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Why Sex Matters: A Darwinian Look at Human Behavior.
Why are men, like other primate males, usually the aggressors and risk takers? Why do women typically have fewer sexual partners? Why is killing infants routine in some cultures, but forbidden in others? Why is incest everywhere taboo? Bobbi Low ranges from ancient Rome to modern America, from the Amazon to the Arctic, and from single-celled organisms to international politics to show that these and many other questions about human behavior largely come down to evolution and sex. More precisely, as she shows in this uniquely comprehensive and accessible survey of behavioral and evolutionary ecology, they come down to the basic principle that all organisms evolved to maximize their reproductive success and seek resources to do so.
Low begins by reviewing the fundamental arguments and assumptions of behavioral selfish genes, conflicts of interest, and the tendency for sexes to reproduce through different behaviors. She explains why in primate species--from chimpanzees and apes to humans--males seek to spread their genes by devoting extraordinary efforts to finding mates, while females find it profitable to expend more effort on parenting. Low illustrates these sexual differences among humans by showing that in places as diverse as the parishes of nineteenth-century Sweden, the villages of seventeenth-century China, and the forests of twentieth-century Brazil, men have tended to seek power and resources, from cattle to money, to attract mates, while women have sought a secure environment for raising children. She makes it clear, however, they have not done so simply through individual efforts or in a vacuum, but that men and women act in complex ways that involve cooperation and coalition building and that are shaped by culture, technology, tradition, and the availability of resources. Low also considers how the evolutionary drive to acquire resources leads to environmental degradation and warfare and asks whether our behavior could be channeled in more constructive ways.
Low begins by reviewing the fundamental arguments and assumptions of behavioral selfish genes, conflicts of interest, and the tendency for sexes to reproduce through different behaviors. She explains why in primate species--from chimpanzees and apes to humans--males seek to spread their genes by devoting extraordinary efforts to finding mates, while females find it profitable to expend more effort on parenting. Low illustrates these sexual differences among humans by showing that in places as diverse as the parishes of nineteenth-century Sweden, the villages of seventeenth-century China, and the forests of twentieth-century Brazil, men have tended to seek power and resources, from cattle to money, to attract mates, while women have sought a secure environment for raising children. She makes it clear, however, they have not done so simply through individual efforts or in a vacuum, but that men and women act in complex ways that involve cooperation and coalition building and that are shaped by culture, technology, tradition, and the availability of resources. Low also considers how the evolutionary drive to acquire resources leads to environmental degradation and warfare and asks whether our behavior could be channeled in more constructive ways.
432 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1999
13 people are currently reading
502 people want to read
About the author
Bobbi S. Low
10 books8 followersBobbi S. Low is Professor of Resource Ecology in the School of Natural Resources and the Environment (SNRE), and Faculty Associate in Population Studies, the Institute for Social Research, at the University of Michigan. Her research centers on behavioral ecology and life history theory: how these were shaped by evolution, and how they in turn constrain optimal management. She links data collection, analysis, and theory; her methodologies include dynamic modeling, optimization, agent-based modeling and game theory.
Low’s research crosses the biological and social sciences, both in topics and journals.. Her biological and ecological research includes studies of toad skin secretions, the ecological tradeoffs of marsupialism, fish schooling, kangaroo foraging, the biology of sex differences, and the evolution of anisogamy. Other papers focus on anthropological, psychological and social issues, including: sexual attitudes and behavior in Thailand, sex roles in war and politics, more generally cross-cultural perspectives of women’s ecological and demographic constraints, reproductive behavior and the demographic transition in 19th century Sweden, the evolutionary role of body fat and ornamentation, and the role of unpredictability in risk taking.
Most of Low’s research sits at the intersection and cross influences of biology/ecology on the one hand and psychology/anthropology/social sciences on the other. Her interdisciplinary work often centers on ecological and cultural influences on mating and marriage systems, but it also includes a recent (co-authored) paper on the impact of psychological stress on fertility (PNAS, 2006), a book and papers on the evolution of sex differences, work on pathogen stress and marriage systems in traditional societies, and papers and an edited volume connecting natural ecosystems and human cultural/economic systems, with an emphasis on conservation, sustainability and optimal management.
