Gender and evolutionary biology - any good sources ?

[Dragonsdaughter]

Any good books or articles anyone can reccomend on the evolutionary biological views on gender and gender roles. Thanks

You might try The Red Queen by Matt Ridley. Certainly a book on evolution and I see (from Amazon) that chapter 4 is entitled 'Genetic Mutiny and Gender'. I've got it on my bookshelves at home - can't remember now what I thought of it.

Scratch that, the 'Red Queen' doesn't deal with gender in the sense, I think, you mean. In it gender = sex. Interesting book, in the chapter I skimmed through last night there's a lot of battle type stuff between the sexes at a genetic level.

Another book you could try is 'Alas Poor Darwin' - series of arguments by different authors against evolutionary psychology. Again on my bookshelf , again can't remember it except to say its heavy going in parts - Then again psychology not my field.

The Selfish Gene by Dawkins? Lots of sociobiologists theorising on gender etc in the 1970s, he was just the first one that came to mind.

The Selfish Gene is a good place to start with evolutionary biology, because it lays out the foundations of the discipline. I don't remember it dealing with gender roles though. Still, it's a good place to start and his (Dawkins) idea of memes - the transmission of culture - may be a good starting point for the stuff you are looking for.

Lionel Tiger "men in groups" but it's only about male roles

I've just started reading Brain Gender by Melissa Hines.

It's not really gender from an evolutionary perspective but it looks into the biology behind sex (& sex differences).

Delusions of gender - Cordelia Fine
Essential reading when it comes to scientific research of gender differences.

Thanks