274. Frans De Waal on Sex and Gender Across the Primate Spectrum
The Michael Shermer Show
Michael Shermer
4.3 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 24 May 2022
⏱️ 88 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What is gender? How different are men and women? Are differences due to biological sex or to culture? How do they compare with what is known about our fellow primates? Do apes also culturally learn their sex roles or is "gender" uniquely human?
Shermer and de Waal discuss: sex and gender in humans, primates, and mammals • who you identify as vs. who you're attracted to • binary vs. nonbinary vs. continuum: how fuzzy can human sex categories be for a sexually reproducing species? • gender differences in physical and mental characteristics • why would homosexuality evolve? • chimpanzees and bonobos • what is the "purpose" of orgasms in women, nipples in men? • myths of the demure female • rape in humans and other primates: what is the purpose — sex, power or both? • murder, and human violence: how do men and women differ? • dominance and power • rivalry, friendship, competition and cooperation • maternal and paternal care of the young • same-sex sex • monogamy, polygamy, polyandry, etc. in humans, primates & mammals • grandmother hypothesis • primates & primatologists, humans & anthropologists: bias in science • the future of primates and primatology.
Frans de Waal has been named one of TIME magazine's 100 Most Influential People. The author of Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? among many other works, he is the C. H. Candler Professor in Emory University's Psychology Department and director of the Living Links Center at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to the Michael Sherman Show. |
| 0:11.6 | Hello everyone. The Michael Sherman Shower |
| 0:18.0 | Hello everyone. It's Michael Sherman here for the Michael Sherman show My guest today is the great Franz de Valle, the primatologist with his 13th book out called Different |
| 0:26.1 | Gender through the eyes of a primatologist. |
| 0:30.3 | Franz has been named one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people. |
| 0:35.0 | He is the CH Chandler professor and Emory University Psychology Department |
| 0:41.0 | and director of the Living Links Center at the Yerkes National |
| 0:45.3 | Primate Research Center. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia, just to give you a feel for |
| 0:49.6 | Franz's depth of his writing, here's a list of his books. Chimpansy politics in |
| 0:57.2 | 1982 which put him on the map showing that chimps in fact have complex matrices of political machinations, they're little Machiavellians. |
| 1:07.0 | Peace making among primates, good-natured, bonobo, the forgotten ape. It was really Franz that put Benobos on the cultural map. |
| 1:17.0 | The ape and the sushi master, my family album, are Inner Apes, Primates and Philosophers, The Age of Empathy, The Bonobo and The Atheist. |
| 1:28.0 | Are we smart enough to know how smart animals are? |
| 1:32.0 | And then his previous book, for which he was on this |
| 1:34.3 | podcast mama's last hug. So Franz and I discuss sex and gender in humans, primates and |
| 1:41.4 | mammals, the difference between who you identify as in humans, primates, and mammals. |
| 1:43.0 | The difference between who you identify as |
| 1:45.0 | versus who you're attracted to, again, not just in humans, |
| 1:48.0 | but in primates. |
| 1:50.0 | Binary versus non-binary versus a continuum that is how fuzzy can human sex |
| 1:56.0 | categories be for sexually reproducing species like ours or for that matter |
| 2:00.2 | other species particularly primates gender differences in physical |
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