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In this week's show Lian is joined once again by Mike Bais. Mike is Lian's own Kabbalah teacher, a physiotherapist, counsellor, university lecturer and author, also having had his own practice for many years. He is a trained priest in the esoteric christian tradition, which lead him to follow the mystical side of this lineage called the A.S.A. (Apostolic Succession of Arimathea). He believes that the Teachings of Christ are universal and should not be limited to a religious structure. His esoteric training comes from the western mystery tradition and the Toledano Kabbalah. Living in the Netherlands (Utrecht) he extensively worked with teachers and groups in the UK. After some decades of study and practice in the western esoteric tradition, the inner work came together in these three streams or disciplines that make up the Circle of Avalon. Mike sees it as his life's work to teach these traditions to whomever wishes to receive them. He is a mystic and teacher by nature and through his groups, individual sessions, workshops and writing, transmits them in the most pure and true way he knows. Mike is the author of 3 books: Paths on the Tree of Wisdom – A course in 21st Century Kabbalah, A Kabbalistic view on science: Book 1 and A Kabbalistic view on science: Book 2. In this episode, Lian and Mike explore the sacred return of the Goddess as both a metaphysical truth and a living force within creation. Together, they journey through the ancient traditions that once honoured her, the distortions that led to her exile, and the path of remembrance that is now unfolding… personally, collectively, and spiritually. This is a conversation that reaches far beyond symbols or stories, into the very structure of existence. Lian reflects on how the Goddess often first speaks to us through dreams, symbols, or visceral moments in nature, long before we understand her metaphysical roots. Mike offers a crystalline transmission of her role as the body of creation itself, sharing insights from the Kabbalah, the Asa tradition, and his own devotion to restoring her presence within spiritual life. They also explore the risks of over-personalising archetypal experience, the need for balance between the God and Goddess, and the humility required to truly let her transform us. At the heart of their conversation is a powerful remembering… the Goddess has never left. She is the fertile earth beneath our feet, the womb of every form, the shimmering thread of the divine clothed in matter. What has been forgotten is not her presence, but our capacity to see her. This episode is a call to reawaken that vision, and to live as if she truly is the body of the world. We'd love to know what YOU think about this week's show. Let's carry on the conversation… please leave a comment wherever you are listening or in any of our other spaces to engage. What you'll learn from this episode: How the Goddess is not merely symbolic or a mythical story but a metaphysical principle, matter itself infused with the divine Why the erasure of the feminine from spiritual traditions created imbalance, and how restoring her brings both beauty and truth back to creation How to recognise the subtle ways the Goddess calls to you… and why honouring that call with humility and discernment matters more than ever Resources and stuff spoken about: Mike's websites: http://www.circleofavalon.nl http://www.kabbalahmysticalschool.com Mike's 2 part online workshop, 24th & 31st July 2025 - An Introduction to the Toledano Kabbalah Episode 470: The true Eve: How to 'transgress' into your power - Vanya Leilani Join UNIO, the Academy of the Soul: This is for the old souls in this new world… Discover your kin & unite with your soul's calling to truly live your myth. Be Mythical Join our mailing list for soul stirring goodness: https://www.bemythical.com/moonly Discover your kin & unite with your soul's calling to truly live your myth: https://www.bemythical.com/unio Go Deeper: https://www.bemythical.com/godeeper Follow us: Facebook Instagram TikTok YouTube Thank you for listening! There's a fresh episode released each week here and on most podcast platforms - and video too on YouTube. If you subscribe then you'll get each new episode delivered to your device every week automagically. (that way you'll never miss a show).
In this episode, Cat Bohannon joins Laura and Adrian to discuss her most recent book, Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution, where she reframes the stories we tell about human evolution with women at the center.Cat Bohannon's is a poet, academic, and scientist. She completed her PhD in 2022 at Columbia University, where she studied the evolution of narrative and cognition. Her work has appeared in Science, The Atlantic, Scientific American, The Best American Nonrequired Reading, Lapham's Quarterly, The Georgia Review, and Poets Against the War.
“At least they felt like they needed a casus belli for YOU!” -One of the most divisive issues in EVE: How to pronounce “Hecate” -Wormhole evictions and you! How evictions work and what you can do to keep your wormhole … Continue reading →
As Jurassic beasts roamed the earth, a little weasel-like animal called Morganucodon was making an evolutionary breakthrough in parenting — producing milk to feed her young. Author Cat Bohannon calls this creature Morgie in her 2023 book “Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution.” Bohannon discusses the book, and insights from the evolution of Morgie, ahead of an author event in St. Louis County.
Featuring : CAT BOHANNON, Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human EvolutionYou loved Rachel Gross's VAGINA OBSCURA? Of course you did. Then you MUST join us for this myth-busting, eye-opening landmark account of how humans evolved—answering questions like what IS the female body? How did it come to be? How does this evolution still shapes all our lives today? Some fast facts to whet your appetite: Women live longer than men; women are more likely to get Alzheimer's; girls score better at every academic subject than boys until puberty, when suddenly their scores plummet. What's behind all of this? And why, seriously why, do women have to sweat through our sheets every night when we hit menopause? (asking for me). Bohannon covers the past 200 million years to explain the specific science behind the development of the female sex: “We have to put the female body in the picture,” she writes, “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.” Which means we are gonna talk about breasts. And blood and fat and vaginas and wombs. Let's face it, the world has focused primarily on the male body for far too long. It's time to dig deep—so join us for book talk, cocktails, and evolutionary science.Episode was recorded live February 27, 2025.Email: peculiar@bschillace.comWebsite: https://brandyschillace.com/peculiar/Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/ixJJ2YPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/PeculiarBookClub/membershipYoutube: https://www.youtube.com/@PeculiarBookClub/streamsBluesky: @peculiarbookclub.bsky.socialFacebook: facebook.com/groups/peculiarbooksclubInstagram: @thepeculiarbook
There is a historical lack of research on the female body—and this has hurt women, men, everyone. But now, there is some fascinating research on the female body, which Cat Bohannon, PhD, shares today. (Bohannon is the New York Times–bestselling author of Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution.) For example, Bohannon explains why the fat around our butts and hips is quite special, and how women tend to metabolize painkillers differently than men. She breaks down the evolutionary origins of breast size and shape, and she debunks the myth that men are much larger than women. We talk about why women tend to heal better and live longer than men. And what's really at stake for our health and lives when it comes to understanding sex differences. For the show notes and more on Cat Bohannon, head over to my Substack. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Did you know that the composition of a mother’s breast milk changes based on a baby’s saliva? Or that human pregnancy has been compared to running many marathons in a row? These are only a few of the mind-blowing findings researcher and author Cat Bohannon describes in her book, “Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution.” She joins Danielle and Simone to talk about some of the lesser-known superpowers of the female body, and clears up some common misconceptions.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Join the conversation by letting us know what you think about the episode!Regardless of whether you are tuned in to popular "news", chances are pretty good that you've heard something about the Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni saga. We dive in with our opinions about this debacle in this minisode. What are your thoughts about all of this?Mentioned in this episode:Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution by Cat BohannonSupport the showBe part of the conversation by sharing your thoughts about this episode, what you may have learned, how the conversation affected you. You can reach Raquel and Jennifer on IG @madnesscafepodcast or by email at madnesscafepodcast@gmail.com.Share the episode with a friend and have your own conversation. And don't forget to rate and review the show wherever you listen!Thanks!
Join us as we chat about so many of our favourite things: food, kitchen gadgets, people who comment on our weight, and the joys of being women. Just kidding . . . those aren't all our favourite things, but we DO talk about them all this week! We go from air fryers to shepherd's pie to menopause in just over an hour. Ready to join us?! **Show Notes** Podcast we mentioned: Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel Book we mentioned: Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution by Cat Bohannon
Women have evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to have more sensitive noses, sharper hearing at high frequencies, and longer life expectancy than men. But why have women's bodies been so under-researched? It's one of the many questions Cat Bohannon raises in her book Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution. Shortlisted for the Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize, Eve explores how women's biology has shaped human history and culture. In the lead up to the winner's announcement, New Scientist books editor Alison Flood meets all six of the shortlisted authors.In this conversation, we hear what motivated Cat to spend more than a decade researching and writing the book, how understanding the evolution of female traits can give us deeper insights into the workings of our species, and the overlap between sexism and science. The winner of the Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize will be announced on the 24th October. You can view all of the shortlisted entries here:https://royalsociety.org/medals-and-prizes/science-book-prize/ To read about subjects like this and much more, visit https://www.newscientist.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Claire Mabey discusses 'the perfect Sunday read' from David Nicholls. She also recommends Commune: Chasing a utopian dream in Aotearoa by Olive Jones and a deep dive into evolution: Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution by Cat Bohannon.
Where would human evolution be without the female body? Despite the invaluable ability to create life, Cat Bohannon says the female body has been historically overlooked in medical research. As an author and researcher, she wants to close the gaps in our understanding of the female body by taking a trip through time. We unpack medical bias, sexism and Cat's book Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution.
******Support the channel****** Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter PayPal Subscription 1 Dollar: https://tinyurl.com/yb3acuuy PayPal Subscription 3 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ybn6bg9l PayPal Subscription 5 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ycmr9gpz PayPal Subscription 10 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y9r3fc9m PayPal Subscription 20 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y95uvkao ******Follow me on****** Website: https://www.thedissenter.net/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT This show is sponsored by Enlites, Learning & Development done differently. Check the website here: http://enlites.com/ Dr. Cat Bohannon is a researcher and author with a Ph.D. from Columbia University in the evolution of narrative and cognition. Her essays and poems have appeared in Scientific American, Mind, Science Magazine, The Best American Nonrequired Reading, The Georgia Review, The Story Collider, and Poets Against the War. She is the author of Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution. In this episode, we focus on Eve. We start by talking about females from 200 million years ago, going back to the early mammals, and we also talk about the difference between sex and gender, and the “male norm”, or how the female body has been neglected in biology and medicine. We then go through the evolution of some of the traits Dr. Bohannon explores in her book, namely milk, and whether men and trans women can produce it; breasts and sexual selection; the origins of the placenta; the female orgasm; menstruation; female vision and smell; bipedalism and birth; and menopause. Finally, we discuss the origins of sexism and patriarchy. -- A HUGE THANK YOU TO MY PATRONS/SUPPORTERS: PER HELGE LARSEN, JERRY MULLER, HANS FREDRIK SUNDE, BERNARDO SEIXAS, ADAM KESSEL, MATTHEW WHITINGBIRD, ARNAUD WOLFF, TIM HOLLOSY, HENRIK AHLENIUS, FILIP FORS CONNOLLY, DAN DEMETRIOU, ROBERT WINDHAGER, RUI INACIO, ZOOP, MARCO NEVES, COLIN HOLBROOK, PHIL KAVANAGH, SAMUEL ANDREEFF, FRANCIS FORDE, TIAGO NUNES, FERGAL CUSSEN, HAL HERZOG, NUNO MACHADO, JONATHAN LEIBRANT, JOÃO LINHARES, STANTON T, SAMUEL CORREA, ERIK HAINES, MARK SMITH, JOÃO EIRA, TOM HUMMEL, SARDUS FRANCE, DAVID SLOAN WILSON, YACILA DEZA-ARAUJO, ROMAIN ROCH, DIEGO LONDOÑO CORREA, YANICK PUNTER, CHARLOTTE BLEASE, NICOLE BARBARO, ADAM HUNT, PAWEL OSTASZEWSKI, NELLEKE BAK, GUY MADISON, GARY G HELLMANN, SAIMA AFZAL, ADRIAN JAEGGI, PAULO TOLENTINO, JOÃO BARBOSA, JULIAN PRICE, EDWARD HALL, HEDIN BRØNNER, DOUGLAS FRY, FRANCA BORTOLOTTI, GABRIEL PONS CORTÈS, URSULA LITZCKE, SCOTT, ZACHARY FISH, TIM DUFFY, SUNNY SMITH, JON WISMAN, WILLIAM BUCKNER, PAUL-GEORGE ARNAUD, LUKE GLOWACKI, GEORGIOS THEOPHANOUS, CHRIS WILLIAMSON, PETER WOLOSZYN, DAVID WILLIAMS, DIOGO COSTA, ANTON ERIKSSON, ALEX CHAU, AMAURI MARTÍNEZ, CORALIE CHEVALLIER, BANGALORE ATHEISTS, LARRY D. LEE JR., OLD HERRINGBONE, MICHAEL BAILEY, DAN SPERBER, ROBERT GRESSIS, IGOR N, JEFF MCMAHAN, JAKE ZUEHL, BARNABAS RADICS, MARK CAMPBELL, TOMAS DAUBNER, LUKE NISSEN, KIMBERLY JOHNSON, JESSICA NOWICKI, LINDA BRANDIN, NIKLAS CARLSSON, GEORGE CHORIATIS, VALENTIN STEINMANN, PER KRAULIS, KATE VON GOELER, ALEXANDER HUBBARD, BR, MASOUD ALIMOHAMMADI, JONAS HERTNER, URSULA GOODENOUGH, DAVID PINSOF, SEAN NELSON, MIKE LAVIGNE, JOS KNECHT, ERIK ENGMAN, LUCY, YHONATAN SHEMESH, MANVIR SINGH, AND PETRA WEIMANN! A SPECIAL THANKS TO MY PRODUCERS, YZAR WEHBE, JIM FRANK, ŁUKASZ STAFINIAK, TOM VANEGDOM, BERNARD HUGUENEY, CURTIS DIXON, BENEDIKT MUELLER, THOMAS TRUMBLE, KATHRINE AND PATRICK TOBIN, JONCARLO MONTENEGRO, AL NICK ORTIZ, NICK GOLDEN, AND CHRISTINE GLASS! AND TO MY EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS, MATTHEW LAVENDER, SERGIU CODREANU, BOGDAN KANIVETS, ROSEY, AND GREGORY HASTINGS!
Columbia University Professor Cat Bohannon asks how it was that the male body became the scientific default in her new book Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution.
