Human birthing is difficult and there is a reason for that. If there was ever an original sin, it wasn’t reaching for the apple; it was reaching for it on two feet.
Rightfully named so, the vertebra upon which the skull directly rests, is called the atlas, and below it, lies a whole frame designed to support this globe. Like Atlas, our whole bodies are burdened with the weight of the world – our brains – and the demands of leading a life on two feet whilst having to balance a head whose volume is three times greater than in our greatest furry counterpart – almost 10% of our total body mass - have forced our hominoid bodies to completely restructure themselves from a biomechanical standpoint.
… and these heads must come out of our ever-narrowing Homo female pelvises.
As a result of these architectural shuffles, ‘taking a bite of the forbidden fruit’ can have physically painful consequences, and assuring our species’ continuity while sporting big brains and standing tall must come at a price. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that there are 529,000 maternal deaths per year worldwide – only 1% of these occuring in the developed world. Obstructed labour, which relates to disproportions in the head to pelvis ratio (thereby making it physically impossible for the baby to pass between the mother’s pelvis) accounts for 8% of deaths, or 42,000 women, worldwide (!).
It seems that our most powerful resource is the hardest one to deliver – so much so that our pelvises must unhinge themselves during this event. In order for the bony head and shoulders to pass through Eve’s Ivory Gates, our large heads and shoulders must perform a specific sequence of maneuvers, as does the female pelvis – while a gap between the pubic bones of 4-5 mm is normal, in pregnancy a total width of up to 9 mm can be seen between the two bones (that’s almost one entire centimeter!).
Occasionally, however, delivering a new life can involve more than a mere unbuttoning of the pelvis at its seam, but a more violent rupture of it. Indeed, in some extreme cases, the pelvis can actually separate entirely, a condition – “postpartum symphyseal diastasis” – that causes much pain, but that about 45% of all pregnant women and 25% of all women postpartum suffer from. Other times, however, it is the offspring who must pay the price for their ‘mega-encephalized’ heads, and archaeological evidence shows that fetuses have sometimes had their limbs severed in order to extract them from the womb for being too large for their mothers’ cradle…
Not so surprisingly perhaps, this epicentre of life is the one female body part that gets plundered the most – not only from the inside out but also from the outside in.
For numerous evolutionary and biological reasons, wombs are prized possessions which must be kept, protected, controlled, and forced into submission. In the most extreme of cases, or situations of war, where dominance is key, rape, mutilation, and torture of women often serves as a powerful weapon for terrorizing, shaming and demoralizing a people. In 2005, Doctors Without Borders admitted 1,292 women who were victims of sexual violence in the DRC and as many again in the first six months of 2006 ; more than 3,500 women and girls have been raped in the first six months of 2008, the most affected age group being between the ages of 19 and 45 (53.6 percent of the population).
Biologist Randy Thornhill and anthropologist Craig Palmer, state that they “[...] fervently believe that, just as the leopard’s spots and the giraffe’s elongated neck are the results of aeons of past Darwinian selection, so is rape [...]. There is no doubt that rape has evolutionary — and hence genetic – origins”. In support of their arguments, and since procreation is the ultimate goal driving rape, is the fact that the majority of rape victims are young women at the peak of their fertility.
But really? Then what to make of systematic gang-rapes, mutilations, fistulas, forced incest, rape of pre-pubescent women, etc, which go against any evolutionary reasonings I can think of? – especially of the “procreation” reasoning…
Whatever this all means, it seems that 200,000 thousand years ago, our own bipedal Eve bred her own continuity along with her own demise, as she released 6 billion trojan horses into the world – genetically speaking – some even evolving to turn against her. It looks like our ‘gateways’ to earth, are also gateways to hell, as each one of us brings a new bundle of mutations into the world, and with it, a new possible evolutionary road. Each new life is a potential population founder, and each new woman a potential Eve.
As humanity’s genesis occurs between our legs, both good and bad sprout from between them in both equally as painful deliverances. But no matter how good we are, what sex we are, or if we are newborns or grown-ups, as a result of our blown-up, machiavellic brains balanced atop an erect frame, we are, in one way or another, forever breaking Eve…
I found myself lost in your prose, so much so that I had to read it again to get the actual point. A good deal of wisdom here, and so very beautifully phrased.
