Bitch: On the Female of the Species

I love the author’s accounts of field visits to observe first hand what she was writing about. As a retired US Fish and Wildlife biologist with a long fascination with anthropology and primatology, and a life long interest in science, I found it compelling, hard to put down. Researched over the last 3 years and published this year, it’s a wonderful update on evolution and other fields I’d not kept up with for some years.The crucial contribution of active female behavior to species’ success and persistence across all taxonomic levels was an eye-opener, and utterly fascinating. My academic and personal education began long enough ago that I remember and recognize the male biases in biology and anthropology that the author points out. Reading her book and thinking back, I wonder how I missed what she and other women scientists point out should have been the obvious questions. But I was young, male, and accepted at face value what male instructors and authors presented. She’s right: if men of science had been objective as scientists are supposed and claim to be, the role of women and females of other species might, possibly, be perceived quite differently at this point.Focusing on sex, reproduction, and gender, the recent research highlights, more than anything I’ve read, the amazing plasticity of life to persist on the planet: there’s no one right way; what’s right is what works in a given era and environment, with a tendency to preserve long term processes that prove versatile and, well, plastic. Human cultural norms and expectations of sex, reproduction, and gender are not at all biologically realistic. In her Conclusion she writes: “We are all culturally conditioned to interpret the world within a framework of understanding that’s both deeply ingrained and highly personal. Stepping outside this safety net of certainty requires first recognizing it exists. Then being brave enough to admit you are out of your depth, but to keep on swimming forward regardless.”I highly recommend the book.

Sparked some wonderful discussions, thought-provoking, very interesting educational experience.

This book is full of interesting animal facts about genetics, mating practices, social hierarchies, dominance behaviors, and biologists ever-evolving understanding of what their observations might mean. Crucially, though, these disparate facts and the work of independent researchers - studying whales, monkeys, spiders, apes, birds, lizards, frogs, and mole rats - are woven together to form Cooke's conclusion that female sexuality and behavior is much more nuanced, fluid, and adaptive than has been been generally recognized.While she admits that there is still more to learn and that all science is interpreted through a cultural lens, Cooke clearly states her case as opposed to the (still) underlying foundation of Darwin's theory that the female is the passive, receptive, and reactive form while the male organism is active, aggressive, and proactive. She buttresses her argument with wide-ranging studies from a variety of biological research and subjects. Cooke also adds nuance to the discussion with conversations about the differences between brute strength, sexual dominance, social dominance, and power and how they are differently displayed by the animals in question.It's a truly fascinating book that will have you telling your friends about how:* only humans and 4 kinds of toothed whales undergo menopause;* spider mating and how it is both deadly dangerous (for the males) and presumably delicious (for the females);* stereotype-defying parenting jobs and the role of particular neurological chemicals and hormones in nurturing;* how many species of frogs and fish change sex throughout their lives and sometimes from day to day;* and how many creatures - as wide-ranging as lemurs, mole rats, elephants, bonobos, and orcas - seem to have female-dominated societies and female leaders!Just to name a few. Highly recommended!

Perhaps Lucy has her issues, but I myself have never believed in Darwin's coy female idea because there is nothing coy about me. Tigresses aren't. Diversity is a truly marvelous thing and humans are just as highly variable as most other lifeforms. There are human chimera in this world so being all Biblical about sex/gender does a person no good at all. If nothing else, this book teaches that the interplay between hormones, genetics and society yelds marvels.

This book is incredible whether you're a man or a female your knowledge of the biosphere and how we interact is greatly enhanced through this book. I couldn't adore Lucy more her writing is fun entertaining and incredibly informative. It's the type of book that makes you look at the world differently after reading it!

I am not a huge fan of nonfiction texts (and even less so of science-based nonfiction texts), but I saw an interview with Lucy Cooke and knew that I HAD to read this. "Bitch" is a hilarious exploration of the female role in the animal kingdom. I learned a staggering amount that has allowed me to reorient my understanding of the natural world."Bitch" is an incredibly powerful read without being overwhelmingly dense. The language is easy enough for the average layman and the more complex concepts are so thoroughly explained that I had no trouble following the text. I have recommended this book to everyone whose cared to ask about it (and many others who have not).

I loved the scientific detail, with humor at times, of all the strange sexual configurations life has dreamed up. Really incredible. The work that scientists had to do to discover this information, is amazing. The primary reason the author wrote this book is to give stage to science, mostly women scientists, but men too, who are finding behavior and biology that either were unknown or challenges many previously established scientists understandings. Well done. I recommend.

