Why Sex Matters: A Darwinian Look at Human Behavior. (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

University of Michigan professor Low uses an evolutionary approach to understand and explain many common human actions. The central question she poses is, "How do environmental conditions influence our behavior and our lifetimes?" While many might balk at reducing much of human interaction merely to a desire to reproduce and provide for our offspring, Low argues persuasively that similar analyses of other species work remarkably well, and she provides a wealth of supporting data from studies of cultures ranging from indigenous populations in Africa to 19th-century Sweden. She concludes that men and women, because of the difference in the numbers of sperm and eggs produced, are evolutionarily designed to have disparate ambitions: males seek many mating opportunities, and females concentrate on acquiring the resources to ensure the survival of their young. Low notes that many social problemsAwarfare and environmental degradation among themAare the results of the power, perhaps misdirected, of the reproductive drives of both men and women (she links war to male aggression and environmental problems to the female drive to acquire resources for the raising of children). Having deduced that "we have created these problems by doing what we have evolved to do," she admits that she has no advice about "what to do next." Her findings are not new. Indeed, her biological explanation of what many people now view as socially constructed gender roles is bound to earn her vociferous critics. But her cross-cultural data set makes her conclusions hard to ignore. (Dec.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Scientific American

Sex differences, Low says, are central to our lives. Are they genetically programmed or the result of social traditions? "New research ... supports the perhaps unsettling view that men and women have indeed evolved to behave differently." The differences arise from "the fundamental principle of evolutionary biology, that all living organisms have evolved to seek and use resources to enhance their reproductive success." Low, a professor of resource ecology at the University of Michigan, develops her argument through examinations of genetics, primate societies, and human behavior past and present. Then she asks a haunting question. Have we, simply by doing well what we have evolved to do, "changed the rules so that now it may even be detrimental to 'strive' to our utmost abilities?" It seems likely, she says, "that we will face new problems as growing, and increasingly consumptive, human populations interact with environmental ... stability."

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press (November 29, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691028958
• ISBN-13: 978-0691028958
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,350,026 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Why Sex Matters, January 15, 2000

By	Thane Maynard (Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden) - See all my reviews

Why Sex Matters: A Darwinian Look at Human Behavior, by Bobbi Low, is a must read for ANYONE interested in animal behavior, human or otherwise. This is an in depth look through the eyes of an evolutionary biologist at why our world is the way it is, and more importantly, why we humans are the way we are.

With a thesis that could be subtitled: "Sex, Power and Resources," the book is principally about the ecology of sex differences - the conditions under which we predict male and female behavior to be more, and less, alike. Low points out (chapters 1-3) that [1] we seldom actually know the genetics of any trait, and [2] mostly what we do is ask: what strategies succeed reproductively in particular environments?

In chapters 4-15 she offers a tour de force of the selective pressures that have created the complex behavior of such a species as ours. The exploration of the evolutionary basis for our systems of mate selection, politics, war, cooperation, and resource accumulation make Why Sex Matters such an important book.

This book is highly readable, with dozens of tales, quotes and legends that help tie it to the heart of the human condition, but its strength is in leaving myth behind and explaining behavior through the science of ecology.

I found the book fascinating and will gladly place it on the same shelf as E.O.Wilson's, On Human Nature, Richard Dawkin's, The Blind Watchmaker, and Jared Diamond's, Guns, Germs & Steel.

Thane Maynard, Director of Education, Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sex Differences and More, January 25, 2000

By	Peter Gray (Cambridge, MA United States) - See all my reviews

From the perspective of behavioral ecology, Low explores human sex differences. She shows why females specialize in parental effort and males in mating effort. She examines the implication of this difference, in combination with ecology, to understand mating systems, mate choice, fertility, coalitions, warfare and a host of other topics. Much of the evidence presented takes the form of statistical summaries of cross-cultural summaries; short summaries of other societies are also included. The book contains a considerable amount of information, is enjoyable to read, thought-provoking (I'm still puzzling over the factoid of a 137male/100 female sex ratio at birth in a human population) but not sensational. The book may not leave the reader with a firm grasp on the diversity existing within male and female behavior, respectively, but will make great sense of the statistical differences which exist between males and females throughout the world.

26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinarily thorough, authoritative, and current, December 9, 2000

By	Dennis Littrell (SoCal) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

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 as much about communicating to the reader as she does about 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 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 the top 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 behavior 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 knew what is in this book when I was one and twenty. I would have conducted my life with a lot more grace and effectiveness.