“There's this really old, really crap story that how we got here is about what the guys did. And women were just like some side character behind a hill, just like pounding some tubers, saying, ‘Oh, sorry guys. I see you're busy. I'm just gonna build the future of our species in my actual body'.” That's how the brilliant and hilarious Cat Bohannon introduces the idea behind her New York Times bestselling book, Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution. Ten years in the making, and making a huge splash internationally, the book is a fascinating, myth-busting tour of biological evolution that re-examines everything we think we know about the human body by placing women at the center of it all. In honor of International Women's Day on March 8th, we're thrilled to talk with Cat about her boundary-breaking book, which puts the female body in the foreground of biological research. “ It's not that there's a sexist cabal saying, ha ha! We're gonna understudy females”, she tells us, “It's that there's this pre-existing idea that ovaries don't matter”. Cat shares how there's a long history of female bodies being excluded from medical, evolutionary and biological research, and why that matters for everyone.The interview also dives into Cat's sci-fi movie inspiration for the book, how female figures in evolution were key to the humans of today, why the “male norm” in biological research developed in the first place, and how change in the scientific community is happening…slowly: “paradigm shifts are hard…that's the hardest thing to break out of. A paradigm shift is the biggest thing there is”. Don't miss this eye-opening discussion that looks at the human body from a whole different vantage point. About the ShowThe Breakout is the hit podcast hosted by human resources and change experts Dr. Keri Ohlrich and Kelly Guenther. The founders of Abbracci Group, a results-driven coaching, HR Management and consulting firm, Keri and Kelly are laser-focused on getting the best out of people. They launched The Breakout in early 2023 to find the best stories and advice on busting boundaries and making change, and since then the show has charted #1 in self-improvement, #1 in education, and #7 in all podcasts.Join Keri and Kelly on The Breakout as they get advice and insights from change experts, and learn from people who have really done it how you can dive into personal growth, increase self confidence, and move your life into bold new territory.Each episode comes with lessons on living courageously, with topics on self-help, leadership, personal development, building success, setting personal boundaries, growing your confidence, overcoming self doubt, and knowing your self worth. From huge transformations to quiet shifts, The Breakout highlights why every change matters.At Abbracci Group, Keri and Kelly offer a four-step coaching process to help you increase your self-awareness, break out of expectations, and live life on your terms. Learn more at abbraccigroup.com.Keri and Kelly's new book Whatever the Hell You Want – An Escape Plan to Break Out of Life's Little Boxes and Live Free From Expectations, is out in October 2024 and available for pre-order now!Dr. Keri Ohlrich's book The Way of the HR Warrior is available now.Connect with Dr. Keri Ohlrich and Kelly GuentherThe Breakout on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/thebreakoutpod/Abbracci Group website https://abbraccigroup.com/podcast/The Breakout Facebook https://www.facebook.com/thebreakoutpodcast/Abbracci Group LinkedInhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/abbraccigroup/The Breakout on YouTubehttps://www.youtube.com/@thebreakoutpodcastAbout Cat BohannonResearcher, scholar, writer, freak. Cat completed her PhD in 2022 at Columbia University, where she studied the evolution of narrative and cognition. Her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Scientific American, Science, The Best American Nonrequired Reading, Lapham's Quarterly, The Georgia Review, and on The Story Collider. Eve is her first book and a New York Times bestseller. She lives in the U.S. with her partner and two offspring.Connect with Cat BohannonCat Bohannon's WebsiteCat on XEve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution
Frank Schaeffer In Conversation with Author Cat Bohannon, exploring the themes of her new book, Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution._____LINKShttps://www.catbohannon.comBOOKEve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolutionhttps://bit.ly/482OLNu_____Cat completed her PhD in 2022 at Columbia University, where she studied the evolution of narrative and cognition. Her writing has appeared in Scientific American, Science magazine, The Best American Nonrequired Reading, Lapham's Quarterly, The Georgia Review, and on The Story Collider. Eve is her first book. She lives in the U.S. with her partner and two offspring._____I have had the pleasure of talking to some of the leading authors, artists, activists, and change-makers of our time on this podcast, and I want to personally thank you for subscribing, listening, and sharing 100-plus episodes over 100,000 times.Please subscribe to this Podcast, In Conversation… with Frank Schaeffer, on your favorite platform, and to my Substack, It Has to Be Said.Thanks! Every subscription helps create, build, sustain and put voice to this movement for truth.Subscribe to It Has to Be Said. Support the show_____In Conversation… with Frank Schaeffer is a production of the George Bailey Morality in Public Life Fellowship. It is hosted by Frank Schaeffer, author of Fall In Love, Have Children, Stay Put, Save the Planet, Be Happy. Learn more at https://www.lovechildrenplanet.comFollow Frank on Substack, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Threads, and YouTube. https://frankschaeffer.substack.comhttps://www.facebook.com/frank.schaeffer.16https://twitter.com/Frank_Schaefferhttps://www.instagram.com/frank_schaeffer_arthttps://www.threads.net/@frank_schaeffer_arthttps://www.youtube.com/c/FrankSchaefferYouTube In Conversation… with Frank Schaeffer PodcastLove In Common Podcast with Frank Schaeffer, Ernie Gregg, and Erin Bagwell
Researcher Cat Bohannon joins This Is Hell! to discuss her new book from Knopf, "Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution." Rotten History follows the interview. Check out Cat's book here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/227568/eve-by-cat-bohannon/ Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access weekly bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thisishell
Science evolves, often through fits and starts. Yet for most of medical history, there's been one consistent theme: most science has been conducted on male bodies. And this has created a range of problems for women. Thankfully, says Cat Bohannon, that's changing. As more women and BIPOC are entering the STEM fields, we're undergoing a renaissance in our understanding of a more inclusive and expansive science. On today's episode, the author of Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution tells Derek how much science has gotten wrong by focusing exclusively on male bodies—and what we're now doing right. Show Notes Cat Bohannon Epidemic Podcast | Tony Fauci: from one pandemic to another Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Keeping track of passwords can be a real pain. If you use a simple one or use the same one for everything, that makes you easy to be hacked. If you use a complicated one or lots of different ones, it's hard to remember. This episode starts with a strategy to create good passwords that you will remember. Source: Sid Kirchheimer, author of Scam-Proof Your Life (https://amzn.to/3SeWhA5) Men and women are different, obviously. However, some of the most interesting differences you may not know. For example, how men and women hear differently; the real reason women live longer than men, and how hormones affect behaviors differently in men and women. Joining me to discuss this is is Cat Bohannon. Cat is is a researcher with a Ph.D. from Columbia University and author of the book Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution (https://amzn.to/3SgBUlO). The world is full of pests: rats, insects, bees, deer, spiders – there are lots of them. So, what is it that makes a pest a pest? In some cases, what you consider a pest may not be to someone else. Generally, though, pests are something we strive to get rid of. What is the best way to do that? Maybe pests are really trying to tell us something. Here to discuss this is Bethany Brookshire. She is an award-winning science writer, a contributor to Science News magazine and a host on the podcast Science for the People (http://www.scienceforthepeople.ca/) and she is author of a book called Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains (https://amzn.to/3vzlpZt). Most drivers don't take the time to adjust the headrest in their car. In fact, many of us don't even think about doing it and aren't sure of the best position for it anyway. If you are ever in a crash, the position of your headrest can make a big difference. Listen as I explain how to adjust it. https://www.adlergiersch.com/provider-blog/how-to-properly-adjust-your-headrest-to-prevent-whiplash/ PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS! NerdWallet lets you compare top travel credit cards side-by-side to maximize your spending! Compare and find smarter credit cards, savings accounts, and more today at https://NerdWallet.com Indeed is offering SYSK listeners a $75 Sponsored Job Credit to get your jobs more visibility at https://Indeed.com/SOMETHING TurboTax Experts make all your moves count — filing with 100% accuracy and getting your max refund, guaranteed! See guarantee details at https://TurboTax.com/Guarantees Dell Technologies and Intel are pushing what technology can do, so great ideas can happen! Find out how to bring your ideas to life at https://Dell.com/WelcomeToNow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Where do we come from and how did we evolve into the beings and bodies we are today? The new book "Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution" argues for a better understanding of our origins with critical implications for our present. Jeffrey Brown spoke with author Cat Bohannon for our arts and culture series, CANVAS. PBS NewsHour is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders
Where do we come from and how did we evolve into the beings and bodies we are today? The new book "Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution" argues for a better understanding of our origins with critical implications for our present. Jeffrey Brown spoke with author Cat Bohannon for our arts and culture series, CANVAS. PBS NewsHour is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders
Cat Bohannon says for far too long the story of human evolution has ignored the female body. Her new book offers a sweeping revision of human history. It's an urgent and necessary corrective that will forever change your understanding of birth and why it's more difficult for humans than virtually any other animal species on the planet. Her best-selling book is called Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution, and we're talking all about it in this episode. Transcript BLAIR HODGES: When Cat Bohannan was working on her PhD, she noticed something was missing from the story she usually heard about human evolution. Specifically, women are missing. That seemed like a pretty big oversight. So she tracked down the most cutting edge research and pulled it together into a fascinating new book. Cat is here to talk about it. It's called Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Evolution. Since we're taking a new look at families, gender and sex on the show, I thought, what better place to begin than the place where we all begin at birth? Let's look at how that messy dangerous, incredible process came to be. There's no one right way to be a family and every kind of family has something we can learn from. I'm your host Blair Hodges, and this is Family Proclamations. INSPIRED BY SCI-FI (7:12) BLAIR HODGES: Cat Bohannon joins us. We're talking about the book Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Evolution. Cat, welcome to Family Proclamations. CAT BOHANNON: Hey, thanks for having me. BLAIR HODGES: You bet. I'm thrilled about this. This is this is such a good book. Your introduction suggests the idea for it was conceived in a movie theater or after you had just seen a movie prequel to Alien. I didn't see that coming. Talk about how the book started. CAT BOHANNON: Right, so as a person who is femme-presenting, as a person who identifies as a woman, I have many triggering moments for where I might want to talk about the body and its relation to our lives. However, there was this one kind of crystallizing bit. I'm a big sci-fi fan, big Kubrick fan, big Ridley Scott fan, so I'm gonna go, when they come out, I'm gonna go. Now, this is a prequel to Alien, so you know going into this film that whatever characters you meet, it's not gonna go well for them. You just accept it in that kind of sadistic way as an audience of these things, like this is—yeah, you know where it's going. But in this case, what happened is the main character has been impregnated, effectively, with a vicious alien squid, as you do. And she's sort of shambling in a desperate state, and she arrives in this crashed spaceship at a MedPod. So it's like surgery in a box, you know, that's the idea. And she asked the computer for a cesarean. I think she actually says something like, “CESAREAN!”, you know, but she wants help with her situation, her tentacled situation. And the MedPod says, “I'm sorry, this MedPod is calibrated for male patients only.” And I hear in the row exactly behind me, a woman say, “Who does that?” Exactly. Who does that? Who sends a multi-trillion dollar expedition into space? Right? Presumably that's the, maybe it costs more and doesn't make sure that the medical equipment works on women, right? And it turns out us. Yeah, it's us. We're the ones who do that. Right now, in every single hospital, It's a problem. BLAIR HODGES: So your book is looking at the “male norm” problem. You're looking at how, and not just in medical science, but I think in the ways anthropology has worked, a lot of sociological studies, studies of medicine—they assume the male body as the norm and then proceed from there. There are practical reasons for this that you talk about in the book, with medicine trials, for example, where you want a body that isn't maybe going to experience a lot of hormonal flux over the course of the study, or that isn't going to be pregnant or something. CAT BOHANNON: Mm-hmm. BLAIR HODGES: And so women get left out of scientific conversations a lot, not just in medicine but also in the history of evolution. Your book wants to address that gap. CAT BOHANNON: Yes, absolutely. And you can see it even in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, where they're inventing the first tool, right? And they're banging a bone on the ground that they use to beat the crap out of a guy. The camera tracks it, the bone goes up into the air and turns into a spaceship. This is the classic idea of tool triumphalism—that where we come from is male bodies doing what we stereotypically associate with male body stuff, like beating the crap out of people. BLAIR HODGES: Yeah. CAT BOHANNON: And there's no females in that scene. Where are they? Are they behind a hill having the babies? Like how—this is where evolution works, people. These are the bodies that make the babies, that make the babies that make the babies, right? And it's absolutely true that in the stories we tell ourselves about our bodies and where we come from, we often erase the idea of femininity. We often erase the presence of females as this kind of insignificant side character. But in biology, particularly in mammals, it's often quite the reverse. Things that drive mutations in female bodies, biologically female bodies, are often major drivers for the trajectory of that species because the outcome of our reproductive lives is strongly, strongly tied to the health of the bodies of the female. BLAIR HODGES: I love how you framed this: You invite us to think about our bodies as a collection of things that evolved at different times for different reasons. And you're looking especially at how female bodies have evolved. So breasts themselves have a heritage; milk has a heritage; ovaries have a heritage; senses have a heritage. And instead of one singular female that we'll look back to as our origin—like the biblical Eve, for example—you say there are actually a lot of different Eves. Because you're looking at the origins of all of these different parts of the body. CAT BOHANNON: Yep, absolutely. I mean, when you look in the mirror, what you see, if you're a sighted person is—well, it's a mix, right? It's actually the photons bouncing off of that mirror surface, which have already bounced off the surface of your body and then eventually find their way to your retinas. And that's all the technical features of how your eyeballs do what they do if you have eyeballs that do that. But it's also inevitably embedded in cultural understandings. And it's also embedded in an idea of time. That you begin at a certain point, your body arrives through—well actually through a very wet passage usually, into the world and so you are you. But actually, the body itself is a continuation of many processes that work very chaotically and intricately together that started a very long time ago. And your intestines are effectively way older than even your upright pelvis. Your pelvis is way older than your encephalized brain. So what you're looking at in the mirror is almost like, this might be too lyric, but it's almost like a point in a stream of light blasting out backwards from you and out forwards in front of you, because what you are isn't so much a thing, but something that is happening. MORGIE AND THE MILK (7:12) BLAIR HODGES: And you take us way back in time. 200 million years ago is when you take us, back to the first Eve. This is the “milk” mom, the mammal who kind of brought milk here. You describe her, you call her Morgie, and she's sort of this little weasel mouse. Tell us a little bit about Morgie. CAT BOHANNON: Morgie's fun. We nicknamed her Morgie because the Smithsonian did that before I did, thank you very much. She is an exemplar genus. There are many species of morganucodon, but they're often nicknamed Morgie in the community of paleo folk. And they are this lovely little kind of weasel rat bitch. She's great. She's only about the size of a field mouse. She is presumed to be burrowing. So she lives in little holes in the ground. BLAIR HODGES: The drawing is so cute, by the way, that you have in there. CAT BOHANNON: Isn't she wonderful? I hired this amazing illustrator. And as you'll see in the book and duly cited, she was very, very talented and we worked together. She wanted to have portraits of all the Eves. And I was like, yeah, let's do portraits of all the Eves. But she's coming from a Catholic background, my mother's Catholic too, so she wanted to do them like Saint cards, where you have the iconography in the center, but then all in the periphery around the side, you have all of these symbolic things. So you have a picture of Morgie, which is the real Madonna, thank you. But she doesn't have nipples. She's sweating drops of milk out of her milk patches on her belly. And she has these weird little pups sipping from it. Anyway, this is a podcast. You can look at it for yourselves when you get the book. But it's a beautiful, beautiful portrait. And the reason I picked Morgie as the start is, what people often forget is that, okay, yeah, we know we're mammals. You might've heard that even in high school bio. You're like, okay, homo sapiens, mammals, right? But what's not often talked about is, one of the many characteristic traits that make us mammals are deeply tied to how we reproduce, which is to say are deeply tied to the female sex of a species. And Morgie is this moment roughly when we think, okay, here's where we start lactating. Here's where we start making milk. And that becomes a key part of how we continue the development of our offspring after they exit the womb. And the funny thing about milk, of course, is that we're still laying eggs while we're first making milk, right? So we are egg-laying weird weasels, which is Morgie, in our little burrow, under the feet of dinosaurs, but also that we start lactating before we have nipples. When we often, for those of us who have breasts— BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, I didn't know this. CAT BOHANNON: I know, isn't it wild? I also learned this on my journey in the research. So when we look in the mirror, we think, oh, breasts, these things, where do they come from? And we think of them as a sexual trait. We think of them as a thing that is meant to signal attractiveness to our partners. But the thing is, is that exactly—But we may not even parse that, “Oh, are we talking about the shape? Are we talking about the fat? Are we talking about the—" And it's like, whoa, no, the origin of lactation is before you even have a nipple, that you actually are just sweating this thing out from modified endocrine glands out of your skin through your hair. And in fact, the duck-billed platypus, which is often modeled as a kind of weird monitoring basal mammal, she doesn't have nipples either. Her pups through their weird little bills are slurping the milk off the bottom of her belly through these milk patches. So that's where these things come from. BLAIR HODGES: I had no idea. And also that milk wasn't just for nutrition, but also a way to sort of protect the eggs, right? So Morgie was laying eggs and then milk would be produced to help the eggs, rather than just feed the babies? CAT BOHANNON: Yes. So for a lot of egg layers—not hard shell, not like a chicken, but a softer leathery shell, there are many species that make leathery eggs, yeah? The trick is, is when you're on land, you need to keep them moist. You can't have them dry out while that offspring is continuing to develop in there. So a lot of egg layers, it's kind of gross, but they secrete this kind of egg-moistening goo that also has a lot of useful anti-fungal and antibacterial properties. Because of course you also don't want the eggs to be overrun like old bread. You want it to both be wet but not moldy. Wet but not infested with parasites, right? BLAIR HODGES: [laughs] Sure. CAT BOHANNON: And so, yeah, the best model I've seen for the evolution of milk is actually derived from that original egg-moistening goo. Which is of course incredibly gross to think about, but more likely the origin of lactation. BLAIR HODGES: And you talk about the mechanics of the nipples themselves. So we do get to a nipple, evolutionarily we do develop these nipples. CAT BOHANNON: We do. I got two. BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, I do too! CAT BOHANNON: Some people have more. Yeah. BLAIR HODGES: I mean, mine would be a little bit trickier to get to milk from, but you do point out in the book that some male folks can lactate, given the right exercises and the right stimulation, et cetera. But with the nipple— CAT BOHANNON: And the right hormonal cocktail, usually. Yeah. BLAIR HODGES: Right, right. But with the nipple, it wasn't so straightforward. So even today, babies—it's not this natural, you know, it can be tough to get babies to latch. So it's like the odds were still stacked against us. Even though we developed a nipple. It's this dance that a breastfeeder and a baby have to do to figure out how to still transfer that food across. CAT BOHANNON: Absolutely, and some species seem to be a little bit better at that, what we often call latching than others. My son was terrible at it. Absolutely just mangled my chest wall in ways that alarmed even the nurses. They're like, “oh God, here's a pump.” It's okay, eventually, whatever, I didn't have a moral goal for it. Luckily, I was able to not be embedded in that debate that many women do in the way we punish ourselves. “Oh, I wasn't able to lactate well enough!” But yeah, come on, it's fine. I mean, and when you think of it from a biological perspective, when you think about it in that evolutionary frame, in many ways, the mammalian chest wall, our bodies know how to make milk better than babies know how to latch. It's an older trait, right? But there are many really, really cool traits about the latching when it does work, because milk is what's called a co-produced biological product. That means the mother and the offspring are actually making it together. Not simply because when you suckle, when an offspring suckles, that means you arrive at that letdown reflex—because we're not carrying a sloshing cup of milk around in our boobs no matter how big they are. This isn't a Ziploc bag in there, right? This is actually like maybe a couple tablespoons at a time if you're lucky when you're lactating. But no, the suckling actually triggers the milk glands to kick up production, and that's what starts the whole process rolling. But the more important thing there, for the latching—because once you have that vacuum-like seal, once the kid's mouth latches on, forms the seal like a weird lamprey, and sucks that relatively giant nipple into its mouth, well now actually you've created something of a tide. Because as the child suckles, it's creating a vacuum while it sucks its cheeks in. And that's to suck the milk down as it's coming. But the tongue's moving back and forth, which moves the focus of the vacuum back and forth, which creates a tide, like a wave on the shore, of milk over the top and under the bottom. The baby's spit is sucked back up into the nipple because that's how undertow works, it's just physics! Which is gross and invasive to think about as a person who's done it. But it's true that the spit is then drawn up into the whole lining of the tubing of the breast where it's read like some weird ancient code. BLAIR HODGES: Right! CAT BOHANNON: And the mother's immune system is responding. All sorts of different sensors are responding and changing the content of the milk to suit. So if the kid's sick, then you get more immunoagents coming down that nipple to help the kid fight off the infection. And a bunch of hormonal stuff and ratios of proteins to sugar. We make our milk to suit, given what we're effectively, anciently reading in the kid's spit. Now that said, breast pumps are awesome. Your kid will be fine if you're not able to do this, okay? You know, modern technology is beautiful, “Fed is best.” But if you are getting the latching, then that's what's actually happening. BLAIR HODGES: This is the kind of thing your book is chock full of. So many times people are going to run into things they may have never heard of that are just unreal. You also talk about how the breast can be dangerous business too. I mean, evolution has trade-offs. Breast cancer, for example, is so common with women. So you can benefit the baby, but having the ability to produce this milk and do this thing through the breasts also increases a risk to the breast-haver as well. You talk about such trade-offs throughout the book. CAT BOHANNON: Absolutely, and I'll also offer that male bodies and men and trans women are also all capable of getting breast cancer. We all actually have mammary tissue, but male typical bodies tend to have way less of it. And mammary tissue, because it's so dynamically responsive to hormonal signaling, is just one of those places in the body that's more vulnerable to the processes that can drive cancer. And BLAIR HODGES: Mmhmm. Cells going haywire. CAT BOHANNON: Exactly, exactly. So it's still something absolutely that non-binary folk and gender queer folk of all types should pay attention to. If something's bugging you in your body, talk to your doctor. BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, there are so many footnotes that have that caveat of like, by the way, talk to your doctor just in case. CAT BOHANNON: Well, it's so important. DONNA AND THE WOMB (16:27) BLAIR HODGES: Let's talk about the next Eve, this is Donna. And this is a chapter about the womb. Donna emerged after a catastrophic cataclysm, whatever killed off the dinosaurs. There was this little weasel type animal that made it through all that destruction. This is 60 million some odd years ago, and you point to her as a reason why so many women today have periods. Let's talk about Donna. CAT BOHANNON: Donna, which is, I nicknamed her Donna, of course, Protungulatum Donnae, but Donna's easier. It's cuter to call her Donna. So she is an ancestor of the modern placental womb. Now we only have one womb. Many mammals still have two because they're evolved, of course, from the shell gland of our former egg layers. And the reason we have one, we're not entirely sure why, but we know the mechanism is that you have these two organs that are merging into one and producing that kind of, in our case, pear-shaped thing, but many, many women and girls are still born with a uterus that has a little dent in the top. Very common. Some even have a whole fibrous divide down the middle. Some are even still born with two uteri, less common, but happens, and two cervixes and two vaginas to match. CAT BOHANNON: So the easiest way to remember the difference between us and marsupials is: marsupials pouch, us no pouch. But also marsupials: two or more vaginas, which is fun, and us only the one. But the thing the reason to think about that isn't simply that it's cute and weird and fun imagining all of the things you might do with an extra vagina—all of which I'm sure are for the good, but that it's really talking about, at what point in development is that offspring coming out of that maternal body, and how much of development is finished outside of the womb, in or out of a pouch or a burrow or what have you. So this is the moment we start going down the path towards our somewhat catastrophic human reproductive system that is long derived from early, early mammals just after that cataclysm, which knocked out almost all the dinosaurs except for a few disgruntled birds, right? That's what's left of them. Your house sparrow. But what we have now is, we have this really patently crazy thing where instead of laying eggs like a sensible creature, we effectively hot dock them into our bodies within a uterus and then transform, not simply the uterus, but the entire body into this kind of eggshell slash meat factory of a burrow. Because our body is now effectively the burrow for that phase of development. In marsupials, it comes out like the size of a jelly bean, comes out a lot sooner, finishing out most of that development in the pouch and then elsewhere. For us, we're finishing a lot of the development inside our bodies, which has all kinds of knock-on effects. BLAIR HODGES: One of my favorite parts of the book that just blew me away was the illustration—I think it's on page 76—of the female pelvic anatomy. What we usually see is the uterus, and it's stretched out and it looks kind of like hip bones. It looks like our hips, like the ovaries are stretched out, the tubes are. And you show, no, it's actually sort of just like balled and smooshed up in there all together— CAT BOHANNON: Totally. BLAIR HODGES: —which I mean, I have never seen this illustration before! I've always seen that other illustration where it's all laid out. CAT BOHANNON: Yeah. So a lot of us learn—if we're lucky enough to have something like sex ed. Sadly, not all of us do, but for those of us who are able to have that be part of our education, it's kind of like a T shape, like a capital letter T, where you have that uterus and the vag in the middle, and then you have those fallopian tubes extending out to the side with two little grapes, you know, near the fringy bits, right, which are the ovaries. But the body doesn't have all this extra room in it. It's not like stretching out its arms. It's all kind of smooshed up in there. Which means that I've had the very real and very common experience of having had a transvaginal ultrasound, where they're like trying to image my ovaries and they can't find one. Because for whatever reason, the path of that ultrasound beam is being blocked by a part of the bowel or the uterus itself, or just, something's in the way and the ovary's hiding. And I was very alarmed at this moment, partially because I had a large thing inside my vagina and I was trying to maintain a conversation. It's rough. BLAIR HODGES: [laughs] Right. CAT BOHANNON: But it's also like, this person's telling me they can't find one of my ovaries. I'm like, “Well where the hell is it?” Like, did I lose an ovary? Like what? You know? And no, actually it's just that everything is very smushed in there, which is part of why ovarian cysts can hurt so much for people who have them. Because you have that radiating signal of irritation hitting many different organs in that area, right? And so it can be kind of hard to pinpoint what you're feeling exactly. You just know it hurts or that it's like pressure, right? And it's different person to person. It's also unfortunately why ovarian cancer is so very dangerous. People who have these biologically female bodies, we kind of get used to aches and pains down there. It's kind of a weird common sensation, for fluctuations over a menstrual cycle, to have some kind of achy bits, some kind of bloated bits, some kind of “what was that sharp pain, I don't know, it went away, cool,” right? So in the early stages of ovarian cancer, it's often the case that a patient may not be fully aware that what's happening might be new. Now that's not to have your listeners be terrified. If something's bothering you, again, talk to your doctor. BLAIR HODGES: Yeah. CAT BOHANNON: But it is absolutely why it's so dangerous, because of course, given that it's so smushed against everything in there, it's not hard to metastasize. You're right up against the bowel. You're very close to the liver. You're in the mix in there. BLAIR HODGES: It's packed in there! And you talk about how bonkers this is, and how many people who have gone through pregnancy have said, like, “What the hell is this?!” [laughs] Like, why do I have to do this? CAT BOHANNON: Fair! Fair question. Yes. Somewhere in our very deep sci-fi future, if we don't blow ourselves up first—which given the news today seems very close to happening, thanks—but assuming we survive the insanity that is human culture and conflict, there is a future in which there is a truly external womb. Which would have to be effectively an entire synthesized female body, right? Because it's not just, it's also your immune system, it's your respiration, it's many things. But assuming in the very deep, many hundreds of years in the future that this happens, it immediately changes everything. Because of course, then it immediately becomes unethical to ever ask a female to do this dangerous thing. She may still choose, but it becomes unethical to ask, because there's truly an alternative. BLAIR HODGES: Hmm. CAT BOHANNON: Anyway, so there's a thought experiment for you in our future sci-fi. But yeah, it is nuts. It's nuts that we make babies the way we do. Our pregnancies and our births and our postpartum recoveries are longer and harder and more prone to dangerous complications that can and do cripple and or kill mother, child or both. And that's true compared to almost any other primate except for squirrel monkeys, and we feel sorry for them. But that's true for almost any other mammal. We suck at this! We're actually bad at reproduction, which seems counterintuitive because there are eight billion of us. But it's true. BLAIR HODGES: Right. And we see you trying to theorize as to why that is. Like, we're so bad at reproduction, but we're also so highly successful, one might even say an invasive species in a way. CAT BOHANNON: Right. BLAIR HODGES: We've spread out everywhere. How did that happen if we're so bad at reproduction and it's such a costly and dangerous thing to do? CAT BOHANNON: Well, it took all of our very classic hominin resources to pull it off. We had to be super social and super clever problem solvers who are good at thinking about the world as a tool user. Which is to say, tool use is about behavior. So it's not like a paleoanthropologist actually gives a damn about this rock that someone used to cut something, right? The stone axes are not the thing they care about. They care about what they can infer about the behavior of its user. All paleoanthropologists are deeply behaviorists. What that means is, if all tool use is essentially overcoming a limitation of your body in order to achieve a goal in your given environment and using some manipulation of your behavior to do that, well, our most important invention, if we suck at reproduction, was gynecology. Lucy—and I'm not the first to say this—Lucy the australopithecine, 3.2 million years ago, had a freakin' midwife. And habilis after her had even more reproductive workarounds, as did erectus, all the way up to homo sapiens. We were manipulating our fertility patterns through behavior. And that's a huge upgrade. Now you don't have to wait around for your uterus to evolve to a thing that's less deadly—because, of course, you could also just go extinct. There's that. That's an option in evolution. You could also just not exist when you have bad reproduction. But if you can work around it behaviorally, if you can have midwives—we're one of the only species that regularly helps each other give birth. If you can manipulate your fertility patterns to up or down regulate your fertility too, because in any given environment, it might be better to cluster your births earlier in your reproductive life and then care for your sort of “useless” babies—I love my kid, but they're useless, right? For a long period of time, right? Like in your given environment, given your food supply, maybe that's a good plan. Or maybe things are more seasonal, or maybe it's actually there's not a lot of food at all and you need to stretch that sh*t out. You need to actually have them every four to six years or so, which is what chimpanzees do, which is what some known human communities do. So you have to think about how we choose to have babies and what we do to manipulate our fertility, including medicinally, including behaviorally, in the space of medical practices, as something that's adapting this buggy and fault-prone thing that is human reproduction to suit our different environments and lifestyles. And that starts not a few hundred years ago, not just in the deep history of racism and eugenics sadly in modern gynecology, but actually millions of years ago. BLAIR HODGES: Sure. And you're inviting us to think again about tools. So you talked about that scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey, where the tool is this bone that's a weapon, and we think about the rise of humanity as being tied to this type of tool. You're inviting people to re-envision that and say, actually, the tool of gynecology—which would have involved our own hands as tools—would have been such a crucial turning point for who we are as a species or who we could become. CAT BOHANNON: Mm-hmm. BLAIR HODGES: Because I think you even say, we “seized the means of reproduction,” or something at that point, which is a great pun. CAT BOHANNON: Yes, yes, and meant to be, because I too am a nerd. Yes, we do. We do indeed seize the means of actual freakin' reproduction and get our hands on the levers that are controlling not only our reproductive destiny, but then effectively our destiny as a species. PURGI AND HUMAN SENSE PERCEPTION (27:29) BLAIR HODGES: That's Cat Bohannon and she's a researcher and author with a PhD from Columbia University in the evolution of narrative and cognition. We're talking about her book, Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution. It's a brand new book, and it's a fabulous book. The next part I wanted to talk about was perception. And you say you got thinking about whether men and women perceive the world in different ways. And you got thinking about this as a college student working as a nude model at the local art school. And when students would take a break, you'd kind of wander through and check out how people were seeing you, how they were drawing you. And you noticed, invariably often, the men would be drawing your breasts too big. You're like, those aren't mine. But then as the weeks went by, they would get closer to normal size. Like something was changing in how they initially saw you, how they were drawing you. And so you wondered, like, are they seeing things differently than me? Is perception different? CAT BOHANNON: Mmhmm. BLAIR HODGES: Now, the danger in this question is falling into the trap of “men are from Mars, women are from Venus,” right? Essentializing gender. CAT BOHANNON: Yyyuuup. BLAIR HODGES: So we'll keep that in mind as you talk about perception and what you found in this chapter. CAT BOHANNON: Yeah, so there were some genderqueer folk in the art classes where I was a professional naked person, which was my job at the time. But for the most part, they were cis folk with a variety of sexualities. So I would just point out that in these rooms, there of course was diversity, and there was racial diversity too. However, the most obvious variable, you know, if you want to call it that, was simply that the male presenting folk who were almost universally cis, were drawing my boobs too big. Now, they're not small. I'm like a 34D. It's a problem. The straps dig into my shoulders. I know that I am not a small-breasted person for good and ill, but it's more that there's just the skill of literally, proportionally, how big are these knockers you're putting on this figure drawing. And the females, the women, the femmes, were not doing that. And it wasn't the case then—And it was happening semester after semester in multiple classes. So this is not a scientific study that I'm basing this on. This is an anecdote. But like, it was a thing. And I asked some other people who had been models and they were like, “Oh yeah, they always do that.” And I was asking them, what do you think it is? And they usually said something like, “Eh, it's just porn. Whatever, they get over it. It's fine. They just don't know how to not see porn when they see naked female bodies,” right? Although this was the late 90s and early aughts, so it was before the massive proliferation of internet porn, but whatever. It was a thing, is what I'm saying. It was a freakin' thing that was fairly consistent. And so I had to ask myself, like, do they literally look larger to them? You know? Is this a cultural thing? Is this gender mess? Is this just sexism? Is it just, you know, that soup of that thing where it's complicated? Or is there something physiological going on? And so for that, I take us back to the dawn of primates. Not in the “men are from Mars, women from Venus” way, but actually when were we actually weird little proto monkeys in a tree? And can that tell us anything about why they draw my boobs too big? And it's a journey. I go through quite a lot because there's a lot that goes into the evolution of the sensory array. The nose, the eyes, the ears. So there's a lot to work with there and it doesn't always come back to my naked self. The central reason why, as best as I could tell, they were drawing them too large is that they were literally fixating on them. So when your eye looks out on the world, it's doing a mixture of things. It's doing a mixture of saccades, which are these twitchy little movements. Your eyes are doing back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, that you don't even notice. And fixations, which means they're landing on one spot and staying there for a period before they move around again. And there does seem to be in the lab notable sex differences in how male saccade versus fixation patterns seem to work. Again, mostly these subjects are cis men. So there's your caveat, right? But one of the famous things about male versus female facial perception that classically in the psychological literature, cis women seem to be better at remembering faces—and these are sighted people of course—than cis men. And it seems to be, after doing some eye tracking studies with some careful cameras, that what's happening is that male eyes seem to focus more centrally on the center of the face, almost kind of around the tip and bridge of the nose, like that center zone. Whereas female typical eyes are doing fixations through all of the major points of facial features, eyes, nose, cheekbones, chin, up again, all around, all around, all around. BLAIR HODGES: Huh. CAT BOHANNON: Which is to say it may be the case that it's not that—you know, the stereotype women are more social, we're just better at remembering people because we're all kind of emotionally mushy or some sh*t, right? No. It's actually that where you fixate is giving you more signal for your long-term memory. And so if you're getting a broader range of