Gender, Sexuality and Reproduction in Evolutionary Narratives

Gender, Sexuality and Reproduction in Evolutionary Narratives examines the popular appeal of evolutionary psychology by viewing it as part of the Darwinian narrative tradition. Focusing on the narrative role of gender, sexuality and reproduction, the book provides a new kind of feminist assessment of the potential and weaknesses of evolutionary arguments.

---

Since the early 1990s, evolutionary psychology has produced widely popular visions of modern men and women as driven by their prehistoric genes. In Gender, Sexuality and Reproduction in Evolutionary Narratives, Venla Oikkonen explores the rhetorical appeal of evolutionary psychology by viewing it as part of the Darwinian narrative tradition.

Refusing to start from the position of dismissing evolutionary psychology as reactionary or scientifically invalid, the book examines evolutionary psychologists’ investments in such contested concepts as teleology and variation. The book traces the emergence of evolutionary psychological narratives of gender, sexuality and reproduction, encompassing:



Charles Darwin’s understanding of transformation and sexual difference
Edward O. Wilson’s evolutionary mythology and the evolution-creationism controversy
Richard Dawkins’ molecular agency and new imaging technologies
the connections between adultery, infertility and homosexuality in adaptationist thought.

Through popular, literary and scientific texts, the book identifies both the imaginative potential and the structural weaknesses in evolutionary narratives, opening them up for feminist and queer revision. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of the humanities and social sciences, particularly in gender studies, cultural studies, literature, sexualities, and science and technology studies.