Entering females who defy Darwin's stereotypes
The Victorian Era and the Fathers of Evolution | Confirmation Bias in Biologists
Defying Darwin | A Journey to Discover the Nature of Women

Chapter 1: Sex in anarchy: What is a female?

Fake penis of a mole and a female hyena
In Search of the Origins of Masculinity and Femininity | The Chaos of Chromosomes
Are 'Male' Chromosomes Disappearing? | Diversity of Sexual Traits
Hawaii's ribs

Chapter 2 The Mystery of Spouse Choice: What and How Do Women Choose?

The Dizzying Dance of the Sagebrush Pheasant | A Controversial History of Female Choice
The water bird wants to be chosen

Chapter 3: The Manipulated Female Myth: Uncomfortable Findings About the Flirtatious Female

Manipulated Chastity | Birds Busy Cheating
The Horny Langur Monkey | Testicles Don't Lie
Bateman's Fallacy | The Death of a Chaste Female

Chapter 4: 50 Ways to Eat Your Lover: The Conundrum of Sexual Cannibalism

Spider's extreme sexual conflict
Even if you die, stand out to the spider's eyes.
The Vibration That Separates Life and Death | The Great Advantages of Sexual Cannibalism

Chapter 5: The Genital Wars: Love is a Battlefield

Are all the female genitalia there? | Spiral vagina of a female duck
The Quality Evolves | The Clit, Orgasm, and Paternity

Chapter 6: There Is No Virgin Mary: Mothers Beyond Imagination

The Myth of Motherhood | Baboon Castes and Parenting
The Mother's Diverse Controls | Oxytocin, the Hormone That Makes Us Mommy
Attachment Doesn't Work on Hormones Alone | Caring Together

Chapter 7: Bitch vs. Bitch: The Battle of the Females

A bloody duel between females
Females who question Darwin's sexual selection
Alpha hen is coming out, get out of the way.
Ruthless breeding competition and dictatorship | Long live the Queen!
The Tyranny of the Naked Mole Rat Queen

Chapter 8 Primate Politics: The Power of Sisterhood

Wonder Woman Lemur | Female Dominance | Reasons for Dominance
Sisters Unite! | How Bonobos Avoid Conflict
New possibilities revealed by bonobo society

Chapter 9: The Orca Matriarch and the Whale: The Secrets of Whale Evolution

The Mystery of Menopause | Evolutionary Secrets Discovered in Orca Poop
The bonds and cohesion of an older matriarchal society
The Future Expected for the Orca

Chapter 10: Life Without a Male: Sisters Fulfilling Their Own Problems

Pioneering Same-Sex Couples | Amazing Asexual Reproduction Technology
The Secret to Evolutionary Longevity in Ceratomorphs
The Success of an All-Female Species | The Future Will Be Female

Chapter 11 Beyond Dichotomy: Rainbow Evolution

The Fluidity of the Barnacle | A Non-Dualistic World
Nemo the Clownfish and the Sex Change | What the Females Teach Us

and unbiased nature
Acknowledgments | Notes | Further Reading | Search

Dichotomous gender, the myth of benevolent motherhood,
The Birth of "Female Biology," Shattering Darwinian Prejudices
“Look straight ahead, see what our females really look like!”

Richard Dawkins said this in The Selfish Gene:
“Females are the exploited sex.
The evolutionary basis for exploitation lies in the fact that eggs are larger than sperm.” Males with large sperm reserves “cannot mate with as many females as they want,” and small, weak females are passive because they pour all their energy into procreation and childrearing.
However, Lucy Cook, a zoologist who was Dawkins' student at Oxford University, could not help but question the interpretation of the scriptures that females are genetically derived from males and that males drive evolution.
How can one sex be competitive and promiscuous, and another be passive and virtuous?


