Feminism in the Wild: How Human Biases Shape Our Understanding of Animal Behavior

by Ambika Kamath, Melina Packer, Diana Blue (Narrator)

In Feminism in the Wild, Ambika Kamath and Melina Packer reveal how scientists studying animal behavior have long projected human norms and values onto animals while seeking to understand them. When scientific studies conclude that these norms and values are natural in animals, it makes it easier to think of them as natural in humans too. And because scientists, historically and to this day, largely belong to elite, powerful segments of society, the norms and values embedded into animal behavior science match those of the already powerful. How can animal behavior science escape this trap of naturalizing dominant culture?

Drawing from decades of feminist, antiracist, queer, disability justice, and Marxist contributions—including those of biologists—Kamath and Packer break down persistent assumptions in the status quo of animal behavior science and offer a multitude of alternative approaches. Core concepts in animal behavior science and evolutionary biology are carefully contextualized and critically reexamined. This unique collaboration between an animal behavior scientist and a feminist science studies scholar is an illuminating and hopeful book for anyone who is curious about how animals behave, and anyone who wants to break free from scientific approaches that perpetuate systems of oppression.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, Animals, Feminism, Audiobook, Nature, Wildlife

Audible Audio

Published March 11, 2025

Reviews

[Corvus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Feminism in the Wild is the type of science book I feel like I've been waiting for for a long time. I often run into science texts that don't take bias and social justice or cultural influences into account at all. On the other hand, I'll sometimes find books that do tackle those things and try to connect them with science that don't do very well in grasping the science side. There have been some books that have bridged this gap, but Ambika Kamath and Melina Packer's book one of the best ones in my opinion.

As I expected, one of the authors' focus is on how humans' interpretation of research resumes is highly informed by bias, patriarchal norms, cisgender heterosexual dominance, and other cultural limitations. For instance, the existence homosexuality in many species has been known for a very long time, but scientists jumped through hoops to find other reasons why the animals were acting the way they were. Some scientists still try to deny that homosexual behavior exists in other animals despite it being extensively documented and tons of species. The idea of sex as a simplistic binary is another realm in which scientific results have been ignored to fit into dominant narratives.

At the same time the authors are clear that they want to avoid placing any sort of strict binarist explanations on to the worlds of other animals. This means neither projecting a patriarchal capitalist hellscape sort of evolutionary hierarchy on to them, nor treating them as if they live in some feminist utopia full of magical fairy creatures. I am an avid birder and in viewing thousands (millions?) of birds from hundreds of species, I can say that there is great variance both within and across species in terms of culture, communication, behavior, sexuality, and so on. I have seen touching affection and cooperation as well as aggression almost too hard to watch. Much like many encounters I've had with humans.

Kamath and Packer also focus on positional knowledge and the importance of cooperation throughout the natural world. Despite some scientists' claims that nature is a world full of competition and conflict, the authors, like many who have come before them, demonstrate that cooperation is often far more common and is not the aberration it's often made it to be. Individualist self-interest is not what is driving everything, even if colonialist scientists did their best to try to fit their findings into that narrative.

Another standout section is where they talk about evolution. One of my biggest pet peeves of something like 90% of science books I read that discuss evolution is that they treat every trait as if it is advantageous. They jump through thousands of hoops trying to find a reason that every single thing another animal does is due to evolutionary fitness and reproduction. Kamath and Packer rightly criticize the optimalist way of viewing things. They acknowledge the reality that evolution is a bunch of random shit happening and proliferating over millions of years. There are advantageous traits that end up being passed on through reproduction and attraction, sure, but latched on to those are plenty of other things that range from nonsensical to weakening to a hell of a good time regardless of the cost. There are always going to be things that all species have and do that are not in line with reproduction and survival of the fittest at every second of their complex lives.

The authors also take the evolutionary discussion a step further, seeing it through a queer and feminist lens. I had not thought about it exactly that way before, but it makes a lot of sense. Some of the biggest objections to lgbtq and feminist causes from social darwinists is that they aren't in line with perceived hierarchy, evolution, or other animal behavior (all of which they are also usually wrong about.) But, they don't have to be because that's not how animals work. We are all in amalgamation of many things and some of those are indeed very linked to survival. There are also endless non-adaptive explanations. Reducing our lives and that of other animals to a simple race for procreation and survival is frankly very silly. It's not true and it's the opposite of how we know evolution to act.

