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.

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

Education edit

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 edit

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 edit

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 edit

  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.