"From a scientific perspective, female primates have more to gain—and more to lose. Most are smaller and more vulnerable than the males. Given that their bodies are the ones that have to build, birth, and nurse children, females also have more urgent food and safety needs than males. So if our female ancestors were also good problem solvers—as higher primates are—then it makes sense for them to have been inventors who adapted around their limitations.... Gynecology is absolutely essential for our species’ evolutionary fitness.... To invent gynecology, protohumans needed to be able to trust one another enough to be around one another at those crucial moments of vulnerability: labor, birth, and early nursing. That’s why the arrival of midwives is one of those moments in hominin history for which we can truly say, 'This is when we started to become human.' It would have required a profoundly cooperative female society and a social structure that rewarded helpful behaviors...."
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The greatest invention in the history of humanity is soap. Gynecology is downwind from soap. Very very far downwind.
Doctors used to routinely masturbate women in their offices. To relieve the medical condition called "hysteria."
Just want to point out the real reason that gynecology was invented.
By men.
I read this yesterday. The author asserts that prehistoric humans invented gynecology, then argues that this invention gave an evolutionary advantage, but she does not present even one piece of evidence for the assertion, which is probably false.
How can somebody write, edit, and publish an argument that contains no evidence for its central premise?
To invent gynecology, protohumans needed to be able to trust one another enough to be around one another at those crucial moments of vulnerability: labor, birth, and early nursing. That’s why the arrival of midwives is one of those moments in hominin history for which we can truly say, 'This is when we started to become human.' It would have required a profoundly cooperative female society and a social structure that rewarded helpful behaviors...."
Cats exhibit this exact behavior.
In a major publication with professional editors, an author (female) presents a detailed discussion of childbirth -- prenatal care, labor and delivery, and postnatal care, and describes it as gynecology -- plainly appearing to not know the difference between gynecology, which the article ahd nothing to do with, and obstetrics, which it did. Absolutely amazing.
She fails to realize that when you live in the relational isolation which first-world luxury provides, "gynecology" seems like an "innovation".
Pretty cool just-so story. What actual archaeological evidence does she adduce, that midwifery was extant early in our hominid history? How much of it was distinct from simple grooming behaviors?
Any data on outcomes being improved by midwifery? Intuitively one thinks, "of course," but was it a significant contributor to better survival and thriving of mother and child?
Without the male body there wouldn't be a female body.
AKA Grandma, mother, sister, cousin, friend.
The greatest invention in the history of humanity is soap. Gynecology is downwind from soap. Very very far downwind.
Nope. Fire. You need fire to make soap.
Elevator Pitch:
A sci=fi adventure in which an astronaut passes through some kind of time warp returning to Earth in a dystopian future where the intelligence of complacent tech nerds has atrophied and they are hunted and enslaved like animals by an advanced society of OB/GYN's.
Working title: Planet of the Gynecologists.
I am confused- isn't she describing obstetrics? Or are the two fields considered the same? I know that we have OB-GYNs, which makes sense, but if they were the same fields of medicine, why the 5 letter acronym?
200 million years ago was the age of dinosaurs. The earliest form of mammals date back somewhere around that time, but they were tiny, screw-like creatures. Somehow, I don't see them inventing gynecology.
https://www.thoughtco.com/the-first-mammals-1093311
Sisters are doin’ it for themselves.
I suppose the greatest invention was about 2,000,000,000 years earlier, when male versus female sexes evolved.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_sexual_reproduction
I'm sure the fish gynecologists will file a protest against Human Supremacy discrimination. I'm sure the apes and dolphins and rats and pigeons who do just fine without gynecology will have claims too.
Midwifery is not synonymous with gynecology.
Aaaagh!
Early human history of women helping women is not gynecology.
Aaagh!
mtp said:
How can somebody write, edit, and publish an argument that contains no evidence for its central premise?
***********
Why, it's remarkably EASY!!!
Just ask LLR Chuck, Inga, Rich, Freder, Left Behind on the Charles, Mark, Jim501, and many others posting here.
Innovation improves productivity.
How can somebody write, edit, and publish an argument that contains no evidence for its central premise
Simple.. women Rule!@
I'm on board with whatever evolutionary step or series of steps leading to female choosiness being a big driver of the development of human society, since chimps don't exhibit it and bonobo females have sex with literally every adult male in the band.