information to dump into long-term memory, just literally what your eyes are doing may be helping you do that, right? Which is not about a psychology thing, it's a physiology thing. And in the boys' cases, I think they were quite literally fixating more on my breasts. Now, why they were doing that may well be cultural— BLAIR HODGES: Right. CAT BOHANNON: They don't have them for the most part. And you know they're 18 years old, people. I was naked in front of 18-year-old boys, so I have no more nightmares, right? But like, that's new. That's not in our culture. That's not a thing they've seen a lot in the social setting as opposed to an intimate setting, right? So you know, literally it's looming large in their mind and over the course of the semester as they get used to it—right? So it's both what their eyes are doing, but it's also cultural. BLAIR HODGES: Right, and this is where—and you point this out as well sometimes, especially in the footnotes—where studies on trans folks are going to shed a lot more light on this— CAT BOHANNON: Oh yeah. BLAIR HODGES: —where we can probably get a better sense of where culture fits in, where expectations fit in versus physiology. And we're still so early in scientific endeavors of thinking about trans perception— CAT BOHANNON: Absolutely we are. BLAIR HODGES: It's just huge questions to explore, so much more to explore there than we know. CAT BOHANNON: Mm-hmm. It's gonna be fun, it's gonna be great. THE NOSE (33:38) BLAIR HODGES: Yeah! This also talks about—So our eyes, our nose, and our ears are in this chapter. The nose, it was really cool to learn about how our faces flattened out over time, which made smell—We're not as great smelling like as we used to be. Our faces are flat. We don't have this big organ in there that does a lot of good smell stuff. And a lot of these changes happened when we were up in the trees, to our eyes and ears, that point to what seem to be some sex-based differences. Give us some examples of these sex based differences in smell, in sight, in sound, that still carry through today that are kind of throwbacks to this time when we were swinging from the trees, or I guess really just kind of crawling around in the trees. CAT BOHANNON: Yeah, yeah, we didn't have those brachiated shoulders yet. So swinging less so. But no, this is a kind of classic story of how we got the so-called monkey face. Even a kid can kind of draw a monkey face on a piece of paper. You got the big ears, got that kind of flat face, two forward-facing binocular stereoscopic eyes. Like we know what that looks like, but that's a very big change from something like a weasel or a mouse, right? Where you have that elongated snout, you have eyes a little bit more to the side. Right, and most of the people who talk about the evolution of primates do talk about how this came about. If a face is a sensory array, it's not just what we use to smile at each other. It's where we're hanging our primary sensors of the eyes, the nose, and the ears, and how we position them on our head is very much shaping how we perceive our environment. So the move up into the trees is a very different environment from the ground, especially from burrowing. There are many different ways in which we have to process the world differently. When it comes to the nose, one of the things that's interesting about human beings is we lost what's called the vomeronasal organ. In a lot of mammals, the perception of pheromones, you know, smells that usually the opposite sex put out that we innately strongly react to, which in a mouse is incredibly a dominant part of their perceptive lives. For us, we don't have it. We evolved away from it. We actually still have a teeny tiny little passage. It's like at the bottom of our sinuses, but it ends in kind of a—it hits a wall. It's not much going on there. Human beings don't seem to have a whole lot of pheromone perception left. But what we do have is a whole bunch of cisgender women who are a lot better at smelling stuff than males are. And we're not entirely sure we know why it is. But it is absolutely true classically in olfaction that female subjects are going to be better at detecting scents that are faint in a room. That's a concentration thing. You only need a little whiff, you know, whereas a male typical might need a stronger dose. We're better at discerning between different kinds of scents and we're better at recognizing it quickly. So we're literally smelling more finely than males are. But it's not because we have more receptors, actually. And in fact, our noses, our nostrils sucking in that air are smaller than most males in fact. No, the big difference actually seems to be in the olfactory bulb itself. This is the part of the brain that processes smell information. Yeah. And the cells are more tightly packed with more of them, even controlling for body size, in a female typical brain than in a male. And that just means it is transmitting that signal more quickly and more widely and more effectively, and then sending a stronger signal out to other parts of the brain. So we're literally wired differently. Don't entirely know why. And we're not really sure if that's a tree problem or if it's just like a sex pheromone problem that's a leftover. Not really sure. THE EARS (37:19) BLAIR HODGES: Not only not only our smell is discussed in this chapter, but our hearing is as well. You say that probably the most important differences between sex as pertains to hearing here—volume and pitch, women tend to hear better in higher pitches, they retain hearing better with age. What are the differences that stood out to you in a male typical versus a female typical body when it comes to our hearing? CAT BOHANNON: Uh, this was kind of wild for me. So I'd often heard the story, and maybe you have too, that female ears, human female ears, are better tuned to higher pitches that often correspond to baby cries, right? Men and women can hear the same pitches for most of our early lives, but we're more tuned in to the pitches that are associated with the pitches that babies usually use when they cry. To me, this was kind of an annoying story. Once again, I seem to be hardwired to make babies. And as a feminist, I'm like, “ugh.” But it's true, so it's fine. It's a long-evolved thing. But the more interesting thing in that story for me was that most cis men start losing the upper range of their hearing starting at age 25. Now it's a gradual slope. Guys in their thirties don't need a hearing aid necessarily if they're normally hearing people, right? But you do have this slope of decline that's just, it's like a band filter. It's just cutting off the top end of your range, every year a little bit more, down, down, until you arrive in your fifties. And the thing is, female voices, female typical cis women's voices are a little bit higher pitched and our overtones on our voices, the full timbre of our voice, it really extends up to the top end of human hearing. So what happens is quite literally starting age 25, cis men aren't hearing women's voices very well and the older they get, the worse it gets, until finally in their fifties or so, quite without realizing it, a lot of men, a lot of cis men, our voices, our female voices sound thin, a little bit tinny, harder to pick out, and may well be boosted by a hearing aid. Right? So that totally changes some of how I understand the dynamic of a boardroom. Now, it doesn't explain why a sexist man cares about what a woman says less. It doesn't say that. That's just sexism. BLAIR HODGES: Right. CAT BOHANNON: But it does say that literally he might be having trouble hearing you without realizing he is. BLAIR HODGES: And again, as you discuss, all of these interesting things throughout the chapter of perception—and I don't remember if we mentioned Purgi is the name of this Eve, 60-some-odd-million years ago. CAT BOHANNON: Purgatorius, yes! BLAIR HODGES: Yes, ancestor of the primates. So if people want to learn even more about these kind of things about our nose, our eyes, our ears—Purgi's chapter is the place to go. We're talking with Cat Bohannon about her book Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution. You can also check out some of Cat's essays and poems. They've appeared in Scientific American, Mind Science Magazine, The Best American Non-required Reading, and other places. She lives with her family in Seattle but is currently touring to talk about this new book called Eve. ARDI AND THE LEGS (40:21) Let's talk about the legs. So we talked a little bit about being up in the trees already. But at some point, we came down, this is about four and a half-ish million years ago, we decided to stand upright. And that had some big implications for differently sexed bodies. Let's talk about some of those. CAT BOHANNON: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I don't know that we decided to do much of anything, at least in the sense of conscious choice— BLAIR HODGES: [laughs] Maybe had to. CAT BOHANNON: We didn't choose, I mean, to modify our pelvic arrangement. Although some individual choices happen along the way. So yeah, one of the big things in a shift for the human evolution pattern is that we mistakenly believed for a while that our ancestors were knuckle walkers, like chimps or gorillas, and then we stood upright. You remember that old diorama, that old, you know, you got the knuckle walking— BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, it's classic. CAT BOHANNON: —and then you eventually stand up and then there's jokes about it, eventually you're like sitting typing on the computer at the far right. You know? BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, all hunched over, yeah. CAT BOHANNON: Yeah. And so that kind of meme kind of has been around, but actually we were never knuckle walkers, none of our ancestors were, none of our Eves certainly. We were just hanging out in trees and then on the ground a bit more and eventually walking. The thing about walking is that what you really need to be able to do besides just having a spine absorb more pressure than it would otherwise—that's why we have an S-shaped lower back to help distribute that force over our bodies without crippling us. But also, what we needed to be able to do was endure. In other words, the story of walking and bipedalism is an endurance story. A primatologist once told me that there is no safe place to be in a room with a chimpanzee. There's no possibility that you are in a safe space because they are incredibly fast, incredibly strong, and can be incredibly violent. They will rip off your face—sometimes, literally, hopefully not, and they'll do it really, really fast. So the idea that we got faster when we became upright is actually wrong. What did happen, however, is that if a chimp does attack you, not long after all of that incredible violence and speed and running away more than likely, because that's mostly going to happen if the chimp's scared, you know, they're going to want to go eat a mango under a tree somewhere. They're not keeping it up for a long period of time. BLAIR HODGES: Hmm. CAT BOHANNON: What we can do is we can walk all freakin' day. Very few animals have the kind of metabolic capability of doing such a thing. Because it's not simply what your muscles can do. It's how your muscles are utilizing what's called the substrate. Utilizing local energy resources, and when those run out, tapping into other resources—usually in our case from fat. So that's why we're able to walk from point A to B for hours and hours, whereas a chimpanzee can't do that sh*t, right? So the interesting thing about sex differences here is that, we know that female bodies in human bodies are slightly better at endurance by many different measures. So untrained bodies—bodies that haven't been trying to do this, in other words, haven't been working out in the gym—your classic female body does have slightly less muscle mass, but that isn't the big story. The bigger story is that when you do a deep tissue biopsy, female typical skeletal muscles have a little bit more of what's called slow twitch muscle. You might have heard, that's an endurance muscle. That's a type of tissue that's better at doing things for a long period of time, as opposed to fast twitches, which is what lets you be a sprinter, which is what lets you really have explosive strength. There does seem to be that sex difference, I mean, between male bodies—typical, average, I mean—and female bodies, just in terms of what those muscles seem to be geared for, right? And it's tricky, right? Most of us aren't ultra marathoners, for many reasons, most of them psychological! Uh, some of them financial actually, right? But most of us aren't going to do those extreme tests of endurance. But once you get up to those extreme lengths, actually, female runners, tend to not only match or beat male runners in those races, but actually tend to outpace them over time. Which is to say there may be something about the female body that, in long feats of endurance, is slightly better at this. Very slightly better at tapping into a second wind. And so if that's the case, then it's curious that usually how we tell the story about becoming upright is all about some sh*t that we assume guys were doing. Usually it's around hunting. The idea that we were running down big game, you've probably read some popular science books about that, that we evolved to run, right? BLAIR HODGES: Right. CAT BOHANNON: And sort of. Maybe. But it's a little bit weird, one, to assume that the males were the ones doing that. Two: We were upright way before we were hunting big game. Like Ardipithecus is the Eve I use in the legs chapter— BLAIR HODGES: Yes, Ardi! CAT BOHANNON: And you know, this is a very, very—Ardi, she's wonderful, recently discovered, wonderful, wonderful fossil. She was upright well before big game was a big part of our food strategies. So like we were actually doing stuff on two legs way before it was a matter of running anything down. CRAFTING SCIENTIFIC NARRATIVES (45:23) BLAIR HODGES: And this is where it seems tricky for researchers to pin down is, we're dealing with these huge lengths of time, and we're dealing with a pretty limited record. CAT BOHANNON: Mmhmm. Yeah. BLAIR HODGES: And we see you piecing the story together in ways that challenge the conventional narrative. And you've got the evidence there—just as much evidence and sometimes more than what the typical narrative tells us, which is, like you said, we started walking upright because males were hunting and running after game or whatever. And you're like, “Well, actually, there's all this other evidence that shows there's probably other stuff going on.” And looking at today's bodies gives us some ideas about the bodies of the past as well. So you mentioned the different sort of muscle things that female bodies tend to have. Now would that definitely be something that developed through evolution rather than through, like, boys getting played with more or something in their youth than girls do, or roughhousing with boys versus girls, or something like that? CAT BOHANNON: You know, it's hard to say. I think that's a smart question. I think of the studies that I was using, that I was wielding—juggling even, in the legs chapter—those were all done on adult bodies, in part because there are ethics around doing a deep tissue biopsy in an infant. You know, like what is consent there? Why would a—you know, and also the occasion; why it might happen and what's the clinical setting. Like there are many ways into a scientific study, but adult consent and informed consent's a big one, right? BLAIR HODGES: Mm-hmm. CAT BOHANNON: So yeah, I don't think those were pediatric studies, and I think it's smart. I think it's smart to say that when we do studies on adult bodies, there have been whole lived lives and whole lived childhoods up to that point. That's absolutely true, and that plays into some of the issues we talk about later in the book too. So I don't know, I don't know. I do know that at least when there have been cellular studies of metabolism in human muscle cells, XX cells seem to be slightly better at utilizing multiple substrates, which is to say multiple energy sources—tapping into that second wind when the local sugar runs out is usually how we tell that story, yeah?—than XY cells, right? So it does seem to be true at the cellular level and not just types of tissue. But you're absolutely right that I don't know how much childhood is gonna play into that adult musculoskeletal system, at least not from the research I've seen. BLAIR HODGES: And you also say that going upright was harder on female bodies. Can you give me an example of why that would be? CAT BOHANNON: Yes. So, for one thing, relaxin. Relaxin is this thing that is floating around in the bloodstream of both male and female bodies, but it is slightly more dominant in female typical bodies. Again, I'm always here talking about “biological females,” usually pre-menopause here, okay? Just to put a pin in that so we know what we're talking about. BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, okay. CAT BOHANNON: Relaxin is a thing that during pregnancy loosens the ligaments and the support structures around, not only the hip bones and the pelvic structure to help it widen and carry that additional load, but of course also to widen our very narrow birth canal, which is a problem! BLAIR HODGES: Yeah. CAT BOHANNON: But it's also, even when we're not pregnant, it tends to make the fixtures of the joints a little looser. It actually has to do with a vascular response around the joints, so I won't get too technical with you. But basically what it does is it makes a typical female body a bit more flexible, you know. Now this is part of why our feet expand when we are pregnant. It's not simply fluid retention, but for female bodies that become pregnant, it's also that these higher doses of relaxin are loosening the ligaments that are binding all of those foot bones together. So they literally get wider, and sometimes a little bit longer, which is very freaky when you think about it. And, uh, it doesn't always quite go back—I can tell you—afterwards, many women gain as much as a whole shoe size during pregnancy— BLAIR HODGES: Wow. CAT BOHANNON: —and then just retain that, which sucks for buying new shoes, but there you go. You have greater concerns when you're in your postpartum period, I could say, um, yeah. But it also means that we're especially prone to lower back pain, possibly because of some instability there in the lower back. Especially going through pregnancy and back again, that can make you more vulnerable too, because it does a lot to the curvature of the spine. Right? So in other words, being upright with this extra relaxin in your bloodstream can make you a little more vulnerable to certain kinds of bone and muscle related pains than it would be if you were a totally sensible four-legged creature who isn't doing this crazy thing, because basically we used to be like tables with four legs and now we're standing on two of the legs of the table and our body is still kind of catching up. BLAIR HODGES: [laughs] Right. Yeah, and you're bearing that extra weight of a pregnancy, too, on that back. And so the common lower back pain is a remnant of this decision—or not “decision” as you pointed out, but this evolutionary move of going upright, exactly, right. CAT BOHANNON: Accident. Yeah. PREGNANCY AND THE BRAIN (50:06) BLAIR HODGES: That's not the only change that women undergo during pregnancy, these physical changes you talked about—the joints, the feet. But also the brain undergoes changes similar to what happens to the brain during puberty. You describe it almost like a second sort of puberty. There's so much development and change happening in the actual brain that it's like a second puberty for women who become pregnant? CAT BOHANNON: It's like an extra transition in a life cycle. Yeah. BLAIR HODGES: Okay, right. CAT BOHANNON: So in biology, you have these classic, maybe you've seen, developmental trajectories in the life cycle. It usually looks like a circle with arrows around it. You see like an egg and then a juvenile—like in insects, you'll have like a larva and then you have a chrysalis and then you have a butterfly. For mammals, we do this too. And we say, what are the developmental phases? What are the phases of this life cycle? And one of the interesting things, at least when it comes to how the human brain seems to go through this life cycle—because there are changes in our incredibly plastic, very malleable human brain that shift and actually have very notable physiological changes at each of these major transitions. So in puberty, there's actually an incredible rewiring and developmental thing that happens all throughout the teens. Can be very challenging, can make you more vulnerable to certain kinds of mental illness, actually, and then not suffer as much when you come into your twenties. There are outcomes, in other words, from what's going down in there. BLAIR HODGES: Yeah. Schizophrenia will often emerge around that time, for example, and a little bit later for women than men, right? CAT BOHANNON: Yeah, yeah, yes, absolutely so. And one of the cutting-edge things in research there is whether or not the brain development during puberty is in any way affecting that trajectory. Both men and women—and by this I mean males and females—are prone to schizophrenia, right? Schizophrenia, it's a strongly genetically related thing, but we're not entirely sure what all the triggers are. What we do know is that males and females both get it. But what happens is that males are diagnosed sooner. And very obviously so, they move into psychosis. Whereas females have a slightly different symptomology, slightly different path towards diagnosis. And then they have, and are diagnosed later in their twenties. Now some of that's a diagnosis bias in that— BLAIR HODGES: Sure. How signs are read by society or whatever. Yeah. CAT BOHANNON: Exactly, which is a cultural thing and sometimes a sexist thing. There are just, there are complications there. There are confounds. However, it may also be the case, that because the pubertal shift is sort of long and slow in humans, we actually start many of the features of our puberty sooner and then take longer to complete them in female bodies. Whereas for males, it hits you later and it hits you like a truck. It just hits you like a ton of bricks. It's just, um, it, that's just, it's just faster and a bit harder, if you will, because you're condensing that into a later point. And