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Darwin’s Misogyny

“It’s official, men have higher IQs than women.” Incredibly, that was an actual headline last week. Some others were a bit more objective, but make no mistake: the latest study by white nationalist J. Philippe Rushton (a fellow of the AAAS) will be used (as he perhaps intended) to “prove” male superiority via Darwinism. Today’s story in the Daily Mail trumpeted the “battle of the sexes” and quoted Rushton making the ridiculous claim that men are smarter than women:

He claims the ‘glass ceiling’ phenomenon is probably due to inferior intelligence, rather than discrimination or lack of opportunity.

According to Rushton, evolution holds the key to explaining the differences he sees between men and women:

It is thought the difference may date back to the Stone Age, with women seeking out men who are more intelligent than them in a bid to pass on the best genes to their children.

“Some people have suggested it evolved because women prefer men who are more intelligent than they are for husbands,” said the professor.

Because of Rushton’s blatant and unapologetic chauvinism, many will dismiss him as an outlier, an aberration who misuses the authority of Darwin’s theory in order to support his agenda.

In fact, this is only the most recent example of a long tradition of Darwinists who claim that science supports their sexism, a lineage that goes back to Darwin himself.

For Darwin, it was a mistaken view of genetics which lead him to claim in The Descent of Man that “the characters thus gained will have been transmitted more fully to the male than to the female offspring.” It’s an interesting story, but one without any scientific credence. Darwin never understood how genetic traits are inherited. We still don’t understand fully, but we do know that children receive genetic traits from both parents, refuting any sexual selection theory that assumes otherwise.

The lack of data supporting his theory of sexual selection didn’t stop Darwin’s imagination, or his own sexism, from running ahead of the science. The very next sentence declares it outright:

Thus man has ultimately become superior to woman.

Hopefully, the recent misogyny of Darwinists like Rushton will alert women to the past misogyny of Darwin himself. If there were ever a time or a reason for women to reject Darwin, it’s now.