Darwin’s housewife: gendered animal portrayals and what they reveal about us

Since the late 19th century, scientists have favored descriptions of behaviors that reflect traditional gender roles: dominant, aggressive, flashy, and promiscuous males, and passive, nurturing, and sexually-restrained females. Shaped by the social and gender positionality of predominantly white male scholars, such descriptions have helped constrain women within ideals of self-sacrificial motherhood, domesticity, and non-ambitious femininity. Although, at the same time, these traits are scientifically partial and inaccurate.