-
Access Our
Most Anticipated
Books of 2025!
Summary | Excerpt | Reading Guide | Reviews | Beyond the book | Read-Alikes | Genres & Themes | Author Bio
How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution
by Cat Bohannon
Book Reviewed by:The real origin of our species: a myth-busting, eye-opening landmark account of how humans evolved, offering a paradigm shift in our thinking about what the female body is, how it came to be, and how this evolution still shapes all our lives today
How did the female body drive 200 million years of human evolution? • Why do women live longer than men? • Why are women more likely to get Alzheimer's? • Why do girls score better at every academic subject than boys until puberty, when suddenly their scores plummet? • Is sexism useful for evolution? • And why, seriously why, do women have to sweat through our sheets every night when we hit menopause?
These questions are producing some truly exciting science – and in Eve, with boundless curiosity and sharp wit, Cat Bohannon covers the past 200 million years to explain the specific science behind the development of the female sex: "We need a kind of user's manual for the female mammal. A no-nonsense, hard-hitting, seriously researched (but readable) account of what we are. How female bodies evolved, how they work, what it really means to biologically be a woman. Something that would rewrite the story of womanhood. This book is that story. We have to put the female body in the picture. If we don't, it's not just feminism that's compromised. Modern medicine, neurobiology, paleoanthropology, even evolutionary biology all take a hit when we ignore the fact that half of us have breasts. So it's time we talk about breasts. Breasts, and blood, and fat, and vaginas, and wombs—all of it. How they came to be and how we live with them now, no matter how weird or hilarious the truth is."
Eve is not only a sweeping revision of human history, it's an urgent and necessary corrective for a world that has focused primarily on the male body for far too long. Picking up where Sapiens left off, Eve will completely change what you think you know about evolution and why Homo sapiens has become such a successful and dominant species.
A vast, meticulously researched, and often entertaining work encompassing an enormous amount of information, Eve takes the reader on an epic journey through the history and evolution of humanity, focusing specifically on the development of the female sex. Amongst the comprehensively researched facts and brilliant explanatory examples, the author occasionally adopts a colloquial style that readers will find amusing, but perhaps a little jarring at times. Bohannon's wit and humor prove nonetheless effective, creating an enjoyable and enlightening read as opposed to a dry academic treatise. She demonstrates eloquent storytelling skills when evoking different eras and conditions in which our ancestral Eves lived...continued
Full Review
(813 words)
This review is available to non-members for a limited time. For full access,
become a member today.
(Reviewed by Jo-Anne Blanco).
In March 2019, NASA was due to launch the first all-women spacewalk from the International Space Station. It was to be a milestone in space exploration. Astronauts Christina Koch and Anne McClain were to walk outside the ISS to replace lithium-ion batteries; Mary Lawrence and Kristen Facciol were to be lead flight director and lead spacewalk flight controller, respectively, from the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
However, the history-making spacewalk was canceled due to an oversight no one had bothered to consider: there was only one spacesuit available that was a suitable size and, more importantly, was safe for a woman to wear. McClain had discovered during an earlier spacewalk that a medium-sized hard upper torso (the "shirt" of ...
This "beyond the book" feature is available to non-members for a limited time. Join today for full access.
If you liked Eve, try these:
by Kate Zernike
Published 2024
From the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who broke the story, the inspiring account of the sixteen female scientists who forced MIT to publicly admit it had been discriminating against its female faculty for years—sparking a nationwide reckoning with the pervasive sexism in science.
by Lucy Cooke
Published 2023
A fierce, funny, and revolutionary look at the queens of the animal kingdom.
Bonnie Garmus, #1 New York Times best-selling author of Lessons in Chemistry
A smart, funny, scientific deep-dive into the power of a woman's body, Eve surprises, educates, and emboldens. Who runs the world? Girls!