The only criticisms I have of this book are that they regularly use the term "differently abled" instead of disabled (or people/animals with disabilities which would have been ok.) I have no idea why they did this given how clear and expansive their knowledge of anti-oppression frameworks is as "differently ables" has been fairly well discussed as an insulting. It was created by a person without any disabilities and treats disability as a dirty word instead of a basic reality. The other problem I had was a section where they discuss domestic chickens in very archaic language that was completely out of place in the book- including how they discuss domestic and lab animals in general. Claiming a genetic researcher "solved" the welfare problem (of forcing tons of birds into a cage the size of a shoe box to live out their miserable horrific lives- as is the case of most farmed birds) by selectively breeding for less reactivity to crowded atrocious conditions was insulting. This was brief, and felt like it came from an entirely different book. It was later followed by extensive discussion about the lives and experiences of animals in more considerate and accurate terms, so I'm not sure what happened there.

This leads me to what is one of the most refreshing parts about this book. At the end of the book they actually confront the issue with researching other animals who do not consent to our intervention. They do not conveniently avoid the oppressive and consent violating nature that is the laboratory animal research industry. They do not avoid discussing research of animals outside of captivity and how we need to consider their consent as well. They dwell in the contradiction that is both reporting results of nonconsensual research and having a discussion about if that research should occur. It is written respectfully and carefully, I am sure as not to scare away their colleagues who have been taught their entire education to immediately reject such concerns. The authors acknowledge that there may be times that we need to forgo knowing something in order to respect the animals we are studying. They acknowledge the truth that we can and should find new methods of study.

This is a brave and refreshing take for science writers as even some of the more considerate science texts, which acknowledged the cruelty in some experiments or who highlight the individual desires and experiences of other animals, will not go as far as to say maybe these experiments shouldn't happen in the first place. There is an ignorant knee-jerk reaction to any criticism by many animal researchers and their kin who claim that there is no other way to do things (or worse, simply demean their subjects as objects or unworthy- like us enough to extrapolate data from, but not like us enough that they suffer and deserve consideration.) Yet, many human research endeavors are now seen as atrocities and we have found new ways to study our own species. There have also been miniscule changes in laws around the use of a (minority) of animals wherein certain methods are not longer permitted. There are plenty of brilliant minds in these fields with the ingenuity and creativity needed to find new ways of knowing. I appreciate that Kamath and Packer acknowledge the archaic nature of a lot of this research and encourage science to move forward.

I want to note that, since I focused on the general arguments of the book rather than the specifics, there are a lot of data in the text. The authors give evidence from many studies of many species to support their points. This is not a detached theoretical exercise. This was a refreshing book to read and I hope the authors continue to write in ways that are able to convey scientific realities and how they intertwine with our and others' lived experience.

This was also posted to my storygraph and blog.

[Christine · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am a biologist who studies animal behavior (among other subjects), and the students I work with wanted to read this book. We tackled it together, one chapter each week, and my review is based partly around the conversations we had about it. The book is a collaboration between a biologist (Ambika Kamath) and a sociologist (Melina Packer) that sets out to dismantle many of the deterministic mindsets that animal behavior science has relied/still relies on and replace them with something more fluid - an idea of animal behavior that is “contingent” and “co-constituted.”

I think there are critiques that can be made of animal behavior and biology more generally from a feminist perspective, and I agree that considering one’s one standpoint and biases makes science better. My main frustrations with this book are that I felt like the ideas in it were not fully developed, and that the title promises a different book than it actually is - the first two chapters are rich in well-developed examples of animals behaving in the wild, but the rest of the book is more theoretical, historical, and human-focused. In the final chapter, more words are spent describing Packer’s relationship with her dog than are used to explain how biologist Emily DuVal used 25 years of data (!) from lance-tailed manakins to understand how females choose their mates. I constantly wanted to hear more about the biology, and, importantly, how the biology could be used to illustrate the authors’ ideas of contingency and co-constitution, which I still don’t completely understand. For a book ostensibly about animal behavior, it should have more biology in it!

The authors make claims that at times had me rolling my eyes - for example, that females choosing their mates is a kind of eugenics - and I felt like it often relied upon overly simplistic or even misrepresented arguments of the “other side” to score points. I did learn some things from this book - I hadn’t known how mainstream ideas from eugenics used to be in science, for example (although again, I would have liked a more detailed description of how these ideas arose, became established, and ultimately fell from grace). And, ultimately, although I didn’t like the book very much I did like the conversations it spurred among me and my fellow readers.

[Tutankhamun18 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Feminism in the Wild by Amika Kamath and Melina Packer offers a thought-provoking critique of mainstream animal behavior science, exposing the deep-rooted biases that shape scientific narratives and their intersection with broader systems of power. The authors argue that the supposedly objective nature of science is often distorted by the cultural and ideological frameworks of its practitioners, who are overwhelmingly from elite, white, male backgrounds. I LOVED this book!