interestingly, even in rodents actually—though what you might call a puberty isn't exactly the same as what we do—they likewise in the female have a sort of longer period of going through it than the male. So it might just be a basic mammalian thing. But the effect in the human brain is that you have this longer and slightly…Subtle isn't the right word but you have this longer period of brain development that's dealing with the hormones of puberty, that has a slightly different slope while that brain's developing, whereas in the male brain, it's shorter, it's more impacted, it might be a bit rougher, you know. So in a brain that's already prone to psychosis—this is where the research, some branches of research are going, you know—is that a factor? Are there physiological shifts in sex differences in puberty that make those brains differently vulnerable to different kinds of mental illness? BLAIR HODGES: And so female brains are undergoing these changes during puberty. But then later during pregnancy, as we were talking about, there's also more shifts. And this is literally like stuff sort of moving around. Is this like neurons kind of remapping and different things? Like what's actually happening up there? CAT BOHANNON: Yeah, yeah, yeah. What the hell is this wet lump of tissue in our heads that we center the self in? Good question, good question! Neuroscience would like to know. BLAIR HODGES: [laughs] Yeah. CAT BOHANNON: No, it's true. Well, a pregnant female's brain—and by this I mean human now, actually shrinks in the third trimester, like significantly so, which is alarming. Like is the baby actually eating my brain? Good question! No one's really sure quite why this is happening. BLAIR HODGES: Mom brain! CAT BOHANNON: I know, actual mom brain, it turns out, is hella real. Yeah, in the stereotypical sense. So yeah, some of it actually, interestingly, doesn't seem to be a loss of neurons. It's not a loss of cells necessarily from what little they've been able to see in various studies. It seems to be more a loss of—There is a rewiring. There is a kind of clear, you know, snipping out a bunch of connections in your existing neural network, which in some ways may make room for new pathways. So one of the big arguments for why our brains develop so long during that pubertal period—which is very unlike other primates, right? We really have this huge period of social learning in our childhoods and then our adolescence—is that we have deep social learning to do. We have really complex social societies, and we're constantly having to map them and learn not just new things to do with ourselves, but new ways to be in different social environments, especially as we shift around through different social environments. So in that case, when you think about what's happening in the last trimester of pregnancy, and then in the postpartum recovery period, this is someone who is having major social shift. Now the story in the sciences is usually told that, oh, this is helping her better bond with her baby, her really, really vulnerable baby, who's so very useless, can't even hold up its head. You know, so like, wow, so this is all about that bonding. And it's true that some of the regions that show some of that shrinkage, if you will—which sounds like a bad thing, but is actually allowing for more pathways to form. That's the argument that's usually made about it— BLAIR HODGES: Okay. CAT BOHANNON: —have to do with social bonding and reading social cues, and so it's a sociality story. One of the things that I say in the book is that, must we again render the mother invisible? Maybe it's not all about the baby. Maybe she matters too. Because actually one of the big things that happens in a social species like ours when we give birth and come into motherhood, especially for the first time, is that we are learning new ways to be. We're learning how to differently map our social environment and new relationships with different sorts of people, and who's going to be most helpful in this new feature in my life. And who of my old friends are like, maybe not gonna help out with the kids so much. Just, you know, we love them, but that's not their strength. You know, in other words, and how to ask for things that you need, and when to learn new social rules. Which is to say, I suspect some of the brain changes that are happening there are not simply about bonding with the baby, but are about being able to read the room once you have one. Which I assume is a long-evolved trait that is just repurposed in the human. This is probably happening in chimps to a degree. It's more like, “Okay now that you're human, let's repurpose this trait in your hyper social environment.” Does that make sense? BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, it does. CAT BOHANNON: Okay. WHAT MAKES A WOMAN (57:16) BLAIR HODGES: And time and time again, we see this in your book where you'll take the mainstream story about why a particular biological thing is happening—so mom brain, for example, which is that maybe people might encounter forgetfulness or feeling scattered or like ADHD type symptoms or whatever—and saying, “Oh, this is happening because they're doing this for baby.” And you're saying, “Okay, like, sure. But also, what if it's also this?” CAT BOHANNON: Yep. BLAIR HODGES: Because those type of questions are what are driving scientific outcomes and the theories that we have about it. So your book, again and again, is saying, well, what about this as well? Or what about this instead? So we're just sort of getting a different point of view. CAT BOHANNON: Mm-hmm. BLAIR HODGES: And I think with a lot of these questions, it's hard to just say, this is the definitive answer. And you do write with a level of humility there. But you're really opening up possibilities that can change the way we the way we interact with people who aren't parents, or people who are. Because you're also not saying, “Look, in order to be a perfect woman, you need to go through this change in your brain or else you're an unfulfilled woman!” CAT BOHANNON: Oh, god no. No no no no no. BLAIR HODGES: Right. So you're speaking to a lot of different experiences. CAT BOHANNON: You know, I think this is true for all women. We people who have uteri are not merely vessels for babies. Even in an evolutionary sense, because we are a hyper-social species in interdependent complex social environments and cultures. Which is to say, it is not a woman's destiny to freaking give birth. It is a woman's destiny to survive as best as she can, just like any other organism. You know what I mean? And it's also true that there are many, many ways to contribute to the wellbeing of a group, even in a biological sense, even in an ancient ancestral sense, besides simply producing more babies. And that's sometimes the confusion when we talk about the book. Some people have been confused thinking, “Are you saying that women are the way they are—you know, cis women—because it's our destiny to have babies?” And I'm like, “No!” It's more that the way we have babies is really crap, and many, many features in our bodies have evolved to withstand it. If this is a thing that hopefully you choose to do and isn't forced upon you, hopefully you have some long-evolved traits to make it suck less. It's more like that, more like that. BLAIR HODGES: And so, women who don't undergo that or have the same kind of like brain changes, it doesn't mean that their brains are somehow lesser than or whatever, they're just suited for different things. CAT BOHANNON: Exactly. BLAIR HODGES: And this is also where trans identities come into play as well. You don't have to be this “biologically sexed”—let alone intersex folks as well, where there's not this sort of binary that exists there—but that trans women can experience the world as women, as trans women especially, even though they may not be able to physically carry a pregnancy. Because I think one of the reasons people who are sort of anti-t
In a special episode of People I (Mostly) Admire, Steve Levitt talks to Cat Bohannon about her new book Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution. SOURCE:Cat Bohannon, researcher and author. RESOURCES:Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution, by Cat Bohannon (2023)."Genomic Inference of a Severe Human Bottleneck During the Early to Middle Pleistocene Transition," by Wangjie Hu, Ziqian Hao, Pengyuan Du, Fabio Di Vincenzo, Giorgio Manzi, Jialong Cui, Yun-Xin Fu, Yi-Hsuan, and Haipeng Li (Science, 2023)."The Greatest Invention in the History of Humanity," by Cat Bohannon (The Atlantic, 2023)."A Newborn Infant Chimpanzee Snatched and Cannibalized Immediately After Birth: Implications for 'Maternity Leave' in Wild Chimpanzee," by Hitonaru Nishie and Michio Nakamura (American Journal of Biological Anthropology, 2018)."War in the Womb," by Suzanne Sadedin (Aeon, 2014)."Timing of Childbirth Evolved to Match Women's Energy Limits," by Erin Wayman (Smithsonian Magazine, 2012)."Bonobo Sex and Society," by Frans B. M. de Waal (Scientific American, 2006). EXTRAS:"Yuval Noah Harari Thinks Life Is Meaningless and Amazing," by People I (Mostly) Admire (2022)."Jared Diamond on the Downfall of Civilizations — and His Optimism for Ours," by People I (Mostly) Admire (2021).
The female body has been neglected in anthropological narratives, minimized in the archeological record, and excluded from modern-day clinical trials. But what if that weren't the case? How would our origin story change if we made women the protagonists? Cat Bohannon asked herself that question a decade ago. She has finally shared her answer in a New York Times bestselling book called “Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution.”
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comCat is a researcher who focuses on the evolution of narrative and cognition. Her essays and poems have appeared in Scientific American, Mind, Science Magazine, and other publications. Her fascinating new book is Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution, and I highly recommend it.For two clips of our convo — on the combat that occurs within a pregnant woman between mother and child, and the magic of nipples while breastfeeding — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: Cat growing up near the “Confederate Mount Rushmore”; her mom the pianist and her dad the research psychologist; Cat helping him in the laboratory he ran; why medical research has ignored female subjects; plastination and Body Worlds; studying the first lactating mammal, Morganucodon; the origins of sex bifurcation; how “binary” is now controversial; how your gut contains countless organisms; how the placenta protects a fetus from being attacked by the mom; the dangers of pregnancy and childbirth; preeclampsia; how human reproduction is much longer than other mammals'; postpartum depression; why the left breast is favored in breastfeeding; the maternal voice; Pinker's The Language Instinct; humans as hyper-social animals; how women hunted and obtained just as much protein as men — in different ways; our omnivore flexibility; sexed voices; how even livers have a sex; the only reliable way to determine the sex of brains; how male cells can end up in a female brain; why women are more likely to wake during surgery; sexual pleasure; bird copulation; duck vaginas; the chimp's “polka dot” penis; why the slower sex of humans was key to our evolution; my challenging of Cat's claim that 20 percent of people are homosexual; and foreskin and boobs and clits, oh my.On that “20 percent of humans are homosexual” question, which I challenged directly on the podcast, it turns out Bohannon made a mistake which she says she will correct in future editions. As often happens, she conflated the “LGBTQ+” category with homosexuality, and relied on a quirky outlier study rather than the more reliable and standard measurements from places like the Williams Institute or Gallup. Williams says 1.7 percent of Americans are homosexual, i.e. gay or lesbian. Gallup says it's 2.4 percent. The trouble, of course, with the LGBTQIA+ category is that almost 60 percent are bisexual, and the “Queer” category can include heterosexuals as well. As a way of polling actual, same-sex attracted gays and lesbians, it's useless. And designed to be useless.Note too Gallup's percentage of “LGBTQIA+” people who define themselves as “queer”. It's 1.8 percent of us. And yet that word, which is offensive and triggering to many, and adopted by the tiniest fraction of actual homosexuals, is now regarded by the mainstream media as the right way to describe all of us. In the podcast, you can see that Cat simply assumes that “queer” is now used universally — because the activists and academics who form her environment have co-opted it. She readily sees how that could be the case, when we discussed it. I wish the MSM would do the same: stop defining all gays the way only 1.8 percent of the “LGBTQ+” “community” do. Of course they won't. They're far more interested in being woke than telling the truth.Browse the Dishcast archive for another convo you might enjoy (the first 102 episodes are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: McKay Coppins on Romney and the GOP, Jennifer Burns on her new biography of Milton Friedman, Joe Klein with a year-end review, and Alexandra Hudson on civility. Please send any guest recs, dissent and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.
Why do women live longer than men? Why do women have menopause? Why do girls score better at every academic subject than boys until puberty, when suddenly their scores plummet? And does the female brain really exist? Considering the science and data collection methods we currently have, it is somewhat of a wonder that there is so little known about biology as it relates to sex, as well as our behavior. Author and Researcher, Cat Bohannon, argues that these questions should have been investigated decades ago, with a level of thoroughness and care that is still lacking in mainstream science. Bohannon points to the fact that societal attention has been on the male body for so long, that even natural occurrences like menopause, are considered a medical mystery. In her debut publication, Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution, Bohannon examines the evolution of the female sex. From the development of breastmilk, initially in mammals no larger than a field mouse, to the first placental mammals, to the way C-sections in the industrialized world are altering women's pelvic shape, Bohannon brings hard science and a passionate curiosity to the subject of female biology. Please join us as Town Hall as Cat Bohannan makes the case for a greater understanding of the female body. Cat Bohannon is a researcher and author with a Ph.D. from Columbia University in the evolution of narrative and cognition. Her essays and poems have appeared in Scientific American, Mind, Science Magazine, The Best American Nonrequired Reading, The Georgia Review, The Story Collider, and Poets Against the War. She lives with her family in Seattle. Bonnie Garmus is a copywriter and creative director who has worked widely in the fields of technology, medicine, and education. She's an open-water swimmer, a rower, and mother to two pretty amazing daughters. Born in California and most recently from Seattle, she currently lives in London with her husband and her dog, 99. Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution Third Place Books
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com(The main Dish and VFYW contest are taking a break for the holiday; we'll be back with full coverage on December 1st. Happy Thanksgiving!)Matthew is a writer and philosopher. He's currently a senior fellow at UVA's Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture and a contributing editor at The New Atlantis. His most famous book is Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work. He also has an excellent substack, Archedelia.This episode was recorded on October 17. You can listen to it right away in the audio player above (or on the right side of the player, click “Listen On” to add the Dishcast feed to your favorite podcast app). For two clips of our convo — the antihumanism of Silicon Valley, and the obsession with kid safetyism — pop over to our YouTube page.Other topics: Matthew's birthplace in Berkeley; his dad the physics professor and jazz player; his mom the New Age “seeker type”; Matthew taken out of school at age 10 for five years to live in an strict ashram and travel to India; he left to join “the great bacchanal” of high school where he “didn't learn much”; did unlicensed electrical work and studied physics in college; he believes bureaucracy “compromises the vitality of life”; Hannah Arendt; Tocqueville; Christopher Lasch and the close supervision of kids' lives; Johan Huizinga and the spirit of play; Oakeshott's metaphor of a tennis match; Enoch Powell; behavioral economics; William James; Nudge and choice architecture; Kant; TS Eliot; Nietzsche; gambling addiction and casino manipulation; Twitter and “disinformation”; self-driving cars; plastic surgery; kids and trans activism; the Nordic gender paradox; nationalism; why the love of one's own is suspect on the political left; how “diversity is our strength” decreases diversity; Hillary's “deplorables”; Matthew's book The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction; brainy people not understanding practical ones; knowledge workers threatened by AI; the intelligence needed in manual work; why Americans are having fewer children; liquid modernity; the feminization of society; Bronze Age Pervert; Ratzinger; Matthew's recent conversion to Christianity; and gratitude being the key to living well.Browse the Dishcast archive for another convo you might enjoy (the first 102 episodes are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Cat Bohannon on Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution, Jennifer Burns on her new biography of Milton Friedman, McKay Coppins on Romney and the GOP, and Alexandra Hudson on civility. Please send any guest recs, dissent and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.
This week, Kate sits down with author Cat Bohannan to talk about her book Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution. This conversation takes you on a captivating journey through the intricacies of human evolution viewed through the stories our bodies have to tell - and the female body in particular. In this podcast, they explore elements of the book as well as exploring what it means to look at the narrative arc of female bodies through deep time. We look at how our evolution is a product of environment, culture, behaviors, context, and bodies exploring topics like menopause and menstruation, tool use, mating behaviors, and so much more. Cat shares a message of agency and empowerment and what it might mean to think about how the human species might evolve from here. Find Cat:Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human EvolutionX (Twitter): @catbohannonBooks Mentioned in the Podcast:Ultra-Processed People by Chris van TullekenSkin: A Natural History by Nina Jablonsky Current Discounts for MBS listeners:15% off Farm True ghee and body care products using code: KATEKAV1520% off Home of Wool using code BF 20 through November 27th (code KATEKAVANAUGH for 10% after that). Support the Podcast:SubstackLeave a one-time Tip
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comJohn Judis is an editor-at-large at Talking Points Memo, a former senior editor at The New Republic, and an old friend. Ruy Teixeira is a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a contributing columnist at the WaPo, and politics editor of the fantastic substack The Liberal Patriot. In 2002 they wrote The Emerging Democratic Majority, and their new book is Where Have All the Democrats Gone? The Soul of the Party in the Age of Extremes.You can listen to the episode right away in the audio player above (or on the right side of the player, click “Listen On” to add the Dishcast feed to your favorite podcast app). For two clips of our convo — on the ways the Democrats are losing on immigration, and discussing the core failings of Obama — pop over to our YouTube page.Other topics: John's wealthy upbringing in Chicago until parents fell on hard times and faced anti-Semitism; Ruy raised by a single mom in DC and whose dad worked at the Portuguese embassy; John and Ruy becoming friends in the early ‘70s as socialist radicals; John writing a biography of Bill Buckley in the ‘80s that garnered him respect among conservatives; Ruy working in progressive think tanks before ending up at the center-right AEI; the Reagan Era shifting to the New Democrats and a triangulating Clinton; John and Ruy writing the famous Emerging Democratic Majority that did not, in fact, write off the white working class; Brownstein's “coalition of the ascendent” seeming to gel with Obama's election; how Obamacare didn't help the working class enough; the 2008 crash and recession; how Obama was “the last New Democrat” and failed to strengthen labor laws; how he enforced the border; how Hillary deployed identity politics to her peril in 2016; Trump capitalizing on trade and immigration; how even John endorsed the feeling behind “Make America Great Again”; the rise of BLM; Wendy Davis' campaign as a harbinger for Latino support on border enforcement; Trump's growing support among non-white voters; how the GOP became the party of the working class; how Biden hasn't changed Dems into the normie party; his industrial policy, IRA and CHIPS; being mum on boosting energy production; his main weaknesses of age and inflation; the dearth of patriotism on the left; how blacks are a moderating force within the Dems; Asians drifting toward the GOP on education and crime; the war in Israel and Gaza; how Ukraine could be a big issue next election; the GOP weakness on abortion; Trump's “vermin” and enemies list; and who could replace Biden among the Dems or independents like RFK Jr.Browse the Dishcast archive for another convo you might enjoy (the first 102 episodes are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Matthew Crawford on anti-humanism and social control, David Leonhardt on his new book about the American Dream, Cat Bohannon on Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution, Jennifer Burns on her new biography of Milton Friedman, McKay Coppins on Romney and the GOP, and Alexandra Hudson on civility. Please send any guest recs, dissent and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.
