for them women are supposedly better at multitasking and they very often have to be because they have to be good at work and then they have to go home and clean the house and look after the children so there are many women who feel that the feminist movement has just made life more and more difficult for them would you agree with the argument that since you've just mentioned women's ability to multitask and obviously since you believe in the evolution i think many people would agree that this is essentially a product of evolutionary development that women's multitasking ability do you think that that ability in and of itself makes women better positioned for the times of uncertainty especially be economic and such and did that we are facing at the moment yes there's no doubt the men and women have slightly different skills profile the us has evolved and that can be observed in brain structures there was a recent study coming out of pennsylvania which showed that if you look at the way

in which my own female brains are typically wide. almost have wiring going from front to back which enables them to connect perception with physical skills and would enable them to develop as tennis players for example and go places where women have have crossed wiring goes between the left and right hemispheres with the result that they can connect verbal processes with feelings and emotions on the right side. to one another it is very much intimately tied up with what they are feeling about things men tend to use language in a much more sort of logical and a little way there is also a tendency i think in the west do you equate women's rights and gender equality many people treat those two concepts as synonymous but i wonder if you believe

about is the case i mean i may have the same rights as my male peers but i think when it comes to social expectations and social norms there are there are still quite and they quote do you agree with that it's a very complex area there was a recent survey about asking women whether they liked chivalry on arts and the majority of them actually did like men to to help them put their coats on and to give up their seat for them on public transport whereas a lot of men were thinking that women would be insulted if they did this that things had reached the point where women did not want to be patronized in this kind of way and i would also like to touch. on one particular example and that is child rearing. there is a significant increase in the amount of time that man especially in the west bound providing direct care to their children but i think it's still only

a fraction of the parental investment provided by mothers i wonder if you believe that there are natural or maybe even biological limits to gender equality and oh i believe that women are actually naturally better at communicating with children knowing what it is that they want and need and they're also more motivated to take care of children than the average man so that i'm sure that we will in the future continue to have some differences in sex roles that are based evolved. preferences tendencies it's a very complex area a lot of women tennis players have been demanding equal pay but they still want to play against other women not against men and they can see the fact that men naturally better at sport and they want some of the rewards for playing against lesser opponents is this concept of gender equality really supported by you know

psychological and biological studies there is it just the concept or can we really achieve that in real life although i think the attempt to override sex role differences completely is a luxury can be afforded only by affluent countries. there is a lot of argument for division of labor whereby people develop skills that are specific. to that to their own abilities and interests and that the sex roles complimentary men and women are bringing different kinds of skills and expertise to a situation and therefore they come children jointly in a way that is more effective than having them parallel each other's roles now speaking about raising children jointly correct me if i'm wrong but i think the idea of gender is very closely tied to the concept of the nuclear family and the

distribution of labor of within it and this is where enormous changes that are taking place at the moment in the united states i believe four out of town children are now born out of the wedlock in britain to the number of single mothers is on the increase and you know it's no longer associated to shame it's part of. social norms for the middle class but at the same time it's very strenuous both psychologically and financially and i guess it's a very loaded question. i wonder if it really constitutes a form of women's empowerment or rather just a new form of patriarchy where man gets the best of both worlds because they they get to pass on their genes without you know committing to spend too much resources on the raising their offspring yes that's a problem that is rearing its head in western societies most obviously where miles

to escape responsible for looking after and financing their children because the for the family units break up so quickly and governments have to decide how they are going to deal with it how they're going to compel fathers to contributes to the upbringing of their children at least in terms of financial resources because otherwise they the government will be expected to to step in and back up the mothers now all the social advancements for women that's we have already discussed they all comment a cost and there are also increasing issues with fertility of that single motherhood with. various psychological issues and i guess you would agree with me that. you know evolutionarily women haven't had haven't changed that fast as social norms i mean they are they still crave you know family bonds and intimate

connection so my question to you is whether female empowerment at least as it is understood these days ultimately at odds with deep seated psychological and probably even biological needs of women but i think you're absolutely right that the liberation of women has come at a cost. and. what i applaud i think is the ability of women to make choices even if they're unusual choices for their gender if a woman wants to play fly an airplane particularly the. i think that's an excellent thing will be trying to as a surgeon but what we maybe shouldn't be doing is putting compulsion on this matter so that half of m.p.'s have to be women and half of the boardroom has to be female because that will push us into conflict with some natural biological differences which find their own level you know in clothing there is. the concept

of the uni sex is increasingly popular something that is suitable for both both sexes and i wonder if it would be too far imagine a society that would be truly gender lassonde would do you like to live in kind of a society personally. no i think it would be terribly drab rather i was trying to use society because in terms of the clothing worn men and women so i think that men and women will inclined towards those different modes of dress and again any social compulsion to to make them dress side. would be very unfortunate well professor wilson we have to take a short break now but when we come back gender roles have always been rooted in the concept of traditional marriage but as western countries take the lead in redefining this cornerstone social institution how will it a fact manhood and womanhood that's coming up in

a few moments on worlds apart. you know the united states has as many think tanks as the next ten countries combined yes one thousand eight hundred twenty eight to tell three hundred million people had a thing. pat . pat but they are feeling better location a voice still remember. how to do it well as of the rawhide ten thousand said you would stop this storm we might think you know my people will die code.

