Evolution may not want, but certain strategies are more successful than others in specific contexts. Long lived animals still age, only seeming so long lived relative to us. Aging is a balancing act of the benefits of generational iterations vs the value of experience.

Toxic relationships don’t require manipulation on the part of one person. Infatuation can lead people with incompatible personalities to make costly commitments to each other. Partners can genuinely treat each other with respect and still end up in relationships that harm all parties.

This comes back to the social construction of gender roles, even though I mostly focused on the well accepted effects of primary sex hormones. There are biological factors that limit the gender identities and expressions we can comfortably be. Some people feel comfortable with a wide range of identities, while others are more limited. If anything, seeing one’s gender as so maliable to social influence implies that conversion therapy would be effective and validates the idea of trans identities are a social contagion

The constructed nature of gender comes from the constructed nature of essence. Our brains understand the world by constructing a model of reality based on these essences, qualia, or forms. Gender is the simplified categorization of social dynamics, but so are all ideas we could ever use to describe society.