O livro é no estilo de livros estadunidenses: uma capa preta com o título na lombada. Essa capa vermelha é só um pedaço de papel impresso cobrindo a capa de verdade. Nada que atrapalhe a experiência.O conteúdo é fantástico e vale a leitura. Não preciso dizer que é tudo em inglês, né?

Couverture rigide, pages épaisses, belle qualité d'impression

This book made me laugh, learn so much and makes me love this wild and beautiful world even more! Thanks!!

I began this book wondering if nature can tell us a better story than the myriad of confusion and arguments, we seem to be having in this world of ours around gender and sex – so can become any clearer with what’s going on in the rest of nature and does it lead to a greater understanding – or does it seem even more complex. “A sexist mythology has been baked into our biology and it distorts the way we perceive female animals. Yes there are doting mothers amongst them but then so is the jacana bird that abandons her eggs and leaves them to the haram of cuckold males to raise. Females can be faithful, but only 7% of the species are sexually monogamous, which leaves a lot of philandering females seeking sex with multiple partners. And not all animal societies are dominated by males by any means; alpha females have evolved across a variety of classes and their authority ranges from benevolent [bonobos] to brutal [bees]. There are female fatales such as cannibalistic female spiders that consume their lovers as post - or even pre-coital snacks and ‘lesbian’ lizards that have lost the need for males altogether and reproduce solely by cloning.”- Victorian society only saw things from their own point of view, which was quite a paternal society. And yet scientists are now realising that the understanding of the past is not quite as it might seem. Females and males are in fact, far more alike than they are different and it can sometimes be hard to know where to draw the line.- For too long many people have only studied the males of any species, seeing them as the dominant species and the one with the richest of life when compared to the female. However much of history and most of this research has been done by men who have often been slightly biassed in the subject matter. This book attempts to address the interesting and rich lives of the females of the species. And what a wonderful and colourful ride, with moments of humour mixed into all of this.- There is an interesting chapter all about spiders of which sex for a male comes at the risk of becoming dinner for the female of the species. The male will continue and try to have sex both during and after they manage to have sex. However female spiders can be very devoted to their young and will often allow 300 babies to start sucking their innards, but eventually they can become a little bit too hungry and within two or three hours of eating they’ve eaten mum.- The book looks at a range of factors that influence whether an animal will be male or female and sometimes is just down to genes. But sometimes gender can be changed due to the temperature in which a fish might have been laid in. This will determine whether it becomes male or female.- There are some studies that show that male spiders often know that they are taking the risk of death in order to have sex and they can sometimes perform sex whilst doing a handstand though they may land on the female spiders fangs they can still manage to copulate and pass on their genes as they die.- Another example cited in the book is how many male birds have lost their penis and it’s been now thought that female bird species preferred smaller and smaller penises until it got to the point that male birds lost their penis. There are still some birds who do have penises. And it’s also interesting that some female birds can have complicated vagina passages which can work in deciding whether to accept the copulated sperm from one bird from another male of the species. Many female animals can control the semen that comes into them and how they manage and select which male copulated semen they will accept.- Lots of animals have a neural connection which inhibits them when they have just given birth to wanting to eat their own young and their own babies. The rest of the time the species might eat other eggs of other fish but something seems to kick in to stop them eating their own.- 60% of mammals will eat young babies but something in the wiring of their brain switches off to stop them from once they’ve given birth to eating their own babies. Many animals appear to have parental instincts, and some even ensure that dad is part of the parental process but also ensure that they don’t keep their young.- There is a long passage about the benefits of oxytocin and how this hormone makes birds and many other animals bond with a young but for some animals this can be disrupted. When oxytocin levels are brought back to normal as in a non-breeding baby mother, this can then result in the mum not having the same bond that they would have otherwise have, and this can cause harm and damage to their own babies. We do occasionally see this in humans and some mums can give harm to the young.- Another interesting thing in this book is how, by observing some of the closest relatives in the animal kingdom, it is shown that humans have far more frequent young than say other great apes. “Human infants are born larger and more helpless than any of the other great apes and yet when you compare the birth intervals in modern human hunter gatherers with the birth intervals in any of the other great apes, you find that babies are weaned sooner and their mothers are breeding at a much faster pace than great apes. An orangutan mother gets no help and as a result can only afford to have a baby every seven to eight years. However, human hunter gatherers usually have children every two or three years. It's also worth noting that shared guardianship favoured offspring that were good at soliciting care, thereby promoting the evolution of our unique capacity for empathy, cooperation and understanding the minds of others.”