Woman: An Intimate Geography

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Despite scientific evidence to the contrary, as far as the health care profession is concerned the standard operating design of the human body is male. So when a book comes along as beautifully written and endlessly informative as Natalie Angier's Woman: An Intimate Geography, it's a cause for major celebration. Written with whimsy and eloquence, her investigation into female physiology draws its inspiration not only from scientific and medical sources but also from mythology, history, art, and literature, layering biological factoids with her own personal encounters and arcane anecdotes from the history of science. Who knew, for example, that the clitoris--with 8,000 nerve fibers--packs double the pleasure of the penis; that the gene controlling cellular sensitivity to male androgens, ironically enough, resides on the X-chromosome; or that stress hormones like cortisol and corticosterone are the true precursors of friendship?

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
If the clothes make the man, as the cliché goes, what makes the woman? Pulitzer Prize-winning Natalie Angier will tell you in her revolutionary new book, Woman: An Intimate Geography. Breathtaking in its scope and depth, this book by the New York Times Science writer offers meditative and informative essays which champion the "fantasia of the female body and mind," exploring every element of what it means to be a woman.

Angier takes us on a tour of the female body, beginning with the egg, the largest cell in the body at a mere tenth of a millimeter in diameter — a cell she actually gets to see with her own eyes while witnessing an egg donor in action at New York's Mount Sinai School of Medicine. From there, she dives into the gene pool to swim to the source of femaleness, the X-chromosome, and introduces Jane Carden, a woman born with Y-chromosomes embedded in some of her genes. Due to a mutation called androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS), Carden's body ignored the male chromosome, and instead "chose to go girl," though she lacks a uterus, fallopian tubes, a cervix, and inner labia. She had testes in her abdominal cavity, which were removed soon after she was born (they were herniated). Despite these factors, "with her breasts and rounded hips and comparatively slender neck, she can't help but strike the world as a woman."

The story of Jane Carden is not only a riveting case study but also serves to demonstrate the abundance of Angier's knowledge and her keen ability to translate bio-talk into laywoman's terms. Some of this can be attributed toAngier'sthorough research, for she turns to science and medicine to "sketch a working map of the parts that we call female"; Darwin and evolutionary theory to "thrash out the origins of our intimate geography"; and history, art, and literature for insight. But what ultimately distinguishes Woman from other books of its kind is its highly personal and personable narrative voice, which interweaves Angier's quirky humor, undeniable enthusiasm for the subject (she brags about being "a female chauvinist"), and poet's ear for language.

Whether Angier is extolling the virtues of the clitoris, a pleasure-only zone with its 8,000 nerve fibers; probing the vagina ("a Rorschach with legs"); likening the uterus to a muscle hero sandwich and the cervix's appearance to a glazed doughnut; or mocking Western culture's fetishization of women's breasts, she does not compromise subject for humor, nor does she lose focus. She broadens her discussion to include menopause and exercise; claim aggression, fury, and strength as female traits; and confront evolutionary psychologists' theories about the nature of orgasms, maternal love, and female competition, constructing her own theories in the process.

While Angier presumes a female readership, whom she refers to as gals ("I keep thinking, against all evidence, that [this word] is on the verge of coming back into style"), Woman: An Intimate Geography is an important book that should be read by men and women alike. Delivered with authority, brio, and witty irreverence, Angier's book is a crucial and distinctive addition to feminist literature, destined to become a classic alongside Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex, Adrienne Rich's Of Woman Born, the Boston Women's Health Collective's Our Bodies, Ourselves, Kate Millett's Sexual Politics, and Susan Faludi's Backlash.
— Kera Bolonik

ANNOTATION

1999 National Book Award nominee for Nonfiction.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Natalie Angier lifts the veil of secrecy from that most enigmatic of evolutionary masterpieces, the female body, exploring the essence of what it means to be a woman. Angier takes on everything from organs (breasts "are funny things, really, and we should learn to laugh at them") to orgasm (happily for women, the clitoris has 8,000 nerve fibers, twice the number in the penis). Also delving into topics such as exercise and menopause, female aggression and evolutionary psychologists' faddish views of "female nature," she creates a joyful, fresh vision of womanhood.

