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Amy Parish

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Amy Parish
Alma materUniversity of Michigan University of California, Davis
EmployerUniversity of Southern California
Known forBonobos Studies
Darwinian Feminism

Amy Parish is a Biological Anthropologist, Primatologist, and Darwinian Feminist. She has taught at the University of Southern California in the Gender Studies and Anthropology departments since 1999. She is recognised as being a world leading expert in bonobo studies.

Education

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Parish completed an undergraduate degree at the University of Michigan in 1989.[1] She received her Masters of Science from the University of California-Davis in 1990, where she completed her PhD.[2] Her dissertation focussed on sociosexual behaviour and the female-female relationships of bonobos, under the supervision of Sarah Blaffer Hrdy.[2]

Research

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After graduating UCD, Parish moved to University College London, where she worked with Volker Sommer on behavioural patterns of animals.[3] During this time Parish became an expert on bonobos.[4][5] Whilst studying bonobos at San Diego's Wild Animal Park, she demonstrated a distinct preference of bonobo females for each other's company.[6] Parish moved to the University of Giessen in Germany, where she focussed on reciprocity.[7]

Parish uses an evolutionary approach to understand human behaviour.[8] In 1999 Parish joined the University of Southern California.[9] At USC she has taught eighteen different topics in across a range of disciplines, including Anthropology, Gender Studies, Arts and Letters, Health and Humanities, School of Education, Psychology.[10] She taught a course on "love, marriage and the experience of being a wife and on the cultural impact of Darwin’s theories".[11]

In 2012 she gave a talk at the Natural History Museum, where she revealed "bonobos have more sex, in more ways, and for more reasons, than most humans can imagine".[12] Whilst at Wilhelma, a zoo in Stuttgart, she observed "two females attack a male at the Stuttgart Zoo in Germany and bit his penis in half".[13] In 2013 Parish spoke at World Vasectomy Day about the Evolution of Contraception.[14] In 2016 she gave a keynote talk at the In2In Thinking Forum, "Apes, Power, and Sex: Why We Make War Not Love".[15]

Alongside research, Parish teaches English at La Jolla Country Day School.[16][17]

Darwinian feminism

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For centuries, the mainly male evolutionary scientists overlooked the significance of female animals behaviour; treating it as a passive constant in a drama dominated by aggressive males.[18] Darwinian Feminism began when Parish and her then supervisor, Sarah Hrdy, began to reevaluate animal behavior.[1] Their goal has been simple; to pay equal attention to male and female interests.[18] In Bonobos, Parish found a matriarchal society, which she thinks "should give hope to the human feminist movement".[19][13] Parish was featured in Angela Saini's 2017 book Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong and the New Research That’s Rewriting the Story.[20][21]

Parish has been featured in Ms Magazine, as well as on the television Nova, National Geographic Explorer and Discovery Channel.[18][22] Her research formed part of the PBS evolution library for teachers and students.[23] She regularly gives public talks about her research.[24][10]

Parish is a fellow of the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities.[25] She is on the board of the Kids Eco Club.[26] She is the scientific advisor for the Bonobo Conservation Initiative.[27][28]

References

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  1. ^ a b "Bonobos Use the Power of Female Friendship to Overthrow Male Hierarchy". Broadly. 2017-05-02. Retrieved 2018-02-03.
  2. ^ a b Parish, Amy Randall (1996-03-01). "Female relationships in bonobos(Pan paniscus)". Human Nature. 7 (1): 61–96. doi:10.1007/BF02733490. ISSN 1045-6767. PMID 24203252. S2CID 44291796.
  3. ^ Sommer, Volker; Parish, Amy R. (2010). "Living Differences". Homo Novus – A Human Without Illusions. The Frontiers Collection. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. pp. 19–33. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-12142-5_3. ISBN 9783642121418.
  4. ^ Parish, Amy R.; De Waal, Frans B. M.; Haig, David (2000-04-01). "The Other "Closest Living Relative": How Bonobos (Pan paniscus) Challenge Traditional Assumptions about Females, Dominance, Intra- and Intersexual Interactions, and Hominid Evolution". Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 907 (1): 97–113. Bibcode:2000NYASA.907...97P. doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.2000.tb06618.x. ISSN 1749-6632. S2CID 35370139.
  5. ^ Hare, Brian; Yamamoto, Shinya (2017). Bonobos : unique in mind, brain and behavior. [Oxford, United Kingdom]. ISBN 978-0198728511. OCLC 988167775.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  6. ^ de Waal, F. B. M. (1997). Bonobo : the forgotten ape. Lanting, Frans. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0520216518. OCLC 35450429.
  7. ^ "Indiana State University: Darwin". www2.indstate.edu. Retrieved 2018-02-03.
  8. ^ "First Fridays - February 3, 2012". Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. 2011-11-01. Archived from the original on 2018-02-04. Retrieved 2018-02-03.
  9. ^ "The Evolution of Beauty". www.lapl.org. Retrieved 2018-02-03.
  10. ^ a b "Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology | UCLA -- The Curious Naturalist Seminar Series". www.eeb.ucla.edu. Archived from the original on 2018-02-04. Retrieved 2018-02-03.
  11. ^ "Bella DePaulo, Amy Parish, Marc Solomon, moderated by Dan Segal | The Humanities Institute". www.scrippscollege.edu. 8 April 2010. Retrieved 2018-02-03.
  12. ^ "Bonobo expert talks evolution, sex and feminism". Southern California Public Radio. 2012-02-09. Retrieved 2018-02-03.
  13. ^ a b Angier, Natalie (2016-09-10). "In the Bonobo World, Female Camaraderie Prevails". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2018-02-03.
  14. ^ "The evolution of contraception with Amy Parish - World Vasectomy Day". Vimeo. Retrieved 2018-02-03.
  15. ^ David, Ariane (2016-06-21), Apes, Power, and Sex: Why We Make War Not Love - Part 1, retrieved 2018-02-03
  16. ^ "English teacher Amy Parish Discusses Bonobo Apes". La Jolla Country Day School. 2016-09-13. Retrieved 2018-02-03.
  17. ^ Kaplan, Jacob. "Getting to know the Country Day faculty: Dr. Parish, anthropologist and English teacher". The Palette. Retrieved 2018-02-03.
  18. ^ a b c Moser, Kim. "Jessica Seigel -- Print". www.jessicaseigel.com. Retrieved 2018-02-03.
  19. ^ "Living on Earth: The Make Love, Not War Species". Living on Earth. Retrieved 2018-02-03.
  20. ^ "Scientists assumed that patriarchy was only natural. Bonobos proved them wrong". Quartz. Retrieved 2018-02-03.
  21. ^ Saini, Angela (2017). Inferior : how science got women wrong and the new research that's rewriting the story. Boston. ISBN 978-0807071700. OCLC 965781304.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  22. ^ "The Last Great Ape". www.pbs.org. Retrieved 2018-02-03.
  23. ^ "Evolution: Library: Chimps And Bonobos". www.pbs.org. Retrieved 2018-02-03.
  24. ^ "Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness". Library Foundation of Los Angeles. Retrieved 2018-02-03.
  25. ^ "List of Fellows > Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities > USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences". dornsife.usc.edu. Retrieved 2018-02-03.
  26. ^ "Board Members". Kid's Eco Club. Retrieved 2018-02-03.
  27. ^ "Living on Earth: July 7, 2006". Living on Earth. Retrieved 2018-02-03.
  28. ^ "Bonobo Conservation Initiative » The BCI Team". www.bonobo.org. Retrieved 2018-02-03.
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