sexual selections what we can and can’t learn about sex from animals

[...]... scientists, and the general public, cannot seem to help relating animal behavior to human behavior The lens of our own self-interest not only frequently distorts what we see when we look at other animals, it also in important ways determines what we do not see, what we are blind to This book is about seeing what animals do It is about the connections, legitimate and illegitimate, between learning about them and. .. psychology.” Yet we are as far as ever from consensus on what feminism and biology have to offer each 1 other and whether and if so, what we can legitimately expect to learn about ourselves, particularly about aspects of our sexuality, from studies of nonhuman animal behavior I am both a feminist and an evolutionary biologist interested in animal behavior In my work I am interested in mating behavior and the... some animals capture our hearts while others do not; our gender stereotypes confuse this connection, and we create a hierarchy of what should be loved and preserved in nature that can deflect our attention from “lower” species worthy of study in their own right, and can also backfire on former icons in which we lose interest We can appreciate dolphins without making them into animal Einsteins, and we can. .. Identification and anthropomorphism are more difficult with insects, and that is a good thing I do not want to study animals only to learn about me, though that may happen along the way I want to learn about the insects What, then, is the relationship between feminism and the study of gender in other animals? What do feminism and biology have to offer each other? I think the answer is complex On the one hand,... critics, however, and the criticisms have been made on both social and scientific grounds, with the distinction between the two often blurring These criticisms were in part what led to my fellow graduate student’s assumption that my feminism and my science must necessarily be at odds I have never found any basic conflict between my belief in sexual egalitarianism and my interest in sexual behavior among animals, ... psychologist Virginia Valian has pointed out, we interpret what we see in terms of “gender schema,” ideas about what the sexes are like, physically, mentally, and emotionally If men are generally viewed as tall, we see them as tall, and tests show that people overestimate height of men and underestimate that of women If men are generally viewed as capable and authoritative, we will see them that way, too, whereas... possible adaptive significance and the state of research into parallel behaviors and the lack of them—in nonhuman animals, attempting to assess what we can learn about ourselves from these findings and what is likely to lead us into blind alleys The final chapter describes some of the ways animal behavior can be misused in discussions of gender by both “sides” of the battle of the sexes Though I believe... simply suggests that we cannot expect to find a user’s manual accompanying the actions of animals What is natural can t be inherently “good” any more than it can be inherently amusing, or inherently painful Finding out that some animals kill their young says no more about the ethics of infanticide than finding out that some animals are yellow says about fashion trends Witlessness can, however, be extraordinarily... extraordinarily illuminating When we begin to understand the details of animals lives, the ways in which we have been trying to make generalizations about behavior, about sex roles as well as selfishness, suddenly seem peculiar and useless It is as if we were embarking for a space station with elaborate plans for improving the design of a sailing vessel or, perhaps, as if we were blasting off with plans... in mating behavior and the evolution of sexual characteristics, and I am continually struck with the ways in which our biases about gender influence how we view animal behavior As a feminist, I advocate the social and political equality of men and women As an animal behaviorist, I want to learn as much as I can about what the animals I observe are actually doing, and why In both of these aspects of my . MARLENE ZUK Sexual Selections What We Can and Can t Learn about Sex from Animals university of california press berkeley los angeles london University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles,. England ᭧ 2002 by the Regents of the University of California Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Zuk, M. (Marlene) Sexual selections : what we can and can t learn about sex from animals. determines what we do not see, what we are blind to. This book is about seeing what animals do. It is about the connections, legitimate and illegitimate, between learning about them and learning about