1. Some Women That Never Evolved 2. An Initial Inequality 3. Monogamous Primates: A Special Case 4. A Climate for Dominant Females 5. The Pros and Cons of Males 6. Competition and Bonding among Females 7. The Primate Origins of Female Sexuality 8. A Disputed Legacy.

This text addresses the profound human questions of love and work. Beginning with a historical introduction, the author progresses through adaptive problems that humans face, and concludes by showing how evolutionary psychology encompasses all branches of psychology.

Vintage Feminism: classic feminist texts in short form WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY THE AUTHOR Every day, women around the world are confronted with a dilemma – how to look. In a society embroiled in a cult of female beauty and youthfulness, pressure on women to conform physically is constant and all-pervading. In this shortened edition you will find the essence of Wolf’s groundbreaking book. It is a radical, gripping and frank exposé of the tyranny of the beauty myth, its (...) oppressive function and the destructive obsession it engenders. (shrink)

Life history theory suggests that in risky and uncertain environments the optimal reproductive strategy is to reproduce early in order to maximize the probability of leaving any descendants at all. The fact that early menarche facilitates early reproduction provides an adaptationist rationale for our first two hypotheses: that women who experience more risky and uncertain environments early in life would have (1) earlier menarche and (2) earlier first births than women who experience less stress at an early age. Attachment theory (...) and research provide the rationale for our second two hypotheses: that the subjective early experience of risky and uncertain environments (insecurity) is (3) part of an evolved mechanism for entraining alternative reproductive strategies contingent on environmental risk and uncertainty and (4) reflected in expected lifespan. Evidence from our pilot study of 100 women attending antenatal clinics at a large metropolitan hospital is consistent with all four hypotheses: Women reporting more troubled family relations early in life had earlier menarche, earlier first birth, were more likely to identify with insecure adult attachment styles, and expected shorter lifespans. Multivariate analyses show that early stress directly affected age at menarche and first birth, affected adult attachment in interaction with expected lifespan, but had no effect on expected lifespan, where its original effect was taken over by interactions between age at menarche and adult attachment as well as age at first birth and adult attachment. We discuss our results in terms of the need to combine evolutionary and developmental perspectives and the relation between early stress in general and father absence in particular. (shrink)

Anorexia nervosa remains an enigma among Western cultures. Various causal explanations have been offered, encompassing biological, psychological, and sociocultural models. These explanations, however, focus on the immediate or proximal mechanisms of causation. A more thorough understanding of anorexia nervosa can be achieved by understanding the relationship between these factors and ultimate causation, the level of explanation which deals with individual reproductive fitness. This paper reviews the biological, psychological, sociocultural, and evolutionary models and indicates a necessary synthesis between proximate and ultimate (...) levels of causation in examining the anorexia nervosa puzzle. (shrink)