The culture wars have now fully consumed the issue of sex and gender, placing the biological sciences at the front lines, an uncomfortable place for a scientific discipline. However, a new science of sex and gender is beginning to emerge based on the profound realization that even concepts as seemingly simple as maleness and femaleness can elude simple definitions. Sex and gender are not always neatly coupled; many species harbor distinct types of males and females with striking morphological and behavioral distinctiveness; and the vast majority of sexual dimorphisms display bimodal, not binary distributions. As these instances of nonconformance with simplistic expectations accumulate, the validity of simple gender and sex categories is called into question. Led by Penn Professor Mallika Sarma, evolutionary anthropologist Agustín Fuentes and evolutionary biologist Nathan H. Lents explore these topics in regards to both animals and humans and present a new framework for understanding and exploring the natural diversity of sexed bodies and gendered behaviors. 

Agustín Fuentes is Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University and the author of Race, Monogamy, and Other Lies They Told You, Why We Believe: Evolution and the Human Way of Being, and the forthcoming: Sex is a Spectrum: The Biological Limits of the Binary. 

Nathan H. Lents is Professor of Biology at John Jay College and the author of Human Errors, Not So Different: Finding Human Nature in Animals, and the newly released The Sexual Evolution: How 500 Million Years of Sex, Gender, and Mating Shape Modern Relationships.

Mallika S. Sarma is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania and Director of the Health and BioBehavior Lab

Light refreshments will be served afterwards in the anthro commons.