Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The Female Turn: How Evolutionary Science Shifted Perceptions About Females Malin Ah-King full chapter instant download
The Female Turn: How Evolutionary Science Shifted Perceptions About Females Malin Ah-King full chapter instant download
The Female Turn: How Evolutionary Science Shifted Perceptions About Females Malin Ah-King full chapter instant download
https://ebookmass.com/product/a-brief-history-of-the-female-body-
an-evolutionary-look-at-how-and-why-the-female-form-came-to-be-
deena-emera/
https://ebookmass.com/product/thinking-about-science-good-
science-bad-science-and-how-to-make-it-better-ferric-c-fang/
https://ebookmass.com/product/etextbook-978-0205992126-
evolutionary-psychology-the-new-science-of-the-mind-5th-edition/
https://ebookmass.com/product/speculation-within-and-about-
science-peter-achinstein/
The Science of Psychology An Appreciative View -
Looseleaf (Laura A. King, Professor) 4th Edition Laura
A. King
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-science-of-psychology-an-
appreciative-view-looseleaf-laura-a-king-professor-4th-edition-
laura-a-king/
https://ebookmass.com/product/electronic-packaging-science-and-
technology-king-ning-tu/
https://ebookmass.com/product/turn-the-tide-ruggle/
https://ebookmass.com/product/turn-the-tide-ruggle-2/
Turn the Tide Katie Ruggle & Adriana Anders & Juno &
Connie Mann
https://ebookmass.com/product/turn-the-tide-katie-ruggle-adriana-
anders-juno-connie-mann/
The Female Turn
How Evolutionary Science Shifted
Perceptions About Females
Malin Ah-King
The Female Turn
Malin Ah-King
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Singapore
Pte Ltd. 2022
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of
illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and
transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar
or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or
the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any
errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore
Pte Ltd.
The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721,
Singapore
To all those struggling before, alongside and subsequent to me
Acknowledgments
1 I ntroduction 1
5 Shifting
Perceptions about Female Insects, Snakes, Frogs,
Lizards, Fishes and Spiders169
6 Sexual
Selection After Mating: Turning Perceptions of
Female Agency217
7 Conclusions:
An Epistemology of Ignorance in Sexual
Selection275
A
ppendix 1313
I ndex317
ix
List of Figures
Fig. 2.1 Primatologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy at her farm in California, USA 47
Fig. 2.2 Primatologist Meredith Small in Venice, Italy 58
Fig. 2.3 Photographs of study species. (A) Japanese macaques, Macaca
fuscata, studied by Syunzo Kawamura. Photo by Asteiner
Creative CommonsAttribution 3.0 Unported. (B) Hanuman
langur, Semnopithecus dussumieri, female with infant, the
species studied by Sarah Hrdy. Photo by Yann Creative
Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International, 3.0
Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license.
(C) Female Barbary macaque, Macaca sylvanus and her infant,
one of Meredith Small’s study species. Photo by Hamza-sia
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported 65
Fig. 3.1 Malte Andersson in his office at the Zoological department,
Gothenburg University, Sweden 109
Fig. 3.2 Illustrating study species in Chap. 3. A) Malte Andersson’s
study species long-tailed widowbirds, Euplectes progne,
(Mohanr53 at English Wikipedia, public domain). B) A pair
of crested auklets, Aethia cristatella, in which female as well as
male ornaments were studied, photo by Alaska Maritime
National Wildlife Refuge (public domain) 116
Fig. 4.1 Ornithologist Simon Griffith in his office at Macquarie
University, Sydney, Australia 151
xi
xii List of Figures
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 1
M. Ah-King, The Female Turn, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7161-7_1
2 M. Ah-King
6
Darwin, 1860.
7
Darwin 1859: 103.
8
Darwin 1871 part I: 256.
9
Darwin 1871 part II:397.
10
Milam, 2010: 15.
4 M. Ah-King
11
Milam, 2010:18ff, Richards, 2017:523ff.
12
Andersson, 1994.
13
Milam, 2010: 43ff.
14
Bateman, 1948, but see Snyder & Gowaty, 2007, Gowaty et al., 2012.
15
Trivers, 1972.
16
Schiebinger, 1989, Saini, 2017.
17
Schiebinger, 1989: 189ff.
1 Introduction 5
until the late nineteenth century, and professional science even longer.18
Evolutionary biology contributed to the construction of a hierarchical
chain of beings based on sex and race differences.19 No wonder feminists
have been mistrustful and adverse toward biology. In the words of Virginia
Woolf, “Science, it would seem, is not sexless; she is a man, a father, and
infected too”20. Gender analyses of the history of science show that the
exclusion of women and others than the ruling class of white men has led
to gender bias and other biases in theories and research.21 Biological
research, just as medicine, has used the male as a norm22 and thereby
marginalized and hindered production of knowledge about females. In
other words, it has been androcentric, that is placing the male point of
view in the center of its worldview. However, ever since Charles Darwin
presented his theory on sexual selection, feminists have taken issue with
what it means for our understanding of sex.23 Just four years after Darwin’s
The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex was published,
American feminist Antoinette Brown Blackwell (1875) criticized Darwin
for putting too much emphasis on males and ignoring females, suggest-
ing her own theory of equality between the sexes in each species. She
claimed that Darwin’s and other male scientists’ perspectives and theories
were biased by them being men, and that women’s perspectives were
ignored. “I do not underrate the presumption which must attend to any
woman who will attempt to controvert the great masters of science and
scientific inference. There is no alternative! Only a woman can approach
the subject from a feminine standpoint; and there are none but beginners
among us in this class of investigations.”24 She and several other
18
Despite these obstacles some women did succeed in science during this time (Schiebinger, 1989).
