Why Reproductive Health Care Is Neither New nor Unique to Humans
And why it played a far greater role in the survival and advancement of our species than we might realise
What do you think is the greatest invention in human history? The one thing that propelled our species forward and helped us evolve into the complex, interconnected societies we are today?
I imagine most people would point to weapons or tools. After all, the story of humanity has been written almost exclusively by men. And it usually goes like this: once man figured out how to use conveniently shaped rocks to dominate both his peers and the natural world, the wheels of progress — and human evolution — began to turn. Thousands of years later, here we are, still finding new ways to dominate one another and wreak havoc on our planet. At least we’ve stayed consistent — or so the story goes.
In her recently published book Eve, American academic Cat Bohannon challenges this ‘macho’ myth and offers an alternative theory: the reason we’ve survived and thrived as a species isn’t thanks to tools or weapons but to the continually evolving body of medical knowledge and practices related to the human reproductive system — what she calls, for lack of a better term, ‘gynaecology.’ Bohannon acknowledges, though, that ‘this…