Low is active the world-wide evolutionary ecology community. She is on the editorial boards of Human Behavior and Evolution, Human Nature, and Politics and the Life Sciences. She has just completed a term as President of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society. At UM SNRE she has been the supervisor/mentor of nearly fifty graduate students in the last five years; her students won the prestigious Rackham Distinguished Dissertation Award in 2004 and 2006.
Low’s research crosses the biological and social sciences, both in topics and journals.. Her biological and ecological research includes studies of toad skin secretions, the ecological tradeoffs of marsupialism, fish schooling, kangaroo foraging, the biology of sex differences, and the evolution of anisogamy. Other papers focus on anthropological, psychological and social issues, including: sexual attitudes and behavior in Thailand, sex roles in war and politics, more generally cross-cultural perspectives of women’s ecological and demographic constraints, reproductive behavior and the demographic transition in 19th century Sweden, the evolutionary role of body fat and ornamentation, and the role of unpredictability in risk taking.
Most of Low’s research sits at the intersection and cross influences of biology/ecology on the one hand and psychology/anthropology/social sciences on the other. Her interdisciplinary work often centers on ecological and cultural influences on mating and marriage systems, but it also includes a recent (co-authored) paper on the impact of psychological stress on fertility (PNAS, 2006), a book and papers on the evolution of sex differences, work on pathogen stress and marriage systems in traditional societies, and papers and an edited volume connecting natural ecosystems and human cultural/economic systems, with an emphasis on conservation, sustainability and optimal management.
Low is active the world-wide evolutionary ecology community. She is on the editorial boards of Human Behavior and Evolution, Human Nature, and Politics and the Life Sciences. She has just completed a term as President of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society. At UM SNRE she has been the supervisor/mentor of nearly fifty graduate students in the last five years; her students won the prestigious Rackham Distinguished Dissertation Award in 2004 and 2006.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
April 21, 2008
Evolutionary psychology in a nutshell. Very enlightening.
October 21, 2018
This is a must read - if you care about the future. It's a "behavioral ecological" approach, i.e. "what a biologist would predict if [they] knew only that here was a smart, upright-walking, highly social primate and *nothing more*." The author asks all the right questions, such as, "What is the impact of the 'global village' --the evolutionary novelty that our actions here and now affect others' lives far away?" She had NO idea! - having wrote the book pre 9/11, pre the social media of today, pre the US election of 2016, and pre the #metoo movement; but, my word! does sex matter - more than ever! Is that possible?
Just a sample - concerning war: "warfare is more common when people in a society perceive unpredictability in the environment ... A strong predictor is the threat of weather or pest disasters. in many societies, capturing women from other groups is a main purpose of war. societies with lots of young adult males are likely to see strife." (p. 220-221)
Concerning over population pressure [the main existential threat to humans] Low posits five current solutions and examines them: 1) The *noble savage* idea. 2) Reduce fertility. 3) Reduce consumption. 4) Ecofeminism. 5) Technology to the rescue.
She warns: "we have unconscious bias, and 'knowing' overt factual information doesn't help as much as we wish."and that "the only strategies likely to work consistently are those that manipulate individual, familial, and reciprocal costs and benefits." (pgs. 253 - 257)
This is a well written, thoughtful study of the present human condition. The text is a mere 258 pages, but with an additional 158 pages of notes, glossary, references, and indexes.
Low is hopeful that we'll "muddle through" the crisis's that we face, me too, but I think with the current movements, and lack of clear understanding of what we're up against [ourselves], and critical thinking - the cost will be far greater, for far more people than she ever imagined.
