Eve: a new book about female evolutionary biology

[RoyalCorgi]

This new book looks so promising. It's by an American writer called Cat Bohannon, and it's about the evolutionary history of female biology and all the unique ways in which women's bodies have evolved. To quote from the Guardian review: "Over hundreds of thousands of years, women have developed more sensitive noses (particularly around ovulation and pregnancy), finer hearing at high frequencies, extended colour vision, and longer life expectancy than men by an impressive half decade."

Bohannon seems impressive too. Again, from the review "Bohannon calls on her astounding disciplinary range to tell this epic tale. Her writing ripples with references from literature, film studies, biochemistry, cognitive science and anthropology."

Sounds great, doesn't it? Exactly the kind of book I would love reading. At this point in the review I was ready to rush out and buy it. And then there was this:

"She is bold when speaking against abortion restrictions, the gender wage gap, sex essentialism (“it’s clear that trans women are women”) and chastity laws."

Ah yes. It's a book about all the biological differences between men and women that have evolved over millions of years - but apparently it's "clear" that trans women are women. How is it clear that some men are actually women? How does that work? Any explanation? Because it's not clear to me.

I don't know about anyone else, but I feel I'm at the point where I can no longer stand the stupidity. How does someone who, according to the review, knows about biochemistry, literature, film studies and anthropology come to the moronic conclusion that men can be women? Just how is it possible to make an assertion that dim - an assertion that undermines all your own research, which has probably taken you years? Is it really the case someone this knowledgeable and intelligent is so in thrall to fashion that she is prepared to make a statement that is utterly, ludicrously moronic? Does she have no thought about her professional reputation?

[[https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/oct/10/eve-how-female-body-drove-200-million-years-of-human-evolution-by-cat-bohannon-review

How to dismantle an entire ideology with one question.

Chapeau.

You're right it's totally fucking outrageous and thank you to several of you for pointing out that it is in even more ways than I had initially noticed. It's not worthy of the rest of her writing. Made me reconsider an odd passage at the start of the chapter, uploaded below. Now I'm wondering if this is an admission - that she knows it's not right, and has exaggerated the awfulness of the writing so that nobody could take it seriously?

As EveDeservesBetter, the text from the start is littered with tiny repugnant references to cisgender and the like, but they didn't "obscure the science" until the Brain chapter.

Wonder if you can get a samizdat uncensored version on the black market, smuggled out sewn into the lining of clothes like Solzhenitsyn and bibles in the USSR. Biology of women is clearly such a dangerous idea... What a damning indictment of US academia

The Kindle sample linked to above starts so well, then gets to this gem in the discussion about women’s exclusion from clinical trials… 🤯

I just don't trust authors who do this, in books that otherwise seem interesting and valuable. I don't want to give them my money and to be honest, my eyes roll and I feel contemptuous. It's academic dishonesty or else in some circumstances lack of thinking; neither of which encourage me to read your work.

For a similar example, last year I was flicking through Rebekka Endler's 'Patriarchy of things: a world made by men for men'. At the time, there was no English translation; not sure now; the book is originally German, in the same genre as Criado Perez's 'Invisible women'.

The author talked about 'cis women' and 'cis men' in a section dealing with medical research, guidance and tools. If something is set up for men, it is set up for males: the effect is the same for the female patient whether the patient considers herself a woman, non-binary, or even identifies as a man, since it is still not calibrated for her female body. There may be at times effects for those who are or have taken cross-sex hormones, but that's a whole other thing.

Apart from anything else, I can't be doing with any book, however scientific, where the footnotes take up almost half the page.

These few batshit paragraphs are not only disappointing but undermine everything else she says. If she can be so wrong about this fundamental issue, how can we trust she is right about anything else?

Yup.

"She is bold when speaking against abortion restrictions, the gender wage gap, sex essentialism (“it’s clear that trans women are women”) and chastity laws."

Wow, how bold and freethinking! I bet she thinks cancer is bad and kittens are adorable like the lone wolf maverick she is.

(Sorry women who present the most basic socially acceptable opinions and behaviours as rebellious and groundbreaking are cringe. Like when 20 year old pop stars subversively decide to break boundaries and express their true inner artist by posing naked .)

She’s a handmaiden for the patriarchy and won’t be seeing a penny of my money. And I am absolutely the target audience for this and would have bought it otherwise.

