Cooke does an excellent job of illustrating, through science, how many of the stereotypes about females are inaccurate and poor excuses for the inequality we see between the sexes. While sometimes the science got a bit more academic than in other parts, this was still an enlightening read.

This book was a true intellectual delight. I learned quite a bit about the females of the animal kingdom that I hadn't known and it was all presented with a wry wit and cheeky thumbing of the nose at the patriarchy. Going through scientific history, the myopic and misogynist lense of western culture, and introducing the trailblazers that have and are presenting the truth of life on this planet, Lucy Cooke has presented to the world a beautiful tome about life, sex and gender in all its myriad iterations and splendor. This book proves in more ways than one that bitches rule the world

Thank you for access to this book via giveaway! I thoroughly enjoyed being able to check it out, I have referenced it in several of my college STEM courses, and I have told friends about it who would be interested in the premise as well. Thanks for the opportunity to learn more! One of my professors is also considering it as a supplemental text in her course based on my recommendation.

Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience

Although this book isn’t what I expected, I appreciated learning the history of animal kingdoms in relation to reproduction. Across the species, female roles and males times vary but longevity seems ti test with the female and is faulted otherwise. This book has a witty and fun spin on an otherwise textbook read.

This book was a revolutionizing, non-fiction read about bringing the female species to the forefront of not just science but society as a whole. I learned a lot during this book from the various societal views that effected Darwinism (and in turn a century of science) but also just how awesome females are. My favorite parts of the book were the parts that did a deep dive on different female species and how unique they are. As a feminist myself, I found a whole new level of awe and inspiration from my fellow females. I can't even pick which species was my favorite - I loved learning about the hyenas, moles, primates, orcas, earthworms!, fish, and so on. This book also discussed how gender fluidity and homosexuality is extremely natural and found throughout the animal world. That sex and gender are not just black and white, male and female, this and that - but a spectrum that should be respect even with humans.

On a broader scale, this book (and the different females it highlights) showcase the need to reframe how we view the "lesser" sex. Females are leaders, intelligent, sexual, fierce, determined, motherly, and so much more. We are not just following males around hoping they finally reproduce with us. This book took it back to the science and showed empirical proof that we need to invest more in study females, highlight female anatomy, and allow females to thrive in the wild, in our textbooks, and in society.

Premise and topic were great and the subject matter is incredibly important, for the field of biology and for general human understanding of the way the world works. The scientists and the work highlighted was well chosen and the unifying narrative arc was great. I thought that the book might have benefited from some editing; the story could have been told more succinctly, and I think that some of the information gets lost in the weeds in a few of the chapters. Overall, excellent writing, solid and well-supported thesis, and important subject.

My full review on my blog (link attached).

[...] Let's not beat about the bush: I initially chose this book on the strength of its title. And it's a cool title, no question about it. That hyena doesn't hurt, either ;). Lucy Cooke tackles a topic that has been avoided for years, decades and centuries. Most representatives of the biological sciences, on the account of being human and as such subjective and subject to the strictures of their cultures, tended to treat the females of other species as they treated their own: negligible and, in general, uninteresting. Weaker, drab, passive and condemned to live their lives as a background for the virile males, females were perceived as a secondary sex: important, sure, but never truly in power. Cooke, with the help of many contemporary scientists, proves these assumptions wrong.

Her writing style is anecdotal, humorous and easy to follow. Cooke describes her various journeys and encounters with diverse and fascinating species, and hands out snippets of hard knowledge with lightness and an endearing personal touch. Filled to the brim with strange, memorable facts and interesting descriptions, Bitch fits neatly into the mold of popular science books, but delivers more substance than most. It's highly enjoyable but also surprisingly educational: I've learned a lot, and my brain is full of fun facts about orcas' menopause or the authoritarian rule of praire dogs' matriarchs. Yet, as with all books aimed at challenging the status quo, this book is also highly political in the original sense of the word: it relates to the public interests and an such its message can become charged. Cooke is quite aware of that fact and wields it as a weapon: what applies to females of the many species she describes, applies also to women. Thus, Bitch turns into a feminist manifesto: humorous, self-aware and personal, but with a bite. I for one fully endorse its message of diversity and complexity as natural states of the world, states that should not be divided into simple dichotomies.

