Review of EVE
The evolution of the (human) female body
tl;dr – Great book for science buffs. As someone who reads a lot about evolution given my education, I found this book to offer novel insights with a unique approach to the topic.
I’ll be honest. As one of the first books I picked up to read post-partum I was a bit intimidated given the size of the book. Was it going to be another book I read 10 pages of then never picked up again (like I did too many times to count during pregnancy)? Luckily not because great books command your attention.
I chose this book as one of my firsts to get back into reading because of the topic. I love evolution books, and I also just went through a very female experience: growing two humans, giving birth, and keeping them alive for nearly three months now. And, Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution, by Cat Bohannon, absolutely delivered.
The book takes a unique approach in its set up. Each chapter is dedicated to one key aspect of human evolution – milk, walking, language, etc – with a focus on how sexually dimorphic evolution and female adaptive problems drove the evolution of each of those human traits. The title of the book is so because in each chapter, Bohannon attempts to find the ‘eve’ or the first evolutionary manifestation of each trait in focus. It’s a fantastically original approach to the topic of female evolution.
Of course, the book has specifically female focused chapters, such as ones on lactation and how we humans and other mammals feed their offspring; wombs and placentas, one of three ways in which mammals produce offspring and the most physically demanding and dangerous methods mammals can use; and menopause which is the curious ceasing of our reproductive capacity in the latter part of women’s lives. Other chapters focus on male and female traits, like walking upright, pair-bonding, tool use, etc but Bohannon shows how adaptive problems in our evolutionary history faced by females specifically were a driving force in the trait’s evolution.
I learned a lot in this book, especially in the milk and womb chapters that nicely complemented learnings about mammal evolution from Steve Brusatte’s The Rise and Reign of the Mammals. On these topics Bohannon shines a bright light on just how intense pregnancy is for women and how much genetic conflict arises when gestating another human who is only half (genetically) you. The placenta is a fascinating organ (one that we just spontaneously grow, and in my case, grew two genetically different ones!) that literally creates a fused buffer zone between the fetus and the mother to keep the mother’s body from attacking the genetically distinct fetus.
Other chapters, specifically the menopause and love chapters offered interesting theories for the evolution of menopause and monogamous pair-bonding, respectively. Interestingly, Bohannon rejects the mainstream ‘grandmother hypothesis’ for menopause in favor of a cultural evolutionary one in which grandmothers (and menopause) exist as a necessary midwifery component to childbirth given the inherent dangers of human birth. I’m not sure if I agree with her that the need for midwives drove the evolution of menopause but I liked the novel perspective.
As for why we pair-bond, Bohannon postulates that cooperative culture driven by matriarchy was the ultimate driving force for monogamy, which also helped squash male aggression. Interestingly, she also proposes that women made a ‘devil’s bargain’ over time which changed our cultures from matriarchal to patriarchal ones. Once monogamy and consequent paternity certainty was established, the door was open for father-to-son transfer of status and resources (as opposed to matrilineal transfer). Essentially women gave up power for monogamy, so the argument goes.
These final chapters leave a lot to chew on and is part of what makes Eve such a great read – there’s something new to think about and analyze. On top of all that, Bohannon is a fantastic writer with an easy conversational tone making this big book a breeze to get through. Highly recommend for the science buffs out there.
Published: October 2023
Publisher: Knopf
Format: Hardcover
If you think this sounds interesting, bookmark these other great reads:
The Slow Moon Climbs: The Science, History, and Meaning of Menopause (2019) by Susan Mattern
The Rise and Reign of the Mammals (2022) by Steve Brusatte | Read my review
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Very interesting, thanks for sharing :)