SISTERS OF THE JUNGLE

In search of primates.

Primatologist McGoogan interweaves memoir and biography, focusing on the life and work of seven groundbreaking scientists, among them Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, Birutė Galdikas, and Alison Jolly. These researchers, along with Linda Fedigan, Jeanne Altmann, and Sarah Hrdy, have changed the way we understand primates, our closest biological relatives, of which there are about 500 species worldwide. McGoogan sets her lively portraits in the context of an overriding question: Why, of all the STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) subjects, is primatology the only one in which women predominate? That question occupied her mentor, Fedigan, too, who suggested that female scientists may be drawn to a field that focuses on an understanding of what it means to be human. Certainly primatology gives investigators a close look at behaviors such as mothering, sexual relations, competition, feeding, and group dynamics. But the work is challenging, involving rigorous fieldwork in tropical climates, where researchers risk disease (McGoogan contracted malaria, as did others), injury, violence, and, in Fossey’s case, murder. As a primatologist who studied howler monkeys in Belize and lemurs in Madagascar, the author admits that although it’s satisfying, “fieldwork often combines the magical with the maddening.” Drawing on memoirs, biographies, and interviews, McGoogan recounts the highlights of her subjects’ careers, which, in several cases, included significant help from famed paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey, who championed women’s projects. Many of the scientists were inspired by other female researchers, whom they saw as role models—as does the author. Although McGoogan discovered no single answer to why women have been drawn to primatology in the first place, it’s more important, she asserts, to acknowledge the ways that their discoveries and insights have decisively shaped the discipline as we know it today.

Engaging portraits of intrepid women.