Kamath and Packer dismantle the foundations of animal behavior science, revealing how concepts like optimal foraging theory and sexual selection are inextricably linked to systems of patriarchy, capitalism, and colonialism. By challenging the assumptions behind “fitness” and “utility” in both animal behavior and economic theory, the authors show how these ideas contribute to the marginalization of diverse perspectives and reinforce the status quo. They provide a refreshing alternative, highlighting indigenous worldviews and feminist science studies that embrace more fluid, less deterministic interpretations of animal and human behavior.

The book introduces an expansive view of animal agency, where behavior is not merely purpose-driven but can also be social and pleasurable, often challenging the notion of “biological determinism” that dominates much of traditional science. Kamath and Packer argue for a more inclusive science, one that acknowledges the complexity of sex and gender beyond the binary and recognizes the agency of both animals and humans.

Notes:

“"Wait, why do you scientists think these lizards behave like they live in Victorian England?" Why, in other words, were female lizards thought to be the passive property of male lizards rather than active agents of their own accord? This single comment changed the course of Ambika's research. It sparked the idea that the earliest scientists studying anole behavior— largely, if not exclu-sively, rich, white, heterosexual, male, and American in the early twentieth century-had perhaps latched onto the territoriality framework because it aligned with their social norms, including a preference for property ownership and a distaste for female promiscuity.”

* scientists own POV and agenda influences what is reported and what is neglectsd as negligible -> science is not objective, it aligns with the interests of the powerful, who are usually those woth access to doing science and thereby creates social, economic and political narratives.

“In other words, the perspectives of the powerful become naturalized, making it much harder to escape these uneven power relations or dismantle the narratives they pro-duce.”

“Feminism in the Wild dismantles the foundations of mainstream animal behavior science by showing how these foundations are inextricable from, and naturalize, the systems of power that dominate our world today: patriarchy, racism and colonialism, homophobia and transphobia, ableism, and capitalism.”

* Bateman’s 1948 paper on female choosyness in fruitflies was inspired by Darwin and though later experiments “couldnt replicate their results, their findings do not eliminate the important principle that Bateman outlined”
* Prople bring their situated knowledge into science

“The assumption here was that the mainstream practice of science, established largely by elite white men, was somehow free from cultural background or gendered perspective.”

“The power that science derives from appearing to be objective in turn serves to reinforce the power held by already-powerful members of society, who are also most likely to be doing the work of scientific research. As a result, and as we show throughout this book, science contributes to the marginalization and oppression of other, non-elite cultures and perspectives, including those of white women, people of color and colonized people, queer and nonbinary people, working class and poor people, and people with disabilities and neurodivergence.”

“Unles the practice of science itself explicitly makes room for scientific quiry that emerges from different perspectives, scientists will be required either to conform to mainstream stories or to fight an uphill battle against chose who insist that the (uro-American scientific method is the superior way of knowing the world.”

“Kokko and Mappes showed that one should expect females to almost always mate with multiple males, because the cost of not mating at all and having a fitness of zero far outweigh the risks (if any) of mating with multiple males.”

* optimal foraging theory: animals should behave optimally and forage efficiently
* animal behaviour theory and economic theory reflect each other: fitness and utility

“This early work on optimal foraging theory was part of the turn toward the sociobiological approach to animal behavior science, and the rise of sociobiology coincided with the wider spread of a specifically neoliberal form of capitalist econom-ics, politics, and policymaking in the US, UK, and beyond.' It is thus not surprising that sociobiology and neoliberal capitalism depend on identical assumptions about how individuals, whether human or animal, behave: individualistically and efficiently.”

* indigenous worldview: no scarcity, sharing, gift economy, no limited resources with an abundance mindset

“that instead of selecting ja for the "fittest" individuals, natural selection simply selects for "fit enough” individuals. In other words, it does not matter if an animal produces the most offspring; all that matters for the persistence of populations and individual animal own genetic legacies is that they produce some offspring. This perspective makes ample room for animals to engage in all kinds of behaviors that do not optimize fitness, including lots of or little sex with individuals of any and all sexes. When we let go of optimality thinking, queer sex in animals is no longer a paradox.”

“An anti-ableist standpoint questions the centrality of fitness hierarchies in optimality thinking by reminding us as the thriving three-legged lizards did-that a trait that appears to be a disability may not in fact compromise fitness at all. When animal behavior scientists assume that disabled or differently abled animals are necessarily unfit or less fit, they shut themselves off from exciting research findings and greater biological understandings.”