I loved Invisible Women - what an eye-opener!
I had to give up reading (M)otherhood On the choices of being a woman by Pragya Agarwal (luckily a library book!) because of the constant references to the trans brigade. Can anyone recommend any books about women which don't pander to transgenderism please?
Has anyone read Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner? Is that worth buying?
I was given Normal Women by Philippa Gregory for xmas - am I in for any nasty "cisgender" shocks with that one, does anyone know?

I love books with massive footnotes - if done well. It's rather how my brain works:

'Here's the [1] main [2] interesting [3] thing [4], [5].'

1 Really, 'a' rather than "the' - here are another 6 you can look up.
2 And here are 5 more subsidiary points.
3 Although if looked at from this point of view something else entirely stands out.
4 Of course this sentence is about 'things', but there are also a lot of interesting non-tangible ideas, such as...
5 Which is why I spend my life down Google rabbit holes, and can't watch a lightweight 19th century detective drama without wanting to look up the Austro-Hungarian compromise, the physics of unicycles, the history of the waltz, 19th century dyeing techniques, the difference between caplock and needlepoint firing mechanisms, and when tarsiers were discovered.

But it has to be done right.

Oliver Sacks is a great example. You can read the book without going near the footnotes, and get lots of fascinating stories of people he treated. Or you can read it with the footnotes and find out about other research on the condition, history of its discovery, examples of other people who had it ...

This reminds me of reading The Leviathan at university. We were not required to read the last part. We only had to read parts one and two. The professor explained that only parts one and two had intellectual merit. Parts three and four were a bunch of guff about Christianity to keep Hobbes out of trouble with the authorities.

Seems we have existed the enlightenment.

I looked at Femina, can't remember the author, in a bookshop. I didn't have reading glasses but by squinting could see references to transgender in the index. I meant to find out a bit more or go back with specs before buying it. Can anyone recommend that?

the only author with footnotes I want to read are Terry Pratchett's.

And the HUGE logical fail with conflating DSDs with trans- is that practically 100% of trans do not have a DSD , and people with DSDs (which are sex related) have asked not to be used as some sort of gotcha in this debate.

Do you mean Vienna Blood? I watched it and went down a similar rabbit hole looking up Vienna's massive Ferris wheel.

Sorry to derail, everyone.

I did.

It's good, innit? (in a nonsense way). Apparently there's a new season coming <<crosses fingers>>

Is there? Splendid.

Is Pragya Agarwal the one who says in her book it’s easy to get pregnant but difficult to be a mother; and had used a surrogate? Or was that one a different book about motherhood published in the last couple of years?

I’ve read Katrine Marcal’s more recent book Mother of Invention, but not the Adam Smith one. It’s got a lot of interesting info and also some theories I didn’t agree with.

The Cost of Sexism by Linda Scott is good.

I've read half of Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner and it's v good.

It also came out before every mention of women had to mention trans women so it just gets on with it.

I was so excited about this book and luckily borrowed it from the library. I say luckily as I am so glad I didn’t give her any money for this drivel. It started out so promising, but like previous posters mentioned she shoehorns the trans issue in at every opportunity. I kept trying to overlook it, but oddly enough what finally did me in was the bit where she stated that humans have definitely only been in North America for 12,000 years (there’s lots of evidence that this Is not the case at all, pointing at a much earlier presence. I’m an archaeology/anthropology lover so this really jumped out at me). I returned the book before finishing it.

The commemnts are like swiss cheese and aer now closed.

Meanwhile, here's the most read article:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/jan/11/why-are-so-many-women-dying-during-pregnancy-and-what-can-be-done

You couldn't make it up.

This makes me so angry. The cowardice. The grotesque, fawning, deceitful fucking cowardice. It’s a violation, an affront on true academic research. To write a book like this, called Eve, and to then maintain that men are women, without a moment of reflection that that Big Lie befouls the entire premise.

What fucked up times. I’m so grateful for your voices on this board.

Thanks LoobiJee have added Cost of Sexism to basket (and have also purchased a Kathleen Stock to assauge my guilt at having recommended Eve to people!). Yes Pragya Agarwal did use a surrogate.

Oh no Crazycanuck I'm so disappointed to hear there are basic factual errors unrelated to gender theory. I'm not knowledgeable enough on any biological or archeological topic to know. I somewhat put my trust in publishers and broadsheet reviewers! I've had a cursory glance about wikipedia and have already found how outdated the "Clovis First" hypothesis is. So are Cat Bohannon and her editors just really bad at basic research and fact-checking, or do you happen to know if there is some woke or vogueish reason for the error? Not sure which is worse, but will affect what pinches of salt I will take all other of the book's assertions with.

Do It To Julia, this sounds a lot like..