Evolutionaire psychologie. Het reductionisme van een genenverhaal

Samenvatting

There are several reasons why gender theorists should start paying attention to evolutionary psychology. First, gender and sexuality play an important role in the explanatory model drawn up by evolutionary psychology. Second, over the past decade evolutionary psychology has become a popular and respected branch of research. Its articles are published ilogical Inquiry and American Psychologist, and the science sections of quality newspapers regularly report on its research. Third, there is a growing number of feminist advocates whose critique of sexist reasoning and introduction of new gender sensitive approaches has brought significant improvements to the theory and research of evolutionary psychology. Finally, and most importantly, gender theorists should put their habitual biophobia behind them and engage with these new fields of research in order to learn about and be able to critically assess the implications for conceptions and practices of gender. The aim of the article is to make a contribution towards that end by outlining the key features of evolutionary psychology, followed by an overview of the criticism it has generated over the past ten years. Despite the wide range of topics and variety of disciplines contributing to it, the criticism appears to have one common denominator: reductionism.n distinguished journals like Psycho-