“I don’t believe she is arguing that biology never affects culture…”
If biological processes influence culture and culture influences brain differences between males and females, and by extension differences in behaviors and perspectives, then biological processes indirectly influence differences in behaviors and perspectives.
It is important to note that the emergence of culture within a population is a natural process. The form that a particular culture assumes does not conform to the will or intentions of the population’s members. A culture is not intentionally designed. The form that a culture assumes is largely influenced by the physical environment that the population inhabits. It is the emergent result of individuals collaborating with other individuals to successfully extract necessary and essential resources from the environment.
Since the form that a culture assumes is the result of a natural process rather than the outcome of intentional design, its influence on individual brain structure and the resulting thoughts and behavior is a natural process, not subject to the desires or intentions of its population’s individual members.
Ms. Leguichard is apparently critical of the form that our culture has assumed. She is particularly critical of the fact that it includes social expectations that differ between the sexes. It would seem that Ms. Leguichard would like to design and impose an ideal culture.
However, such an effort would encounter formidable obstacles.
First, she would have difficultly establishing a popular consensus as to what constitutes an ideal culture. What she might consider ideal is likely different from and possibly in conflict with what I consider ideal. And what you consider ideal may differ from what either Ms. Leguichard or I consider ideal.
Second, does anyone know how to manipulate the forces (environment, the need to extract resources, and biological processes) that shape the form that a culture assumes, and achieve predictable results?
Since male and female bodies are different from each other, they deliver different experiences to the brain. The inevitable result is the creation of brain differences between men and women. Different brains mean different behaviors, attitudes and perspectives. It is likely therefore, that cultures are predisposed to develop different social expectations for each sex. The emergence of brain differences and therefore behavioral differences between women and men occurs naturally and the obstacles to overcoming the natural forces that produce those differences would be formidable.
The obstacles to conceiving and imposing a culture that meets a particular set of specifications are formidable and unlikely be overcome, but Ms. Leguichard, and you yourself are welcome to try. I would only oppose your efforts if you were to seek to impose your ideal by means of coercive or restrictive measures intended to force my participation or cooperation. For myself, I will adjust to existing circumstances to the best of my ability and seek to use them to my advantage.
The question as to whether the forces that produce brain differences and differences in social expectations are cultural or biological is irrelevant. Either way, they are natural forces that are resistant to intentional design.
