Sexual Selections: What We Can and Can't Learn about Sex from Animals

So, what can and can't we learn about sex from animals? Marlene Zuk has written an easy read that actually makes important points about our human-biased and, especially, male-biased interpretations of nature. She points out that nature is 'witless' - the world comes without an agenda - and that selection has produced an enormous diversity of behaviour including that of the sexes. When we look objectively at other animals there is no universal way of being 'male' or 'female' regarding, for example, aggression, parental care or multiple sexual partners. In the last four chapters Zuk looks at menstruation, orgasm, homosexuality and spatial ability and discusses how looking at a wide variety of other species may shed more light on our own behaviour than ignoring other species or limiting our attention to only a few species. An important point Zuk makes is that we cannot regard evolution as hierarchical and when we stop ranking species we can then simply look at how selection works to create enormous diversity. By looking objectively at all species our assumptions are challenged about what it means to be 'female' or 'male'. There is no reason for feminists to either oppose science nor to use 'nature' to assert some sort of female superiority. There is nothing in nature that tells us about relative values of the sexes or how we should or should not behave. And there is much in nature that can horrify us, such as parasitioids, so the 'naturalistic fallacy' needs to be avoided by us all. Animals can show us how selection has worked to create enormous diversity and that humans have also been a part of this process. They can challenge our assumptions of what we believe to be natural, normal or even possible. Women's involvement in science can show up our biases in how we interpret various animal behaviours (eg female 'promiscuity' or 'adultery' or aggression compared to the same behaviour in the male). Any particular animal behaviour cannot be used to impose or justify the same behaviour in humans. Marlene Zuk is making very important points about how we study ourselves and how we relate this to other species including the errors we are susceptible to on both fronts. For me the book misses five stars because it lacks enough examples of animal behaviours and enough depth of discussion and I am not sure that anti-science or eco-feminists, whom the book seems to be mainly aimed at, will be totally convinced by the argument.

An eye opener for male and female readers alike.

University of California, Riverside biology professor Marlene Zuk, whose specialty is insects, especially crickets, makes two main points in this modest volume. One, what is "natural" as observed in nature is not necessary right and should not be used as a guide for human society; and two, how we interpret the behavior of animals is colored by our biases, both anthropomorphic and male-gendered.Professor Zuk writes from the avowed position of a feminist, although she makes it clear that she is not an "ecofeminist" nor does she agree with those feminists who believe that the exercise of science and "attempts to study the world are just culturally derived exercises relevant only in a certain social context." (p. 16)In other words, Zuk wants to reconcile the ways of science, especially evolutionary biology, to feminists while pointing out to biologists that many of their preconceptions contain a male bias. She recalls a poem from A.E. Housman that includes the phrase "witless nature" which she takes as a cornerstone for her position. Nature "is not kind, not cruel, not red in tooth and claw, nor benign in its ministrations. It is utterly, absolutely impartial." (p. 15)From this it follows (for most of us anyway) that we should not draw moral conclusions about how people should behave, nor should we form notions of what is "right" or "wrong" from observations of nature. This is a position that most professionals in evolutionary biology today appreciate, although this was not always the case, as Zuk is quick to remind us. She sees the antiquated notion of scala naturae (from Aristotle) which puts humans at the pinnacle of evolution as part of the reason for the errors of the past. Humans were seen as the positive norm, and to the extent that the behavior of other animals deviated from that they were inferior. Zuk also points to a "male model in biology" assumed by biologists (consciously or unconsciously), as an addition source of bias. She points to the idea that males are more aggressive than females as an example of an unwarranted preconception.My experience (for what it's worth--I coached girl's basketball some years ago, and believe me the girls were VERY aggressive), and from what I know of aggressiveness theoretically, suggests that females are indeed just as aggressive as males in going after what they want. The reason that women use violence (a kind of aggressiveness) less than men do has to do with social conditioning of course, but also with the fact that a woman's reproductive capability is seldom if ever enhanced by the use of physical force while a male may use force to his reproductive advantage. In the case of non-human animals I am thinking especially of male lions killing the cubs of another male to bring the female into estrus. In the case of humans I am thinking of human males using the spoils of war to gain access to females and to nurture their offspring. (I am NOT thinking of rape since that sort of unsocial, high-ri

Marlene Zuk is a biologist, and has specialized in studying insects, especially crickets. Part of the reason she had picked insects for her field is that they are very much unlike humans; she knows that studying primates, dolphins, or other mammals would be harder for her because of a human tendency to anthropomorphize. She says that with insects "it is harder to see myself reflected in their behavior." That sort of recognition of how all of us react to animals informs her remarkable book, _Sexual Selections: What We Can and Can't Learn about Sex from Animals_ (University of California Press), which is full of information about the sex lives of our fellow creatures on the planet, what we have to learn from them, and why we can't apply what we learn to ourselves. She shows that animals have incredibly varied versions of sex, and "... if we try to use animal behavior in a simplistic manner to reflect on human behavior, we will, in myriad ways, misperceive both."Zuk is a feminist as well as scientist, and is dismayed by the use of examples in biology to represent either feminism or "traditional family values." As a feminist, Zuk was initially heartened by the merging of environmental concern and women's rights into "ecofeminism." "Mother Nature" or some other Earth goddess is frequently invoked, but Zuk demonstrates her doubts that biological lessons show that females tend to be more caring, less aggressive, or more empathetic. She gives examples of, say, reed warbler females who practice infanticide on rivals' eggs, or female wasps that battle fiercely to take control of a colony. There is nothing wrong with showing that females do not have to be passive, but insisting that nature reinforces stereotypes of any sort will not only be futile, it will keep us from learning what animals are really doing. Birds look so industrious and caring in their efforts to make nests and nurture their young that we tend to picture them as examples of propriety, and sermons have been written on the theme. Especially with the advent of easy DNA testing, however, we are learning that males roam around to the territories of other males to intrude upon their females, and that the females were receptive of such attention. Even in the scientific literature, judgmental terms such as "adultery" and "fooling around" have been used for such behavior; perhaps these are simply more fun to say than "extra-pair copulations." There are surprising revelations here on many areas of animal and human sexuality, homosexuality, male and female orgasms, menstruation, and much more. Zuk knows a wide range of peculiar and completely natural animal behaviors, and her persuasive book shows that we habitually look at such behaviors through our own lenses. We will have to learn our morals elsewhere than from creatures produced by amoral evolution. In a typical humorous aside (this is a witty book that is a pleasure to read), Zuk points out that female snakes may mate with numerou