Table of Contents

Section I: Introduction

Chapter 1: Introduction
Maryanne L. Fisher

Section II: Theory and Overview

Chapter 2: Competition throughout Women's Lives
Bobbi Low

Chapter 3: Sexual Competition Among Women: A Review of the Theory and Supporting Evidence
Steven Arnocky & Tracy Vaillancourt

Chapter 4: Female Intrasexual Competition in Primates: Why Human's Aren't as Progressive as We Think
Nicole Scott

Section III: Social Status and Aggression

Chapter 5: Feminist and Evolutionary Perspectives of Female-Female Competition, Status Seeking, and Social Network Formation
Laurette T. Liesen

Chapter 6: Adolescent Peer Aggression and Female Reproductive Competition
Andrew C. Gallup

Chapter 7: Cooperation Drives Competition among Tsimane Women in the Bolivian Amazon
Stacey L. Rucas

Chapter 8: Competition Between Female Friends
Chenthila Nagamuthu & Elizabeth Page-Gould

Chapter 9: The Element of Surprise: Women of the Dark Triad
P. Lynne Honey

Section IV: Communication and Gossip

Chapter 10: Competitive Communication among Women: The Pretty Prevail by Means of Indirect Aggression
Grace Anderson

Chapter 11: Gossip and Competition among Women: How "The Gossip" Became a Woman and how "Gossip" Became Her Weapon of Choice
Francis T. McAndrew

Chapter 12: Women's Talk? Exploring the Relationship Between Gossip, Sex, Mate Competition, and Mate Poaching
Katelin Sutton & Megan J. Oaten

Chapter 13: Informational Warfare: Coalitional Gossiping as a Strategy for Within-Group Aggression
Nicole H. Hess

Section V: Mate Availability and Mating Relationships

Chapter 14: Do Women Compete for Mates When Men are Scarce? Sex Ratio Imbalances and Women's Mate Competition Cross-Culturally
Emily Stone

Chapter 15: Operational Sex Ratio and Female Competition: Scarcity Breeds Intensity
Haley M. Dillon, Lora E. Adair, & Gary L. Brase

Chapter 16: The Influence of Women's Mate Value on Intrasexual Competition
Maryanne L. Fisher & Ana María Fernández

Chapter 17: Single and Partnered Women: Competing to Obtain and Retain High Quality Men
Gayle Brewer

Chapter 18: I'll Have Who She's Having: Mate Copying, Mate Poaching and Mate Retention
Lora E. Adair, Haley M. Dillon, & Gary L. Brase

Chapter 19: Intrasexual Mate Competition and Breakups: Who Really Wins?
Craig Morris, Melanie L. Beaussart, Chris Reiber, & Linda S. Krajewski

Section VI: Endocrinology and Psychobiological Considerations

Chapter 20: Psychobiological Responses to Competition in Women
Raquel Costa, Miguel A. Serrano, & Alicia Salvador

Chapter 21: The Endocrinology of Female Competition
Kelly Cobey, & Amanda Hahn

Chapter 22: The Effect of Fertility on Women's Intrasexual Competition
Lambrianos Nikiforidis, Ashley Rae Arsena, & Kristina M. Durante

Section VII: Health and Aging

Chapter 23: Social Aggression, Sleep and Wellbeing among Sidama Women of Rural Southwestern Ethiopia
Alissa A. Miller & Stacey L. Rucas

Chapter 24: Is Female Competition at the Heart of Reproductive Suppression and Eating Disorders?
Catherine Salmon

Chapter 25: Moderation of Female-female Competition for Matings by Competitors' Age and Parity
Melanie MacEacheron & Lorne Campbell

Section VIII: Motherhood and Family

Chapter 26: Competitive Motherhood from a Comparative Perspective
Katherine A. Valentine, Norman P. Li, & Jose C. Yong

Chapter 27: Cooperative and Competitive Mothering: From Bonding to Rivalry in the Service of Childrearing
Rosemarie I. Sokol-Chang, Rebecca L. Burch & Maryanne L. Fisher

Chapter 28: Conflicting Tastes: Conflict Between Female Family Members in Choice of Romantic Partners
Leif Edward Ottesen Kennair & Robert Biegler

Chapter 29: Darwinian Perspectives on Women's Progenicide
Alita J. Cousins & Theresa Porter

Section IX: Physical Appearance

Chapter 30: The Causes and Consequences of Women's Competitive Beautification
Danielle J. DelPriore, Marjorie L. Prokosch, & Sarah E. Hill

Chapter 31: Ravishing Rivals: Female Intrasexual Competition and Cosmetic Surgery
Shelli L. Dubbs, Ashleigh J. Kelly, & Fiona Kate Barlow

Chapter 32: Intrasexual Competition Among Beauty Pageant Contestants
Rebecca Shaiber, Laura Johnsen & Glenn Geher

Chapter 33: Fashion as a Set of Signals in Female Intrasexual Competition
Laura Johnsen & Glenn Geher

Section X: Competition in Virtual Contexts

Chapter 34: Female Virtual Intrasexual Competition and its Consequences
Jose C. Yong, Norman P. Li, Katherine A. Valentine, & April R. Smith

Chapter 35: Facebook Frenemies and Selfie-Promotion: Women and Competition in the Digital Age
Amanda E. Guitar & Rachael A. Carmen

Chapter 36: Women's Use of Computer Games to Practice Intrasexual Competition
Tami M. Meredith

Section XI: Competition in Applied Settings

Chapter 37: The Buzz on the Queen Bee and Other Characterizations of Women's Intrasexual Competition at Work
Lucie Kocum, Delphine S. Courvoisier, & Saundra Vernon

Chapter 38: Food as a Means for Female Power Struggles
Charlotte J. S. De Backer, Liselot Hudders, & Maryanne L. Fisher

Chapter 39: Evolution of Artistic and Aesthetic Propensities through Female Competitive Ornamentation
Marco A. C. Varella, Jaroslava Varella Valentová, & Ana María Fernández

Chapter 40: "Playing Like a Girl": Women in Competition in Sport and Physical Activity
Hayley Russell, Julia Dutove, & Lori Dithurbide

Section XII: Conclusion

Chapter 41: Conclusion
Gregory Carter & Maryanne L. Fisher

About the Author

Maryanne L. Fisher is Full Professor in the Department of Psychology at Saint Mary's University in Halifax, Canada, and an Affiliate Faculty member at the Kinsey Institute in Indiana. She is an award-winning educator and has published over 90 journal articles spanning a variety of topics. She recently co-edited Evolution's Empress: Darwinian Perspectives on the Nature of Women for Oxford University Press.

Reviews

"For the rest of this century, at least, no one will be able to write about women and competition without referring to this superb handbook." --Jerome H. Barkow, Emeritus Professor, Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, Dalhousie University
"What a superb book, with articles by everyone from primatologists to evolutionary psychologists to feminists. It's impressively comprehensive too, covering a huge range of subjects-from female mate poaching, exploitation and deception to women's cooperative spirit and more benign tactics to compete. And what a relief: It's honest. It eschews the current appetite to make women victims and instead captures us as we really are-clever, dedicated, sometimes
manipulative and often savvy players in the mating market, with friends, in business and with kin. [The Oxford Handbook of Women and Competition] will live a long time." --Helen Fisher, Senior Research
Fellow, The Kinsey Institute; Research Associate, Department of Anthropology, Center for Human Evolutionary Studies, Rutgers University