- Paperback: 242 pages
- Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (28 Jan 2005)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 074254351X
- ISBN-13: 978-0742543515
- Product Dimensions: 22.7 x 15 x 1.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 971,142 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
Griet Vandermassen provides the most comprehensive treatment to date of the 150-year-long saga of marginalization, mutual suspicion, misunderstanding, misrepresentation, and missed opportunities between biology and feminist thinking. It is my hope that Vandermassen s remarkable book will remind evolutionary biologists of the contributions that feminists have made and challenge a new generation of feminist scholars to re-engage and integrate evolutionary perspectives into their understanding of the human condition.--Sarah Blaffer Hrdy
Product Description
The relationship between feminism and the biological sciences has always been particularly tense and hostile. Feminists have been inclined not to trust what scientists had to say about the sexes, with science often being pronounced a white, male enterprise. But why should feminism and the biological sciences remain at odds? And what might be gained from a reconciliation? In Whos Afraid of Charles Darwin? Griet Vandermassen shows that rather than continuing this enmity, feminism and the biological sciences, and in particular evolutionary psychology, have the potential and the need to become powerful allies. Properly understood, the Darwinian perspective proposed in this volume will become essential to tackling the major issues in feminism.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
If you are teaching a course in cultural studies, women's studies, history of science, or social theory, do your students a favor and place this book on your syllabus. I cannot think of another recent study that engages in such an incisive, informative, and reader-friendly manner with the crucial questions of the relationship between cognitive evolutionary science and feminism. Vandermassen's scientific grounding is impeccable, and her position as a feminist scholar makes her particularly attuned to challenges involved in negotiating the issues of gender and science.
If your students have not had previous exposure to the history of feminism or the history of evolutionary biology, they will find both in the opening chapters of the book, which also feature a discussion of women's role in the shaping of scientific enterprise. The following chapters contain a clear, balanced, and invariably insightful discussion of the controversies surrounding the issue of feminist science. The concluding parts outline the perspectives opened by the informed application of cognitive evolutionary psychology to the study of social institutions that shape the contemporary gender relationship.
Accessible, analytical, witty, this book will inform and inspire your students.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
As a male psychology lecturer whose formative years were the 1960s and 1970s I have always felt uncomfortable when applying evolutionary psychology to issues that were politically sensitive when modern Feminism was reborn. Rape, male on female domestic violence, differences between male and female behaviour, thinking, emotions, etc seemed to be topics where evolutionary theory and research denied crucial Feminist claims. At the same time I was never able to get a firm grasp of what Feminists actually did believe, no matter how much I asked Feminist friends or read their books - as soon as I thought I knew the Feminist position on an issue I would come across another Feminist taking a clearly different position. In particular I did not see why evolutionary psychology was rejected when, to me, it seemed to give females an at least equally important and powerful position as males.
Writers like Hrdy (eg Mother Nature) convinced me that Feminists could use Evolutionary Psychology in a positive way.
Vandermassen has now completed my basic education, in a slim volume she explains the myriad strands that make up Feminism and why it is impossible to meaningfully write about 'The Feminist Position', she explains modern evolutionary psychology clearly and concisely, and finally she brings the two perspectives together to demonstrate how Feminists can engage with Evolutionary Psychology to produce an understanding of humanity that improves on our current models.
I have recommended this book to students in the UK and Finland, as well as to friends. Several of them have written to thank me after reading it. This is a book that is capable of changing your view of humanity and the social sciences, it comes with plenty of references and is well-written. At the end you will have had to think your attitudes and beliefs through, no matter if you agree or disagree with the author you will have had to test your previous position against argument and evidence. Thoroughly recommended.
Writers like Hrdy (eg Mother Nature) convinced me that Feminists could use Evolutionary Psychology in a positive way.
Vandermassen has now completed my basic education, in a slim volume she explains the myriad strands that make up Feminism and why it is impossible to meaningfully write about 'The Feminist Position', she explains modern evolutionary psychology clearly and concisely, and finally she brings the two perspectives together to demonstrate how Feminists can engage with Evolutionary Psychology to produce an understanding of humanity that improves on our current models.
I have recommended this book to students in the UK and Finland, as well as to friends. Several of them have written to thank me after reading it. This is a book that is capable of changing your view of humanity and the social sciences, it comes with plenty of references and is well-written. At the end you will have had to think your attitudes and beliefs through, no matter if you agree or disagree with the author you will have had to test your previous position against argument and evidence. Thoroughly recommended.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
If you are teaching a course in cultural studies, women's studies, history of science, or social theory, do your students a favor and place this book on your syllabus. I cannot think of another recent study that engages in such an incisive, informative, and reader-friendly manner with the crucial questions of the relationship between cognitive evolutionary science and feminism. Vandermassen's scientific grounding is impeccable, and her position as a feminist scholar makes her particularly attuned to challenges involved in negotiating the issues of gender and science.
If your students have not had previous exposure to the history of feminism or the history of evolutionary biology, they will find both in the opening chapters of the book, which also feature a discussion of women's role in the shaping of scientific enterprise. The following chapters contain a clear, balanced, and invariably insightful discussion of the controversies surrounding the issue of feminist science. The concluding parts outline the perspectives opened by the informed application of cognitive evolutionary psychology to the study of social institutions that shape the contemporary gender relationship.
Accessible, analytical, witty, this book will inform and inspire your students.
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