A feminist and evolutionary biologist looks at women

Abstract

A biosocial perspective on women must emphasize the context-dependent nature of both their biological and their behavioral responses to the demands of reproduction. The evolutionary history of human female reproductive strategies has increased phenotypic and behavioral plasticity in ways that will optimize a woman's ability to access the resources necessary to produce and rear her children. These include a reproductive biology closely linked to shifts in social and physical resources, permitting an individual woman to adjust her investment at many points along the path of offspring development, and a behavioral pattern of family formation that optimizes women's access to resources through the most likely and predictable social networks. Compared to the reproductive strategies of female nonhuman primates, women are confronted with a series of adaptations peculiar to our species: (1) a high commitment to the rearing of multiple, nutritionally dependent young of differing ages, (2) an unending tradeoff between two often conflicting demands of production and reproduction, and (3) a bargain often struck with males for assistance in rearing young in exchange for confidence in paternity.