Just a sample - concerning war: "warfare is more common when people in a society perceive unpredictability in the environment ... A strong predictor is the threat of weather or pest disasters. in many societies, capturing women from other groups is a main purpose of war. societies with lots of young adult males are likely to see strife." (p. 220-221)
Concerning over population pressure [the main existential threat to humans] Low posits five current solutions and examines them: 1) The *noble savage* idea. 2) Reduce fertility. 3) Reduce consumption. 4) Ecofeminism. 5) Technology to the rescue.
She warns: "we have unconscious bias, and 'knowing' overt factual information doesn't help as much as we wish."and that "the only strategies likely to work consistently are those that manipulate individual, familial, and reciprocal costs and benefits." (pgs. 253 - 257)
This is a well written, thoughtful study of the present human condition. The text is a mere 258 pages, but with an additional 158 pages of notes, glossary, references, and indexes.
Low is hopeful that we'll "muddle through" the crisis's that we face, me too, but I think with the current movements, and lack of clear understanding of what we're up against [ourselves], and critical thinking - the cost will be far greater, for far more people than she ever imagined.
February 4, 2016
I was a little bit disappointed by this book. Her explanations were chosen for the convenience in advancing her argument. It’s also a little bit boring, I was skipping throughout a lot of it. I wanted to understand the evolutionary history of sex differences, but I think Joan Roughgarden has a better argument that clearly outlines the fact that there is a whole lot that we don’t know about the diversity of sexes and the ways in which species express their gender. Roughgarden also has great critiques of the bias of scientists that doesn’t let science advance the current perceptions of sexual selection and such. Bobbi is firmly entrenched in this bias. She has a great misunderstanding of ecofeminism btw. I did appreciate some of her explanations and her inclusion of cultural transmission which is oft ignored in evolution as, she notes, because of this arbitrary division between the biological and social. Some of her hypothesis (or facts) are interesting and I can believe it such as why there more men in politics.
August 16, 2019
Extraordinarily thorough, authoritative, and current
This book is not as formidable a reading challenge as might be supposed on first perusal. True it is 412 pages long, but the back matter begins with the footnotes on page 258. There follows a glossary, a 57-page bibliography, an author index and a subject index. Also, even though this is clearly an academic tome written by a professional ecologist who is not about to compromise her standing in the scientific community for a shot at popular success, Professor Low nonetheless employs a readable and common sense approach with a minimum of unnecessary jargon. Furthermore, what she has to say is exciting and relevant to our lives, and we can see that she cares about communicating to the reader as much as pleasing colleagues. Reading Why Sex Matters is consequently one very engaging experience.
Low, who is a professor of ecology at the University of Michigan, assumes the point of view of an evolutionary biologist as she asks the question, how are men and women different and why? She is particularly focused on how the sexes differentially use resources to further reproduction, and asks which behaviors are ephemeral, due to present conditions, and which are more enduring, having proven adaptive over longer periods of time and in differing environments. She faces squarely the unsettling feeling that some people get when they contemplate humans purely as biological entities--or "critters," to use her expression. As she tells us in the preface, there are three themes guiding her work: One, "resources are useful in...survival and reproduction"; two, "the sexes...differ in how they...use resources"; and three, "each sex accomplishes these ends" by reacting to the environment differently. The result of this structured approach is a clear introductory course in sexuality from an evolutionary point of view, and a fascinating read.
Because Low employs resources from a wide variety of disciplines, including sociobiology, evolutionary psychology, behavioral genetics, ecology, anthropology, sociology, biology, history, etc., not to mention pop culture and world literature, her work is highly persuasive in a scientific sense. And because she studiously avoids squabbling among the disciplines, her work is psychologically compelling. There is material on cultural transmissions as well as natural selection. Demographers are given currency along with those of evolutionary biologists. One gets the sense that she has read just about everything and has thoroughly evaluated what she has read. Particular interesting to me is her discussion of the tangled origins of sexuality and the (non-obvious) nature of altruism. The chapters on warfare, "Sex, Resources, and Early Warfare," and "The Ecology of Warfare" are worth the price of the book alone. There we see that women warriors are rare because men can gain reproductive advantage through warfare but women cannot (p. 216). Low suggests that war may be an example of "runaway sexual selection" and its practitioners may have become "unhooked" from the old reproductive rewards, but that the proximate rewards remain. Low soberly faces the prospect of future warfare when small groups of people may acquire monstrous weapons, noting that "given a short-term gain...versus an unspecifiable risk of nuclear warfare...in the future, we do not predict restraint."
