Sara Pascoe is a comedian, and a very clever lady. She has wonderfully proven this by writing a ‘popular science’ book about the female body, sex and evolution. I’m here to tell you why it’s so damn great, and why you definitely need to read it.
I’ve been eyeing up Animal since it came up, but I recently decided that my dissertation was going to be on human attraction and so the time had finally come to buy it, because no-one could accuse me of procrastinating or avoiding uni work – it’s totally relevant, ok? I had a gift card for WHSmith, so it wasn’t breaking the bank. Now, having literally just finished Animal, I would like to encourage you all to buy or borrow a copy because it is so relevant to all of us. There is a scientific basis for the choices – conscious or not – that we make and the feelings we have, and learning about this means we can make more sense of ourselves.
Animal is part science, part social observation, part autobiography. It reminds us that we are, after all, just animals, and that evolution has shaped our present-day biology and behaviour. Sara deals with love, sex, choosing a partner, push-up bras, pregnancy, menstruation, rape, boob jobs, abortion, marriage, vaginas and body image. She discusses scientific theory and embarrassing stories of previous boyfriends, views of the past and where we stand in the present. Throughout, she is funny but also well-informed, sensitive and passionate. There is silliness and sadness, as well as anger and pride. She is incredibly open about her own thoughts and insecurities; it’s comforting to see that she has some of the thoughts that I have experienced and thought were a bit mad. She also cries a lot like me, so I definitely relate to her.
This is a book about what it means to be a woman both culturally and biologically. As an Evolutionary Biology student, I am so happy to see many of the things I’ve learned over the last 2 years presented in an accessible way for non-scientists (and science students who have had a whole summer to forget everything) and put into their context, but it also covers things I didn’t know much about. Things as shocking as female genital mutilation, a horrible topic but one that definitely needs to be talked about. Animal mostly deals with biologically ‘female’ bodies, but Sara acknowledges that everyone is different and that there is no ‘normal’. She is able to explain hormones and relate a funny story from her childhood on the same page, so it never gets too heavy with facts.
Knowledge is power, and the more we know about and understand how our brains and bodies work, the more we can own them and feel comfortable with them. A recurring theme is the fact that women have repeatedly been told about their own bodies by men (boo) who said things like “you’re just imagining pain in childbirth, it’s not real” (genuinely written in a book by a man in the 1950s), or that women were the passive sex and were just meant to allow things to happen to them. Society has made us ashamed of ourselves; talking about periods is ‘gross’ and women are criticised if they don’t get rid of their perfectly natural body hair, and we are all meant to walk the thin line between being ‘prude’ and ‘a slut’. It is about time we reclaimed our own bodies and sexualities and told anyone who has a problem with that to go away. After all, we are not male property any more, and people have mostly stopped accusing us of being witches.
If you want to understand why we are the way we are, or if you just want a really good laugh, I cannot recommend Animal enough. Apart from the fact that Sara is occasionally a bit liberal with commas, I have no criticisms. Buy it, read it, then pass it on to your friend/boyfriend/neighbour/sibling so we can all have a big chat about genitals and sex and jealousy and whether Fifty Shades of Grey is a good thing or not, so that everyone can stop being uncomfortable with this kind of stuff. Go forth and read!