It’s hard to know what to say about this book because my reactions were pretty much as follows: “Really?” “Really!” “REALLY.” “Really?!” It’s 16 years old now, which is a very long time as far as society’s own evolution on gender and sexual diversity. Some parts of the book still feel revolutionary to me (alternatives to Darwin’s theory of sexual selection), some felt boring, some dubious, and some dated. There’s just a lot here to digest and I really want to find some newer books too.

popular and scientific books on biology are mostly products of majoritarian and dominant groups. Science is awesome and the best method for understanding the world. However dominant groups often bleed what passes for common sense into narrative accounts of biology. Of course, metaphorical descriptions, especially in popularization, reach for stereotypes of the dominant culture to make a point about animal behavior and it has been going on since Darwin. This bias that leaks into biology can color the theories (especially in lesser understood areas) to whatever the culture thinks is "normal". This happens in reproduction and mating behaviors and in other areas with the LBGTQIA community. The cisgendered and heterosexual mores are the lenses of these accounts are couched in and it colors the science. I am not arguing for relativism so much as fallibilism and the fact that people bring their own baggage to any endeavor and messy sciences like Bio or psych can be distorted by ordinary assumptions of actors involved in it. A fascinating book that looks through bio from an LBGTQIA lens. Nice corrective to mainstream myopia.

Pretty good on the biology; not so good on the social/cultural stuff.

I sort of cannot believe this book was written in 2004. Like any innovative book, this was a bit of a mixed bag for me, but overall I would recommend it to folks interested in gender and sexuality. As an ecologist, I found part 1 extremely thoughtful and persuasive. As a scientist, I was more skeptical of some of the arguments in part 2, and I found some of the book’s claims around GMOs to be tenuous. I was especially bothered by the comparisons between GMO foods and genetic modification in humans (though I think the concerns sighted about human genetic modification are very real). The author does a very good job of explaining the state of the science, which allows you to draw your own interpretation of the data if you’re not picking up what she’s putting down. I found part 3 fascinating, but it left me wanting to read a book that was like part 1 of this book, but by an anthropologist. Overall, I thought this was a great and thought provoking read by someone who has truly been at the forefront of issues concerning gender and sexuality.

"90% of mammal species are polygamous."

"In birds where the annual survival rate is only 40-80%, the divorce rate is high, and in birds where the annual survival rate is 90% or more, the divorce rate is low."

"Monogamy occurs in 15% of primate species."