How did the female body drive 200 million years of human evolution? And why the hell are we just finding out about it now? That's today's big question, and my guest is Cat Bohannon. Cat is the author of the incredible new book, “Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution”. Cat is also a researcher and author with a Ph.D. from Columbia University in the evolution of narrative in cognition. Cat's essays and poems have appeared in Scientific American, Mind, Science Magazine, The Best American, Non Required Reading, The Georgia Review, Story Collider, and Poets Against the War. Look, for a very long time, scientists ignored everything about the female body, except for how to have sex with it. And even that, they barely understood (and still don't). They didn't think or care to ask helpful questions like: How did we get here? What else about the female biological body is different from the traditional male body? Why might those differences matter? And how might they have gotten us to where we are today, atop the animal kingdom, for better or worse, and a huge outlier in about 500 different ways from even our closest primate cousins? Why are we so weird? Cat's book asks all of these questions, and I genuinely cannot wait for you to listen to this conversation, and read the book.-----------Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.comNew here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.-----------INI Book Club:Behind The Beautiful Forevers by Katharine BooFind all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-clubLinks:Read Cat's book "Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution"Keep up with Cat's workOur World in Data: Life Expectancy Support the Trevor ProjectFollow us:Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.comSupport our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgradeFollow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImpSubscribe to our YouTube channelFollow Quinn: twitter.com/quinnemmettEdited by
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comGraeme is a foreign correspondent, and one of the most brilliant men I've ever met. He's been a staff writer at The Atlantic since 2006 and a lecturer in political science at Yale since 2014. He's also been a contributing editor to The New Republic and books editor of Pacific Standard, and he's the author of The Way of the Strangers: Encounters with the Islamic State. Graeme was in Israel when we spoke earlier this week. It's — shall we say — a lively conversation, covering every taboo in the Israel/Palestine question.You can listen to the episode right away in the audio player above (or on the right side of the player, click “Listen On” to add the Dishcast feed to your favorite podcast app). For two clips of our convo — on the ways Hamas is more evil than even ISIS, and on the ethnic cleansing in the West Bank — pop over to our YouTube page.Other topics: growing up in an upper-middle-class home in Dallas; how his parents gave him the travel bug, which he took to the extreme; why the challenges of travel are often the best parts; how time slows down abroad; Paul Theroux and Emerson on travel; going to Afghanistan in 2001 at age 21; why ISIS hated the Taliban and considered them non-Muslims; the caliphate; the easy divisibility of Islamists because of doctrinal differences; Israelis leaving Gaza in 2005; a Nakba in the West Bank; Bibi opposing a two-state solution; the savagery and evil glee of 10/7; the rank corruption and greed of the Hamas government; the dismal economy of Gaza; the terrible conundrum of killing Hamas among human shields; Fallujah vs. Gaza; the fanatical settlers; how the Orthodox right doesn't start tech companies or join the military; Kushner funding the settlements; Trump and the Abraham Accords; Graeme disagreeing with me over the Accords; the protests over judicial reform; the Israelis who oppose settlements; AIPAC and the dearth of US pushback on Israel; the Dem rift over the Gaza war; far-left denialism over 10/7; destroying the posters of hostages; and the upcoming mass protest in London on 11/11.Browse the Dishcast archive for another convo you might enjoy (the first 102 episodes are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: David Leonhardt on his new book about the American Dream, John Judis and Ruy Teixeira on Where Have All the Democrats Gone?, Cat Bohannon on Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution, Matthew Crawford, and Jennifer Burns. Please send any guest recs, dissent and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.
In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Cat Bohannon about the evolutionary history of females. They discuss her background, limited female subjects in many research papers, “morgie” and how milk became important, other features of milk such as bonding, attachment, and the “let-down” reflex. They also talk about the different types of wombs for monotremes, marsupials, and placentals, placenta and the menstrual cycle, and risks of pregnancy. They also talk about the grandmother hypothesis, future of females, and many more topics. Cat Bohannon is a research and author with her PhD from Columbia University. She has studied the evolution of narrative and cognition. Her writing has appeared in Scientific American, Science magazine, The Best American Nonrequired Reading, Lapham's Quarterly, and other outlets. She is the author of the book, Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution. Website: https://www.catbohannon.com/Twitter: @catbohannon Get full access to Converging Dialogues at convergingdialogues.substack.com/subscribe
Sarah Silverman covers RFK Jr.'s three-way race with Biden and Trump, orcas sinking another yacht, and Ronny Chieng chimes in on WeWork's bankruptcy. Smoking pot is now legal in NYC, but is it still cool? Sarah hits the streets to find out how New Yorkers have changed their weed habits and checks out one of NYC's newest licensed dispensaries. Plus, Cat Bohannon, researcher and New York Times Bestselling author of "Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution,” stops by to discuss some of the crazy ways the female body has evolved to survive reproduction, why the female body has historically been left out of biological and medical research, and how men can actually live longer, healthier lives without testicles.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comPamela is a journalist. For nine years she was the editor of The New York Times Book Review, where she also hosted a weekly podcast, and she's now a columnist for the Opinion section of the Times where she writes about culture, ideas, society, language and politics. She's the author of eight books, most recently 100 Things We've Lost to the Internet. We had a fun chat about a whole host of topics.You can listen to the episode right away in the audio player above (or on the right side of the player, click “Listen On” to add the Dishcast feed to your favorite podcast app). For two clips of our convo — on how computers are killing off deep reading, and the growing rate of anorexia among girls — pop over to our YouTube page.Other topics: growing up in NYC and Long Island with divorced parents; her mom wrote ad copy and her dad was a contractor; Pamela was the only girl among seven brothers; she always wanted to be a writer; studied history at Brown; considered a PhD but didn't want to focus on an “ism”; spent a year alone in northern Thailand with little tech — “probably best decision of my life”; how a career is not a linear path, especially in your 20s; the benefits of very little Internet; how media today is homogenized across the Western world; the publishing industry; Jon Stewart ambushing me on his show; how non-natives often see a country better than its natives; Tocqueville; how professors have stopped assigning full books; the assault on the humanities; Reed College and Hum 110; the war in Israel and Gaza; the ignorance and hateful ideology against Israel; Jewish liberals waking up to wokeness; how Israeli officials are botching their PR; “the death of Israeli competence”; gender and trans ideology; how gays and trans people are far more persecuted outside the West; Iran's program of sex changes; what priests and trans activists have in common; Thatcher a much better feminist than Clinton; the decline of magazines and the blogosphere; The Weekly Dish; and Pamela defending the NYT against my barbs.Browse the Dishcast archive for another convo you might enjoy (the first 102 episodes are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: David Leonhardt on his new book about the American Dream, John Judis and Ruy Teixeira on Where Have All the Democrats Gone?, Cat Bohannon on Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution, Matthew Crawford, and McKay Coppins. Please send any guest recs, dissent and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.
How well is Ottawa handling its carbon tax policies after latest freeze? Guest: Kathryn Harrison, a professor of political science at the University of British Columbia How old is too old to trick or treat and does it matter? Guest: Dr. Vanessa Lapointe, child psychologist and parenting educator Canadian teen takes skateboarding gold at the Pan Am Games Guest: Fay De Fazio Ebert, skateboarding gold medalist, Pan Am Games Buffy Sainte-Marie's claims to Indigenous ancestry called into question Guest: Kim TallBear, professor, Faculty of Native Studies, University of Alberta Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples, Technoscience, and Society How the female body drove 200 Million years of human evolution Guest: Cat Bohannon, author of Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution
Guest: Cat Bohannon is a researcher specialized in the evolution of narrative and cognition. She is the author of Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution by Cat Bohannon. The post How The Female Body Drives Evolution appeared first on KPFA.
This week we smash the patriarchy with interviews with multidisciplinary artist, poet, and author Mimi Tempestt on her new collection of poetry, "The Delicacy of Embracing Spirals" and writer and researcher Cat Bohannon on her book “Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution.” Catch up on the week's most compelling interviews in 30 minutes or less.
This shouldn't shock any woman in the world: most medical research is based on male bodies. The effects of that reach out across our societies, leaving women behind not only in medicine but in so many other parts of our cultures. Cat Bohannon is working to change that—painting a picture of the evolutionary history of women in her stunning new book “EVE: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Evolution.” Cat is a researcher and author with a Ph.D. from Columbia University in the evolution of narrative and cognition. Her essays and poems have appeared in Scientific American, Mind, Science Magazine, The Best American Nonrequired Reading, The Georgia Review, The Story Collider, and Poets Against the War. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/alyssa-milano-sorry-not-sorry/message
How many vaginas does it take to understand the role of evolutionary biology into modern social environments? On One Bad Mother, two. Maybe. Cat Bohannon, researcher and author of Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution, joins Biz to talk fancy miscarriages, chimpanzees, and the oeuvre of Ridley Scott.Get your copy of Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution wherever books are sold.Thank you to all our listeners who support the show as monthly members of MaximumFun.org. Go to MaximumFun.org/join to become a member! This week, we're sponsored by Factor. Go to FactorMeals.com/BADMOTHER50 and use code BADMOTHER50 to get 50% off.Share a personal or commercial message on the show! Details at MaximumFun.org/Jumbotron.Visit our Linktree for our website, merch, and more! https://linktr.ee/onebadmotherYou can suggest a topic or a guest for an upcoming show by sending an email to onebadmother@maximumfun.org.Show MusicSummon the Rawk, Kevin MacLeod (www.incompetech.com)Ones and Zeros, Awesome, Beehive SessionsMom Song, Adira Amram, Hot Jams For TeensTelephone, Awesome, Beehive SessionsMama Blues, Cornbread Ted and the ButterbeansMental Health Resources:Therapy for Black Girls – Therapyforblackgirls.comDr. Jessica Clemmens – https://www.askdrjess.comBLH Foundation – borislhensonfoundation.orgThe Postpartum Support International Warmline - 1-800-944-4773 (1-800-944-4PPD)The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) Helpline - 1-800-662-4357 (1-800-662-HELP)Suicide Prevention Hotline: Call or chat. They are here to help anyone in crisis. Dial 988 for https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org and there is a chat option on the website.Crisis Text Line: Text from anywhere in the USA (also Canada and the UK) to text with a trained counselor. A real human being.USA text 741741Canada text 686868UK text 85258Website: https://www.crisistextline.orgNational Sexual Assault: Call 800.656.HOPE (4673) to be connected with a trained staff member from a sexual assault service provider in your area.https://www.rainn.orgNational Domestic Violence Hotline: https://www.thehotline.org/help/Our advocates are available 24/7 at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) in more than 200 languages. All calls are free and confidential.They suggest that if you are a victim and cannot seek help, ask a friend or family member to call for you.Teletherapy Search: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/online-counseling
What does it really mean biologically to be a woman? That's one of the central questions Cat Bohannon explores in her new book “Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution.” Bohannon makes the case that until recently scientists have effectively ignored women: the majority of subjects in clinical drug trials are male, and too many researchers still mistakenly assume that sex differences are mainly about sex organs, rather than a panoply of biological and physiological features that evolved in the female body over millions of years. We talk to Bohannon about her new book, at once an evolutionary history and a call to action to “tear down the male norm and put better science in its place.” Guests: Cat Bohannon, researcher; author, "Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution"
Cat Bohannon, researcher and author of Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Evolution (Knopf, 2023), uses the latest research into women's bodies to recast the origins of humanity. →Event: Cat Bohannon appears in conversation with Claudia Dreifus at Book Culture (112th and Bway in NYC) at 7pm on Tuesday, October 3rd.
Cat Bohannon, a researcher and author with a Ph.D. from Columbia University in the evolution of narrative and cognition, discusses why gynecology was the most important human invention, why not conducting medical research on females is dangerous, and how the female body drives evolution. Cat's new book is Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution.
Researcher and writer, Cat Bohannon, discusses her new book "Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution." (1:03)Ultra runner and Park City resident Jared Campbell joins the show to discuss the READY Speaker Series which focuses on highlighting, empowering, and inspiring athletes. On Oct. 14th at the Park City Community Church, award-winning endurance athlete Jennifer Pharr Davis will speak. She holds a record on the Appalachian Trail, averaging 47 miles a day to complete the 2,091 miles of the trail in 46 days. Jules Campanelli joins Jared to discuss. (29:10)
Patrick answers listener questions and tackles such topics as: are dream catchers okay to have, how do I talk with my daughter about interacting with non-Christians, can we bury our first communion certificate and baptism with us when we die, and what can I do if my family spread the ashes of a loved one in the ocean? Patrick shares his new hobby, watching Peter Santenello's YouTube channel Celi - The Priest said some woke things at Mass. How should I handle this? Molly - Do you have a Book recommendation on Saint Francis Xavier Patrick recommends “A Biography of St. Francis Xavier” by Fr. James Broderick Mary – Are Prosperity Totas and dream catchers okay for me to have? Eve – How do I talk with my daughter about interacting with non-Christians. Rosemary - My grandson, senior at a Catholic high school, is supposed to come up with a new Sacrament for his project. Is that okay? Sharon - Mary was dedicated to the temple, so at what point did they decide to marry her? Jean - Can we bury our first communion certificate and baptism with us when we die? Mary – A non-Catholic family member spread the ashes of another family in the ocean. What should I do about this?
This month on Live It Out With The Planning Woman, we will discuss different aspects of our lives we say we want to do if only we had the time. In each episode, you'll discover how to make the time for the things that are most important to you. This week, my guest is Angela Sackett. She and I have a joyful conversation about how we can make time for friendship in our lives. In this episode, we cover: The importance of face-to-face relationships The story of Genesis and the companionship God gave Adam and Eve How our relationship with the Lord drives our other relationships Why it's hard to create deep relationships How to create rhythms in life to allow for friendships Tips for starting a community group simply How to know when it's time to let go of a friendship The importance of intergenerational relationships Why all friendships don't look the same Angela Sackett is a wife, momma, home educator, speaker, author, and photographer (and her house is perpetually in need of a good dusting!). She is the voice behind EverydayWelcome.com, a lifestyle, recipe, and devotional blog, and the author of several e-books and courses on food and faith, hospitality, and living a vibrant life in Jesus. Through her signature course, Refined Journey, along with one on one coaching, she helps women grow in nourishing their body, mind, and spirit so they can more effectively walk out their God-given calling. With great joy and preaching to her own heart, she encourages women to open their hearts and homes to God and others, living as salt and light right where they are. Connect with Angela on Instagram @everydaywelcome. Refined Journey Course Connecting Across Life Seasons How to Let Go of Your Fears and Host a Bible Study Why We Have to Live an Inviting Life Grab your copy of the Abide Bible Study and Prayer Journal here.
Today we speak to LivsAlone on her journey to solo motherhood. https://www.instagram.com/livsalone/ Purchase Liv's book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Livs-Alone-Liv-Thorne/dp/1529344182 Eve: Tell us a bit about yourself? (1:00) Liv: When I was in my mid 30s, I was single and I decided that I wanted to have a baby via sperm donation. Eve: When was the moment for you when you decided you wanted to do this and to be a mum? (1:49) Liv: I always wanted to be a mum and it was a bit of a slow burn as you expect life to pan out like it does in books or for your parents or friends where they fall in love and have a baby. By the time I was in my mid 30s and I had been single most of my adult life it became obvious that I couldn't just sit around and wait for a cracking tinder date. It got to the point that every time someone would tell me they were pregnant my whole body would be full of sadness. Eve: What was the process for you, how does it work? (3:28) Liv: For me fertility is a lottery, and you don't know what will happen. For me, they put the sperm directly in my cervix and its directly like a smear test. Eve: Was it on the first try that you did fall pregnant? (5:05) Liv: No, it was on the 4th try that I fell pregnant. I made the decision I would try IUI 4 times and then after that try IVF. Eve: How was it being a solo mother? (5:50) Liv: It was tough, I was really ill during pregnancy. There would be some nights where I would be laying on the bathroom floor being sick crying, thinking what on earth have I done. Going to the appointments alone could feel lonely, but only because you want to share your news with people. Eve: Did you receive any negative reactions when telling people, you were pregnant and had a sperm donor? (7:20) Liv: No, I really assumed I would, but I was really luckily, and no one has ever been negative to me. Most of my followers on Instagram are women, so I think most women understand that primal urge to become a mother. Eve: How were the first few months after giving birth: (11:40) Liv: I was blindsided about how tough it would be. I thought it would be just being tired, but that was not even half of the battle. For the first few weeks your body is in pain, your in physical pain. Eve: Was it with time then that things got easier: (14:57) Liv: Kids go through stages, one day they won't sleep and the next day they won't. It's always a constant learning curve but a brilliant one. Eve: Tell me about your book that is being launched? (19:22) Liv: So, to me it's really important different routes to parenthood not just motherhood, single mothers and solo mothers but adoption, surrogacy, men adoption. All of these amazing routes to parenthood should be talked and celebrated about more. The book is about my story and I'm so privilege to do it. Eve: What does motherhood mean to you? Liv: It means everything. Now that I have made it happen it's been hard but amazing. I'm so glad it all worked out and my baby is healthy, and we are really good.