19
Schiebinger, 1989:206ff.
20
Woolf 1938:127.
21
Bleier, 1984:2ff, Schiebinger, 1989; see also chapter 3.
22
Travis, 1992.
23
Feminist philosopher Elizabeth Grosz (2011) argues for a new feminist engagement with Darwin.
I agree with her intention to counteract feminist fear of essentialism and to appreciate Darwin’s
selection theories as describing indeterminate processes. However, I disagree with Grosz on several
points, for example she describes nature as “in itself always sexed” (p. 149) which disregards vari-
ability in sex and asexual organisms. Furthermore, Grosz overlooks the development of sexual
selection after Darwin.
24
Blackwell 1875: 22.
6 M. Ah-King
“Let the ‘environment’ of women be similar to that of men and with his
opportunities, before she be fairly judged, intellectually his infe-
rior, please.”28
Some years after the forceful revival of sexual selection in the 1970s, the
feminist critique of androcentrism reemerged. Feminist primatologist
Sarah Blaffer Hrdy in The Woman that Never Evolved (1981)29 and in her
essay “Empathy, polyandry30 and the myth of the coy female” (1986)31
criticized the ignorance of females (animal and human) in evolutionary
theory and research. Recent primate studies had disclosed that females were
anything but coy, questioning prevailing assumptions about female monog-
amy, coyness and invariability, as well as the role of males beyond mating,
as carers, protectors and killers of infants. Feminist neurophysiologist Ruth
Bleier’s Science and Gender: A Critique of Biology and Its Theories on Women
(1984) criticized biological determinism32 and androcentrism in studies
25
Hamlin, 2014.
26
Darwin 1871 part II:326ff.
27
Paradoxically, Darwin insisted that in humans, unlike in animals, men were the choosing sex
(Richards, 2017: 453).
28
Kennard, January 28, 1882. (Evans, 2017:227).
29
Hrdy, 1981.
30
Polyandry means that one female mates with several males.
31
Hrdy, 1986.
32
“Biological determinism refers to the idea that all human behavior is innate, determined by
genes, brain size, or other biological attributes.” Burke & Embrick, 2020.
1 Introduction 7
Theoretical Framework
Science philosopher Helen Longino argues that scientific knowledge is
inherently social, because it is constructed by “an interactive dialogic
community”, that is “by individuals in interaction with one another in
ways that modify their observations, theories and hypotheses, and pat-
terns of reasoning”.42 Thus, a researcher might make a discovery, but that
discovery becomes knowledge only upon critical reception in the scien-
tific community. Some findings are immediately accepted by the com-
munity, others are met with resistance and give rise to controversies.
Because of these controversies, a scientific community’s consensus is not
a mere reflection of the progress of new theory or objectively discovered
empirical findings, but a result of intensive negotiation of scientific
knowledge.43 Also, as feminist biologist Ruth Hubbard states: “though
nature is material and real, our descriptions and understandings of it are
38
Hrdy, 1986, Gowaty, 1997, Dewsbury, 2005, Tang-Martínez & Ryder, 2005.
39
Haraway, 1989, Fedigan, 2001, Nelson, 2017.
40
Parker & Birkhead, 2013:2, Zuk & Simmons, 2018:7.
41
For example Parker & Birkhead, 2013.
42
Longino, 2006: 272.
43
Kuhn, 1962, Keller, 1992, Gieryn, 1999.
1 Introduction 9
44
Hubbard, 1996: 169.
45
Longino, 1990.
46
Mills, 1997, Tuana, 2004, Fehr, 2007, Proctor & Schiebinger, 2008.
47
Proctor & Schiebinger, 2008.
48
Wilder, 2012.
