sometimes but it’s never a mandate of the act itself. Pertaining tot he specifics of this article…i would think that there would be more pressing urgencies to spend countless monies on than unraveling the mysteries of gendered consumerisim.
@vtm
In every lie, a grain of truth.
More men than women are colorblind because it’s generally an X-linked recessive trait. Genes on the X chromosome code for pigments in the eye that allow us to differentiate colors (and tell a green berry from a red one). You only need one good X-chromosome for the pigment genes, so a woman can get hers from either her mother or her father. But, the Y chromosome can’t code for these pigments, so if men inherit a faulty X-chromosome from their mothers they may have more trouble. Of course, it’s not nearly as cut and dry as the Evo Psych people would have us believe. Some women are colorblind. Some men have better color perception than the average woman. And the idea that this occasional difference is enough to merit systemic gender roles is sketch to say the least. /geekery
And the rest, about wimmenz puttering around looking for just the perfect berry while menfolk use their superior planning skills to bring home the bacon was utter bullshit.
Huh.
I go to the University of Michigan, and I’m in a real science so I likely won’t run into this dude. It appears he works in the School of Public Health though, and two of my roomies are students there – I wonder if they know him! I’ll do the Harpy community a solid and find this guy and give him a smack upside the head, because really?? The rest of his work doesn’t sound quite as batty, but this certainly makes me question what other “findings” he’s professed to come up with. Oy.
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