FROM THE CRITICS

Newsweek

To proponents of the view that it is men's biological nature to be promiscuous, and women's to be coy...scientists are now offering an alternative explanation, as Pulitzer Prize winner Natalie Angier details in her new book, WOMAN....Neither a guide to women's health nor another tiresome tour through male/female differences, WOMAN is a treasure chest of did-you-knows. Angier targets other sexual myths -- like one linking testosterone and aggression -- and hits a bulls-eye every time.

Ms

O joy, O rapture unforeseen! Natalie Angier's fascinating book about the female body is a hilarious romp through, well, our innards. In a deliciously irreverent, energetic, and clear writing style, she demystifies and de-mythicizes women's anatomy and biological workings. Along the way, Angier leaves no metaphor unexplored....She reveals the mysterious universe of women's bodies for even the most scientifically impaired souls. Like the evolution she describes, Angier is self-selecting in what she writes about, but her passion for what make us gals tick is infectious. Her explanation of chromosomes veritably sings. Woman: An Intimate Geography will leave the reader, male or female, in sheer awe of the complexity and power of women's bodies.

Jane Magazine

I've never read a book like this before. Natalie Angier takes the reader through a multifaceted exploration of women's bodies in an ornate, sometimes irreverent manner. This book is fascinating.

Maggie Jones - Salon

Simone de Beauvoir probably would have agreed with Natalie Angier's theory of feminism -- with one exception. De Beauvoir believed women were the biological runners-up in the gender wars; Angier, the stylish, Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer for the New York Times, takes the contrary view. In Woman: An Intimate Geography, she argues that women's bodies are complex, versatile and powerful, and that they often surpass men's. To prove her point, she takes us on a tantalizing, witty journey through female biology, debunking many entrenched stereotypes and myths and a lot of questionable science.

Equipped with an eye for detail and a sure grasp of science, Angier maps the female body -- eggs, uterus, breasts, hormones, brain -- enlisting a remarkable array of studies and little-known facts, as well as examples from history and literature, to offer a feminist take on biology. She explains, for instance, that the clitoris has 8,000 nerve endings, twice as many as the penis. "All this," she gloats, "and to no greater purpose than to subserve a woman's pleasure. In the clitoris alone we see a sexual organ so pure of purpose that it needn't moonlight as a secretory or excretory device." She details the power of estrogen on the brain and heart and the complexity of the female chromosome, which boasts thousands of genes, compared to the male counterpart's puny two dozen.

Though Angier toys with some fringe theories about women's biology, including one that suggests female orgasms enhance fecundity, she saves her most trenchant arguments for the evolutionary psychologists, offering a refreshing rebuttal to the gender stereotyping of Robert Wright (The Moral Animal) and David Buss (The Evolution of Desire). Women, these writers believe, are innately less interested in sex, less aggressive and more invested in relationships than men are. Angier unearths numerous exceptions and alternative explanations. DNA studies, for example, show that female chimpanzees risk "life and limb" and the lives of their offspring to cheat on their possessive mates. And if women have lower sex drives than men, Angier argues, you can't blame biology: Cultural mores across the centuries have punished women for their carnal interest.

Unfortunately, Angier has a propensity to engage in cheerleading about everything female, and the result can be sisterhood mush. In a chapter on menstruation, she implores women to celebrate this rite of passage together: "When your daughter or niece or younger sister runs to you and crows, 'It's here!' take her out for a bowl of ice cream or a piece of chocolate cake, and raise a glass of milk to the new life that begins with blood." Moments like this make you wonder whether you're reading an early edition of Our Bodies, Ourselves.

Still, this is a minor quibble about a meaty book. Angier challenges readers to question assumptions about women's bodies and minds. She prods us to understand biology as a feminist tool. And her book provides the analysis and the ammunition with which to do just that.

BUST Magazine