The one thing that bugged me about this book, particularly at the beginning, was the iconoclastic effort aimed at Charles Darwin. For a book bearing message of inclusivity, the Darwin hate was rather jarring, and unearned. I get it, apparently biological science faculties resemble Pratchett's Unseen University in more than one aspect, mainly in the staunch refusal to acknowledge reality, but also in idolizing the past and rejecting the passage of time, but that's not Darwin's fault. Had he known about the complexity of the relations between sexes in the animal world? Yep, and Cooke in the later chapters acknowledges as much. Had he not spread that message around in the Victorian times? Yep, and who can blame him? He had been burned enough by simply presenting his theory of evolution. Why would you go around throwing mud on Darwin simply because he didn't present all of his findings, or failed to put more emphasis on equality of sexes? It's rather the fault of his successors who conveniently picked and chose from Darwin's legacy whatever they pleased and justified their unobjectivity by stealing Darwin's authority. Cooke's deeply seated and understandable resentment toward the institutionalized prejudice bleeds onto Darwin himself, unjustly. It's anachronistic and, frankly, naive, to think of Darwin as this superhuman figure who could do anything in his time. He was ridiculed for publishing his less controversial findings, imagine what would happen in Victorian England if he published his writings about barnacle's penises and apparent female dominance.

Apart from that little quibble, however, this book was a truly fun and informative ride.

I have received a copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My thanks.

TL;DR: An excellent piece of science communication, presenting research from the last 5 or so decades that deconstruct the sex-differences ideas inputed into science in Darwin's Victorian days, and that have long been unchallenged. With humour and heart, Cooke introduces us to the new discoveries that give us a broader state of possible existences for females (and males) in the natural world, as well as showing us that the binary is not supported by science and that homosexuality is present in many organisms.

this book is INCREDIBLE!!!
I cannot underline, bold, italicize how much I think everyone should read this book! am i biased as a biologist? yes! do i still think this is an incredible book? yes!
I've finished Bitch: On the Female of the Species about a month ago or so, and I while I was reading it and since then, I have thought about it often and discussed the knowledge i got from it several times with other people!
this isn't simply a biology book, but it shows the flaws of science has a discipline created by humans, and the genesis of which is necessarily biased as society is. but the truly astounding, incredible, hopeful part of it, which makes me fall in love with science and nature time and time again, is the knowledge that is presented along the way. it's the fact that's these scientists (most of them female themselves) went "hold up, let me check something" and uncover another marvel of the natural world, broadening our minds to the beautiful complexity of the world, instead of murking away in the same unproven (or already proven wrong but dismissed) old theories.
this book is both extremely interesting about thinking where our ideas of "sex differences" and "gender characteristics" (including gender identity and sexuality) come from and if they are really supported by science or not, but also it just is an extremely well-done piece of science communication and the knowledge of the natural world stands by itself as truly fascinating. Cooke informs us of all of this with this same wonder and with plenty of humour and heart along the way, keeping you hooked the whole book.

”My first reaction wasn’t, ‘I’ve made this great discovery,’ it was, 'I’ve really screwed up my lab work.'"

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing with an eARC for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this book and have been having a lot of discussions with friends and others on it. There are a lot of talking points.

Thank you for the arc.

Thank you to the author, Basic Books and NetGalley, for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Just to get this out of the way: I loved, loved, loved this book! The title and the cover convinced me to apply for a foray into non-fiction. And this was so worth it that I went out and bought the published book and am hoping it will be translated into German so I can buy it for my husband, whose English was taxed with all the bits I kept wanting to read to him.

The author writes engagingly and with great wit about the the myopic and misogynist lense of western culture that has always applied in scientific history. At the same time, she introduces us to the trailblazers that have and are presenting the truth of life on this planet. What a fantastic book, that shows life, sex and gender in all its myriad iterations. Read it!!

A very interesing book in which shows us aspects of animal life that were completely disregarded by Darwin. It is informative with a touch of humour.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the e-ARC of this book and the audiobook!

I enjoyed Bitch: On the Female of the Species so much. I learnt a lot about biology. Lucy Cooke discusses how the Victorian view on zoology is outdated. The chapters discuss mate choice, monogamy myth, eating your lover, good and bad mothers, aggressive female animals, matriarchs and menopause, homosexual animal couples and animals that exist beyond the gender binary. Cooke does this with humour and great expertise. She discusses a great variety of species, many of which she has met before or while doing research for this book.

