Who's Afraid of Charles Darwin?: Debating Feminism and Evolutionary Theory

"If you are teaching a course in cultural studies, women's studies, history of science, or social theory, do your students a favor and place this book on your syllabus. I cannot think of another recent study that engages in such an incisive, informative, and reader-friendly manner with the crucial questions of the relationship between cognitive evolutionary science and feminism. Vandermassen's scientific grounding is impeccable, and her position as a feminist scholar makes her particularly attuned to challenges involved in negotiating the issues of gender and science.

If your students have not had previous exposure to the history of feminism or the history of evolutionary biology, they will find both in the opening chapters of the book, which also feature a discussion of women's role in the shaping of scientific enterprise. The following chapters contain a clear, balanced, and invariably insightful discussion of the controversies surrounding the issue of feminist science. The concluding parts outline the perspectives opened by the informed application of cognitive evolutionary psychology to the study of social institutions that shape the contemporary gender relationship.

Accessible, analytical, witty, this book will inform and inspire your students."
~ Written on 2005-07-05

"If you are teaching a course in cultural studies, women's studies, history of science, or social theory, do your students a favor and place this book on your syllabus. I cannot think of another recent study that engages in such an incisive, informative, and reader-friendly manner with the crucial questions of the relationship between cognitive evolutionary science and feminism. Vandermassen's scientific grounding is impeccable, and her position as a feminist scholar makes her particularly attuned to challenges involved in negotiating the issues of gender and science.

If your students have not had previous exposure to the history of feminism or the history of evolutionary biology, they will find both in the opening chapters of the book, which also feature a discussion of women's role in the shaping of scientific enterprise. The following chapters contain a clear, balanced, and invariably insightful discussion of the controversies surrounding the issue of feminist science. The concluding parts outline the perspectives opened by the informed application of cognitive evolutionary psychology to the study of social institutions that shape the contemporary gender relationship.

Accessible, analytical, witty, this book will inform and inspire your students."
~ Written on 2005-07-05