Running the Show: How Women are Runing the World (Harper & Row)
In this fascinating study, she outlines how women in the twenty-first century are changing the way the world works, which might seem at first like a trivial detail, but in reality will be a significant determinant of our collective future. To this end, she presents an exhaustive discussion of both the power and pitfalls of contemporary feminism, and gives a series of intriguing strategies for harnessing the creative energies of women, and to find and exploit their natural talents. The central theme is how the female form and its natural beauty has both historically and throughout history been a significant force for economic and social revolution.
Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus: The Classic Guide to Better Communication with Men, Women and Relationships (HarperCollins)
Inevitably, both men and women have their strengths and weaknesses when it comes to communicating with one another. These differences can lead to tension and confusion when interacting with one another. Here, John Gray puts women and men on equal footing and breaks down the traditional expectations that keep both genders from attaining the perfect balance of communication. He does not take a feminist perspective or approach, but instead draws from the research of numerous psychologists and anthropologists and discusses how these different approaches help to provide a solid foundation for all relationships and situations.
Liberating Ourselves from the Myths that Bind Us (St Martin’s Press)
Here Gray writes in his third book of essays on many subjects, including political and economic subjects, social science, and the importance of individualism in society.
The Art of Loving: The New Edition
In this updated edition, Gray reintroduces the reader to his ideas on courtship and discusses how the love relationship may be the best expression of individual freedom in our society. In these times of increasing commercialization, when people have given up on romantic love in favor of material success, Gray calls for a return to the old fashioned notions of love and romanticism. He is very much in line with Sigmund Freud in that he places romantic love and individualism at the center of the psyche, as opposed to Freud’s emphasis on the Oedipal Complex. He believes the importance of romantic love lies in the fact that it can help us reclaim our freedom, and not in seeking money or material goods. He writes:
“When it comes to love, the only reason for wanting it is that it brings great joy and happiness. And so long as we are free to live, and so long as we have achieved our full potential as human beings, which is freedom, then we are deserving of love – it is worth going after, worth attaining, worth fighting for.”
Dangerous Sexual Selection: Genes, Culture, and Human Nature
In this book, Gray argues that our bodies are constantly adapting to our environments and the cultures that surround us, therefore cultural factors may play a key role in determining our attraction to other members of the opposite sex. In his thesis, he presents the view that culture and not genetics controls our nature. He also proposes that culture is not some monolithic, global culture, but a diverse set of cultures at the local level. To support his ideas he uses the evolutionary concept of sexual selection and claims that the concept of nature is used in different ways, for example, how an evolutionary biologist might think of nature, and how a geneticist might approach the idea of nature. He also discusses how we may be able to understand a particular group by looking at the genes that are currently in a population. Finally, Gray writes that cultures are subject to changes as well, and these can be triggered by different factors, such as the actions of one individual or one generation. He says:
“Culture evolves as long as the environment changes, and the environment changes because members of society respond to what is happening around them. If our culture is the product of our ancestors and their choices, it is obvious that we must examine what our ancestors did and why they did it, in order to explain the structure of our society.”
Gray explains how the evolutionary concept of sexual selection and sexual dimorphism shows that sexual selection will favour different kinds of individuals. He also shows that Darwin’s assertion that the nature is universal shows us how culture, in the form of social structures, is determined. This leads to interesting insights, for example, the fact that men and women are sexually different from each other only because of human cultural factors rather than natural ones. In this book, Gray introduces a new concept, adaptive flexibility, which will become a major idea in his later work. The concept of adaptive flexibility is used by Gray to propose that humans are constantly evolving, and that we have more variations in our species than has ever been the case in the history of human evolution. He develops this idea by introducing the idea of cultural niche construction, which refers to the creation of new cultural practices, ideas, and values which can be seen to be a response to the environment. He explains:
“Culture is a means of adapting to the environment, which in turn is always changing. The adaptation of any animal to its environment is determined by natural selection, by the animal’s genes; but the adaptation of its culture to its environment is determined by the culture itself. Genes cannot modify culture in any way, but culture can modify genes – and so change the structure of the next generation of our species. It follows that we can see change coming not only because we can find changes in our genes, but because the way we think and feel may also be changing.”
The book is an interesting example of the kind of ideas put forth by an eminent evolutionary psychologist.
Sexual selection on men and women: Darwin’s unfinished business
This collection of short essays will be of interest to anyone interested in evolution, genetics and psychology. The collection is a sort of recap of Gray’s previous work, and is also helpful for those wanting to expand their knowledge of this topic. The essays deal with a variety of different subjects, such as sexual dimorphism, sexual selection, female nature and human nature.
Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships
Another interesting book by John Gray.
Sexual Nature, Sexual Culture: The Ontogeny and Phylogeny of Reproduction
A wonderful book of essays, which deals with a number of different topics such as parental investment, the role of women, sexual selection, social learning theory, culture, parental investment and how natural selection works at the level of the group. The book is about how humans are the same as other animals and how human nature can change according to the environments that we live in, but also how we differ.
Gray’s idea that sexual selection can be used to explain human nature is quite a unique view, and he uses it to explain how sexual selection should be used to explain sexual behavior and sexual variation. He writes that the way one is born, one’s genes, will be largely dependent upon cultural forces, and not natural ones. The way that humans are born will change over time and vary over different cultures, so that over time, the individual will adjust to this change by giving up some things or changing the way they interact with the culture. He writes:
“Sexual selection is a natural process that determines how animals behave, just as natural selection is the primary cause of the nature of life. But sexual selection differs from natural selection in that it is caused by the interaction between individuals that live in the same community and between the different groups of those individuals.”
Gray uses sexual selection as a basis for explaining why sexual behaviour is much more varied in the human species than in other species. The human animal is capable of a great deal more sexual selection than are other species, which is the primary reason that we see such a high amount of variation in sexual behavior in humans. He writes:
“Sexual selection explains why our sexual behavior is so complex. This complexity is due to a combination of two things. The first is the very high variety of our sexual acts. The second is our complex emotional life, so that these acts have become objects for complex desires, and we experience them as emotions. Human beings have acquired a special quality in our sexual lives. The qualities of emotion, imagination, and thought may have been caused by the evolution of new genes, and may be controlled by new groups of genes that have evolved since our appearance on earth.”
This book presents an evolutionary view of culture and how we might be able to interpret the cultural patterns that we see in nature. While most of this book is focused on the different kinds of cultural factors that contribute to sexual selection, Gray also delves into different subjects that are included in cultural selection, such as marriage, friendship, and religion. He also discusses how culture influences our ideas and the kinds of things we may find important, and what our attitudes and emotions are. He uses this idea to show how the cultures which evolve may reflect the environment in which they live. In order to make this point, he describes different cultures around the world which show certain behaviors and characteristics that show cultural influence.
Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion
This book was published in 1993. Gray considers all the different types of rape and how the victim’s and assailant’s relationship with their respective biological clocks may contribute to the kinds of violence and sexual coercion that happen. He emphasizes how important it is to understand the cultural and biological factors
