Engendered Primatology

In this chapter, we reflect on our readings of female/feminist primatologists’ studies of female primates and our understandings of the gendered lives of bonnet macaques, a female-bonded nonhuman primate species, endemic to peninsular India. These two focal points provide us with insights into the complexities of individual identity in nonhuman societies and the situatedness of human and other-than-human gender identities in their lived worlds. We first discuss the beginnings of feminist philosophy of biology through the virtually forgotten Antoinette Brown Blackwell’s remarkable critique of Darwinism and then trace the evolution of feminist primatology through the work of influential female primatologists. We consider how these feminist views have shaped our critical comprehension of gender roles in nonhuman primate societies and conclude by examining certain biological and sociocultural traits that are associated with biological sex and contribute to the social construction of gender in the lifeworlds of bonnet macaques and by extension, to those of other nonhuman primates.