Mother's Nature Some ca THE FEMALE ANIMAL get your genes into the next gener- pig." ation. Living things that copulated in of sei by Irene Elia; introduction The theme: If you have a very public, or beat up their wives, or long time to mindlessly pursue cannibalized their husbands or by Ashley Montagu children, or stayed up hotting all I your selfish advantage, you'll To Ch] (A Donald flutter Book eventually come up with some- night, used to be ranked down a bit Henry Holt: $21.95; thing inventive that makes you and on the hierarchy of species. Hunan beings were presumed to it's 318 pp.; 0-8050-0702-4) your next of kin well-suited for survival and reproductive effer- be relatively close to the gods. vescence in your environment. Human practices and values, Reviewed by Elia is a Darwinian narrator such as the differentiated yet inter- Richard A. Shweder spinning a graceful and scholarly dependent and loving relationship tale about how parenting got asso- between men and women, were ciated with the female sex, about presumed to be high, dignified and just, and they served as a standard I t is still widely rumored among fertilization, contraception, court- members of our species that ship, gestation, infanticide, men- for judging the varieties or devia- tions or perversities found in na- women are designed for domestica- struation, breast-feeding and the - tion and that there is salvation, evolution of sexuality and male/fe- ture. fulfillment and protection for male differences. It was Darwin's modernist origin women in marriage. If God (or The central chapters of "The story that changed all that. Given nature) had not intended women to Female Animal" can be read as a today's ways of thinking, if you are be caretakers of children and keep- kind of "Gulliver's Travels" across really lyrical about it—out to maxi- ers of the home, then why did God life forms. There is delight in the mize your selfish advantage in a (or nature) make women ovulate, journey and you will learn things. narcissistic Darwinian quest for gestate, lactate and so well-at- The book is at its best reviewing this—worldly immortality —you tuned to the feelings of others? comprehensively the ingenious de- might want to consider becoming a bacterium and reproducing, with- "The Female Animal" is a pro- signs for sexual and asexual repro- duction to be found in nature—es- out the need for a mate, hundreds WINNER OF THE 198f test in the name of polyandrous of thousands of replicas of yourself quails, hermaphroditic anglers and pecially among the more remote GRAND MASTER Aw) within a few hours. parthenogenic lizards against any species, birds, fish, insects and FEATHER ON THE M reptiles. Truth, the reader is re- Indeed, after finishing "The Fe- scheme, divine or natural, to tame male Animal," I was left wondering the human female. It is written by minded, can be more fantastic and mind-boggling than fiction. why we are not all asexual bacteria. Irene Elia, a biological anthropolo- Asexual bacteria are among the gist, a Darwinian, a modern liberat- After which creative life form, most ancient life forms. They are ed woman and, as she tells us, a should the modern liberated wom- an model herself? still here. They are everywhere. nursing mother who feels op- If your ultimate goal in life is to pressed and endangered by the How about the praying mantis, survive forever, why not keep it status of females in human society, which eats her mate alive while he by the disproportionate burden of is totally absorbed in making love simple? What self-regarding egoist parenting endured by the weaker to her? would want to be a complex needy sex of our species, and by the What of the Holboell angler? The female is 45 inches long while human being, with so few progeny? institution of marriage. And how cumbersome to have to Marriage, fidelity, chastity and the male is but half an inch long. His destiny is to permanently jaw cooperate with, or oppress, another several other' contemporary inde- sex in order to make it in life. cencies are linked in the modern- his way into her flank and there become physically transmuted into Darwin's origin story is an eye- ized consciousness of Elia to male opener yet its incessant refrain, coercive power, which she views as her testis, a sperm-producin g fe- male organ, forever more her "re- chance advantage and a lot of time, a menace to the well-being and makes for dulled reasoning after a even survival of women. productive convenience." Or perhaps the ideal model for few repetitions. The book concludes with an "The Female Animal" is a poetic ominous forecast about the evolu- modern women are those parthen- ogenic lizards, the world's experts piece of sociobiology, which not tionary consequences of future only appropriates nature to femi- technologies for artificial repro- in "virgin birth," which do not need males or sperm at all. The entire nist ends but does it in the modern duction and human cloning: "Why Western libertarian way, with a would the Nobel Prize-winning sex species is female, and their eggs are self - fertilizing. kinky fascination for alternative let the sex with the boring, mean- life styles. ingless lives eat up half the food if Let us not overlook the polyan- drous quails, where the female has Perhaps it is not surprising that they are no longer needed for our author is far better at describ- reproductive reasons?" several husbands that assume the responsibility for feeding the kids. ing nature's diverse designs than at In "The Female Animal,". Elia is explaining how they ever got there, out to rectify the status of women And, of course, there is the fabled queen honey bee. She takes or that nature fails to speak with a CI and to show how across all life single or consistent voice about forms—from bacteria to mam- away from her drone suitor his cognitic penis, which she breaks off and male/female issues. psychic mals—there is more to the life of Fortunately, Darwinian story- females than producing eggs, at- keeps for herself. He flies away to "sees" a bleed to death. telling notwithstanding, the origins tracting mates, making babies, of nature's various and astonishing aunt's n tending the brood and being passed It is not just coitus that can be hazardous to your health. Risky as species is still mysterious and a tinues over for jobs or promotions. decent subject for fables. Elia seeks to upset our concep- well, I suspect, is the whole busi- against ness of using non-human nature to Fortunately, rational debates tions about sex roles with a series of about the rights, duties, sacred in the d vivid, witty and provocative de- serve human political ends. Nature a obligations and proper relations of enigma scriptions of alternative experi- is various enough to serve as model for almost any ambition; and men and women in human society lives of ments in living among algae, bac- are not likely to be settled by teria, birds, fish, reptiles and it has, and it will. ultimab So for the traditionalist there is nocturnal gazing at the mating bring hi mammals, with special reference to behavior of hairy woodpeckers. reproduction, parenting responsi- the Canada goose, monogamous rifying and devout, which, once widowed, The voyeuristic pleasures and bilities and gender differences in vicarious satisfactions of looking looks, attitudes and behavior. will never mate again. Ir And for macho man there is the over Mother Nature are, of course, In most species, it turns out, quite another matter, and, after Phyllis parenting is not the specialization female African clawed toad. She reading this review, my - wife told of females, and it is not always true succumbs seductively to the sexual soars. / advances of a smaller yet more me to say that "this male chauvin- has cre that males are larger than females ist pig liked the book, for the nature or that the sexes are distinguished combative mate, which knocks her gettable stuff." by their genitalia. unconscious while he squeezes out Every political culture has its her eggs. Now, before we became modern Shweder is chairman of the Com- origin stories. In the now popular mittee on Human Development at Darwinian genre of storytelling, and enlightened and liberated and and presi- Darwinian, it used to be a curse to the University of Chicago MMN SELECTION OF 1 Mother Nature has a master goal dent-elect of the Society for Psycho- AND THE DOI and the storyteller sticks to a be turned into a toad or a lizard and a an insult to be compared to a snake logical Anthropology. He is editing simple fixed theme. volume titled"Cultural Psychology." The goal: Win in the struggle to or a swine, as in you chauvinist LOS ANGELES TIMES/BOOK R6.,IEW.