I loved learning all these things and I would love to reread and annotate a physical book. I would recommend Bitch if you are into feminism and love to learn about animals.

This book is one that speaks to my science-loving soul. I really enjoyed Cooke's deep dive on females and their mating/breeding behaviors. A variety of species were mentioned and as a reader I was able to learn a lot, even about some animals that I was familiar with. I thought that the author did a great job making some of the more technical subjects easy to understand and interesting, while not "dumbing-down" the book. I also liked that Cooke specifically cited scientists and their studies throughout the book but that the mentions did not seem like brags about connections as some authors can tend to fall into. Overall, I thought this was a creative, well-researched book and I would highly recommend it..

Somewhere along the way—likely from Inferior, but I can’t remember—I learned that women are excluded from most clinical trials for medication because our hormonal cycles are considered “too complicated” and they might throw off the trial results. Consequently, most of the medicines that make it to market have only truly been tested on men. Then there are inevitably—you guessed it—complications in some women who take these drugs, except doctors are just as likely to blame the issue on—you guessed it—hormones. Or it’s all in our head.

Gosh, sexism sucks.

Lucy Cooke examines exactly this kind of bias in science and medicine, but she does so with a particular eye on evolutionary biology. Bitch: On the Female of the Species is a tour through some of the weirder corners of the animal kingdom and species that defy our stereotypical understanding of the differences between the “two” sexes. It is also a polemic against bias in evolutionary biology and science as a whole, a bias against studying the female sex, which has resulted in gaps in vital knowledge. Cooke rightly points out that when we allow our human biases to influence our methodology, we short-circuit the scientific method—and all of humanity loses out.

Thank you to NetGalley and publisher Basic Books for the review eARC!

I read a lot of popular science books, and often—especially when written by a scientist—they can be ponderous and dull, at least in parts. Not so with Bitch, which is a riotous romp from the beginning. The first chapter, “The Anarchy of Sex,” lists off examples of ways in which females of various species break our idea of sex stereotypes and the binary. In particular, I found myself picking my jaw up off the floor as I read about the female spotted hyena’s testerone levels and her eight-inch clitoris and fused-together labia! By the time I got to the third chapter, “The Monogamy Myth,” I was calling my friend to read her a passage about the libidinous activities of female Barbary macaques—“once every seventeen minutes”??—and laugh in astonishment—the things they don’t teach you in high-school biology, hmm?

Where does this so-called wisdom come from anyway? That’s another question Cooke sets out to answer. She not only debunks sex myths but actively draws a line through research, from the writings of Darwin all the way up to the modern day—1990s and early 2000s—when some female scientists were still having their papers turned away from journals for being too “political.” This is, of course, the cardinal sin of the dominant group: conflating one’s own perspective (in this case, that of the cis, white, male scientist) with objectivity and neutrality. When a scientist announces findings that confirm our biases about males being stronger, more active, more promiscuous, then the world rejoices. When a scientist announces findings that confirm the same facts for females, then it’s “political” because it goes against the received wisdom. This confirmation bias, along with measurement, selection, and sampling biases, results in a lot of holes in our science. Cooke stresses the importance of reproducibility of results and long-term studies that, instead of anthropomorphizing the subjects or looking for certain expected traits, observe what the subjects do and record those observations without leaning on established stereotypes. If we look at a female animal and expect to see maternal behaviour, we will likely find it, and discount any behaviour that might not contribute to that narrative. Instead, we should just look at the behaviour, record it, and then we can sift through the data to see what we have found.

Bitch and books like it are important for laypeople to read because we are taught, growing up, that science is objective, impartial, unassailable. This is the hill that transphobic people are often willing to die on. Whether it’s the inclusion of trans women in sport or the very existence of trans people, transphobes (TERFs or GCs or whatever they want to be called these days) are quick to cry “but biology!” as if this is the ultimate argument against my existence when I am … you know … here. Existing. Lol.