It should be clear that Low is a professional academician and not a journalist as some popular writers on evolution are (Matt Ridley and Robert Wright, to name two of the best), and as such careful about her assertions. She doesn't espouse pet theories that may be overturned tomorrow; but she isn't afraid to voice her opinion. To give you a sense of her careful style, note the stunning qualification in the parenthetical in this statement from page 217 (and the sly irony): "Human war can become more complex and varied than intergroup aggression in other species, largely as a result of the development of technology (which itself is probably a product of intelligence)." Probably, indeed.
In the chapter on "Politics and Reproduction" we learn that men seek political power for reproductive gain (p. 211) but in the modern nation state may have to settle for proximate gains (which may be an irony not lost on Bill Clinton). Women, however, can gain little or no reproductive advantage directly for themselves, which may be the reason there are relatively few women in positions of political power in most human societies.
Some of this I admit is tough going. The material on "The Group Selection Muddle" in chapter nine is still muddled in my mind, and I couldn't figure out the point of the Summary of Selection Theories (Table 9.1 on pages 156-157). But evolution and the disciplines that address human nature are complex, in some ways, deceptively so.
Professor Low is wise, temperate, thorough and more objective than seems possible in such a vibrant and contentious academic field. I suspect that this book started out as an undergraduate text, but somewhere along the line those reading the manuscript realized that it was so interesting and valuable that it could be published as a trade book aimed at a general readership. If you have time to read only one book on human nature, read this one. You will learn more than you would from half a dozen "popular" expositions, and you will have a sense of having learned something important and valuable. I wish I had known what is in this book when I was one and twenty. I would have conducted my life with a lot more grace and effectiveness.
--Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”
This book is not as formidable a reading challenge as might be supposed on first perusal. True it is 412 pages long, but the back matter begins with the footnotes on page 258. There follows a glossary, a 57-page bibliography, an author index and a subject index. Also, even though this is clearly an academic tome written by a professional ecologist who is not about to compromise her standing in the scientific community for a shot at popular success, Professor Low nonetheless employs a readable and common sense approach with a minimum of unnecessary jargon. Furthermore, what she has to say is exciting and relevant to our lives, and we can see that she cares about communicating to the reader as much as pleasing colleagues. Reading Why Sex Matters is consequently one very engaging experience.
Low, who is a professor of ecology at the University of Michigan, assumes the point of view of an evolutionary biologist as she asks the question, how are men and women different and why? She is particularly focused on how the sexes differentially use resources to further reproduction, and asks which behaviors are ephemeral, due to present conditions, and which are more enduring, having proven adaptive over longer periods of time and in differing environments. She faces squarely the unsettling feeling that some people get when they contemplate humans purely as biological entities--or "critters," to use her expression. As she tells us in the preface, there are three themes guiding her work: One, "resources are useful in...survival and reproduction"; two, "the sexes...differ in how they...use resources"; and three, "each sex accomplishes these ends" by reacting to the environment differently. The result of this structured approach is a clear introductory course in sexuality from an evolutionary point of view, and a fascinating read.
Because Low employs resources from a wide variety of disciplines, including sociobiology, evolutionary psychology, behavioral genetics, ecology, anthropology, sociology, biology, history, etc., not to mention pop culture and world literature, her work is highly persuasive in a scientific sense. And because she studiously avoids squabbling among the disciplines, her work is psychologically compelling. There is material on cultural transmissions as well as natural selection. Demographers are given currency along with those of evolutionary biologists. One gets the sense that she has read just about everything and has thoroughly evaluated what she has read. Particular interesting to me is her discussion of the tangled origins of sexuality and the (non-obvious) nature of altruism. The chapters on warfare, "Sex, Resources, and Early Warfare," and "The Ecology of Warfare" are worth the price of the book alone. There we see that women warriors are rare because men can gain reproductive advantage through warfare but women cannot (p. 216). Low suggests that war may be an example of "runaway sexual selection" and its practitioners may have become "unhooked" from the old reproductive rewards, but that the proximate rewards remain. Low soberly faces the prospect of future warfare when small groups of people may acquire monstrous weapons, noting that "given a short-term gain...versus an unspecifiable risk of nuclear warfare...in the future, we do not predict restraint."