so. right on the scene. first rick. and i were being picture.

on our reporters' twitter. and instagram. to be in the. on top. there's a media lead us so we need to be. the same motion security place your party there's a goal. for shoes that no one is asking with the guests that you deserve answers from. politics only on our team. welcome back to worlds apart real discussing changing gender roles with psychologist glanville wilson professor wilson earlier we were talking about the steep rise in single parent households and there are many downsides to raising

children alone for children for parents for societies at large and yet. these small is becoming increasingly more widespread and it is often presented in terms of. women's liberation so much so that any government's efforts to intervene or protect the institution of marriage is sometimes viewed this suspicion or even condemnation i wonder if you think that government has any role to play in gender politics i think government can alter things perhaps by incentives rather than by. by negative sanctions and compulsion but we have passed the point where we can tell people that they have to get married that i can't produce children out of wedlock and if they do they will take the children away and do something terrible but we also know that single parents are statistically more likely to be poorer they're

more likely to have emotional or behavioral problems and they're more likely to depend on social welfare so it's not exclusively an issue of individual choice they have the government is expected to come in come in and help when times are tough but certainly the government will be required to help people who do have problems of poverty of jews or whatever reason and what we know from all the research is that all forms of social deprivation tend to accumulate in the one place that single parent families will go with with bad housing and poor education and. and poverty inevitably these things all then tend to accumulate in the same corners now many studies suggest that a successful marriage is usually good for you it is associated with increased life expectancy if a certain economic bana says. it also increases the overall life satisfaction and

yet if we look at the most recent studies it seems that all those benefits and kristen we conferred onto those who are well educated and reach marriage is essentially becoming a class thing you know decreasing among the poor and the middle class and here staying fairly stable and among their reach why do you think that is i think that close inevitably does connect with marital stability and so does health and happiness is no doubt about but again it's the same effect of everything accumulating in the same direction and the cause and effect is going both ways so that if people are healthy and wealthy that leslye have likely to have a marriage breakdown now in many parts of the world the social changes that we discussed previously including the changes in our female gender roles are viewed as

predominantly western that's part of the western value of janda and certain countries are actively resisting it i wonder if you think that these social trans are irreversible to some extent and in other words of a likely to see any sort of counter revolution aimed at preserving traditional maybe even a charcoal gender roles i think there are counter movements i think that the islamic religion is is one very powerful counterforce towards maintaining traditional. marriages and values. which doesn't suit the west and just as they become more powerful western liberalism becomes powerful and we have two sort of major civilizations a parent me on a collision course i think russia also comes into the mix here because i think that

the counter revolution their revolution to or the movement to preserve to dish until marriage has also started here and it's very interesting because traditionally women were expected to be breadwinners and take care of that household but most recently i think many women are putting a lot of emphasis on just finding a good provider but the problem is of course the male gender roles have changed as well and they are in no rush to tie the know either be the sole provider for the family so my question to you is whether you think base idea of the nuclear family could really be preserved as a primary social union world marriage and family is a social institution but i think it does or also the way that human beings would naturally tend to live without any state marriage licensing system and without any religious beliefs i think that would be a tendency for people to gather together into into family groups what's probably

more unusual is the size of major cities today we're probably evolved to live in communities of about one hundred fifty people where everybody knows each other and there are powerful social constraints based on expectations of what your role will be within the community and. now. speaking about marriage equality if there is also a concerted effort in some western countries including in britain to redefine the concept of traditional marriage and what i mean is of course. redefining the marriage from. a union between a man and a woman or a union that's been to people of the same gender and i don't want to debate the merits of such moves per se but what i would like to ask is. about the the speed of the social change because social norms usually take decades to change and

crystallize but the same sex marriage it seems to be happening much quicker than with other contentious social issues why do you think that would be yes the speed with which to choose towards same sex relationships has changed in quite extraordinary when i was growing up as a schoolboy it was actually illegal to be homosexual in new zealand my home country now we seem to have switched from a time when i might throw you into jail for homosexual behavior to a time with are more likely you to throw you into jail if you express homophobic after achieves the speed with which. particularly the legal background to those attitudes is changed is quite remarkable i wonder if there is if there is enough research to support. the concept of same sex marriage in relation at least to children because i think the issue off raising children is that is the most crucial here and whether or not children raised in same sex household as compared to maybe

a single parent household or you know. people of two different genders are. if we really know these dolls and the fact children is there enough research to support that yes there's a considerable amount of evidence and it goes both ways i think there is little doubt that children are best served by having a mother or father together in. maryland a female role model and the world looks simple from that point of view but it's also. fairly clear that children are better off having stable parents even if they are same sex parents than having only one parent and better off that way than having parents who abuse them melt treat them the most important thing is to be raised in a loving home and it doesn't matter quite so much the gender arrangement of

