Prepared by: Dr. Kay Picart

1. “The Contest for Primate Nature: Daughters of Man-the Hunter in the Field, 1960-80”Donna HarawayStudent Edition Prepared by: Dr. Kay Picart

2. Guide Questions • Why does Haraway contend that “language is not innocent in our primate order”? • In what ways is “science our myth”?

3. Guide Question • In what ways are feminism and science both myths?

4. Guide Questions • Does Haraway mean to say that there is no such thing as a “fact” or “truth”? • Does Haraway contend that science and politics are one and the same thing?

5. Guide Question • Describe Washburn’s “patrilineal primatology.”

6. Fathers-1 • Who was the “father” and what was the “Man-the-Hunter” hypothesis?

7. Guide Question • How was the Man-the-Hunter hypothesis modified by Washburn’s daughters (Jay/Dolhinow, DeVore, Ripley, Hrdy, Bogess)?

8. Fathers • Compare and contrast Jay’s and Devore’s works

9. Fathers • What story could not be accounted for by both Jay and Devore? • Did Jay’s story radically rework Washburn’s patrilineal narrative?

10. Fathers • How did Hrdy’s narrative constitute a rebellion from the patrilineal narrative?

11. Guide Question • Why is Haraway highly critical of Hrdy’s remark that: “Anyone heroic enough to read on to the end of the book will learn why the identification of langurs with warriors was an appropriate taxonomic choice, & why the final salute must be to the prescience of the 19th C British naturalists who first went to study the Hanuman”? (100)

12. Daughters • In what ways were Hrdy’s theories like soap operas?

13. Daughters • What was Ripley’s emphasis on?

14. Final Question • Why are categories of health and pathology important to Bogess?

15. Guide Question • What are Haraway’s concluding remarks?

16. Final Question • Can you think of other instances in which new scientific stories, implicating gender and/or race and class, have been revised? • (E.g., the story of fertilization; a feminist critique of the story of sex)