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A review by socraticgadfly
Different: Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist by Frans de Waal
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.75
First, contra a few other reviewers, and it has to be said upfront, I feel, there's nothing homophobic or transphobic here, or even close to it. Nor is there anything stereotyping. Per some of de Waal's own experiences with certain feminists, both in showing them some of his primates, and long ago, as a Dutch undergraduate, in his dealings with promoting feminism, that some people choose to feel this way, and I'll even say, choose to misinterpret de Waal, is not surprising.
What this book is, is an excellent explainer of the difference between "sex" and "gender" and how this plays out in humans, based on de Waal's decades of experience as a world-renowned primatologist, plus, based on his decade-plus of experience as a science writer using what friend Massimo Pigliucci would call "evolutionary ethology" and NOT the more genetic-determinist "evolutionary psychology," to explain how this is of enlightenment for human biological and cultural evolution.
And, a couple of notes on that.
First, de Waal throws several elbows at Richard Dawkins, all but calling him a genetic determinist, and one or two at Steven Pinker. Second, on "nature vs nurture" or even "nature via nurture," de Waal moves on beyond that, calling himself an "interactionist."
Second, from his primatology, contra people I note at top, de Waal even uses the phrase "gender non-conforming" for one chimpanzee.
That's enough detail without getting spoiler alert level.
The only reason this got the one-quarter star ding also relates to those unwarranted critics, whom de Waal may have been trying to "feed" too much, but to no avail.
Early on, he notes "sex" and "gender" are two different things. They are. The US National Institutes of Health also knows that, <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2021/09/sex-is-not-gender-national-institutes.html">as I have blogged</a>. He adds, after a riff about the word "gender" in linguistics and declension of nouns and adjectives in languages that do that, that English is one of those languages where the word "sex" (or its equivalent elsewhere) is used for both the act of coitus and for the distinction between males and females in biology. He notes that, because of its double use, it can become tempting to use the word "gender" even when the biological substrate, not cultural roles derived from that biological substrate, are intended.
But, he then gives in and uses "gender" when he often means "sex." As a journalist and a student of multiple foreign languages, and a lay philosopher, including of philosophy of language, I wish he hadn't.
What this book is, is an excellent explainer of the difference between "sex" and "gender" and how this plays out in humans, based on de Waal's decades of experience as a world-renowned primatologist, plus, based on his decade-plus of experience as a science writer using what friend Massimo Pigliucci would call "evolutionary ethology" and NOT the more genetic-determinist "evolutionary psychology," to explain how this is of enlightenment for human biological and cultural evolution.
And, a couple of notes on that.
First, de Waal throws several elbows at Richard Dawkins, all but calling him a genetic determinist, and one or two at Steven Pinker. Second, on "nature vs nurture" or even "nature via nurture," de Waal moves on beyond that, calling himself an "interactionist."
Second, from his primatology, contra people I note at top, de Waal even uses the phrase "gender non-conforming" for one chimpanzee.
That's enough detail without getting spoiler alert level.
The only reason this got the one-quarter star ding also relates to those unwarranted critics, whom de Waal may have been trying to "feed" too much, but to no avail.
Early on, he notes "sex" and "gender" are two different things. They are. The US National Institutes of Health also knows that, <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2021/09/sex-is-not-gender-national-institutes.html">as I have blogged</a>. He adds, after a riff about the word "gender" in linguistics and declension of nouns and adjectives in languages that do that, that English is one of those languages where the word "sex" (or its equivalent elsewhere) is used for both the act of coitus and for the distinction between males and females in biology. He notes that, because of its double use, it can become tempting to use the word "gender" even when the biological substrate, not cultural roles derived from that biological substrate, are intended.
But, he then gives in and uses "gender" when he often means "sex." As a journalist and a student of multiple foreign languages, and a lay philosopher, including of philosophy of language, I wish he hadn't.