* Adaptations to static enviro, but enviro is not static: individuals own actions change environment and thus changes their experiences and response to environment -> thus entanglement of forces rather than individual and environment and adaptations

“Or, as feminist science studies teaches us, organisms and environments
are always already co-constituted.”

* expansive view of animal agency, where is not always purpose driven behaviour -> social and sexual interactions because pleasurable
* agency
* anthropodenial: mid 20th century biologists, avoid using similar language to describe animal and human behaviour
* eugenics and sexual selection
* question paradigms: biological determinism (all traits locked into biology, genes)
* behaviour is contingent interactions betwern genes and environment: selective breeding; ex: dogs
“*These animals are simultancously disabled and hyperabled made disabled by the very enhancements that make them especially profitable to industries and desirable to consumers."

“But such sex-related complexities are not unique to people with such
"disorders." None of the physiological attributes that scientists designate as sex markers gonads, gametes, hormones, chromosomes, and so on-are binary. Each sex marker "contains significant variation, both within and across individuals. For example, women's testosterone levels range widely among women and also by time of day, time of month, and time of life." 35 Ultimately, Karkazis and colleagues reminded us: "there is no single physiological or biological marker that allows for the simple categorization of people as male or female."

* female/male sex binary is far more a product of culture rather than biology: empirically incoherrent but provides power

“The more we reject the simplistic conclusions of biological determinism and instead engage in these nuanced, context-specific deliberations about what exactly we mean when we say "sex," the more we will come to question whether the fuzzy category of sex is useful ar all, scientifically, socially, or politically.”

[Candace Hisey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best read of 2025 thus far.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a legit scientist myself, I love me a good pop science book. It's great when an author has the real talent for taking a highly technical concept and explaining it (without reducing it foolishly!!) to the lay reader. Expanding everyone's scientific literacy by making science interesting and accessible is super cool! And the concept on this book - that the way we set up studies & observations of animal behavior was all tinted heavily through victorian-era gender norms - sure as heck sounded like a concept I wanted to dive into.

This is, however, not that book.

I'm genuinely not sure who the target audience for this one is. If you're not already a biologist, this is technical as anything, with big cornerstone ideas and theories of the field described just in quick strokes before diving into a critique of each. But in the same way, if you're not already well familiar with the language and ideas of modern social justice thinking, the authors make little concession to getting the reader up to speed. Buckle up for the whirlwind ride, this is more a white paper on feminist marxist anti-capitalist sex biology than an introduction to any of these ideas. If that sounds at all interesting to you, it's worth wading through the technical jargon to get to the shiny new concepts within. There's plenty of big ideas in here, and plenty of them are fascinating in their implications on what the scientific narrative is missing and what it's gotten flat out wrong. But also, in a few sections this smacks more than a little of simply replacing one set of monolithic ideologic paradigms for another - there were several times where the authors made a pronouncement of "this is the new way this should be" without actually taking the time to back that up with data and examples.

Ultimately, it's not as accessible as I think most people would enjoy, and it's also not in-depth enough for the scientist to really dig into. But it is a fascinating set of ideas.

[Rozarka]

DNF at 5%.

There is nothing wrong with the book itself, but the narrator (Diana Blue) sounds so robotic that if this is what the future AI narration sounds like, I'm never gonna listen to any audiobook ever again.

[Shel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book which provides perspective on animal behavior science. Interesting examples and historical context. Recommended for anyone interested in, studying, or working in animal behavior. The book challenges some persistent frameworks (including scarcity mindset and binary thinking) and suggests human biases, not scientific understanding, are at the root. It opens to discoveries which offer room for more abundance, bodies (physical variance), sexes, genders, and possibilities.

[Debbie Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ll write a full review soon but overall—I loved learning about the ways human scientists have projected societal norms onto animal behavior.

I’m not sure I was the exact audience for this book—I know very little about evolutionary biology and there was quite a bit of technical terms that I wasn’t familiar with.

[Olivia Downey · Rating 2 out of 5]

If I were asked to give the thesis of this book, I would quote it: “Maybe animals sometimes do things (or sometimes do absolutely nothing) just because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.” Yes, the emoji is included in the quote.

This is partially my fault for not doing my due diligence into what exactly this book entailed - I was pulled in by the title but should have concentrated more on the subtitle. This is very scientifically written. Full of quotes and citations; dry, long paragraphs, and some conclusions you have to squint at to accept.