- Another story tells of an animals that I've always found quite nice to look at in zoos, meerkats, but when you look at their sexual behaviours of the groups and how they can be really quite cruel to one another, and also having to fight in live in the Kalahari desert, where there are beetles that spout acid from their anus and snakes, and they have to disarm these creatures before they can see them. Female meerkats live in a social hierarchy where one mum can be the leader and will be the only ones giving birth. Meerkats remind one of Stalin in their approach to totalitarian rule of one another, and especially the dominant female. Although they are in the Kalahari desert, which has extreme temperatures and animals seek and crave for food, so life is harsh. However, female meerkats are probably the most homicidal animal in the world, and that includes humans, and roughly one in every five will be killed by another meerkat.- The giant mole rat which are hairless and blind, but who managed to have a soft skin that somehow means they can never have cancer and despite their size, can live for 30 years which is much longer than most other animals of a similar size. They are truly unique and full of wonder. “Naked mole rats are a true scientific wonder. The world’s only cold blooded mammal is apparently immune to cancer, capable of surviving 18 minutes without oxygen and feels no pain. These almost indestructible rodents can live for over 30 years which is eight times longer than would be expected for an animal of their size. Colonies are ruled by a single queen who does all the breeding with one of the three selected males. Four to five times a year she'll give birth to around a dozen pups although she can squeeze out many more - an eye watering 27 was recorded in one litter. And like a social queen she lives ten times longer than the workers of her colony, but with no age-related decline in her fertility, thereby allowing her to leave an extraordinary genetic legacy during her abnormally long reproductive life. 99.99% of the colony will never reproduce. The queen has put paid to any notion of parenthood by suppressing their sexual development.”Naked mole rats are a brilliant example of a sort of utopian, almost communist society, but of course lurking under that, there's all kinds of sinister things going on.”- The book also looks at the range of animals that show either female submission or matriarchy and in most apes kingdoms, most are subservient but there is one notable exception, bonobos. Bonobos are very much led by the females of the species in organisation and hierarchy.- The book also looks at how albatrosses who often bring up their young in what’s been described as a very monogamous lesbian relationship.- Most geckos in the world are born of a small number of mothers showing that sometimes diversity through natural selection and sex isn’t always required in regards to having young.- There are over 300 species of vertebrates that engage in homosexual behaviour or bisexual behaviour so it’s important to note that it is not just humans that have the potential to be gay. No matter how much this has been rewritten by biologists and religious ideologies in the past and histories full of this kind of misinformation.- “The blue head wrasse are just one of many rainbow coloured fish that undergo a natural sex change during their adult life. Known as sequential hermaphrodite's these fish begin life as one sex and are triggered to switch camps by a social stimulus, such as the loss of a dominant individual or the relative availability of the opposite sex. For the flamboyant parrot fish, that change can be permanent and once they've made the switch their stuck with that sex until they die. And others have a more flexible sexuality that can switch back and forth throughout their life.” Some fish can change their sex as often as 20 times a day.- Much of the information that we have acquired in the past about animal behaviour and gender and in particular to that of the female gender has been pretty much strewn with biases and misrepresentations. One example is it the way we breed female rats is very different to the way they behave in the world where they are aggressive and confrontational as male mice. However, when trapped in a cage their genders change in the form of behaviour that they present with as being more passive. They can often seem to switch between male to female and back-and-forth. Sometime this is to have some control of the reproduction and whether the sex of the baby face I will be male or female.- I noticed that a lot of reviewers have commented on the woke agenda that Lucy Cook has given this book, but when you consider that, and these words are quite often cited in this book as well, most research has been male dominated and male orientated. why shouldn’t we have a little bit of levity and balance. What I really learned from this book is that you can't learn anything from animals because it's complicated, but it's a fascinating study and it's a really well told book. This book really opened my eyes wide to the diversity of females orientation and behaviour.- In conclusion females are not destined to be passive and coy, evolutionary afterthoughts just waiting to be dominated by males. Even though they may be physically weaker, they can still be powerful. Strength can sometimes come through wisdom and age. Whatever we think we can learn from nature, the truth of the matter is that the female of the species is not so passive that we might think from the science that has been written in the past. This book is a wonderful, at times funny and awe-inspiring look at the female of the species.

Written for the intellingent non-academic reader. Validation for those of us who have been uncomfortable with the sloppy, skewed "science" we were fed in school. It would have been nice if the author included some graphs and tables to back up/illustrate the statistics she cites throughout the text.