Lucy Cook left academia and, with the belief that she wanted to share an unbiased view of nature with the public, established herself as a leading British documentary director and producer, capturing amphibians, sloths, and other creatures on camera.
The author who became a world-renowned bestseller with “The Zoo of Misunderstanding” has now reached Korean readers with “Female Biology.”
"Females" breaks away from the patriarchal framework of biology, which has focused solely on males, and focuses on the revolutionary research taking place at the forefront of evolutionary biology research.
The author has personally explored places from California walnut farms to the Hawaiian coast, the jungles of Madagascar, and the great plains of Kenya and North America, encountering female animals beyond imagination.
This book weaves together the pioneering research of scholars like Frans de Waal, Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, Gene Altman, Mary Jane West Eberhard, and Patricia Gowarty, armed with cutting-edge science, a wealth of data from wilderness exploration, and alternative perspectives on evolution and sex, into a powerful storytelling.
With her uniquely witty style, she breaks down stereotypes about maternal instincts, caring instincts, and monogamy, creating a vivid portrait of females who dominate the ecosystem and compete dynamically.

The author not only exposes Darwin's "Descent of Man and Sexual Selection," which could not be free from the misogynistic culture and patriarchy of the Victorian era, but also the flaws in biology of the past that were trapped in the framework of the Darwinian era and went so far as to manipulate results by violating the "principle of parsimony" (a scientific methodology that trusts evidence and selects simple explanations) for data.
This is an attempt to reconstruct evolutionary biology for our time by infinitely expanding the boundaries of Darwinism with a bold narrative that surpasses that of his mentor, Richard Dawkins.
What would this book, which captures the lives of previously unrecorded females, be like? The true nature of females lies far beyond our imagination.


From birds busy flirting to topiary antelopes fighting over males…
The true nature of females as engines of evolution
“Sexually debauched, fiercely competitive, and lording it over the pack.”

One night in Kenya's Marai National Park, the author spends a night of terror as a lioness prowls around his exploration vehicle.
The female lion heard the male's cries in the recording and sneaked out to enjoy a secret meeting with another male.
In biology, heterozygosity (the fundamental difference between male and female gametes) determines not only the sex differentiation of males and females, but also their behavior, with males known to be promiscuous and females known to be fastidious and virtuous.
But the debauchery and flirtation of these lionesses isn't unique to the animal kingdom, so why are these stereotypical gender roles still in place? According to the author, it's because "humans aren't yet ready to accept the true nature of animals."


As if to mock Darwin, who described courted females as 'reluctantly' responding to the charms and sexual demands of competing males, females in nature display the very essence of sexual promiscuity.
"The Females" boldly reveals the true nature of females in nature, including a philandering lioness, a tyrannical meerkat, a topiary that fights bloodily for the males, an albatross that has become a lesbian, and an elderly orca matriarch who lives a more debauched life than the males and reigns over the pack as fighters for survival.


A study found that a female rock squirrel, a songbird often held up as a model for the faithful Victorian couple, was actually busy mating with two males more than 250 times.
Ninety percent of socially monogamous female birds mate with multiple males, a clever strategy that not only allows them to select for better genes but also protects their chicks from infanticide by confusing them about who the father is and provides assistance in raising them.
Beyond the confirmation bias and prejudice of scientists, females in the animal kingdom live sexually liberated lives for the benefit of themselves and their families, without a shred of shame.

Secrets of Evolution Uncovered in Female Selection and Reproductive Studies
"To ask the right questions about nature, we need a lot of data on women."

Male sagebrush pheasants, found in North America, perform a peculiar courtship dance, inflating their throats and bouncing their chests.
In front of the males who dance competitively with all their might, the females act passively as if they are not interested.
However, when we studied their habits using 'fembot' robots disguised as birds, we found that these dances were not for strange competition between males, but rather a process of communication with females.
The male sagebrush pheasant (nicknamed Dick) that mated the most that year was not only the loudest dancer but also a charming bird that responded well to the subtle signals given by the females and was a 'good listener' to their partners.
This study reflects a recent evolutionary debate about what women choose.


