Thank you to NetGalley and Transworld Digital for this ARC!

Lucy Cooke's "Bitch: A Revolutionary Guide to Sex, Evolution and the Female Animal" is a brilliant (and very, very refreshing) book that rips down some infuriatingly pernicious stereotypes of female behavior in a fascinating and entertaining way. (Stereotypes, i.e. what happens when biologists take the speculations of Victorian-era male scientists as gospel.)

From killer mole queens to self-cloning geckos to primates that completely overturn traditional patriarchal views of human behavior, Cooke's work is a very entertaining smashing of old, unsubstantiated claims of how female animals behave in the wild. The writing is witty and often wonderfully biting, and I learned a tremendous amount.

Five stars!

Bitch
by Lucy Cooke
Pub Date: June 14, 2022
Basic
Thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the ARC of this book. Being a female should not mean you are a loser.
In Bitch, Cooke tells a new story. Whether investigating same-sex female albatross couples that raise chicks, murderous mother meerkats, or the titanic battle of the sexes waged by ducks, Cooke shows us new evolutionary biology, one where females can be as dynamic as any male. This isn‘t your grandfather’s evolutionary biology. It’s more inclusive, truer to life, and, simply, more fun.
Good Book!
4 stars

It feels weird to say that I’ve been cackling out loud while reading a nonfiction zoology book, but nature and sex and biology are apparently hilarious (and fascinating) when Lucy Cooke writes about them.

In just the first half of the book she’s already covered how the sexist nonsense of Darwin and his fellow Victorian Era bros led to the assertion that females are nothing but passive receptors for male reproductive drives (spoiler: incorrect, gents), unconfusingly explained the bazillion ways sex hormones and gene expression work (spoiler: it’s not all about testosterone and the Y chromosome), AND: outed some seemingly monogamous birds who sneak out of their nests in the wee hours to bone the neighbors, introduced us to a janky lady Sage Grouse robot held together with Spanx (spoiler: the male grouses were still into her), and described the more-often-than-not suicidal courting dances of male Peacock Spiders (look this up on YouTube, it’s insane), PLUS: there are terrifying ostrich penises (I googled this and can’t unsee it and would like to offer my sincere condolences to all the lady ostriches out there just trying to make it through the damn day), creepy AF horny dolphins, labyrinthine vaginas… and there’s still half a book left (!!), which is full of menopausal orcas taking care of their grown adult sons who can’t survive without them (nightmare), murdery meerkats, albatrosses who form same-sex parenting partnerships, and more.

I highly recommend reading Bitch if you want to be simultaneously entertained, educated, horrified, and amused.

Also: male ducks are THE WORST.

As an avid reader of books about animals, I already knew that females are not always the weaker sex in nature. I have a soft spot for the much-maligned spotted hyenas, and I’m fascinated with Frans de Waal’s work with bonobos. Still, I had no idea that there were so many powerful females in the animal world. From insects, rodents, birds, and even smaller organisms. Bitch brings to the forefront how natural history has perpetuated the male-dominated structure from the Victorian era! Yes, Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey are famous, but their field is populated by male-dominated species. I loved all the anecdotes (which, I know, are not considered proper basis for scientific facts), and the author’s own experiences meeting many of her study subjects. The hard science is approachable, avoiding one of the pitfalls of these type of reads. The last chapter feels a little combative though. I was expecting feminism, obviously, but the author seems to be working too hard to make a point about non-binary and transgender issues, and mostly applied to humans, my least favorite animal. I still enjoyed the rest of the book, which is innovative, original and will really open readers’ eyes to the wonders of nature.
I chose to read this book and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, #NetGalley/#Basic Books!

"Bitch: On the Female of the Species" was a really interesting and entertaining read.

I loved learning more about what role gender can play among various species.

The writing was great and easy to follow and it was just a lot of fun to read.

First off thank you to Basic Books and NetGalley for allowing me to read and review this digital ARC of Bitch.