all of the other people in that we're airing this program on the eve of valentine's day and i heard some gay activists compare jagjit who perform same sex marriages to st valentine's who as legend has it's was imprisoned for performing weddings for soldiers who were forbidden to marry and i wonder to what extent these same sex marriage controversy is an outcome of the it's forbidden fruit mentality because how to sectionals as we discussed previously are losing their appetite for marriage at the same time as the l g b t community seems to be making it the core issue of that movement we've had the same sex partnerships in britain for some time and that seems to work fairly well with the step towards calling it marriage and making it identical to my all female marriage is a further step and it's seems as though it's going to go fairly smoothly at the

moment. i don't see any great problem with personally a lot of people feel uncomfortable with it because the same sex orientation is a minority one but then it's not so long ago that the people who were left handed time as well even in my school days i remember left hand as being compelled to change to the right hand for writing when it was totally unnatural for them to do that and they suffered enormous stress. yes many of them develop stuff as in status and i see sex orientation as being parallel so that i think that a gay orientation is inborn so that by the time you're born i think you're pretty much on track to whichever sex orientation you have i think this is

a scientific consensus but the question is a bit broader here is the question of the social attitudes and as you pointed out homosexuality was pathologist only a few decades ago so for society at large it is understandably taking some some time to. get used to that what could be the potential ramifications of pushing these changes before our society comes to terms with it well it's a very divisive issue i agree and there are some very entrenched attitudes on both sides but i suppose it's an area where i quite favor the legislation that will permit people to to follow their own drums because very often social attitudes will only change after the law steps in to defend minority interests and finally very quickly it's interesting that those countries that are. more traditional in terms of the intel protégé sion of gender roles they also tend to be

far more conservative on the eligibility rides and i know that another area of your expertise is the study of liberalism versus conservatism and i think the at least the main point that i took from your research was that. liberalism and conservatism are you know they they they both serve. an important evolution their role it's not like one is good and one is bad you know they're centrally provide a system of checks and balances and i wonder if we if that conclusion those findings could be extrapolated to national and possibly. in the international levels oh why should all countries be the same i mean wouldn't we all benefit as a humanity if certain countries were allowed to be more conservative than others who that's a different one of use the we must allow different countries to organize things in

their own way but. brutality and i have sort of executing people for their for their beliefs and unconventional behaviors and sun seems to be taking a little bit too far absolutely nobody is asking for that it seems to me that. this seems to me that western countries have a right to to try to persuade other countries to to alter their laws in a more liberal sort of direction and a more tolerant kind of direction so they can accept a greater spectrum of behaviors for their people but what gives them the right to spread their liberal values because as you argued in your research you know conservatism and liberalism is to some extent inborn and i guess the same type of argument could be made for country says well because you know

a way your propensity towards you know embracing change would also depend on your fear of uncertainty you know your previous previous experience as a country your values your traditions and i don't think you can change all that quickly overnight yes well you certainly get very ocean in liberalism and conservatism within countries and those two facets will argue with one another as to who's got the better perspective on things it seems reasonable to allow them to do that likewise you've got differences across nations and there is no harm in the debate. going on between nations as to who is organizing things in a better and fairer way i think that's inevitable attacking another country because they have a different religion or if you point on things it is a step one that i would argue for well professor unfortunately this is all we have time for i really appreciate your appearing on the show and to our viewers if you

like the show please join us again same place same time here and while the part of . the. economic down in the final. day. and the rest. will be every week.

is obviously more for the ladies because it's paying. women wanted to avoid rate they really need to buy guns and. this is the one that i want to go away from once again it's the fear of. women definitely the target of the gun lobby you don't kill them when you kill anybody but if somebody would you would just prefer. i'm noticing more and more and that's really scary marketing tactics which implies that women have some sort of moral obligation to protect their family and young girls should. out here too so we do have a pink or. more kids young kids choke on food than are killed by firearms if being armed made us safer in america we should be the safest nation on earth. were clearly not the safest.

feeling to games is very name means athletic excellence in extravagant showmanship this has been traditionally the case however at the games in sochi have been treated differently to western media has attempted to politicize the games at the expense of sports and the host country on this edition of crossfire we explore the true spirit of such. i know c.n.n.

the m s n b c news have taken some not slightly but the fact is i admire their commitment to cover all sides of the story just in case one of them happens to be accurate. that was funny but it's closer to the truth and might think. it's because one call attention and the mainstream media works side by side the joke is actually on we're going to be coming back. at our teen years we have a different thread. because the news of the world. just is not this fun i'm not laying there but i'm not. a. good guys to the jokes that will handle the stuff that.

i'm not. coming up on r t the sochi olympic games wore on with another day of action team usa scores a few more medals while a major russian figure skater has to because of injury latest just ahead and the golden state is struck with severe drought the recent dry spell in california could have huge implications for food prices across the globe more on the state's search for water coming up. and big news for bitcoin despite the recent obstacles to digital currency is gaining more and more traction especially in germany a special report from berlin later in the show.