Oh no :s
I’m not sure if that was a compliment lol, but thank you anyway!
i didn’t lose myself in your prose…and i don’t think constantine gets your humor…but i do appreciate your unique perspective ms. annabones. for valentines i give you this:
@}–>—>——
copy and paste if you want a dozen…
thanks, i’ll keep coming back for more
On rape being genetically selected for purposes of procreation:
If that were the case, Mrs Thornhill and Mr Palmer, why would the rapist (in some cases) kill his victim right after he planted his seed?
Not convinced about this theory.
x
It was most definitely a compliment, annabones. I’ll be checking in regularly for a repeat dose.
I’m a sucker for language, doubly so when it conveys thoughts of substance and/or merit.
(Oh dog, I sound like a hugely pompous ass, don’t I…
)
Beautiful. Simply beautiful.
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This is such a stunningly written piece! I love it.
@Catia, I think the point here is not that every case of rape is simply the expression of an evolutionary program. Rather, the basal motivation, the brain wiring and chemistry that can lead to rape were selected for through evolution, as a general biological phenomenon (look at chimp behavior or a myriad other examples throughout the animal kingdom…). However, to put it in a non-PC way, there are always crazy people that add their own messed up pathological behaviors into the mix (not that rape isn’t messed up enough as it is). Killing the victim after is just such a case.
I can totally see how that explanation makes sense from an evolutionary point of view. The problem with it (but maybe it’s the female in me rather than the scientist speaking here), is that rape seems to be so far removed from anything related to reproduction, and rather very much related to issues of power and dominance that it’s hard to fully understand the evolutionary perspective of the issue.
Also because human females are very deceptive from a reproductive point of view (you can never tell what stage of the cycle they are at – generally speaking… monthly bitchiness gives out a clue), it seems somewhat non energy efficient to go raping women who may very well not be ovulating. It also goes against the theory that having a female achieve orgasm makes her more likely to get pregnant. But then you get into the issue of orgasming during rape.
But maybe there is something I am missing about the argument and perhaps I should look into it some more.
Another great perspective on the issue of rape and reproduction. Further, I was thinking while reading this piece that the modern movement to control the right of abortion is another piece in the rape-reproduction puzzle.
I don’t understand rape at all, never having been motivated to do so I can only guess at why there is this urge. If it has a war and conquest background or heritage (and here we get into evolutionary psychology,) it may have its roots in degrading and exerting power over both the male and female vanquished. The winner demonstrates that he now has the power over the female, while the loser is forced to accept that.
I can’t say because I am not a social scientist nor an anthropologist, and so it is only a hunch,
As for the abortion issue that I mentioned, I wonder if the whole equation between abortion and murder is a more shift to stigmatize the woman who doesn’t accept male control over her body. Again, a guess and possible projection.
These are the questions that occurred to me while reading this excellent post, and my scattershot answers.
I completely agree with your perspective on the rape and abortion issue, although this is really not something I’ve researched in depth.
With regards to the abortion as being a way to excerpt control over the female body (much like rape, but in the reverse in a sense), it certainly felt that way for me growing up in a country where it was (not anymore) illegal – Portugal.
Many thanks for the input and the compliments.
Regarding this and other comments related to it:
“But really? Then what to make of systematic gang-rapes, mutilations, fistulas, forced incest, rape of pre-pubescent women, etc, which go against any evolutionary reasonings I can think of? – especially of the “procreation” reasoning…”
I think that rape is a complex behavior that has to do with power over procreation. It can be used to propagate one’s own or one’s group’s genes and/or to prevent your adversaries’ genes. Either way, you “win” so to speak because you have forwarded your own fitness or inhibited a competitor’s fitness which is about as economical in a fitness sense.
Sex is a vital part of Human Cultures. But most cultures share the same view for women; the treasured, delicate, possession of a man. In a man nothing changes, physically, before or after sex but in woman it is different. The perceived physical change in a woman after sex may have triggered a complex which lead to how society sees women, because for sure the most desirable feeling of sex is the most remembered, even the funniest jokes are overridden by orgasm, hence, these “changes” in women are automatically or readily perceived. My theory the purpose of a Vagine is both Bane and Blessing, being a source of sexual pleasure and procreation(childbirth) and the mutilation of these resulted in severe demoralization, destroying the very purpose Nature has given to a woman.
escalating weaponry, don’t underestimate the sexual component of violence or the violent component of sex. i think it is largely rather primitive, war is death is pick the day is sex. encouragement and modern weaponry (1) turn it into a militairy tool. as such the men become it more deadly.
(1) the escalation in violence ofcourse usually coming from ‘us’ or our allies,
var. terror, but can also root in circumstances somewhat beyond that. like that idiotical south sudan traditions atm. are partly facilitated by only thattradition.