Today we speak to the amazzzzzing Natasha Hamilton, better known as her days from Atomic Kitten (fan girling internally) on her honestly on going through postnatal and prenatal depression. Thank you so much for your honesty Natasha and see links below to her IG page, and also links below if you're struggling with anything we've discussed on this podcast today. https://www.instagram.com/natashahamilton/?hl=en https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/postnatal-depression-and-perinatal-mental-health/about-maternal-mental-health-problems/ Eve: Hi Natasha, do you want to start by introducing yourself to our listeners? (0:26) Natasha: My name is Natasha Hamilton, and you may know me as being 1/3 of Atomic Kitten. I'm also a very busy mum and have 4 children, 3 who are still at home. Eve: Tell me a little bit about your life in the band days? (1:00) Natasha: Back in the day as people say life was crazy. I left home at the age of 16 and moved to London and we became one of the world's biggest girl bands, and we signed a 1.5 million record deal. Life became very busy and we were in high demand, we were travelling the world. Our schedule was so intense that we just never stopped. Although it was fun, it was exhausting at the same time. We got to do so many incredible things. Eve: Yes, I bet it was so intense at the time only being 16 and then you left 6 years later? (2:25) Natasha: Yes, I became pregnant with my eldest son Josh and I had him when I was still in the band. I only had 6 weeks maternity leave. It's crazy that I thought that would be enough time to have a baby and recover. It's not surprise that I was going to find things different. I was away so much, and it became difficult to me as I wasn't enjoying that job I used to once enjoy. I didn't know at the time I was also going through the first stages of postnatal depression, which I was hiding. I was depressed all day every day, except from when the camera was rolling. It became this big secret that I was carrying around with me. 9 months into having Josh things came to a massive head. Eve: I guess your job had almost switched from being in this famous girl band to being a mum and you probably couldn't do both? How was life after you left the band then? (5:30) Natasha: Life was difficult after leaving the band as I was craving normality so much. You quickly realise coming out of that, that life doesn't go back to normal. People would still whisper under their breath “omg that's the girl out of atomic kitten”. I was trying to build relationships with the new community I lived in. A lot of the mums were older than me, so I found it hard making friendships with mums. Everybody knew who I was, but I didn't know anyone else. There was no easy fix to everything that was going on. Eve: Now you have 4 gorgeous babies, how was your journey to motherhood with them? (6:50) Natasha: every single one of them has been totally different. With my first, I suffered with postnatal depression, but my pregnancy was wonderful. My second youngest, Harry, he was adamant to make an early arrival. At 20 weeks I went into early labour. I was suffering with a kidney infection that I couldn't get rid out and it was causing a lot of problems. I finally had him at 38 weeks. Then after I had him, I was ok, I had a little bit of postnatal depression, but nothing compared to the first time. After that I actually lost a baby, and it was really traumatic at the time. I was newly married, and I fell pregnant on my honeymoon and everything was so perfect. So, to have to deal with that, it was really hard and it sent me into quite a dark place for quite a while. Eventually, I had Alfie. That was a really stressful pregnancy from what had happened before. I was constantly worrying. When he came I thrived. Then I had Ella, which I don't know whether my body was not used to carrying a girl, but right from early conception, I was having panic attacks, horrendous anxiety. I was diagnosed with prenatal depression which I didn't know was a thing. When Ella got to 3 or 4 months old, I just wasn't coping at all. It was just a spiral and when Ella was 10 months old, I had a full-on breakdown. I had to go back to work pretty quickly after giving birth as I needed the income. Eve: How did you realise you were going though PND in the end? (11:55) Natasha: Constant worry, constant crying, not sleeping, erratic moods, not wanting to leave the house. I was treated with medication but that didn't seem to work. It led me to a path of thinking that I had been depressed for several years and how could I change this so I looked into diet, excercise and holistic therapies. Eve: You went through cognitive therapy, what is this? (13:15) Natasha: I went through a very intensive course of cognitive behavioural therapy and that was about learning to control your thoughts and living in the now. It's a lot to take in and is not for everyone and even when I was told I was going to do it, I thought it was a lot of rubbish. I think I felt like that as I wasn't confident in my own ability. It ended up being one of the most incredible experiences, it was hard but by the time I had my 18th session I was crying, with happy tears and I gained back control of my life. Eve: So, 1 in 10 people according to the statistics, suffer with postnatal depression which is actually very high. What advice would you give to people who are going through a similar situation to what you were in (16:35) Natasha: If you have just had a baby or you are pregnant and you don't feel right, speak to someone about it. The worst thing you can do is keep it inside. You only feel how you respond to your body. Speak to someone whether it's a family member or friend. Eve: When you got your mojo back, what did you get up to? (18:35) Natasha: I'm doing really well; the last 18 months have been a challenge, but I've learnt a lot about myself and to put myself out there and take it day by day. One of my biggest life tips is to do something every day that is for you before you sort the kids out. I get up half an hour or an hour before the kids and I will write journals, do a workout and just start my day in the right way. It's about finding tools that work. Eve: As a mother of 4, what does motherhood mean to you? (20:30) Natasha: Motherhood changes all the time with the different phases. Motherhood is constantly evolving, exhausting but incredibly rewarding. Eve: What is the main mantra you live your life by and why? Natasha: Fill your own up before filling anyone else's. Even if its 15 minutes before you have to get up. If you have a newborn rest or nap, have downtime when they have downtime.
Today we speak to Youtube and Influencer personality Lucy Carter! Lucy is well known for her youtube channel and ig which we've popped below, and today we chat all things motherhood and her experience of having each of her children, Jenson, Jesse, India and Rosabella. https://www.instagram.com/lucyjessicacarter/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBTPjAKFYoSmeTL3xE6c14A Eve: We're going to chat about a few different things today, do you want to start off by introducing yourself? Lucy: I have 4 children, and I have a YouTube channel which is Lucy Jessica Carter and then I have my Instagram which is the same. Eve: How did you and your partner Jordan meet? (1:10) Lucy: We met at my friends leaving party and she was leaving to Australia. Jordan came along with one of his friends and I had just come out of a long-term relationship. We didn't actually talk or acknowledge each other that night. He added me and on Facebook the next day and then he messaged me saying did you have a good night. It started off from a friendship and then it went from there. Eve: Aw that's so nice, and now you have 4 children together! Talk to me about your journey to motherhood? (2:45) Lucy: I'm one of those people that has always wanted to be a mum and knew I wanted a lot of children. I struggled when I finished school because all I wanted to do was to be a mum, and it wasn't the right time and then I met Jordan and it just happened. Every pregnancy just happened after that! Eve: How were your all your pregnancies and births with each of your children? (3:50) Lucy: I always knew about morning sickness as in being sick all day as my mum had it. When I was pregnant with Jenson, I felt fine for the first few weeks and then I hit 6 weeks pregnant and I felt so ill. It really took a toll on my mental health as well where you are so ill. When I was first pregnant, I was 23 and I didn't know anyone that had a baby and I really felt alone in that pregnancy. We weren't even married or living together at this point, it was very isolating especially in the first trimester. It was better in the 2nd and 3rd trimester and then I went overdue. I was then induced because I have high blood pressure. I felt really miserable as I was in hospital for a week. I had the hormone drip and everything like that, but Jenson's heart rate kept dropping and it ended up in an emergency c-section. When I got home after having Jenson, I remember putting on one born every minute and I had to turn it off as I couldn't watch anything about hospitals or childbirth. I had the baby blues after Jenson's birth which is feeling all over the place and really low. I did pick up after a few weeks and was fine. Eve: Then you went onto having Jesse, how was that pregnancy? (8:15) Lucy: That was completely different as I was a few years older and I was married, I felt very secure. I had nailed the first few years of motherhood so I knew exactly what was coming. The only thing that was different about Jesse's birth was the c-section recovery. I was expecting to bounce back, and I couldn't even sit up in bed and couldn't move. We actually had go to back into hospital as Jesse had jaundice. Eve: Then over 2 years ago you were pregnant with twins, how was that? (10:10) Lucy: Me and Jordan discussed having another baby and we kind of just went with it. I found out I was pregnant shortly after a Lanzarote trip. It was brilliant and then a few weeks later, I had a bleed, so I instantly thought I know what was happening here and thought the worst. I went into the scan and she told me I was actually pregnant with twins. Jordan was thrilled when I told him, he is so laid back and is always up for an adventure. Eve: How was your pregnancy with the twins? (12:35) Lucy: The first trimester was rough, I had severe morning sickness and I lost quite a bit of weight. In the end I was admitted to hospital, it was a bit of a rollercoaster. I kind of picked up around 17 weeks. My birth with the girls was a planned c-section and it went so smoothly. I think I was at 38 weeks. Rosabella went down to NICU straight away and India went down shortly after. They were there for 2-3 days. We came home on Christmas eve, so timing was not on my side. Eve: Did you always want to have a big family? (18:20) Lucy: I always said when I was younger I wanted 4 children. When I had my first child I thought oh this is pretty tough maybe I won't have 4 children, but here we are! Eve: When did you start your YouTube career? (19:00) Lucy: I started in January 2017. Being online has been very consistent and it has grown overtime. Last year I launched you and me and it's been quite a rollercoaster over the last few years. Especially the last year, because the whole world changed and having to consistently show up online when there is so much going on and so much uncertainty was a real challenge. Going to Weymouth recently was so lovely and I filmed it all and it made me realise why I started my channel. Eve: Are there any negatives you've found in the influencer and vlogging world? (22:22) Lucy: Like everything there will always be negative, and as I've got older I've learnt that anything and everything you do there will always be negative downsides. People online can be awful and when you are in a good place mentally, I can take it. But when you are not great and not feeling 100% about something it can be really hard to take it. That is a negative, although the positives do outweigh the negatives. Eve: Your sister Elle is also a vlogger and an influencer. Have you been sharing any top tips or advice to her? (24:00) Lucy: I definitely have but I'm also mindful of not to come across as a know it all at all. I'm sure every mum will agree that you need to let them do it their own way. I'm going to be around whenever she wants me, but equally I don't want to intrude. I recommend to other new mums to make a support group around you and make those new connections and to find someone on your level. Eve: How do you juggle your family life? (26:00) Lucy: It is a lot and since I've started house renovations and starting you and me it's just not all possible, I don't upload 3 times a week on YouTube anymore. It's up and downs and challenging at times but making sure we get quality time as a family as well. Eve: What does motherhood mean to you? (29:00) Lucy: It means everything, it sets my soul on fire. It's the forefront of every single thing I do, and I think it will be that way forever. I was going to say I love every minute but it is hard. At the end of the day I smile and they are my purpose.
Today we chat to the lovely Kelsey from @being_kelsey over on instagram We chat motherhood, career, and what it's like to be in the public eye! Go follow Kelsey - https://www.instagram.com/being_kelsey/ and her business- https://www.instagram.com/k2kstars/ Eve: Today we are talking to Kelsey Parker who is @beingkesley on Instagram. We will be chatting everything motherhood. Do you want to tell us a bit about yourself and who you are? (0:30) Kelsey: I'm an insta mum and a mum of 2. Aurelia is 2 going on 22 and Bodhi is 7 months, and I am married to Tom Parker who was in the band The Wanted. Eve: That's so cool and you have done some acting in the past haven't you? (1:15) Kelsey: Yes, I trained at Italia Conti so I have danced, sung and been acting my entire life. I started when I was 2 and I have done a few bits. I was Chantelle in EastEnders and I was also in Harry Potter when I was a kid. So many people ask me about it and I say yes, I have sat in the great hall, been on the moving staircase. Eve: Wow! How old were you when you were on Harry Potter? (2:00) Kelsey: I was about 13/14 and it was honestly the best time. We would get picked up from school about 6am to get the coach and we would have the time of our lives. It was the 3rd film as well and we had known the first 2 were massive. Eve: That's so cool. How did you and Tom meet back in the day? (03:25) Kelsey: We met in a nightclub and I was 19 in London and was outside the club in London with my best friend Kelsey who I run a business with, and I said to her OMG I love that guy I need to speak to him. When we got into the club our tables were next to each other and it was actually Tom's first night out as the band. He started trying to chat me up and telling me he was in a band and I said what's your band called, and he said we haven't got a name yet. He didn't even ask for my number, he asked for my name so he could add me on Facebook. We chatted after and the rest is history as they say! Eve: Have you ever struggled being in the public eye? (5:39) Kelsey: There have been times, I'm not going to lie that have been hard. When we first got together, it was a secret for quite a long time because we didn't want to come out and put the pressure on our relationship. When we did come out, I got a lot of hate from the fans, but me being me I turned it around and I have since really got on with their fan base. I used to do workshops for the fans, so I got to know quite a few of them on a personal level. We did the wanted life on E and that was quite tough going as the things we spoke about in the show were hard and also being filmed 24/7 was hard. I have had some moments where I've been walking out of clubs drunk and my cellulite has made the papers the next day. I'm not one of those people to get down on those things though. Eve: How were your pregnancies with both of your children? (7:32) Kelsey: They were completely different pregnancies, even the way I carried them. Aurelia, I suffered really bad pre-eclampsia with and I was really poorly. Everything was so swollen, my ankles, feet, hands. I ended up being induced a week early with her. Then with Bodhi it was better to a degree, but we had some trauma towards the end. He decided to kick and break his own waters 2 weeks early. Eve: That's crazy. How were your births with both? (8:40) Kelsey: I got induced with both of them and when I got induced the birth happened really quick and in fact the doctors and nurses weren't believing me. I dilated very quickly. Bodhi was 30 minutes in labour and Aurelia was an hour. Eve: What is your parenting style with both of them? (10:55) Kelsey: It's really hard because me and her dad are both performers, so how can I expect anything less. I probably encourage her personality but then I am strict on being polite and being kind. I am kind of a free spirit mum. Eve: What's the best thing about motherhood for you? (12:23) Kelsey: Its cliché but its everything about being a mum. I have always wanted to be a mum. It is hard work being a mum but they just bring you such joy.
Today we had the pleasure of speaking to the lovely Casey Batchelor on her journey to motherhood, and also her journey to Yoga Blitz. https://www.instagram.com/caseybatchelor1/ Eve: Hi Casey, thank you for joining me today. Today we will be talking about all things motherhood. Do you want to start telling me a bit about yourself? (1:00) Casey: I have 2 little girls with another little girl on the way. A lot of people know me from the love triangle I had in Celebrity Big Brother, and I now have a successful yoga blitz company. Eve: How has your pregnancy been so far (4:22) Casey: This has been the best pregnancy out of the three so far. With Florence I was horrendously sick and dry heaved from start to finish. With Sadie, it was the same again, but with this one I forget that I am pregnant sometimes. I feel fine, and that was why I was adamant I was having a boy, but I was wrong! Eve: That's lovely. Have you always imagined having a bigger family (5:07) Casey: Yes, I have done. I've got 2 brothers so there is 3 of us and its nice having a bigger family. Eve: What do you think the hardest thing about motherhood for you is? (6:45) Casey: I am still a new mum really. As much as I love to work still and be proactive, I love to be a full-time hands-on mum as well. With my work its good as a lot of it is on the phone and I can do it from home and the girls can come with me. It also hard as I can't just walk out the door to go to work and leave them at home and be able to fully focus on work because they are always with me. I guess most people are either a mum or at work but I'm juggling both at the same time. I can get mum guilt sometimes when they are at work with me. Eve: You mentioned before that Florence's labour was quite traumatic for you, could you tell me a bit more about this? (8:50) Casey: Florence's heart rate was sporadically going up and down and they didn't know what was wrong, so they needed me to have more of a rapid birth. They broke my waters but it gave me a rapid birth. I was having contraction after contraction after contraction with no break in between. They say that a contraction at its highest point is the same pain equivalent to breaking 20 bones at the same time. So its pretty painful. My body was going into shock, I was being sick all down myself and I was having fits because it was so painful. I got to about 8.5cm and I physically couldn't do it anymore. I needed an epidural, but I couldn't stay still to get it. It took them 6/7 attempts to get it in and whilst doing this they punctured my spine and I had epidural drips and brain fluid leakage down the back of my spine. They then had to cut me and give use forceps to get Florence out. For the first 4 weeks I couldn't stand properly as I had this epidural drip in. Eve: How was Sadie's birth (11:45) Casey: For Sadie's birth I chose a C-Section, and it was so much calmer. I know the recovery for a C-Section is bad as you are essentially being cut in half, but I recovered better from that. Eve: Now going onto your yoga blitz, you have had the most amazing transformation all through yoga. Being in the public eye, did you feel the pressure to go back to your pre baby weight? (12:40) Casey: I feel like being in the public eye there is always that pressure and there are some people that snap back but they are very far and in between. The majority of the people don't, and I am one of those people. I find it really important to post that you don't snap back, and I started my yoga blitz and my transformation, but I did them over time and in a healthy and steady way. It's important for women to know it takes time and your body changes after having a baby. It's taken 9 months for your belly to expand its not going to go back down after a week. I think it's important for me to promote that body image. Eve: You did get trolled after having Florence, which is disgusting. Did this spur you on? (13:58) Casey: The trolls make me laugh, they don't bother me, and it makes me laugh that they take the time to do that. You could read 100 lovely comments and 1 horrible comment but it's always the horrible ones that stay with you. You have to feel sorry for these people, and they don't mean anything. Eve: After being a new mum only 3 years ago, what is your best advice for any new mums listening at the moment? (16:40) Casey: It's going to be tough, it's amazing. I always say to people the first 2-4 months are the toughest as you are going to be very sleep deprived. Once you hit the 4 month mark, the baby starts to sleep more. Take every day as it comes. Don't feel like you need to be this amazing mum as you are amazing anyway! Being a happy mum will make your baby happy. Eve: What does motherhood mean to you? (17:59) Casey: Motherhood means to me creating a lot of magical and amazing memories and filling your house with love.
