I'm with Azdak in agreeing that curiosity is generally a useful human trait in a hunter-gatherer society. And indeed in almost any society. Conservatism does have big social advantages, that is why it is so innate, but so does innovation and risk-taking.

I am not a feminist (in the normal sense), and I view hunter-gatherer societies as not favouring men so much as recognising the value of men as regards their greater body strength and social adaptation to be a fighting and hunting force. But in terms of questioning and risk taking, it is hard to see why there should be a gender bias. Indeed since split-second obedience is generally more vital in men's roles than women's (bickering on the hunt means the animal gets away, bickering over if this is the right tuber to harvest can be imortant in reaching consensus and avoiding mistakes) I would have expected the bias to be the other way round.

However, this is to confuse the issue since both the examples of 'curiosity is bad for women' myths that Azdak cites come from much more recent civilisations. They might be pre-agricultural but they could just as easily be much later. So we would be talking about complex civilizations with a completely different set of social structures and needs than hunter-gatherer society.