"Forced by the relentless ambition of the Y-chromosome to reproduce itself, women were reduced to a state of serial pregnancy, increasingly enslaved by dependence on men.
This suited the Y-chromosome as the sexual landscape turned in its favour. The irresistible opportunity arose to build a harem, a herd of women just as dependent on its owner as his sheep or cattle. Women themselves became domesticated and imprisoned. The temptation to polygamy was overpowering and examples were all around. Men, driven on by the lash of their Y-chromosomes, could copy their cattle and become the stud bulls of their own herd. But the damage didn't stop there. The enslavement of women through serial pregnancy required much earlier weaning than before. No longer required to be able to walk and run before being released from the breast, the young child need to be weaned. Some archaeologists believe this was accomplished by the invention of fired pottery which allowed cereal grains to be boiled into a pastry gruel which could be fed to unweaned infants. Once her child was weaned, a woman could become pregnant again soon afterwards. The bull/man would have no difficulty at all with that part. But the children, ripped from the security and unconditional love that breast-feeding embodies, were left feeling bewildered and abandoned. Far from gaining a sense of independence, they were bereft, deprived of the strong sense of their own value and autonomy which builds during this intimate and prolonged contact. Some believe that children even now never really recover from this shock. They struggle to regain trust in a world that has for some reason unknowable to them abruptly changed for the worse. The trauma of early weaning has even been adduced in modern theories of depression. The feeling of powerlessness implanted by the sudden withdrawal of love and nurture at the mother's breast, when even the cries of despair go unanswered – as they must for early weaning to succeed – leaves a long shadow in the psyche of the very young that can darken their whole lives."
Professor Bryan Sykes thinks it's all the fault of the Y chromosome, ladies.
Read his book Adam's Curse. Well-written and very interesting.
Excerpt from
Adam's Curse – A Future without men - by Bryan Sykes, Bantam Press, 2003 p. 237-238
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Well, if Mr Sykes is correct, future seems good for breast feeding. Y chromosome will dissolve finally, and
ReplyDeletewe boys will be in history books LOL. And women will be long breast-feeding little babies (girls) something like 125k years from now... That's
sweat :)
Yes, Mr. Sykes seems quite convinced that you boys are on your way out. Of course, unless we find a method of producing babies without you, us girls will disappear too!
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