Bio-gynocentrism

Bio-gynocentrism refers to a perspective which assumes a higher evolutionary value of women whose biological survival is said to represent the overarching goal of human motivation, thus necessitating disposability of males in the service of this goal. Bio-gynocentrism claims a scientific basis for sex-value stratification, with males as a servant sex to females as the serviced and protected sex. Although attempts toward constructing this belief system have existed for centuries, the phrase to describe it - bio-gynocentrism - was coined by Vernon Meigs in 2022.

Description

Male devaluation. Popular symbol of bio-gynocentrism.

Author Peter Ryan has written most extensively on this topic, including a detailed summary titled, Bio-gynocentrism: Turning Science Into Goddess Worship. Ryan states:

I would define bio-gynocentrism more broadly as the selective interpretation of scientific research in the biological sciences, through a gynocentric lens, that favours women and omits information to the contrary and, consequently, is disconnected from broader reality. Bio-gynocentrism is in essence the 'women are wonderful' effect expressing itself in the interpretation and dissemination of scientific research on human biology and evolution.

Vernon Meigs contends that bio-gynocentrists are either 1. serious believers of the fundamental disposability of the human male and are advocates towards that end, or 2. are those who casually adopt the attitude as if the belief represented common sense.

Common arguments include:

1. Men evolved to protect and provide for women because women are of higher reproductive value.
2. A tribe can survive if most of the males are wiped out, so long as the women are protected.
3. Men are biologically stronger, so they should be expected to die in service to the tribe.

The attitude is commonly adopted by traditional gynocentrists who, despite opposing feminism for its unjust attitudes towards men, impose similar gynocentric standards of inherent biological importance of females and the associated expectations of male sacrifice.

History

The bio-gynocentric claim of women's superior importance within the evolutionary scheme was championed by first-wave feminists and by proto-feminists such as Christine de Pizan (1364–1430), and Modesta Pozzo (1571-1653) who in the year 1600 published a volume titled The Worth of Women: Wherein Is Clearly Revealed Their Nobility and Their Superiority to Men. , in which she elaborated bio-gynocentric beliefs. Pozzo wrote:

For don’t we see that men’s rightful task is to go out to work and wear themselves out trying to accumulate wealth, as though they were our factors or stewards, so that we can remain at home like the lady of the house directing their work and enjoying the profit of their labors? That, if you like, is the reason why men are naturally stronger and more robust than us — they need to be, so they can put up with the hard labor they must endure in our service.

First wave feminist Charlotte Perkins-Gilman (1860–1935) claimed that the bio-gynocentric worldview was the most important contribution to ‘the woman question’ ever made. Commenting on the basic premise of women's superior biological importance, she wrote “You’ll have to swallow it. The female is the race type; the male is her assistant. It is established beyond peradventure.” (Gilman, 1911).

Lester F. Ward, an American biologist (1841-1913) was the first person to propose a formal scientific theory of bio-gynocentrism, which is summarized as follows in his works:

“The female sex is primary in point both of origin and of importance in the history and economy of organic life. And as life is the highest product of nature, and human life the highest type of life, it follows that the grandest fact in nature is woman… Woman is the unchanging trunk of the great genealogic tree; while man, with all his vaunted superiority, is but a branch, a grafted scion, as it were, whose acquired qualities die with the individual, while those of woman are handed on to futurity. Woman is the race, and the race can be raised up only as she is raised up.” (Ward, 1888)

“The gynæcocentric theory is the view that the female sex is primary and the male secondary in the organic scheme, that originally and normally all things center, as it were, about the female.” (Ward, 1903)

Since these early writings, there has accrued thousands of speculative academic papers on the topic of bio-gynocentrism, consolidating the narrative which has gone on to capture the imagination of most academic fields, such as evolutionary psychology and sociology, which now reiterate and emphasize the bio-gynocentric belief system with further layers of confirmation bias.

Objections to Bio-Gynocentrism

Adam Kostakis speaks on the subject:

"I do not believe that gynocentrism is a biological predisposition. I do not believe that evolution grants women superior biological value and status. I do not believe men are created to “serve” women, or that this situation is inescapable. What the advocates of male disposability describe is not a symbiotic relationship, but a parasitic one. And it is one I believe is socially constructed. It’s an enduring relationship, for sure! But you know what they say, rules are made to be broken."

Robert Brockway argues that with a population approaching eight billion, humans are no longer struggling to survive and no longer need the capacity to reproduce quickly. If there is any truth in this idea that humans historically prioritised the survival of women only, Brockway states that those reasons no longer apply.

Vernon Meigs suggested the following eight attributes as traits of the hypothetical bio-gynocentrist:

1. Lack of imagination (inability to conceive of a masculinity aside from the chivalric narrative)
2. Similarity to the average feminist (having male disposal as a means to a gynocentric endpoint)
3. Preoccupation with male "hard-wiring" (in the name of evolution, the narrative of male helplessness and base instinct over volition and free will)
4. Skewed, biased conclusions regarding human biology (in which women are considered the far valuable in comparison to the disposable male)
5. Refusal to hold women accountable (in favor of subjective interpretations of traditional gender roles in which women hold no agency, resulting in men taking on more responsibility and consequences than warranted)
6. Blatant collectivism regarding the purpose of the male sex
7. Closeted need and preoccupation of being on one's knees (as white knights and too many males do)
8. The accusation of science denial, lobbed against those who disagree that biology deems men as the inferior sex below women.

Meigs further argues that bio-gynocentrism is a key enabler of the gynocentric double standard. The narrative of the "strong independent woman who can do anything a man can do" appears to be reliant on bio-gynocentric standard of male support, whereby men forego (by female demand) their own life and aspirations in favor of this idea of serving and elevating woman as his superior.

Peter Ryan has examined the tendency among academics and lay persons to exaggerate the value and importance of female reproductive function in contrast to male contributions to human survival, referring to it as the "fallacy of the golden uterus." He has also written exhaustively on related fallacies pertaining to bio-gynocentrism.

See also

• Peter Ryan: Collected writings critiquing bio-gynocentrism
• Paul Elam & Peter Wright: Briffault: Rules for the Rational Simp