ABSTRACT
How has primatology come to be beloved by many feminist science scholars? Has feminism truly helped to engender the field of primate studies as it exists today, or is this a case of mistaken attribution? Many science analysts have remarked favorably upon the feminist transformation of primate studies that has occurred over the past twenty-five years, and so widely accepted is the view of primatology as a feminist enterprise that Hilary Rose asks whether it has become “the goddess’s discipline.”1 Donna Haraway, in her influential analysis of the history of primatology, and the authors of lesser known analyses (e.g., Rosser’s application of the “six stages of feminist transformation” to primatology) have argued for a shift in primatology toward the values and practices of feminist science.2
But what makes this case curious and paradoxical is that most primatologists vehemently deny that theirs is a feminist science. Only a small handful of primatologists are selfdeclared feminists, albeit scholars whose work has been very influential-Jeanne Altmann, Sarah Hrdy, Jane Lancaster, Barbara Smuts, and Meredith Small, for example. And one need only peruse a few of the strongly negative reviews by practicing scientists of Haraway’s book on primatology (“infuriating” is a common reaction)3 or attempt to casually interject the word “feminism” into a discussion with primatologists or ask them outright if they consider themselves feminists to uncover the strength and depth of their denial. In this chapter I explore how primatologists have responded to the feminist critique of science by becoming more gender inclusive and by using “tools of gender analysis,”4 and I suggest why so many primatologists carry out work that closely adheres to the tenets of feminism while at the same time denying the appellation. I argue that this contradiction is much more than a “label problem”—rather that these primatologists see themselves as operating from vastly different underlying assumptions and models of science than those of feminists.