I mean come on - the title was enough to excite me! I found this book to be an incredibly interesting book to read and found it to be very well written and thought out. Lucy Cooke uses a wide range of different animals from different areas and types to emphasize her point and truly drive it home with evidence to why things occur. Due to the amount of information it covered, it was a slower read and took a bit to get through so I read its with another book. Really great read.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

I adore almost all scientific writing about animals, and this was a solid four stars for me! I learned so much about different species in the animal kingdom where the gender/sexual/behavioral binary we typically imagine is anything but "traditional." I also gained quite a few new favorite animals to add to my list- from hyenas, lions, naked mole rats, lemurs, bonobos, and other mammals, to termites and songbirds, the author really showcases how complex natural selection can be and how incredibly diverse sexual characteristics are actually represented in nature. It was also really lovely to read the author's descriptions of animals- she studied zoology and her love for them really shone through!

I also liked that this author presented some of the older, more traditional biological/behavioral theories about animals and their reproductive/social norms, while showcasing the groundbreaking work that (primarily) female scientists have done to either refute or expand on these theories, as they have been revealed to be anything but a simple binary division among male vs. female.

The title of this book kinda seems to be there for shock value, and I was also a bit worried from the description that focusing on specifically female animals would lead to carelessness about applying such gender binaries to humans as well. However, I REALLY appreciated that the author made tremendous efforts not to do this, and the book even began with a disclaimer about the terminology used and how readers should be careful not to confuse the gender/sexuality terms of human interpretations with those describing the animal kingdom.

In fact, the entire purpose of this book was to showcase that there is no such thing as a definitive binary male/female system in place in nature-not in terms of sex for reproduction or pleasure, social hierarchies, motherhood, caretaking, power struggles, and so on. On the contrary, there is abundant evidence that the sexual and social roles of animals fall under a spectrum and differ vastly between species, so we should examine our inherent biases toward this topic.

The only reason it wasn't a five-star book for me was that while the topic was interesting, the presentation of the material was slightly dry and so I couldn't find a good flow and had to read this in short bursts.

I loved reading this book! I found the writing to be very insightful and interesting. I was intrigued by the premise and I enjoyed reading it from start to finish.

I loved reading a book about the females in the regnum animalia, I mean finally they receive some spotlight as well. Everything is explained really well and there are even some anecdotes.

There were some aspects of this book I absolutely loved. Overall, the science writing is excellent, with everything well explained. Lucy Cooke puts her journey into the story, giving me more of her perspective. She writes with a great sense of humor and some very clever wording. The footnotes are definitely worth reading. On the less favorable side, some of the sarcasm in her writing doesn’t really work for me. I also found that the beginning and end of the book didn’t really match the rest of the content, which threw me off. Nonetheless, this book is definitely worth reading and is an excellent example of good science writing. Thank you to Netgalley and Basic Books for the advance reader copy.

Educative, entertaining, and interesting. The writing is charismatic and energetic, something needed when you have this much information to present. It shines spotlight in to the often-ignored research of the female that presents the data in a way that catches your attention and is easy to follow. It affords the scientific discoveries it presents with the amount of respect and amazement they deserve. An excellent tool for scientific dissemination that also boost les biased research.
Thanks to Net Galley for providing me an E-ARC in exchange for an honest review

With her thorough research and quick wit, Lucy Cooke dismantles the sexism that has plagued the study of evolutionary biology since the founding of the discipline.

I found bitch to be an incredibly interesting book to read and found it to be very well written. She uses a wide range of different animals from different areas and types to emphasise her point and give evidence to why things occur. Due to the amount covered it will take a while to read, I found myself only able to take in a chapter at a time.

I received an early copy of Bitch from netgalley for review.

Excellent book: a review of the view of the female via a patriarchal and male perspective. How females and their roles are reviewed through the filter of how they fit into a male dominated view. In fact, the 'superiority' of the male is not the case always and many examples of female led social structures.
More people need to read this book.

A provocative exploration of the role and nature of females supported by fascinating stories and research.

In her provocatively titled book, Bitch, Lucy Cooke takes aim at the biases that have shaped the study of animals, specifically, biases against females (or perhaps for males). Cooke is a brilliant writer, TED speaker, and presenter for various nature shows in her native U.K. It is fair to say she takes the subject rather personally.

Good for her!

