The Bonobo Sisterhood: Revolution Through Female Alliance

Rosenfeld, founding director of the Gender Violence Program at Harvard Law School, debuts with an innovative yet underdeveloped analysis of the legal and social structures that enable gender-based violence and how to overcome them. Tracing the roots of gender inequality to the “patriarchal order,” she uses the example of the bonobo, a species of great ape with whom humans share 98.7% of their DNA, as an alternative model. Bonobo society, Rosenfeld explains, is peaceful and egalitarian, with females banding together to protect each other in the rare instance of male aggression. In human society, however, male alliances are prioritized, resulting in a system that fails to protect women. For example, Rosenfeld details Supreme Court decisions prohibiting Congress from “giv[ing] women a civil right to be free from gender-based violence” and dismissing a woman’s lawsuit against a police department for failing to enforce a restraining order against her estranged husband—who kidnapped and murdered their three daughters. Through these and other harrowing stories, Rosenfeld builds a persuasive case that the law is slanted against women, but her call for women to “Be Bonobo!” and form alliances to protect themselves, foster self-worth, and fight misogyny fails to fully reckon with the social forces at play. This well-intentioned call for change falls short. Agent: Gail Ross, Ross Yoon Agency. (Sept.)