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Samir Roy, National Institute of Technical Teachers' Training and Research, IndiaAbstract
This article presents a thought experiment (Brown & Yiftach, 2023) to investigate the origin of sexual division of labor. The purpose is to grasp the inner logic of the transformation rather than describing the actual historical process. We believe that a clear understanding of the origin of gender-bias will help us to mitigate its harmful effects and establish an unbiased society. Empirical study suggests that sexual division of labor evolved during the Upper Paleolithic era (Kuhn & Steiner, 2006). Anthropological research indicates that sex based division of labor gave modern humans some advantage over the Neandertals (Lovegren, 2006). Scholars have offered various explanations of gender-bias e.g. power and private property (Engels, 1877), Biological (Mardock, 1949), Biogrammers (Tiger & Fox, 1971) etc. Scientists, Historians and Philosophers have investigated the gendered power structure (De Beauvoir, 2015; Engels, 1877; Harari, 2015; Lerner, 1986; Walby, 1989) extensively. This study considers a small group of hunter-gatherers. It’s struggle for existence can be modelled as a constrained multi-objective optimization problem (Liang et al., 2024) to maximize food security, minimize child and female mortality under the constraints of limited food supply, inter-group competition, uncontrolled pregnancy, disease, injury etc. Three orthogonal systems, namely, i) gender-neutral, ii) male as homemaker-caregiver and female as protector-provider, and iii) female as homemaker-caregiver and male as protector-provider were evolved over successive generations. Outcome analysis indicates that third system ensures best fitness for survival and growth. However, this study addresses only the pre-historical origin of sexual division of labor. Important aspects e.g., cultural diversity, social evolution, gender dynamics etc. are later developments.
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Conference: ACSS2025Stream: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Gender
This paper is part of the ACSS2025 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Roy S. (2025) A Thought Experiment to Investigate the Origin of Gender-Based Division of Labor ISSN: 2186-2303 – The Asian Conference on the Social Sciences 2025: Official Conference Proceedings (pp. 519-524) https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2186-2303.2025.43
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2186-2303.2025.43
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