Nature, culture, and sexual inequality: A look at causal logic

The nature‐culture issue in recent exemplary cross‐cultural works is examined from a causal modeling viewpoint. The causal models in most current explanations do not depart radically from those of the 1950s. The recent models mostly continue to emphasize the interaction of biological and sociocultural factors in producing sexual inequality. In all of the theories examined, economic production is singled out as important in the sociocultural realm. Some researchers sidestep the nature‐culture issue by dealing solely with variation, or by translating conceivably biological factors into social causes. Biosocial writers have produced the most novel causal model—one which incorporates the effect of culture on biology. These findings suggest that we need to pay attention to the causal networks of theories, rather than dichotomizing them into “biological” and “sociological” explanations.