Like most historical narratives, evolution is one in which the female body has often been systematically left out, overlooked. In fact, scientific and medical research on the whole has largely neglected the value of digging deep when it comes to female biology.
Against the backdrop of the so-called ‘male norm', our hormonal cycles and complex bodily processes have been regarded as a nuisance, an obstruction to clean, simple scientific conclusions—the kind that earns white men in lab coats prestigious awards and accolades.
The upshot is that we live in a world where shockingly little is known about the physiology of roughly half the human population, as everything from seatbelts to everyday medications often remain exclusively tested on male bodies.
When researcher and author Cat Bohannon began writing her debut book Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution, her aim was to place women at the center of evolution. In tracing the narratives ingrained in our very bodies, the exercise, in effect, involved rewriting the history of humanity—this time, through the female gaze.
In speculating the mysteries of menopause or contemplating breasts as sophisticated channels of communication, she fills significant gaps and asks the long overlooked question: what’s different about the female body—and why should we care?
In its pages, Cat takes readers through deep time, weaving together various disciplines—from archeology to paleontology and evolutionary biology—so that we might place ourselves in the dim caves and lush forests of distant ancestors as new evolutionary features come into expression.
Here, Cat introduces us to our predecessors—a cast of ancestral ‘Eves’—who defied the odds of survival, and whose evolutionary fingerprints linger in the contemporary marvels of the female body.
Hot off the heels of the book’s release (it’s already a New York Times bestseller), we had the joy of rehashing a few of the incredible things we learned while reading Eve with the author herself.
Women Are More Than Baby-Making Machines, Obviously
In the decade of research that went into writing her book, it’s no surprise Cat came up against some big evolutionary myths. Even less surprising is that, chief among them, is the “the idea that everything in a female body is geared towards reproduction,” says Cat.
Science, unfortunately, isn’t immune to the gendered social scripts that insinuate women as biologically destined to be mothers. Though evolution is, quite literally, about reproduction, Cat pushes back against notions of biological determinism. “There are many diverse roles in various species’ social environments that have to do [with] more than just baby-making,” she says.
In fact, Cat posits that, overall, humans are actually pretty terrible at making babies. “There’s [the] important concept of maternal fetal conflict: that the fetus long evolves to get as many resources as it can, and the mother’s body long evolves to not simply reproduce itself, but to survive,” explains Cat.
It’s a once controversial concept that defies cultural ideals. “It just goes against that story we tell about what females are for and, frankly, what women are for, and that we’re supposed to just really love this whole baby-making thing,” says Cat.
Far from warm and hospitable, Cat encourages us to think of the uterus as a battle ground—“an environment in which a conflict is taking place between the mother’s body and the offspring.” While female bodies might not be built to engender pregnancy, they are, amazingly, built to endure it.
Really, it just confirms what we already know: pregnant folks are basically endurance athletes.
Your Junk in the Trunk Is Serving an Evolutionary Function
While we’re on the subject of surviving child-bearing, let’s all take a moment to bid thanks to the extra pounds that tend to cluster on our hips, thighs, and derrières. Incredibly, these pockets of fat are actually an interactive organ made of connective tissue.
“There’s a kind of three-way hotline between most women’s reproductive organs, her body fat, and the pituitary gland at the base of her brain, constantly regulating the shifting balance of her sex hormones,” reads a passage in Eve.
Even more fascinating: these plumper areas play a vital role in providing nutrients to the fetus during pregnancy—like a stockpile of nutrients that can be tapped into in the name of survival.
Thinking of your fat as an organ system strips away at “sexist stories we tell ourselves about our bodies” in a way that’s kind of liberating, says Cat. That said, she’s still quick to stipulate that though “the fat part of our butts may well have evolved to help make babies, that does not mean it’s our destiny.”
Next time you’re struggling to button your jeans, just remember: this important fatty tissue also plays a role in regulating your metabolism and central nervous system.
Boobs Are Even More Incredible Than We Thought
Boobs are wonderful. They grow, shrink, and change shape—often just in the span of a single hormonal cycle. They lactate during child-rearing and keep babies alive and thriving. They also happen to look great in a plunging neckline—what more can we say?
If that weren’t enough, feel free to confidently add “communication pathway” to your breasts’ already lofty resume. “We think communication is all about our faces and vocalizations,” says Cat, “but there are biochemical pathways that are communicative between this baby latching to your chest and your own immune system.”
What Cat’s referring to is the transmission of information that occurs when a baby’s saliva—packed with data on nutrient levels and antibodies—is absorbed by the mother’s body during breastfeeding. In a process that Cat describes as both “creepy and awesome,” the baby’s spit is up-sucked into the breast, changing the content of the milk.
In other words, breast milk isn’t just made by mothers for babies, rather it’s a co-produced biological product. But, again, that doesn’t mean breastfeeding is for everyone. “I had a very intimate relationship with my breast pump,” says Cat. “It took a while for the spit to be making its way.”
Aging Is a Human Success Story—but Our Ovaries Might Still Be Catching Up
Remember that hotline between your reproductive organs, body fat, and pituitary gland that regulates sex hormones? It seemingly knows no bounds—“there’s no part of the human body that sex hormones don’t touch,” writes Cat in Eve. “That’s why a woman can experience all of these seemingly disconnected symptoms during menopause.”
The list of perimenopause symptoms is at 34—and ever-growing, but “it’s not an endless penance for having once been fertile, but a transition,” stresses Cat. As your body unlearns a pattern it’s been trained to respond to since puberty, perimenopause and menopause is a process of relearning.
The fact that we continue to live, on average, a third of our lives after our ovaries have turned out the lights is, however, nothing short of an evolutionary feat. “So, in other words, menopause is a longevity story more than it is about that you’ve stopped making babies,” according to Cat.
“It may be the case that in deep time, our ancestors—our Eves—mutated towards having a longer lifespan in both males and females,” she says. “In other words, we mutated to have elderly, but the ovaries may not have gotten the message.”
Turns out, there are also evolutionary benefits to having communities made up of middle-aged and elderly folks—which is precisely why our ancestors may have selected for longevity. “Their contribution to the community is probably very much a part of our success story as humanity, and part of how our bodies evolved,” says Cat.
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For Eve’s author, the biology of sex difference is, ultimately, an exercise in better understanding the human body as a whole—including those who exist outside of the binary. Diversity is an evolutionary gift, not a bug. And better understanding the female body means better understanding all bodies.
“We are all individually the best authority on what it’s like to live in our bodies,” says Cat. “I hope that Eve helps give us new ways of describing our authentic experiences in our bodies—and understanding how wide the diversity of humanity is and always has been.”