Over the last decade, there has been increasing debate as to whether feminism and evolutionary psychology can co-exist. Such debates often conclude with a resounding "no," often on the grounds that the former is a political movement while the latter is a field of scientific inquiry. In the midst of these debates, there has been growing dissatisfaction within the field of evolutionary psychology about the way the discipline (and others) have repeatedly shown women to be in passive roles when it comes to survival and reproduction. Evolutionary behavioral research has made significant strides in the past few decades, but continues to take for granted many theoretical assumption that are perhaps, in light of the most recent evidence, misguided. As a result, the research community has missed important areas of research, and in some cases, will likely come to inaccurate conclusions based on existing dogma, rather than rigorous, theoretically driven research. Bias in the field of evolutionary psychology echoes the complaints against the political movement attached to academic feminisms. This is an intellectual squabble where much is at stake, including a fundamental understanding of the evolutionary significance of women's roles in culture, mothering, reproductive health and physiology, mating, female alliances, female aggression, and female intrasexual competition.
Evolution's Empress identifies women as active agents within the evolutionary process. The chapters in this volume focus on topics as diverse as female social interactions, mate competition and mating strategies, motherhood, women's health, sex differences in communication and motivation, sex discrimination, and women in literature. The volume editors bring together a diverse range of perspectives to demonstrate ways in which evolutionary approaches to human behavior have thus far been too limited. By reconsidering the role of women in evolution, this volume furthers the goal of generating dialogue between the realms of women's studies and evolutionary psychology.

Somewhere in Africa, more than a million years ago, a line of apes began to rear their young differently than their Great Ape ancestors. From this new form of care came new ways of engaging and understanding each other. How such singular human capacities evolved, and how they have kept us alive for thousands of generations, is the mystery revealed in this bold and wide-ranging new vision of human emotional evolution.

"Mothers and Others" finds the key in the primatologically unique length of human childhood. If the young were to survive in a world of scarce food, they needed to be cared for, not only by their mothers but also by siblings, aunts, fathers, friends and, with any luck, grandmothers. Out of this complicated and contingent form of childrearing, Sarah Hrdy argues, came the human capacity for understanding others. Mothers and others teach us who will care, and who will not.

From its opening vision of apes on a plane; to descriptions of baby care among marmosets, chimpanzees, wolves, and lions; to explanations about why men in hunter-gatherer societies hunt together, "Mothers and Others" is compellingly readable. But it is also an intricately knit argument that ever since the Pleistocene, it has taken a village to raise children and how that gave our ancient ancestors the first push on the path toward becoming emotionally modern human beings.

Recent field studies of a variety of mammalian species reveal a surprisingly high frequency of infanticide--the killing of unweaned or otherwise maternally dependent offspring. Similarly, studies of birds, fish, amphibians, and invertebrates demonstrate egg and larval mortality in these species, a phenomenon directly analogous to infanticide in mammals. In this collection, Hausfater and Hrdy draw together work on animal and human infanticide and place these studies in a broad evolutionary and comparative perspective.

"Infanticide" presents the theoretical background and taxonomic distribution of infanticide, infanticide in nonhuman primates, infanticide in rodents, and infanticide in humans. It examines closely sex allocation and sex ratio theory, surveys the phylogeny of mammalian interbirth intervals, and reviews data on sources of egg and larval mortality in a variety of invertebrate and lower vertebrate species. Dealing with infanticide in nonhuman primates, two chapters critically examine data on infanticide in langurs and its broader theoretical implications. By reviewing sources of infant mortality in populations of small mammals and new laboratory analyses of the causes and consequences of infanticide, this work explores such issues as the ontogeny of infanticide, proximate cues of infants and females which elicit infanticidal behavior in males, the genetical basis of infanticide, and the hormonal determinants.

Hausfater and Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, through their selection of materials for this book, evaluate the frequency, causes, and function of infanticide. Historical, ethnographic, and recent data on infanticide are surveyed. "Infanticide" summarizes current research on the evolutionary origins and proximate causation of infanticide in animals and man. As such it will be indispensable reading for anthropologists and behavioral biologists as well as ecologists, psychologists, demographers, and epidemiologists.

