Milk to Menopause: A Tale of Females at the Forefront of Evolution

Two hundred million years ago, on a hot, humid Jurassic night, the world's earliest mammals crawled about.Here, Cat Bohannon, cognitive psychologist turned science writer, begins her narrative of human evolution.Why start the story with mammals?Because the defining characteristic of those first mammals-milk production-made possible critical later adaptations that led to humankind.Notably, lactation appeared only in females.Producing milk allowed the first mammalian mothers to hydrate and nourish their offspring.Increased maternal investment set placental mammals on a path to invest further via internal gestation.Lactation and gestation are integral not only to the biology of mothers but also to the development of all members of the species with these adaptations.So why, Bohannon criticizes, has so much of modern scientific practice ignored or even excluded females?Citing the practice of conducting medical studies with only male subjects, human and animal alike, Bohannon demonstrates how sexism persists in biological knowledge production.In Eve, Bohannon responds to the lack of consideration of females in studies of human biology with a history of human evolution that emphasizes the roles of females.Beginning with lactation, she focuses on major adaptations that evolved in females or that differ between the sexes.Eve even poses female-driven hypotheses for the origins of such key human traits as bipedality and spoken languages.Accented by colorful anecdotes and peppered with fun facts, Bohannon