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Podcast: New Books in Gender
Episode: Ambika Kamath and Melina Packer, "Feminism in the Wild: How Human Biases Shape Our Understanding of Animal Behavior" (MIT Press, 2025)
Description: In Feminism in the Wild: How Human Biases Shape Our Understanding of Animal Behavior (MIT Press, 2025), Ambika Kamath and Melina Packer reveal how scientists studying animal behavior have long projected human norms and values onto animals while seeking to understand them. When scientific studies conclude that these norms and values are natural in animals, it makes it easier to think of them as natural in humans too. And because scientists, historically and to this day, largely belong to elite, powerful segments of society, the norms and values embedded in animal behavior science match those of the already powerful. How can...