Feminism and the Science of Human Nature

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Nyoa: How do you get all kinds of people on board with this agenda? Helena: feminism began byopposing an injustice, women being denied choice solely because they were women. The good news is that a feminism informed by the darwinian science of human nature reveals a very, much more promising world. We don't try to build planes but refuse to understand aero dynamics. So how can feminism forge a fairer world if it lacks a proper under anding of how the sexes differ? Nyoa: If we want to change the world, we first need to understand it.

Anne-Marie Slaughter is the Washington power player who upset the feminist applecart. At the peak of her career — as first female Director of Policy Planning at the US State Department — she turned her back on her dream job with Hillary Clinton in order to spend more time with her teenage sons. How, cried her contemporaries, could she have sacrificed her high-powered career for her family? Slaughter’s ensuing article for The Atlantic, ‘Why Women Still Can’t Have It All’, went viral, sparking furious debate about how men and women juggle their working lives. Having it all, Slaughter argued, remained a mirage. Women who managed to be both mothers and top professionals were either ‘superhuman, rich or self-employed’. On January 26, Anne-Marie Slaughter came to the Intelligence Squared stage, together with Amanda Foreman, award-winning historian and presenter of the recent BBC documentary series The Ascent of Woman, which charts the role of women in society over 10,000 years. They were joined by...

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