49
Hemmings, 2011.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
Furiel sagte: „Schöne Präsidentin und Ihr, liebe Gefährtinnen, hier ist
eine ‚postulante‘: Sie scheint alle verlangten Eigenschaften zu
haben. Sie hat niemals mit einem Manne verkehrt, ist wunderbar
schön gebaut, und hat bei den ‚Versuchen‘, die ich mit ihr angestellt
habe, viel Feuer und Eifer gezeigt. Ich bitte Euch, dass sie unter
dem Namen ‚Sapho‘ bei uns zugelassen werde.“ Nach dieser Rede
mussten sich beide zusammen zurückziehen. Kurz darauf meldete
eine der Wächterinnen der Sapho, dass sie einstimmig zur Probe
zugelassen worden sei, und entkleidete sie vollständig, gab ihr ein
Paar weiche Pantoffeln, hüllte sie in einen lichten Mantel und führte
sie in die Versammlung zurück. Hier wurde sie auf den von der
Präsidentin verlassenen Sitz geführt, gänzlich entblösst und von
allen anwesenden Tribaden genau daraufhin untersucht,[298] wie
viele von den auf der Marmortafel aufgezeichneten dreissig Reizen
des Weibes sie besässe. Hierbei las eine der ältesten Tribaden die
folgende französische Uebersetzung eines alten lateinischen
Gedichtes vor.[299]
Que celles prétendant à l’honneur d’être belle,
De reproduire en soi le superbe modèle.
D’Hélène qui jadis embrasa l’univers,
Etale en sa faveur trente charmes divers!
Que la couvrant trois fois chacun par intervalle
Et le blanc et le noir et le rouge mêlés
Offrent autant de fois aux yeux émerveillés,
D’une même couleur la nuance inégale.
Puisque neuf fois envers ce chef d’œuvre d’amour
La nature prodigue, avare tour à tour,
Dans l’extrême opposé, d’une main toujours sûre
De ses dimensions lui trace la mesure:
Trois petits riens encore, elle aura dans ses traits,
D’un ensemble divin les contrastes parfaits.
Que ses cheveux soient blonds, ses dents comme l’ivoire,
Que sa peau d’un lys pure surpasse la fraicheur,
Tel que l’œil, les sureils, mais de couleur plus noire,
Que son poil des entours relève la blancheur.
Qu’elle ait l’ongle, la joue et la lèvre vermeille.
La chevelure longue et la taille et la main,
Ses dents, ses pieds soient courts ainsi que son oreille.
Elevé soit son front, étendu soit son sein:
Que la nymphe surtout aux fesses rebondies,
Présente aux amateurs formes bien arrondies:
Qu’u la chute des reins, l’amant sans la blesser,
Puisse de ses deux mains fortement l’enlacer,
Que sa bouche mignonne et d’augure infaillible,
Annonce du plaisir l’accès étroit pénible.
Que l’anus, que la vulve et le ventre assortis,
Soient doucement gonflés et jamais applatis.
Un petit nez plaît fort, une tête petite.
Un tétin repoussant le baiser qu’il invite;
Cheveux fins, lèvre mince, et doigts fort délicats
Complettant ce beau tout qu’on ne rencontre pas.[300]
Art. III. Verpflichtet sich d’Eon, Guerchy’s Andenken und Familie fortan in
Frieden zu lassen.
Art, IV. Und damit eine unübersteigliche Schranke zwischen den Streitteilen
aufgerichtet werde, fordere ich im Namen Sr. Majestät, dass die Verkleidung,
welche bis zu diesem Tage die Person eines Mädchens fälschlich in Gestalt eines
Chevalier d’Eon hat erscheinen lassen, völlig aufhöre. Und ohne weiter Charles
Geneviève Louise Auguste Andrée Thimothée d’Eon de Baumont einen Vorwurf
aus dieser Veränderung ihres Standes und Geschlechtes zu machen, deren
Schuld einzig und allein ihre Eltern trifft: ja, indem wir dem tapferen und kraftvollen
Betragen volle Gerechtigkeit widerfahren lassen, das sie stets in der Tracht ihrer
Wahl (habits d’adoption) bewährt hat, verlange ich unbedingt, dass zur Behebung
aller Zweifel über ihr Geschlecht, welches bis heute unerschöpflichen Anlass zu
Gerede, unziemlichen Wetten und schlechten Spässen gegeben, die sich
immerfort erneuern könnten, vor Allem in Frankreich: verlange ich also, dass das
Phantom eines Chevalier d’Eon völlig verschwinde und eine öffentliche
unzweideutige Erklärung über das wahrhaftige Geschlecht von Charles Geneviève
etc. d’Eon vor ihrer Ankunft in Frankreich und vor der Wiederaufnahme ihrer
Mädchenkleider diese Frage für alle Welt endgiltig zur Entscheidung bringe.
Fräulein d’Eon kann sich heute diesem Begehren um so weniger
verschliessen[312], als sie durch dessen Erfüllung in den Augen beider
Geschlechter, welche sie gleicherweise durch ihre Lebensführung, ihren Mut und
ihre Talente geehrt hat, nur desto interessanter erscheinen wird. Unter diesen
Bedingungen werde ich ihr urkundlich freies Geleit zusichern, kraft dessen sie
nach Frankreich gehen und daselbst unter dem besonderen Schutz Sr. Majestät
verweilen kann; und nicht blos Schirm und Sicherheit wird ihr der König zu Teil
werden lassen, er hat auch die Güte, die Jahrespension von 12000 Livres, welche
ihr der verstorbene Herrscher im Jahre 1766 bewilligt hat, in einen
Leibrentenvertrag auf die gleiche Summe umzuwandeln.“