Science cannot be free from the prejudices of the times.
But even two centuries later, the collections in natural history museums around the world are still largely dominated by males, with even female specimens lacking adequate representation.
Not to mention the study of genitals.
Patricia Brennan, an American avian reproductive scientist, says:
“Science has a lot of unexpected fun.
But to ask the right question, we need a woman to look into this.” Contrary to the common belief that female reproductive organs are just for giving birth, animal reproductive organs are the most rapidly evolving organs.
Hyenas give birth through their clitoris, which resembles a male's penis, while the spiral-shaped vaginas of mallards and dolphins block the male's penis to prevent unwanted pregnancies.
Female earwigs also exercise a secretive choice to determine the paternity of their offspring by storing the male's sperm in a 'storage pouch'.
Research on the female reproductive system suggests that female selection, spanning a wide spectrum of reproduction and evolution, is driving yet another engine of evolution.


The hierarchical society of female baboons and the 'alomader'
A New Definition of Motherhood and Care Strategies
“There is no mother like the Virgin Mary.
“We just need affection and a less selfish heart.”

In an era with a birth rate of 0.78, motherhood may be a topic that has not received much attention from women or scientists these days.
Female animals have always been identified with mothers, and depicted as beings devoted to childrearing with innate maternal instinct.
Motherhood is influenced by the attachment hormone oxytocin, but it doesn't just happen.
According to zoologist Jean Altman, professor emeritus of animal behavior at Princeton University who studied more than 1,800 yellow baboons over seven generations on Kilimanjaro, Kenya, motherhood for primates is a "tightrope walk, a constant negotiation between nurturing and survival."


Female baboons, who travel several kilometers every day in search of food, do not even know how to properly hold their babies when they are first giving birth.
The infant mortality rate in first-born mothers is as high as 60%, and as mothers have more offspring and gain experience, the mortality rate decreases rapidly.
Another factor that determines survival rate is the mother's caste.
The young of high-ranking females, who have priority access to food, grow up to be healthier and more independent individuals, protected by their mother's network.
However, the offspring of lower-ranking females are more likely to be killed by other males and become independent relatively slowly under the mother's obsessive protection.
As a result, the female's energy becomes increasingly depleted, and the stress caused by social inequality reaches its peak, leading to abuse of her offspring.


Interestingly, in the animal world, when females are released from the world of pregnancy and lactation, it is usually the father who devotes himself to his children.
Most birds share parent-child care, while amphibians display a variety of caregiving strategies, from single fathers and mothers to co-parenting.
Three percent of mammals, including the white-faced lemur, which builds communal crèches and raises its young, rely on the desperate help of other mothers, known as allomaters, who care for and support the young of others.


This diversity of caregiving strategies in the animal world makes us reconsider why humans are born larger and more helpless than any other ape, yet reproduce much faster.
It's about sharing the burden of care.
The author emphasizes that there is still an opportunity in our society to awaken the maternal instinct of "affection and a less selfish heart," based on the fact that the human ability to empathize, cooperate, and understand others evolved as a society functioned as a system in which the role of caregiver was shared.
Wouldn't a true solution to the low birth rate problem be possible when society takes on the role of an allomother?


Sexual conflict as seen in sexual cannibalism in spiders
Human nature reinterpreted as 'female dominance'
“How do females dominate males?”

The serious gender conflict in Korean society is noted as a major factor in the low birth rate, but sexual conflict between male and female animals serves as an evolutionary engine for successful reproduction.
The being that stands at the pinnacle of this sexual conflict is the spider.
During the breeding season, the golden shaman spider turns males who attempt to mate into slurry and sucks them up, and the male succeeds in reproduction by releasing sperm while dying.
For Darwin, who described reproduction as a harmonious process in which both sexes cooperate, the existence of female spiders like femme fatales must have been puzzling.
The author emphasizes that reproduction should be interpreted as a tug-of-war or sexual conflict between men and women over what they want.
This is based on the fact that male spiders, who want to pass on their genes, and female spiders, who want to absorb good nutrients and lay healthy eggs, have different goals.