When we make this mistake, when we assume that just because something is written in a book, published in a peer-reviewed study, repeated at conferences and in sound bites on the news, that it is the unassailable truth, we do ourselves a disservice as critical thinkers. This is particularly the case when the narrative being presented is simplistic and binary. As Cooke works so hard to elucidate here, nature is seldom either of those things—so when someone announces that it is so, we should be skeptical. Note that this is different from science deniers, who also profess skepticism—for theirs is, similar to the scientists whose bias is taken apart in this book, a form of confirmation bias rooted in conspiracy theories that ultimately advocate the abandonment of the scientific method. Cooke is not doing that here. She is not saying we need to throw out the baby with the bathwater—but it is probably time to change out that bathwater, and maybe get a bigger tub. The baby might be all grown up now.

Incidentally, as a trans woman, I certainly went into this book with a small amount of trepidation. Any scientific book that discusses the sexes can be, even inadvertently, trans-exclusionary. So I was reassured when, even before the introduction, Cooke includes an “Author’s Note on Language” that asserts, “This book intends to demonstrate that sex is wildly variable and that gendered ideas based on assumptions of binary sex are nonsense.” Fuck yeah. As I already commented above, the first chapter then being about “The Anarchy of Sex” cemented my sense that I was going to be safe reading this book. If that were not enough, Chapter 11 is called “Beyond the Binary” and features the work of trans ecologist Dr. Joan Roughgarden! This is important—there is also a common trend among people who want to be allies to shrug and say, “Hey, trans women are women and valid and whatnot, but eh, the data is just for cis men and women. So we know you exist, we know non-binary people are out there, but for our purposes we’ll just have to ignore you for the next two-hundred pages. So sorry.” That’s not acceptable. Trans people are here. We are in the fields being spoken about. So Cooke not only professes her allyship but actively includes trans people in her writing and actively makes sure that her approach to analysis is trans-inclusive rather than agnostic. That is true allyship. (I’m applauding right now.)

Ultimately, Bitch is, as the introduction says, about “a sexist mythology [that] has been baked into biology” and how “it distorts the way we perceive female animals.” Cooke comes with proof to back up this thesis, and most importantly (from my perspective as a curious reader), she presents this proof in an engaging, often hilarious way. Honestly, this book was the next best thing to watching a nature documentary, and probably slightly more informative given that it isn’t limited by time slots. It is worth your time and energy: not only will it entertain, but it is going to help you on your way to breaking down the gender and sex binary we are immersed in, along with the stereotypes that, for too long, too many people have propped up with faulty science.

An illuminating, educational and at times laugh out loud funny read. Loved the authors writing style, which was equal parts smart and sharp.

A highly informative and entertaining read. Ms Cooke's style of writing brings the history of behavioral ecology to life. Follow the female of several species across the animal kingdom to learn just how varied and complicated courtship, social relationships, and sexual relationships are. Some stereotypical examples are used to prime readers before going into all the sordid details on other lesser-known specimens. I've already shared excerpts with my students and plan to tie examples from this text into my lessons where feasible.

Interesting and educational pop science book. Not terribly scholarly - I would have liked to see more cites - but an enjoyable light read.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing an ARC copy for my review.

Any book that has a hyena on the cover, one of the most badass female-dominant species in the animal kingdom, immediately grabs my attention. Lucy Cooke provides an interesting look at animals that don't fit neatly into the gender roles that have been held since Darwin. Bitch doesn't just focus on female animals who control their social groupings or their mate selection but spends a lot of time exploring all animals who vary from how we have traditionally viewed sexes. The whole concept of gender can be fluid, as some animals can even change from male to female (or vice versa), or even clone themselves through parthenogenesis when a suitable mate can't be found.

I enjoyed the personal anecdotes and bits of humor peppered throughout the book. The selection of animals was varied and fascinating. I also appreciated the spotlight placed on so many female researchers who have contributed to science in ways that have been overlooked by a large majority of the field. As a biology student and animal keeper in the field, there was research that I feel I should have been taught and yet had never heard of before this book.

The book is well written, the scientific details were easy to understand and I didn't think it was dumbed down for the reader. My only complaint was an anticaptivity comment from the author in a section about pandas resorbing their fetuses. I enjoyed this book and would read more from the author. I received this as an ARC from NetGalley for my opinion.

4.5 stars

I appreciate the author shares her love of zoology and highlights the female aspect of many species and relating them to the female human. Some of these insights were hilarious and spot on, but some of them were cringe-worthy and in poor taste. This was still an enjoyable, well researched book of female animal fun.

Recommended but not to be taken seriously.

Thanks to Netgalley, Lucy Cooke, and Basic Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Available: 6/14/22