Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong—and the New Research That's Rewriting the Story

by Angela Saini

The August 1978 issue of Playboy magazine carried a sensational story. “Do Men Need to Cheat on Their Women? A New Science Says Yes,” boasted the cover. The photograph next to the provocative headline coincidentally featured a model in white suspenders and strappy heels for an item on sexy secretaries. Her pad and pen were carelessly tossed to the floor while she stood pressed against her boss. The publication of Robert Trivers’s paper marked a watershed not only in the way scientists understood sexual behavior but also in how the everyday woman and man in the street understood it. Sexual selection theory, revamped for the twentieth century, rapidly became a tool to explain women’s and men’s relationship habits.

Trivers has most definitely cheated