A review by serendipitysbooks
Bitch: A Revolutionary Guide to Sex, Evolution and the Female Animal by Lucy Cooke

challenging informative reflective medium-paced

4.5

 
Bitch was such a fascinating read, combining my interest in animal behaviour with my feminist principles in an engaging if anthropomorphic manner. The author convincingly shows how many traditionally held views about female animals - submissive, monogamous, passive, weak- are being overturned, that the animal kingdom provides many examples disproving the idea of a sexual binary, and that there is a lot of patriarchal and homophobic resistance to these new findings. I learned so many fascinating things while reading this book. Here are just a few examples.

1. The female anemone fish is dominant and defends the territory while the male cares for the eggs. More surprisingly if something should happen to her he will transform into the new dominant female and one of their juvenile males will mature to become her mate.

2. In one colony of Laysans albatross roughly one third of the pairs incubating eggs and rearing chicks are both female.

3. Female ducks have evolved an anatomical response to forced couplings, meaning they seem able to control who fertilises their eggs.

4. Post-menopausal orcas are crucial to their sons’ survival. Her death increases the odds of any of her sons dying the following year by a far greater amount than if she had died at a younger age.

This books was impeccably researched yet engagingly written. If you are interested in animal behaviour and/or in seeing how a lack of diversity among scientists impacts our scientific knowledge this is definitely a book you should read.
 
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