‘NEW DARWIN’ WHO SAYS THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION IS SEXIST
When asked to define what a woman is, many people, including UK Labour leader Keir Starmer, opine that it is possible for a woman to have a penis. We certainly didn’t learn that in my school biology class, but since we’re living in a bizarre culture where this view has many supporters across all sectors, it’s instructive to study this book about half of humankind – and her all-important biology.
Mind you, it must be admitted from the outset that the author, a PhD, is (to this oldschool feminist) puzzlingly liberal on trans issues, as you might expect from an American academic. No matter – she tells an exhilarating evolutionary story, as prodigiously researched as it is entertainingly written. Move over, Darwin, make space for Cat Bohannon.
Subtitled, How The Female Body Drove 200 Million
Years Of Human Evolution, Bohannna’s blend of history, analysis, anecdote and provocative opinion explains the specific science behind the development of the female sex: wombs, ovaries, hormones, breasts and all the complex biological accoutrements which add up to womanhood.
Poor old Eve. She was nothing but a man’s rib, a kind of afterthought by God, to give that lonely First Bloke company and copulation in Eden. After that it was our first mother’s fate to get it in the neck from the Church fathers for tempting Adam with that apple. Her punishment was to suffer horribly in childbirth – a fate which incalculable numbers of women inherited.
But never mind all that Biblical stuff, Bohannon wants to set the record straight, and steer our minds away from ‘the clever ape – always male’ and focus on the generations of ‘Eves’ who made women what we are. Not that you would recognise yourself in her female examples throughout Millennia. For example, ‘Morgie’ is little Morganucodon, a rodent-like creature who lived 205 million years ago and fed her young with breast milk. Then, 150 million years later, a mammal affectionately called ‘Donna’ (Protungulatum donnae) carried her young inside her body. So the long journey through evolution proceeds. ‘Eve’ doesn’t reach Homo Sapiens until towards the final chapter called (significantly) ‘Love’.
Why does Bohannon feel a need to trace ‘femaleness’ so far back? To answer questions that underlie perennial modern discussions and disagreements. Questions like: why do women live longer than men? Why do girls score better at every academic subject than boys until puberty? Is evolution inherently sexist? Do doctors understand women’s bodies? Do men and women have different brains?
The answer to that is… yes and no, because, ‘It takes a whole girlhood in a sexist environment to build a brain like that’. (Which is precisely, importantly, why many of us say a man cannot think himself into being an actual woman.)
Bohannon will annoy some people, challenge some preconceptions but her book will fascinate those who are proud that we hold up half the sky.
‘She focuses on the generations of Eves who made women what we are’