I don’t disagree with a lot of the ethical/moral propositions in the book (if you’re not interested in feminism as a human concept, you probably won’t enjoy the studies done herein). But a lot of what it’s saying is that most scientific studies that have been done and accepted up to this point are inherently wrong because of how skewed they are, either by being anthropomorphic or patriarchal or what have you. But it doesn’t present a lot of… answers as to how those studies should be conducted instead or what we should be looking for.

I was expecting more anecdotal evidence and more suggestions for improvement in how animal studies are done as opposed to a condemnation of most accepted theories heretofore. I also think it’s funny that lionesses are on the cover despite not really being covered at any length in the book.

Overall just not what I was looking for. Would like to learn more about animals that have matriarchal societies or treat sex overall in different ways than humans (still two stars here because there are parts that get into that - see the coho salmon example or the frogs). The book just isn’t interested in exploring those examples more deeply but rather arguing that the conclusions that have been drawn by prior studies are incorrect.

[Cheng Bogdani · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really good primer on the ways that people have weaponized 'scientific objectivity' to promote reactionary biases, both personal and cultural. For readers already familiar with feminist critiques and/or critiques of the history of scientific thought (see Stephen J Gould, for example), there's not a lot of new info here, but it is a very well thought out and put together argument full of examples from academia. Most interestingly, I learned about the prevalence of homoerotic behavior and homosexual relationships that have been observed for generations but never released or published until recently.

This is a very good addition to the feminist canon, and especially timely given the political climate in the US right now.


I listened to the audiobook via Overdrive from my local library while running and/or cycling, and I don't process auditory info very well at the best of times so my recollection of details is suspect.

Reading Level: ADULT
Romance: NO
Smut: NO
Violence: NO
TW: NO

Kindle/Audible only? NO

[balonciega · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m still struggling to understand whether this book had a specific target audience.
From the title, I expected to be immersed in a context where Marxist feminism would serve as the framework from which scientists should begin asking questions. However, many of the examples the authors used were anecdotal, historical, or human-focused.

Maybe it reads better if we think of this book as offering introductory insights into Marxist feminism using examples from animals in the wild, rather than the other way around.
Something like “The Wild Supports Feminism” might describe it more accurately.

I will say that it’s not particularly difficult to read—it has good pacing—but some chapters felt a little rushed.

I would definitely read more from both authors on this topic, as I felt I was only given a small taste of what could have been an amazing book.

[Luísa Andrade · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Feminism in the Wild” é uma desmontagem cuidadosa — e necessária — da lente patriarcal com que observamos o comportamento animal. Kamath e Packer fazem crítica epistemológica com rigor científico e linguagem clara, desarmando ideias naturalizadas sobre dominação, competição e papéis sexuais fixos. Com exemplos, o livro expõe como nossos vieses colonizam até os modos de viver de outras espécies, e convida o leitor a observar com menos pressupostos e mais responsabilidade. É ciência, mas também é ética: uma crítica à forma como projetamos nossos sistemas sobre outros corpos. Uma leitura que devolve complexidade à vida selvagem — e nos lembra que observar também é um ato político.

[Katlyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just flew through this book. It did not contain as many examples as I had hoped, but it was also pretty short. Overall, it was indeed a good argument on how human biases shape our understanding of animal behavior. I appreciated the new perspectives on ableism, and how it is presented (or a lack of ableism) in nature. I also enjoyed learning not only about the problems with anthropomorphism, but also how avoiding anthropomorphism too much can limit our understanding of animal behavior. Overall, it was a good book on the fine balances needed when viewing and learning about the animal kingdom.

[Sydne · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a breath of fresh air this book is! It looks closely at how perception, social standing of scientists and the time they operated in, but also bias and intent have shaped the interpretation of animal behaviour over the centuries.
I'm grateful that someone is casting a critical look at this, but also always stays within the boundaries of scientific research interpretation, as not to fall into the same traps that some earlier scientists fell in, but also seem to have deliberately jumped into on occasion.
A great read.

[Sabrina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Feminism in the Wild brilliantly unravels the oppressive societal views entrenched in mainstream science, instead articulating an expansive scientific practice that feels not only ethical but liberatory. The most transformative scientific book I’ve ever read.

[Crystal Palmisano-Dillard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not exactly a fun read, but definitely an educational one.

[Julian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eye-opening. Highly recommend for anyone who’s ever taken an animal behavior or ecology class.

[Shannon Heaton · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great way to honestly look at science and animal behaviors, without preconceived ideas. Very commonsensical approaches!

[Janneke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Дуже цікава книга, зокрема питання гей жабок було розкрите й здивувало своєю різнобічністю