It should be clear that Low is a professional academician and not a journalist as some popular writers on evolution are (Matt Ridley and Robert Wright, to name two of the best), and as such careful about her assertions. She doesn't espouse pet theories that may be overturned tomorrow; but she isn't afraid to voice her opinion. To give you a sense of her careful style, note the stunning qualification in the parenthetical in this statement from page 217 (and the sly irony): "Human war can become more complex and varied than intergroup aggression in other species, largely as a result of the development of technology (which itself is probably a product of intelligence)." Probably, indeed.
In the chapter on "Politics and Reproduction" we learn that men seek political power for reproductive gain (p. 211) but in the modern nation state may have to settle for proximate gains (which may be an irony not lost on Bill Clinton). Women, however, can gain little or no reproductive advantage directly for themselves, which may be the reason there are relatively few women in positions of political power in most human societies.
Some of this I admit is tough going. The material on "The Group Selection Muddle" in chapter nine is still muddled in my mind, and I couldn't figure out the point of the Summary of Selection Theories (Table 9.1 on pages 156-157). But evolution and the disciplines that address human nature are complex, in some ways, deceptively so.
Professor Low is wise, temperate, thorough and more objective than seems possible in such a vibrant and contentious academic field. I suspect that this book started out as an undergraduate text, but somewhere along the line those reading the manuscript realized that it was so interesting and valuable that it could be published as a trade book aimed at a general readership. If you have time to read only one book on human nature, read this one. You will learn more than you would from half a dozen "popular" expositions, and you will have a sense of having learned something important and valuable. I wish I had known what is in this book when I was one and twenty. I would have conducted my life with a lot more grace and effectiveness.
--Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”
December 18, 2007
Bobbi Low gives some interesting information about gender and human behavior from an evolutionary point of view. The book explains so many things that we just know about humans, such as: why rich men get pretty women, why males are more aggressive than females, etc. Low incorporates a lot of evidence from the animal kingdom and from studies of human societies. Very interesting. If I ever have kids, I'll explain to them about male/female relationships using info from this book (when they're old enough to understand all the sciencey stuff of course).
September 17, 2013
This was a long book but was certainly worth the read. Sociologist Bobbi S. Low explores various aspect of the difference in behavior between the sexes all over the world and compiles the reason behind different taboos pertaining to different parts of the world
October 6, 2013
This book isn't written by someone who read a few books and then decided to publish her own work on the subject - the book has 56 pages of references.
It's a very solid piece of work with a lot of interesting stuff. A lot of work went into writing this book, and you can tell. Recommended.
It's a very solid piece of work with a lot of interesting stuff. A lot of work went into writing this book, and you can tell. Recommended.
January 30, 2017
The book is nicely summarized by a sentence in chapter 9: "We started with very simple and general hypotheses about how resources affect reproductive success, and why men and women typically have quite different ressource strategies. But complexity has crept in."
August 15, 2017
Popscience it is not, quite academic. I am still in the process of gathering my thoughts on the topic but generally I am quite impressed by massive amount of the references and linking of evolutionary theory, anthropology and history (in the case of Sweden and Germany in the 19th century).
December 8, 2008
One of my Anthropology books. Insightful.
Read
May 9, 2009I'm required to read this for my Animal Behavior class, but I don't mind. Seems like an interesting read.
Read
May 9, 2014Man, this book has some heft to it. Like, a pound and a half worth, at least.
November 28, 2016
Too many parentheses.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews