ROCKING OUR PRIORS

What determines status? Why do status hierarchies persist? What happens if people push for higher status before they’re seen as competent? Why are women so nice? What’s the difference between race, gender and class inequalities? Why does racism persist in the US? Professor Celia Ridgeway is at Stanford University: https://sociology.stanford.edu/people/cecilia-ridgeway Her latest book is "Status" https://www.amazon.com/Status-Why-Everywhere-Does-Matter/dp/0871547848

Are women less competitive? Are they less likely to compete for prestige? Why might this be? Under what circumstances are men and women equally competitive? How can institutions reduce the gender gap in status? Conversation with Professor Alessandra Cassar https://www.usfca.edu/faculty/alessandra-cassar

"Rule Makers, Rule Breakers" by Michele Gelfand (Review) by Dr Alice Evans

Economic development promotes gender equality. But why? Does industrialisation enable women to liberate themselves from patriarchal control? Or is prosperity paramount for men’s egalitarianism? I’ll try to persuade you of both! Where men’s upward mobility is thwarted, they lash out at women. This holds across America, North Africa and possibly more broadly. My Substack! https://draliceevans.substack.com/p/is-joblessness-fuelling-hostile-sexism

Why has Rwanda got a strong state while CAR is war-torn? What are the historical roots of civil war in CAR? Islamic raiding, colonialism or multi-party democracy? Why does Rwanda differ? Yale Professor of Anthropology Louisa Lombard traces the comparative histories of the Central African Republic and Rwanda. She is FANTASTIC!

Male coalitions tend to denigrate and exclude effeminate men, because they perceive them as physically weak liabilities - argue Bo Winegard, Tania Reynolds, Roy Baumeister, and E. Ashby Plant. Homophobia does not stem from sexual disgust, but low value in combat! In this podcast, I briefly discuss a new paper, which you can read here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NsirLukIjimuuNc4-S0sir3N6a4wVlbN/view

Is it just sexist disregard of hilarious women? But why is it usually boys who play the 'joker' in class and why does everyone seem to laugh more readily at men's ‘humour’, especially if they're senior? Does this hark back to evolution? Is it entirely malleable? What explains this gender inequality?

Why are most humans religious? How much can be explained by evolutionary psychology? Why do we cooperate? Is it religious injunctions or more emotional? Is religiosity really about cooperation? What about legitimising hierarchy, control, and female self-sacrifice. Muslim women are less likely to go to Friday prayers, but they are still devout. So perhaps group rituals are not so essential? Why did all doctrinal religions emerge within a narrow latitudinal band? Are groups necessarily small? Don’t films and social media scale-up solidarity? What about online mobs viciously attacking their favoured celebrity’s boyfriend’s new girlfriend? Interview with Professor Robin Dunbar, Professor of Evolutionary Psychology and Anthropology at the University of Oxford https://www.psy.ox.ac.uk/people/robin-dunbar Robin's latest book is on Religion. He has also published excellent books on the science of love and betrayal; the evolution of language; and friendships.

For the past 48 hours, my brain has been on fire, transfixed by a ground-breaking new theory. Professor Richard Wrangham argues that councils of elder males enforced patriarchy in the Middle Pleistocene, over 300,000 years ago. Is he right?

What drives shifts in fertility, parenting styles & women's rights? What explains global heterogeneity and change over time? Culture or economics? Join me as I debate Professor Matthias Doepke at the London School of Economics https://www.lse.ac.uk/economics/people/faculty/matthias-doepke We discuss: “Love, Money & Parenting” with Fabrizio Zilibotti https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691171517/love-money-and-parenting “The Economics of Fertility” with Anne Hannusch, Kindermann & Michele Tertilt https://www.nber.org/papers/w29948 “The Economics of Women’s Rights” with Michele Tertilt & Alessandra Voena https://www.nber.org/papers/w17672