Women are not small men

I’m reading this fantastic book called Eve, How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Evolution, by Cat Bohannon.

When Cat was doing her Ph.D. at Columbia University in the evolution of narrative and cognition, she realised just how little research has been and continues to be done on female bodies. We were left out of studies completely for decades, it was only in 1993 (the year I was born!!!) that the FDA officially mandating the inclusion of women in research.

Isn’t that INSANE?

I’ll keep you posted on what I’m learning via these emails, as the book covers topics I think you’ll be really interested in, like why women live longer than men, why we get night sweats when we hit menopause, how incredible our boobs are (including the biochemical pathways that are communicative between a baby latching to your chest and your own immune system).

Something I learnt this week is why men have nipples…

I’ve genuinely thought about this before, but not for long enough to google an answer. Anyway, Cat has the will tell us, of course.

Besides the fact that we all start out the same in the womb, and nipples form before the sex chromosomes are defined, men actually have milk ducts, and can breastfeed (for further reading, have a look at The Aka Tribe of the Republic of Congo).

Fascinating.