Different: What Apes Can Teach Us About Gender

"This is a really impressive book, especially in the light of current gender debates, and brings a new and very well-written scientific perspective to the debate, based on the behaviour of primates. Frans de Waal is a primatologist who has worked amongst primates all his life, and knows a huge amount about their behaviour. He takes us through all the behaviours which we humans tend to obsess over in children—are boys being forced to hold guns? Are girls being forced into pretty pink dresses?—and also the whole business about finding a mate, how young females and young males behave, sex for enjoyment, sex for reproduction. All of these things are happening in this ape community. It’s incredibly interesting. The argument running through it is that it’s almost arrogant of human beings to think that they have their own special social construct. It is well understood that gender is not entirely about sex and he acknowledges the negative effects of the huge gender-related pressures and expectations that shape our lives. I was brought up in an environment where women were dismissed and everything they said was considered trivial, so I am very aware of these pressures. But de Waal explains that the behaviour associated with gender is essentially a primate phenomenon, not a human one. He describes many wonderful scenarios. Out of nowhere, a female chimp will emerge that acts in every way like a male. They are biologically female, but they join the males and the males will see them as one of their own. They’re not interested in her as a sexual partner, she will, in every way, live like a male. And, similarly, the other way round. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen, and it is entirely accepted by the chimp community. Another very interesting thing is that female chimps, right from the moment they can walk, will pick up little sticks and pretend they are babies. This is scientific observation of animal behaviour at its best, because it relates so closely to us. De Waal makes the conclusion, which is quite brave in the current climate, that although, yes, there are individuals who live differently from the rest, that does not mean that gender is a social construct. It could be an individual choice based on a biological process. He makes that argument very reasonably and gently and I’d recommend this book to anybody interested in the gender issue. He just describes primate behaviour how it is—reminding us that primates are what we are."