Could all this sexual conflict stem from a power structure skewed towards one person? Wouldn't a female-dominated society, rather than a patriarchal one, be different? Meerkats, renowned for their adorable appearance, are a prime example of a matriarchal society. If any female other than the queen attempts to mate with a male, she will not only be expelled from the group, but will likely be brutally murdered.
Lower-ranking females are sometimes punished by being forced to suckle the offspring of a queen who kills her own young.
So what about the matriarchal society of killer whales, one of the animals that undergo menopause like humans?
An older matriarch who has led a herd for decades limits her reproductive capacity to avoid competition with younger females, and leads the herd with accumulated experience and wisdom.


While the author cautions against wielding animals as weapons of ideology, he believes that a proper understanding of what it means to be female could challenge long-held assumptions about what is natural, normal, and even possible.
After World War II, scholars' efforts to explore the origins of war and human nature led to primatology.
The culture of the brutal baboon, living in social groups, explained male dominance and aggression, and in the 1970s, chimpanzees took over as the model for human ancestors.
However, the author agrees with Frans de Waal that female power in chimpanzee society has been underestimated, and notes the surprising discovery that no all-powerful alpha male could dominate the group without a female kingmaker, a "mama," pushing him from behind the scenes.


These older female chimpanzees formed a network that connected all the chimpanzees, were the mediators sought out in times of conflict, and, as leaders among the females, stood at the center of the family and alliance network.
In primate societies, power derives not only from physical superiority but also from economic leverage (e.g., expertise in knowing where to find fruit, control over reproduction, strategic alliances, etc.), and the presence of these 'mothers' has been frequently observed even among male-dominated rhesus macaques and vervet monkeys.
If we had discovered primates other than chimpanzees first, would our understanding of the origins of human society and power have been overturned? These questions stimulate our imagination about alternative societies.


Animals that have chosen homosexuality and parthenogenesis,
Climate catastrophes accelerating evolution and the diversity of perspectives needed for science
“What is natural, normal, and even possible?”

Habitat changes due to climate disasters are also accelerating the evolution of females.
Hawaii's albatross gulls have become lesbians as they migrate to new habitats to escape rising sea levels.
As the number of males decreased and they were unable to reproduce, they began to receive sperm donations and raise their young with the same female as their partner.
There are frequent reports of ebony sharks, Komodo dragons, and reticulated pythons, which lost the opportunity to reproduce sexually while living in zoos, reproducing asexually through cloning without males.
As the environment is destroyed and species decline to catastrophic levels, endangered female sawfish are cloning themselves to increase their population.
The fact that the ancient reproductive technology of 'cloning' is appearing in nature, and the dystopian imagination that the future will be one where everyone clones, makes us reflect on humans as perpetrators of climate change through their actions.


The numerous women in nature who appear in "Females" teach us that biological sex distinctions themselves are not fixed, and that the driving force of evolution is not limited to a single sex, but rather dynamically interacts with genes and the environment in various ways.
The true nature of females, who refuse to conform to the old classification system, not only reveals the complexly intertwined mechanisms of evolution through natural selection, sexual selection, and social selection, but also confirms how the strategic cooperation of men, women, and social systems leads to successful evolution.
Finding a social model where people lead the group with sociality and empathy, rather than being submissive to domination, and coexist with wisdom and experience.
The fight to uncover biological truth is the first step toward safeguarding the future of all of our existence, and it emphasizes that scientific perspectives must become more diverse to achieve this.


A fascinating guide to animal sex.
Blow away boring old thoughts.
- [Telegraph]

The best science book.
Meticulously researched content and provocative writing style
- [Nature]

A book that combines the humor of a storyteller with the scientific authority of a biologist.
- [Science]

A bold and captivating twist.
A book full of surprises
- [Guardian]

A book that challenges the sexist perspectives embedded in biological research.
- [Financial Times]

A book that shatters stereotypes about female behavior and sex with dazzling, humorous, and elegant fury.
- [Observer]

Explosive! A delightful, enlightening journey into the cutting edge of evolutionary biology!
- [Scientific America]