Beauty and the Beasts: Woman, Ape and Evolution
Why are the majority of primatologists women? Mary Leakey, Dian Fossey, and Jane Goodall are among the women profiled as Carole Jahme explores the unusual bond between female primatologists and their simian subjects. Sue Howell of the Primate Foundation of Arizona analyzed a sample of people in the field of primatology in 1999, determining that while men held more academic positions than women, women outnumbered men three to one as students. British primatologist Jahme explores this imbalance, arguing that women become emotionally attached to the animals they study and thus are ideal for pursuing long-term primate studies. Men instead "publish papers, push their careers forward and move on" to stations in academia. The author touches on primate studies, but her emphasis is squarely on the people rather than the science. Jahme examines the lives of such primatology notables as Jane Goodall, Birute Galdikas, and Dian Fossey, detailing the relationships and life events that shaped their pursuit of this vocation. At times she goes too deep into personal matters love affairs and such that have little bearing on her subjects' careers. And she gives short shrift to the pioneers who happened to be male: in her opinion, giants like Robert Yerkes and Harry Harlow missed the big picture. Still, Jahme provides useful biographical information on less celebrated female primatologists such as Jeanne Altman, Barbara Smuts, Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, and Mariko Hiraiwa-Hasegawa.
