Natalie Angier - Woman: an intimate geography (1999)

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I believe that we can learn from other species, and from our pasts, and from our parts.... My book sets out to tackle the question 'What makes a woman'. I hope simply to show how the body is part of the answer, is a map to meaning and freedom.

Natalie Angier
Giving a girl the impression that girlhood is an extended bounce on Barney's knee is like prepping a young gazelle for life on the Serengeti by dipping it in cream.

Natalie Angier
What is wrong with looking muscular? Muscles are beautiful. Strength is beautiful. Muscle tissue is beautiful. It is metabolically, medically, and philosophically beautiful. Muscles retreat when they're not used, but they will always come back if you give them good reason. No matter how old you get, your muscles never lose hope. Few cells of the body are as capable as muscle cells are of change and reformation, of achievement and transcendence.

Natalie Angier
Women never bought Freud's idea of penis envy: who would want a shotgun when you can have an automatic?

Natalie Angier
Eternal love is a myth, but we make our myths, and we love them to death.

Natalie Angier
The mere ability to replicate is hardly cause for a standing ovation. Bacteria will double their number every twenty minutes. Many cancer cells can divide in a dish for years after their founder tumors have killed the patient. Perhaps eggs are like neurons, which also are not replenished in adulthood: they know too much.

Natalie Angier
The acidity of the vagina in health is just about that of a glass of red wine. This is the vagina that sings; this is the vagina with bouquet, with legs.

Natalie Angier
Perhaps eggs are like neurons, which also are not replenished in adulthood: they know too much. Eggs must plan the party. Sperm need only to show up — wearing top hat and tails, of course.

Natalie Angier
If you are or ever have been a girl, you know that girls are aggressive. This is news the way the Code of Hammurabi is news.

Natalie Angier
If the link between testosterone and aggressive or dominant behavior in men is a mess, that for women is the floor under your refrigerator: you don't want to think about it.

Natalie Angier