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1 results

  • Myth 21 - That Sexual Selection Was Darwin’s Afterthought to Natural Selection

  • Edited by Kostas Kampourakis, Université de Genève
  • Book:
    Darwin Mythology
    Published online:
    30 May 2024
    Print publication:
    06 June 2024, pp 239-249

  • Summary

    This chapter will focus on debunking the myth that sexual selection was Darwin’s afterthought to natural selection by more fully situating sexual reproduction and sex differentiation in Darwin’s intellectual trajectory, dating to the 1830s. This long-standing myth results, in part, from the scientific communities’ discomfort with sexual selection theory and, more to the point, the social radicals who embraced it in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. To unpack the gendered reception of the Descent, this chapter also analyzes the related myth that sexual selection theory naturalized female inferiority by highlighting the nuanced and varied reception of sexual selection theory within and, importantly, beyond the scientific community especially among socialists and feminists.