"Glenn Hausfater" was professor at the division of biological sciences at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He is the author of "Guidebook for the Long-Term Monitoring of Amboseli Baboons and their Habitat; Dominance and reproduction in Baboons"; and "Early Vegetation of the Illinois Valley." "Sarah Blaffer Hrdy" is professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of California, Davis. She is the author of "The Woman that Never Evolved; The Langurs of Abu"; and "The Black-Man of Zinacantan."

Recent field studies of a variety of mammalian species reveal a surprisingly high frequency of infanticide - the killing of unweaned or otherwise maternally dependent offspring. Similarly, studies of birds, fish, amphibians, and invertebrates demonstrate egg and larval mortality in these species, a phenomenon directly analogous to infanticide in mammals. In this collection, Hausfater and Hrdy draw together work on animal and human infanticide and place these studies in a broad evolutionary and comparative perspective.Infanticide presents the theoretical background and taxonomic distribution of infanticide, infanticide in nonhuman primates, infanticide in rodents, and infanticide in humans. It examines closely sex allocation and sex ratio theory, surveys the phylogeny of mammalian interbirth intervals, and reviews data on sources of egg and larval mortality in a variety of invertebrate and lower vertebrate species. Dealing with infanticide in nonhuman primates, two chapters critically examine data on infanticide in langurs and its broader theoretical implications. By reviewing sources of infant mortality in populations of small mammals and new laboratory analyses of the causes and consequences of infanticide, this work explores such issues as the ontogeny of infanticide, proximate cues of infants and females which elicit infanticidal behavior in males, the genetical basis of infanticide, and the hormonal determinants.Hausfater and Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, through their selection of materials for this book, evaluate the frequency, causes, and function of infanticide. Historical, ethnographic, and recent data on infanticide are surveyed. "Infanticide" summarizes current research on the evolutionary origins and proximate causation of infanticide in animals and man. As such it will be indispensable reading for anthropologists and behavioral biologists as well as ecologists, psychologists, demographers, and epidemiologists.

What does it mean to be female? Sarah Blaffer Hrdy--a sociobiologist and a feminist--believes that evolutionary biology can provide some surprising answers. Surprising to those feminists who mistakenly think that biology can only work against women. And surprising to those biologists who incorrectly believe that natural selection operates only on males.

In "The Woman That Never Evolved" we are introduced to our nearest female relatives competitive, independent, sexually assertive primates who have every bit as much at stake in the evolutionary game as their male counterparts do. These females compete among themselves for rank and resources, but will bond together for mutual defense. They risk their lives to protect their young, yet consort with the very male who murdered their offspring when successful reproduction depends upon it. They tolerate other breeding females if food is plentiful, but chase them away when monogamy is the optimal strategy. When "promiscuity" is an advantage, female primates--like their human cousins--exhibit a sexual appetite that ensures a range of breeding partners. From case after case we are led to the conclusion that the sexually passive, noncompetitive, all-nurturing woman of prevailing myth never could have evolved within the primate order.

Yet males are almost universally dominant over females in primate species, and "Homo sapiens" is no exception. As we see from this book, women are in some ways the most oppressed of all female primates. Sarah Blaffer Hrdy is convinced that to redress sexual inequality in human societies, we must first understand its evolutionary origins. We cannot travel back in time to meet our own remote ancestors, but we can study those surrogates we have--the other living primates. If women --and not biology--are to control their own destiny, they must understand the past and, as this book shows us, the biological legacy they have inherited.

Sexual combat is not a monopoly of the human species. As Sarah Blaffer Hrdy argues in this spellbinding book, war between male and female animals has deep roots in evolutionary history. Her account of family life among hanuman langurs--the black-faced, gray monkeys inhabiting much of the Indian subcontinent--is written with force, wit, and, at times, sorrow.

Male hanumans, in pursuit of genetic success, routinely kill babies sired by their competitors. The mothers of endangered infants counter with various strategems to deceive the males and prevent destruction of their own offspring. Competition and selfishness are dominant themes of langur society. Competition among males for access to females, competition among females for access to food resources, and disregard by one female for the well-being of another's infant--these are some very common examples. Yet there are also moments of heroic self-sacrifice, as when an elderly female rushes to defend her troop and its babies from an invading, infancticidal male.

"The Langurs of Abu" is the first book to analyze behavior of wild primates from the standpoint of both sexes. It is also a poignant and sophisticated exploration of primate behavior patterns from a feminist point of view. This book may inspire controversy; it will certainly be read with pleasure by anyone interested in animal behavior.

Richly illustrated with photographs, seven in full color.