Why was sperm competition the focus of the new discovery of widespread multiple mating in females? Why was the equivalent idea for females – cryptic female choice – developed later than sperm competition and met with skepticism by some investigators? This project explores how the international evolutionary research community radically shifted perspectives on the role of females in evolutionary biology. The project aims at understanding the histories, social dynamics and epistemological norms producing this shift in canonical knowledge. I have conducted oral history interviews with researchers in the field.
I have made a cultural cartography of the shifts in views of females – from monogamous to multiple mating, from passive to active – to outline the history of females in sexual selection and how the boundaries of the canonical knowledge was upheld and challenged. I use epistemology of ignorance to understand how and why diverse forms of knowledge have not formed or are ignored or delayed. Boundary-work, a concept from Sociology of Science, is used to investigate the scientific community’s reactions, such as resistance and scepticism, towards new ideas and empirical evidence on the role of females. The project shows how cultural assumptions influence biological research and how culturally induced ignorance of female perspectives can be perpetuated into new research fields.

Malin Ah-King is an Evolutionary Biologist and Associate Professor in Gender Studies at Stockholm University. She has a PhD in Zoology, and has worked with interdisciplinary gender/biology research in different ways, by problematizing notions of biological sex as binary and stable, highlighting gender stereotypes and heteronormative conceptions in theory and research.

I am the only author.