Medium: Female Choice — Evolutionary sexuality patterns and how they shaped our civilisation

English summary of my book “Female Choice”

Numerous crises rattle the world — capitalism is questioned like never before, minorities stand up and speak for their rights in fierce determination, nature is crippled by an economy that knows only expansion, only growth. And women are facing more male violence than ever. The latter seems to be only one of several more or less unrelated problems, but I’m here to show you that the relationship between men and women is the key to all of civilization’s tremors. In February of 2021, my book “Female Choice — On the rise and fall of the male civilization” (“Female Choice — Vom Anfang und Ende der männlichen Zivilisation” (Si apre in una nuova finestra)) was released in Germany. It received a lot of attention, and I was repeatedly asked for an English version, which doesn’t exist, so I’ll give a brief summary.

I’m a biologist, and even though I’m not working in science anymore, I spent a significant amount of my life trying to understand the complex interactions between species and individuals. Evolution is my key interest because most of these interactions are explainable through natural and sexual selection. Evolution’s only goal is to produce individuals with high chances of survival and reproduction. Thus, all living creatures’ existence (with some exceptions in humans, obviously) follows two main priorities: self-preservation (i.e. surviving predators, finding food and water etc.) and procreation (mating with a partner with whom offspring is likely to survive to adulthood).

Let’s talk about sex — female choice and male competition

Since the relationship between the two heterosexual genders is strongly influenced by sexuality, we have to start there to understand how our civilization and its current crises are linked to it. However, before we go there, let me say something about gender diversity. Even though I will talk mainly about the binary concept of male/female, so-called cis-men and -women, I know that there’s more to gender than just a uterus or testicles. Not only is our understanding of gender shaped by cultural influences, but several biological (i.e. physical) factors lead to what we see as typical male/female. For example, chromosomes, prenatal testosterone, and post-natal hormone levels have a massive impact on our sexual identity and orientation. So please keep in mind that the lack of diverse genders in this text does not mean that I deny their existence.

Let’s begin with sexuality in its raw, animalistic, evolutionary form. Yes, now comes the juicy part with the bees and the birds. Sexual reproduction throughout the entire animal kingdom shows some very persistent patterns with only a few exceptions.