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Since Charles Darwin, evolutionary biologists have been convinced that the males of the animal kingdom are the interesting ones dominating and promiscuous, while females are dull, passive, and devoted. In her new book Bitch, Cooke tells a new story. Whether investigating same \\u2014 sex female albatross couples that raise chicks, murderous mother meerkats, or the titanic battle of the sexes waged by ducks, Cooke shows us a new evolutionary biology, one where females can be as dynamic as males. This isn\\u2019t your grandfather\\u2019s (or Darwin\\u2019s) evolutionary biology. It\\u2019s more inclusive, and truer to life.

Shermer and Cooke discuss: the definition of male and female across the animal kingdom \\u2022 male bias in the history of science \\u2022 genes involved in sex determination and how they work \\u2022 natural selection \\u2022 sexual selection \\u2022 adaptationism vs. non-adaptationism in evolutionary theory \\u2022 Why do men have nipples? \\u2022 Why do women have orgasms? \\u2022 why female animals are just as promiscuous, competitive, aggressive, dominant and dynamic as males \\u2022 what humans can learn from non-human animals \\u2022 maternal and paternal instincts \\u2022 patriarchy and matriarchy across the animal kingdom \\u2022 and why the sexes are far more alike than they are different.

Lucy Cooke is the author of The Truth About Animals, which was short-listed for the Royal Society Prize, and the New York Times bestselling A Little Book of Sloth. She is a National Geographic explorer, TED talker, and award-winning documentary filmmaker with a master\\u2019s degree in zoology from Oxford University. She lives in Hastings, England.