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

"Right. So my father's nipples, I haven't seen them very often, but I know he has them. Now, my father's nipples, I don't think of as exactly vestigial necessarily. There are actually some human communities that let babies sort of suckle, mostly as a pacifier, on a male chest."
There's such an odd, coy thing going on here: where she highlights the fact that she has hardly ever even seen her own father's nipples, but tries to cooly suggest also that there'd be nothing unremarkable about her having been suckled on them.
At the same time, knowing and not knowing that sucking a man's nipples is a sexual activity. Hiding in plain sight.

Glad I found this thread. I am currently listening to Eve on audiobook and have reached the part of TWAW as shared in the photo earlier. Could not believe what I was hearing and was so surprised I googled the author's name and trans. I feel utterly betrayed. How can someone who has so closely studied female XX bodies then say it doesn't matter if the genitals don't match. Brains can do anything, apparently, but what about what she's just said about girlhood making a woman and women remembering a moment where men started to notice them? That doesn't compute - a transwoman won't have had that experience because the body is male, not female.
I'm not sure which would be worse: does she genuinely believe what she's writing in which case WTF just HOW or is this in there from a desire not to be accused of transphobia and be cancelled.

I'm not sure which would be worse: does she genuinely believe what she's writing in which case WTF just HOW or is this in there from a desire not to be accused of transphobia and be cancelled

I wondered the same

I think the latter. I mentioned Unwell Women earlier as an example of a similar-ish book I've read that seemed to have shoehorned in a bit about trans people.
Remember junior Bloomsbury staff trying to tyrannise the company in protest about them publishing JK Rowling? And authors like Rachel Rooney, forced out of their careers because some idiots in publishing decided they were 'transphobes'?

Even Gina Rippon's Gendered Brain has about a page and a half towards the end that feels like a disclaimer shoehorned in by the publisher. Neither the tone nor content match the rest of the book at all. Chaper after chapter of detailed research analysis, followed.by a '<shrug> we don't really know'.

Argh flip it's happening again - my reading list has been infiltrated! Who are these "birthing people" if not women?!

Ludicrous. I've had it up to here with intelligent, educated writers who are too cowardly to take a stand against this nonsense. Why call a book "Matrescence" - which means "transition to motherhood" - if you're going to come up with crap like this? At least be consistent and call it "Transition to parenthood for people with vaginas".

Perhaps, the author is referring to people who are with the women giving birth?

....

How did that straw get in my hand?

Oh that's particularly ridiculous. One single use in a whole paragraph of women women women is just going piss off both sides.

What is "hiding in plain sight" precisely? Are you suggesting the author is a paedophile?

I wonder if the sensitivity readers, aka censors, who have become both entrenched and powerful in the publishing industry, now force the inclusion of these terrible arguments?

I mean, as most of you have said, these books come out with some really interesting research etc. A few lines or a nod to the "men are women" thing usually blows the whole thing apart.

So, I wonder if it more a case of "you need to include this in order to publish" rather than a firm belief of the authors?

For example, I know an editor for one of the big publishers who does science books. He is so caught up in not being modern that he has lost all critical thinking skills. His positions on trans are massively enhanced by his Tesla driving, very white, and very privileged, 17 year old son, who claims that he is now a she, and is therefore the worst off in the world.

His dad gets to make very important decisions about the books that we will read.

Eh? Whatever gave you that idea FreedomDogs? In this instance the author IS the child, so "Are you suggesting the author has an Elektra complex" might be a more logical question.

Anyway, I think the wider point LilyBartsHatShop may be touching on here is that Cat Bohannon is a good writer but a poor scientist. She uses click-baity techniques such as sex and outrage to write engaging copy, which often masks muddled or spurious arguments. For example, she flirts with the reader when recounting how she was once offered work as an escort: on the one hand telling us she was shocked, whilst on the other, gratuitously boasting how desirable she is. I couldn't quite see the point she was trying to make with this autobiographical vignette, or if she even had a point to make. Research papers in science journals don't divulge the sexiness of their author. It's fine for popular science writers to employ titillation, humour and shock-value to help elucidate a complex argument, but Cat Bohannon sometimes seems just to enjoy provoking the reader.

I think it's definitely a sop to those ready and waiting to pounce on 'transphobia', absolutely. I think a lot of the posts here are saying that.
Many of these books have reams of good, robust, properly sourced science, and then a token paragraph or two of TWAW twaddle that looks to my eye at least to have been shoehorned in.

This response does not even start to explain exactly what is supposedly "hiding in plain sight".

I had the same kind of judder reading "Vagina Obscura" when I hit the chapter which is based on an interview with the surgeon Marci Bowers who performs trans surgery. The rest of the book celebrates the unique and remarkable internal and internal structures of the vagina and vulva and their functional complexity. Bowers contradicts the rest of the book by dismissing functionality and claiming that the structures in men and women are pretty much the same.

Bowers' views are reported in exactly the same celebratory style as the rest of the book and no questions are asked about the contrast with what the other scientists said. As if the author hoped no-one would notice.

I've just started reading this book, and hope it will be interesting. But I'm already repulsed by the apologia for transgenderism, which starts with a completely pointless paragraph on the second page. I realise she might have been forced to include it. It really doesn't seem to fit with the flow.

Just a great big NO from me. I put the book down and walked away. I will not put up with that shit, fed to women.

The author compares those men who go through a regimen of "hormone treatments, endless nipple tweaking [bleaugh], and mechanical suckling [uuugghh]" yet are still unable to lactate, to postpartum women who fail to breastfeed their babies after birth.

It's not the same, at all!