The Dilemma for Female Intellectuals

One of the biggest challenges that we face is “the modern evolutionary conflict,” the conflict between our evolutionary adaptations and our modern environment.  Aside from the obvious geographical change that most people now experience (since most people no longer live in sub-Saharan Africa), the social change is even more radical.  For example, our life expectancy has more than tripled since the appearance of the first humans in an extraordinarily small amount of time, but our brains have not developed to take a half-century of our lives into full perspective.

Both men and women struggle with the many outdated machinery that has been biologically hardwired into us.  However, most women face a unique adversity that men generally don’t: their social statuses are highly dependent on their physical attractiveness, youth being one of the most important.

An intellectually curious woman may want to continue her education by applying to a doctoral program (to become a surgeon, scientist, professor, etc.) but these programs require a considerable amount of time and effort to complete.  Now men also face this problem but they aren’t trading off their most reproductively fertile years the way women do.  A man can hold off having children until he acquires his advanced degree.  His attractiveness to women would most likely increase because his earning potential will increase and his degree would signal intelligence (something that women tend to value more in men than vice versa).  On the other hand, a woman will be close to thirty by the time she gets her doctoral degree.  Not only does she miss her reproductive peak, she will have more and more difficulties bearing children from that point onward.  Men are (at least subconsciously) aware of this and will find the same woman less attractive.

Please note that this does not mean that these women are hopeless.  One of the truly remarkable things about life is that for each person, there is someone.  (It seems that people who do not get married choose not to.)  The point is that their options will be more limited.

       

What can we do to remedy this situation?  One strategy is to provide extra funding and to cut tuition costs for these women pursuing higher education (specifically for graduate, law, medical, and business schools).  Then perhaps having a child could be more affordable for an aspiring or current mother.  Also, she may not have to take on another job and will thus have extra time to meet prospective mates.

Another would be to adopt a system similar to Europe’s.  The option of specialization at an earlier age (e.g. in high school) would lead to younger doctors and other educated professionals.  This way, they can start working by the time they are in their early to mid-twenties.  Of course, an obvious downside is that career changes may become more difficult but there will always be tradeoffs in these situations.

The rate at which technology alters our social circumstances vastly outpaces natural selection’s, placing an unfair burden on women.  Now, I don’t want to overshadow the modern evolutionary conflict that men go through since there are plenty.  In the future, I will discuss some of the important modern evolutionary obstacles that men face today.

Note: The term “modern evolutionary conflict” is one that I simply made up.