The primate tales that de Waal uses to discuss gender are both fascinating and enlightening.

De Waal turns again to the ape world, this time to explore the connection between gender and biology. As I said, brave. Whether he’s convincing is another matter.

There are readers who will walk away from this text more sympathetic to homosexuality and gender fluidity in humans and more open to the idea that women can be powerful and men can be nurturing. Amid the hypermisogynistic conclusions of most pop-evolution pundits, this is not nothing; I could imagine Different as a useful if mild prophylactic against, say, Jordan Peterson. But to be seduced by essentialism, and especially zoological essentialism, would be a mistake for feminists.

A game-changer, potentially no less significant to the field than Foucault’s The History of Sexuality, but in a noncanonical fashion, and void of the usual tropes.

Fascinating.

De Waal draws on a long career of investigating chimpanzees and bonobos—both equally close to humans genetically—to argue with wit and clarity against assumptions about sex and gender that generate inequality.