Going back to Darwin, evolutionary theory has had a very paternalistic and androcentric bent. Female animals were assumed to conform to Victorian expectations of motherhood and domesticity. Men were supposed to rule the human home and the human community (excepting the occasional queen, in power only because of a lack of male relatives close enough to the royal line). Therefore, animals were the same. Females of every species were regarded as “nurturing” and “devoted,” focused exclusively on the growth and well-being of their offspring. Any examples that fell contrary to this view were considered aberrations or errors of observation.

This thinking persisted even late into the 20th century and into our own millennium. Part of the reason for its endurance is the lack of other perspectives in the biological sciences. Women are scarce. Women of color, members of the LGBTQ community, and students from developing nations are in very short supply. Cooke herself has faced certain ingrained sexism both in the classroom and in the field. When people of any community look at life with a set of common expectations, they are likely to find them and deny the potency of conflicting data.

This is not an angry diatribe against men. On the contrary, Cooke celebrates the many significant contributions of men who have gone against the grain and studied female animals with an open mind. She considers Darwin to be a hero and Richard Dawkins to be a mentor, despite the sexism both have expressed either in writing or in speech. Cooke is simply suggesting that insisting that female animals (including humans) must fit into a specific mold is poor science. Moreover, using animals as role models for humans (or vice versa) is hardly productive.

Hyenas function extremely well, led by an alpha female. Orca packs are also guided by females, usually by one who has passed through the biologically unusual stage of menopause. Even the “alpha male wolf” is a misunderstanding of their pack structure. Male emperor penguins are completely devoted to their eggs. Male seahorses give birth. Female birds, even those who “mate for life” with a single partner, usually seek out other males and their chicks come from multiple “fathers,” even though only one is committed to raising them.

Of course, sometimes the fathers aren’t fathers. Albatrosses are known to make same sex pairs, pairs which act very much like male/female pairs in courtship behaviors, nesting habits, and the rearing of chicks. Obviously, the fact that they often lay fertile eggs demonstrates that their devotion does not include monogamy. Female lemurs, and lionesses, and many others intentionally seek out multiple partners both in and out of their group. When a new male displaces the “alpha male,” it will not kill the infants if it is possible some of them are his.

And don’t even start with the bonobos!

Bitch is a fun book, full of great stories and interesting people. The animals, especially the female animals, might be the focus but Cooke does not neglect the humans who study them. She is engaging, snarky, sometimes angry but usually seeking to persuade rather than excoriate. I may not be a female, but I loved this book.

Books like BITCH offer a great unlearning from the history and biology we are taught in school. Lucy Cooke offers fascinating research to upend long-held beliefs and share how much we've been misinformed about females in the animal kingdom and the impact it has on society at large.

Thank you so much to NetGalley for providing me with an arc in exchange for an honest review. "Bitch" by Lucy Cooke is a fascinating and incredibly empowering non-fiction book, which takes the readers on a journey through the true role of the females in numerous species. It is very informative to the point that sometimes I felt a bit overwhelmed with the amount of information I had to comprehend, so take your time when reading it. The writing style made it easy to connect with the content of the book and truly enjoy it. The book made me proud to be a woman and helped me embrace my femininity, so definitely read it in case you need to be reminded how strong women are.

Lucy Cooke non è solo una miniera di informazioni stravaganti (di quelle che io incamero e non dimentico più, al posto di quelle utili nel lavoro e/o vita quotidiana) e di umorismo ben dosato, ma anche e soprattutto una voce che, in questo caso, aiuta a rivedere e ripensare non solo i ruoli biologici di genere, sessualità, accudimento, reti sociali, e a far riflettere su come la scienza non sia sempre (e non sia mai stata) "neutra" e imparziale, nemmeno nella raccolta dei dati.
Un splendido modo di terminare le letture dell'anno.

My thanks to Basic books, Lucy Cooke and Netgalley.
Let's just get one thing straight, and that is the fact that Lucy just rocks my socks off. What she does is always done well!
All my best friends ever have always been bitches. Yep, I was happily their bitch too! I've had friends, they were acquaintances. Bitches are the rulers of the pack. However, in these packs there is only one bitch!
If that's what it takes to keep the males in their place? Then heel!.
I've always loved Hyenas, but it was.great hearing about the rest too.
One of my favorite tales is the female Octopus doing the deed with the male, then ripping off his "organ" and tossing it away! 😍 I love that!