Obstetrics might be an outgrowth of that larger change, but intuitively, at least, I'd bet that it wasn't an unrelated female attending a birth at first: I'm going with the grandmother-to-be, who has a genetic stake in the health of the baby. In any case, like other commenters, I will want to see her evidence.
Seems hopelessly Transphobic.
As if female bodies are different. Shame, shame, shame.
Smells like Science!
In the Saudi print of the book, the title was changed. See? Women are not allowed to drive over there.
It's for the women's market.
Human female availability for sex year-round, including during pregnancy, is the greatest evolutionary innovation. Without it, men would hit and run, and women would be left to fend for themselves, with the next wave of horny males killing her children, in order to pass on their genes. Kill, impregnate, repeat. Over and over.
A couple points of information. First, modern humans are believed to have begun to evolve from homo erectus about 200 thousand years ago (not 200 million). Our predecessor species h. erectus evolved approximately 2 million (again not 200 million) years ago.
200 million years ago is not long after the start of the Jurassic Period, and humans were not around back then. In fact, dinosaurs would occupy most, if not almost all, ecological niches for the next 135 million years. Mammals did exist in the early Jurassic, but probably not placental mammals, and they were mostly small herbivores and insectivores.
And if you who are reading this think I might be very, very skeptical of a publication regarding our species’s development written by someone who knows so little about the overall evolution of life itself on our planet, well, ya ain’t wrong.
I'm going to say greatest invention by humans is language. First spoken then written. Being able to communicate complex ideas and then later materially preserve complex ideas with high fidelity as opposed to what you get with oral histories makes not just modern society but ancient prehistoric societies and cultures possible. Third best I'm going to go with insurance or maybe the Monte Cristo sandwich, possibly the Croque Monsieur
"Nope. Fire. You need fire to make soap."
Soap can occur from naturally occurring fires. You could say that soap and fire, both naturally occurring phenomena, and their manmade counterpart, evolved together.
Females? Don’t they mean chest-feeders with bonus holes?
I think the actual term is obstetrics -- the medical field which concentrates on the birth process. A lot of the so called natural aspects of our lives, such as giving birth, do require assistance, especially when something goes wrong. A lot of things can go wrong in childbirth, midwives tend to do the minimum and were not equiped to deal with medical catastrophies, morbidity was a serious concern. Eventually trained doctors were invited in to attend. Changes in childbirth in the United States: 1750–1950 Laura Kaplan New York, New York, United States
On a personal note, before his death my father shared a story with me he had never mentioned before. He said he had had another sister who did not survive childbirth. He and his parents and a sister were living at that time, approx. 1919, on a homestead in Utah and apparently they had no one there to help them with the childbirth. As my father explained it, the child died because they did not tie off the umbilical cord. It's hard to imagine that now but they did not know any better, or thought nature would take its course? Oddly, now people are delaying clamping the cord, although there can be problems in certain circumstances.
rhhardin: A segment of the women's market, the one with bookstores in college towns, the type you know won't carry any books on battleships.
Another segment of the women's market has books sold nearly everywhere else, usually "historical" fiction, and having covers depicting women and men suffeting languidly posed wardrobe malfunctions.
mtp said...
"I read this yesterday. The author asserts that prehistoric humans invented gynecology, then argues that this invention gave an evolutionary advantage, but she does not present even one piece of evidence for the assertion, which is probably false.
How can somebody write, edit, and publish an argument that contains no evidence for its central premise?"
It's standard operating procedure.
One problem with Evolution is it can never explain why we didn't stop progressing after we became the No. 1 animal in the world.
100 IQ people are smart enough. Having fire and a spear. Good enough. Once we progressed past chimps and could protect ourselves from Lions, and tigers, and bears, oh my, there was no reason to go futher.
No need for algebra, or writing, or even boats.
One should realize that this is simply another version of "women actually did everything".
gahrie said...
Nope. Fire. You need fire to make soap.
Look up soap plant.
mtp said...
How can somebody write, edit, and publish an argument that contains no evidence for its central premise?"
That's how you can tell it's sociology instead of science.
rcocean said...
One problem with Evolution is it can never explain why we didn't stop progressing after we became the No. 1 animal in the world.
Intelligent people tend to select other intelligent people as mates -> evolution.
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