Today we have the pleasure of speaking to Rosie Wicks, the face of our Collection Précieuse, our first ever recycled gold collection. Follow Rosie: https://www.instagram.com/rosiewicks1/?hl=en Shop the collection: https://www.mercimamanboutique.com/ Eve: Thanks so much for joining us Rosie, we are so excited to announce that you are the new face to our Solid Gold Collection which is launching tomorrow! What’s your favourite piece from the collection and what did you have engraved on it? Rosie: The piece I have chosen is the Intertwined necklace because I have the gold plated version which I wear all the time, but I thought it would be nice to have the Solid Gold version as its’ just very special and I will keep it forever. I have Indie and Marley, my children’s names engraved on the bigger circle and Joe on the smaller one. Eve: That’s lovely! Do you want to introduce yourself to our audience? (0:56) Rosie: I’m a mother of two, Indie who is 2 and half and Marley who is 1. I’m a former model so it was nice to be back on set with Merci Maman. I’m pretty much a stay-at-home mum with my two babies and you may know me as the wife of Joe Wicks! Eve: Yes, a lot of us know you from your modelling days and being married to Joe. How did you guys meet? (01:28) Rosie: We actually met at a rave! My friend was married to his friend who was a DJ and met at the rave, which is a good story to tell our kids! We were just friends for ages, and we met up and actually decided to become a couple, we went full force and travelled the world together, got married and had babies! Eve: Wow I did not know that! Now you have your two children Indie and Marley, how was your pregnancy with them both? (2:00) Rosie: I’m one of those people who loved being pregnant, I did find it really exhausting but I was luckily enough to never suffer from any sickness. I would say my first pregnancy was very different as you are obsessed with it and its all you think about all the time, always on the app seeing what size your baby is! Then with my second pregnancy, I felt like it flew by. I didn’t think about it that much as a I was so distracted looking after my first baby. I loved being pregnant though and wearing tight tops to show off my bump! Eve: Aw nice! Being in the public eye, did you feel any pressure becoming a mother with social media nowadays? (03:18) Rosie: There are great things about social media, but it makes you feel judged and people compare themselves a lot. I don’t personally post that much on social media, but I feel like if I did, then I would feel a lot more pressure. I feel like with motherhood and parenting people can be a lot more judgemental and opinionated. I think you have to be careful with what you say. I’m one of those people who looks at social media lot more than posts. I go through phases and sometimes forget it exists! I now unfollow people that don’t make me feel good as I think Instagram should be for inspiring you, not making you feel unhappy. Eve: Yeah, we have had people on the podcast before saying Instagram can be a place where you make lifelong friends, but it can also be a place where it makes you feel crap. How would you describe your parenting style? (05:05) Rosie: I think I’m a laidback parent but I’m the strict one out of us both. The kids know not to ask me for something and to ask dad and that he will give in and I won’t. I try to make sure that if I say no to something, that I stick to it because they learn so quickly that you’re going to give in. It’s hard to stick to it as it is so easy to give in to them. Eve: What have been the highs and lows of motherhood for you? (06:10) Rosie: I feel like being a parent every single day is constant ups and downs. I feel like just getting out the house is very stressful but then 15 minutes later were in the park and everyone is happy and then 10 minutes later its stress again! I try to see the highs in normal everyday things as I know when I’m older that is what I’ll look back on and miss, like bath time, bedtime and reading books, things like that. The hardest thing and the biggest low are the sleep deprivation. When I had my babies, I feel like in the morning you have this adrenaline and you just get up for the day and your fine. Then when they are 6 months old it gets a lot harder and your body can’t cope with it anymore. Eve: Our yearlong campaign this year is called My Motherhood and it celebrates all kinds of motherhood. Who do you look up to in life and what does Motherhood mean to you? (08:05) Rosie: Motherhood to me is all I’ve ever wanted. I still find it so fascinating that we created human beings and we are raising them to be adults one day. I look up to my friends and other mums I know and my mum! I am always admiring other mums and learning more every day on how they parent. Eve: Is how you were brought up, similar to how you parent now? (09:15) Rosie: I’m actually very different to my mum, we’re best friends and I see her practically every day, but I think our mothering styles are different. I’m quite laid back and I’ll let the kids do things and my mum will be like why are you letting them do things, that’s so dangerous! I do say things to the kids though and think omg I am turning into my mum, so we probably are a bit similar. Eve: What’s the best advice you can give to new mothers? (10:15) Rosie: Mine is to always accept help and I think you should ask for help when you need it. I’m really lucky to have both of our parents nearby so can accept help when we need it as you do need a break. The other thing is to not go crazy reading forums especially when you’re feeding your baby in the middle of the night. Eve: You and Joe are very fit parents, after having kids did feel any pressure to “snap back into shape”? (12:03) Rosie: I recently tried to do a pull up as I thought I could never do one, and I actually surprise myself I could do about 4. I realised it because I’m always carrying a heavy toddler in my arms! I think there is always pressure to “snap back”, especially when you see pictures all of these LA mums and you do feel the pressure. Realistically, you have just grown an entire human being in your body and given birth, it takes time. I’m quite luckily enough to have my mum’s genes where I did quite quickly get my old body back. The most important thing is to just not compare, and everyone is different. Eve: Yes definitely. I think the first thing you need to think about is becoming a mum. Last year you and Joe inspiring the nation with your daily PE lessons. Did you ever imagine it would be as big as it was? (14:45) Rosie: At that time I feel like everyone had a good mentality about it and we thought in a couple of months it would be back to normal. I never in a million years thought it would go on for as long as it did or be as big as it is. I’m really proud of Joe, he works so hard and no matter how he felt he got up and did it in the morning. Eve: You must have inspired so many people, it was hitting headlines all the time the views kept going up. So many parents must be so grateful for you out there for doing it. Rosie: Yes, and I think a lot of adults appreciated it as it gave them some routine and encouraged people to get out of bed. It was a good way to start your day off. Eve: My personal favourite bit was when Joe let one rip! (16:40) Rosie: I knew you were going to say that, It’s so gross! I don’t think it would have been so funny if it wasn’t the way he did it. the velocity at the end when he is so desperate to get it out. Eve: How did you feel when you saw it over all the papers? (17:10) Rosie: The funny thing is I never look at any newspapers or anything so I wouldn’t have known, but I know Joe is so embarrassed when he farts in front of me anyway. He sent me the link and said he was mortified, and I don’t think he released how big it was going to get so he thought he just had to own it. Its more embarrassing to pretend it doesn’t happen. Its mostly kids doing PE with Joe, so they all probably thought it was hilarious. Eve: What are you looking forward to when the world goes back to normal? (18:30) Rosie: I’m looking forward to so much, I’ve already booked 4 dinners for when we are allowed out. The main thing I’m looking forward to is travelling. I’m just excited to take the children to different countries. I feel sorry for Marley as his entertainment every day is going for walks, we haven’t been able to go to any baby classes or soft play. Eve: Where is the first place you plan to go on holiday to? (20:00) Rosie: I’m too scared to book anything yet and I’m going to wait to see what were allowed to do. I think in the summer it’s nice to go to Europe, but one of my favourite places we went to when Indie was a few months old was Costa Rica, so I would love to go back there. We have house in Santa Monica in the US so I’m really looking forward to going back there as well. Eve: What is the main mantra you live your life by and why? (21:05) Rosie: Work hard, have fun and be nice. It’s so simple but so true. Eve: You have been fabulous, thanks so much for coming on!
Today is the official first day of the Women Physicians Medicine, Marriage, & Money Group Coaching Program → Our welcome call is tonight! If you are reading this and are wishing you would have signed up, please reach out to me now! Visit https://library.medicinemarriageandmoney.com/group-coaching to sign up! Start arguing with your spouse less and spending more of your time planning vacations and investing in real estate with your love! WHAT YOU WILL DISCOVER IN THIS EPISODE Medicine: “The talk” Senior Resident Dr. Rupa gave her future hubby during his first week as an ophthalmology resident and why he was scared of her! How the business consultant they hired to assess the ophthalmology practice influenced their family plan How owning and operating a private practice together every day works for them Marriage: Their first kiss out of nowhere on New Year’s Eve How they blended of 3 different cultures on their wedding day at a Hawaiian destination wedding How she invests in her marriage Money: Why sitting down to do a 10-year plan helps a couple evaluate what is most important Why she bought her first Chanel purse at age 40 Placing her value on her time Social Media How and why she got started on Instagram Why the people you surround yourself will help you rise to the occasion What gave her the motivation and encouragement to create the virtual community she envisioned TAKE HOME POINTS FROM RUPA Being a business owner could be the best financial opportunity for you and your family. Not only does this impact your finances if you set up a smart financial plan, but this also allows you to have a more flexible family life. Keep in mind, these opportunities do not arise at the most comfortable times. Surround yourself with people who lift you up. Instead of telling yourself, I can’t do this, you will start saying “Why can’t I do this?” You will find where you fit. “Never underestimate the power of a community of women who collaborate instead of competing.” The motto of her attending lounge. How this inspires Rupa on a daily basis. Hiring a cook and housekeeper is cheaper than a divorce attorney Do not let fear deter you from what you can truly achieve WALK AWAY ASKING YOURSELF How honest am I about what I want? Where do I go for inspiration on a daily basis? What are some more systems I can put into place in my household to avoid contention with my spouse? Am I open to uncomfortable opportunities? Do I have faith in myself? FEATURED ON THIS SHOW Website: https://drrupawong.com/ Facebook: @drrupawong Instagram: @drrupawong TikTok:@drrupawong Membership Site: https://www.attendinglounge.com/ *This show is a member of The Doctor Podcast Network Sponsor: doctorpodcastnetwork.com/contractdiagnostics call 888-574-5526 or info@contractdiagnostics.com
Today we speak to wonderful NFM on the journey to adopting her son, the process, and also how the journey sparked her successful online business. If you're reading this - please go show some love and support on the links below! Read the blog - http://notafictionalmum.com/ Go follow NFM - https://www.instagram.com/notafictionalmum/ And finally support small biz and go shop - https://shopnotafictionalmum.com/ Eve: Today we are joined by Not A Fictional Mum who adopted her little boy at 21 months and since then has become advocate for inclusivity around adoption. Do you want to tell us a bit about yourself? (00:20) NFM: I’m Not A Fictional Mum and I created this name after having some experience being an adopted parent and people asking me who my sons real mum was and I thought I am a real mum, I’m not a fictional mum! I started a blog as I thought it would be cathartic for me and a way for me to get out my feelings in a real and raw way and that no one was going to read it. I thought I could swear as much as I wanted and be as honest as I wanted as it was just going to be that read it. 32,500 hits later in 7 months and an amazing following, I was wrong there! From doing the blog I started to blog about when going into department stores and I wrote a piece called Dear Mr Department Store, and we have these preconceptions that all mums to be have a bump or are pregnant. I was looking at pushchairs at the time and she turned to me and asked when was the mum was due and it was obviously me waiting for my little boy to come home which was heart-breaking. This was one of many experiences that I had in the retail sector. I shared my experiences again and documented when I went into stores and the conversations held and the response was phenomenal really. I was really aware that I had started something now and that I had to follow it through. I needed some money so that I could start a platform to support what im saying is wrong, so I sold my wedding dress. The dress sold within 72 hours and so I started Not A Fictional Mum the shop. Eve: So since then, your selling inclusive cards and what else? (03:25) NFM: I’ve always been aware that there are beautiful independents online that are doing adoption cards. The cards for me is more about the high street, so why don’t we have highstreets stocking just a greeting card. I’ve been campaigning really hard to get shops to recognise that this a small token that should be there. I cannot find a card in a shop without searching high and low for a card that acknowledges how my son came to us. I’ve worked with a card designer to design cards to offer to the high street but it’s not getting the attraction I want which isn’t great. The online store Thortful, I have been working with them and they have taken my designs which is massive for me and the community. The cards are a catalyst for everything else, I am predominately an infertility and adoption clothing brand. I am the first in the UK and I have been so overwhelmed with the support for it. Eve: That’s amazing, I think it’s so nice for women going through any sort of journey at the moment to see they are inclusive, and I guess it’s your own sort of club in a way. NFM: Yeah, it shouldn’t be that you have to search the deepest darkest depths of the internet to find something. All of my stuff is on the website, but I am listing other things that I feel people should know about as well, so it saves them hours searching for something. It is exactly that I have started calling it club NFM. Eve: I know I said at the start you have adopted a little boy at 21 months, so what is your journey to motherhood and when did you start your family? (06:05) NFM: Our journey started trying to conceive naturally as you do and nothing was happening so we went to our GP and we were told not to worry as it can take people up to year or a year, but we got to this point and we still weren’t getting anywhere. So, we were sent for some tests and we were told we could conceive naturally which is heart breaking and life changing. We were then offered a free cycle of fertility treatment on the NHS which we took and then I always very honestly say that we sort of fell into this world of fertility treatment. One minute you’re there explaining that it’s not happening, then their diagnosing you and then offering a kind of scientific solution to it, so we found ourselves in this world. We did multiple cycles and we spent £25,000, it was really testing physically and emotionally. We had a very sad miscarriage as one of our cycles was successful, but we sadly miscarried which is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to deal with in my life. We found ourselves stuck really and we couldn’t get off this merry-go-round which was a very traumatic time. We had some very serious conversations around why did we even start doing this in the first place, what did we want to get from this and it was all the obvious things like we wanted to have a family but part of it was how important were the genetics. It was love we were talking about and we just wanted to love a child and nurture a child and watch them grow. We knew it was never going to be an issue to love a child that wasn’t biologically ours so that’s when we started talking about adoption. I’m writing a book at the moment and part of it is at what point to medical professionals start introducing adoption as an option of an alternative route to parenthood rather than this preconception that it is the last resort. Eve: Yeah, that’s really interesting as I guess you get thrown into a world of IVF. I’ve never thought about that angle of it which your so right about. (09:15) NFM: Yes, it is incredibly tough. I think the term IVF is thrown about so freely and we all know about IVF that it takes away the severity of it and it is a very stressful and traumatic experience to go through. There are other routes to parenthood, we had egg or sperm donor’s mentioned but at no point was adoption ever mentioned so that is something I am passionate about to have it mentioned. We took a really long time to grieve once we stopped fertility treatment, to grieve for the life we thought we were going to have. After, we started to research local authorities and adoption agencies, listening to podcasts and then we decided on the charity we wanted to do it through which was Bernados and they were brilliant. Eve: Was it an easy process for you and an easy decision to go through with adoption? (11:30) NFM: From the day you are told you can’t conceive naturally, there are no easy decisions to make. The natural way of doing things has gone so you are suddenly making decisions you never thought you would have to make and especially when you are considering something as serious as adoption. It’s the biggest decision we have ever made and will make in our lives. You are making a commitment to a child that has already experienced a level of trauma and loss and making the commitment that you will be there for them and not let them down and do the best for them. We don’t see it enough in the media or being portrayed on TV, we only see this image of someone walking out of a hospital with a newborn baby in a car seat. This needs to be looked at and changed because this isn’t how it is for everybody and it is important for our children to see this as they grow up that there are lots of different ways of becoming parents. Eve: I almost think it is portrayed negatively in the media and when you hear about adoption in films it’s almost like a really sad thing to go through which I can imagine in some ways it is. It is not spoken about in schools or anything like that either. How long did the process take for you? (14:40) NFM: It was 11 months in total, but the actual process was 6 months which is very quick actually and then we brought out son home 5 months after that. We were actually the last couple in our prep group to be matched, so we took the longest amount of time to find our son. Eve: That’s quite quick, I thought you were going to say it was a longer process. Can you recall the first time you met Nemo? (15:45) NFM: We met in a neutral place an animal farm type place with his foster parents and we had been sent videos a couple of weeks leading up. When we saw him it was just completely different to see someone in the flesh in front of you, he was on his foster carers hip and he I just remember seeing a chubby little calf with a little pair of shoes on. We just thought he was beautiful and froze actually. We let him do what he wanted to do and just watched him for ages. He was just so cheeky and full of life. It was a bittersweet time as it became apparent, he was actually very happy where he was and was happy with his foster parents. Eve: How are you guys today, how has he settled in? (17:35) NFM: He is great! Just as any parent, your life completely changes, and suddenly it takes you 2 hours to get out the door and going to the shop is a whole day’s event. I’m very honest about our journey and it has taken Nemo a long time to settle and a long time for him to believe this is forever and that we are his mummy and daddy, and we aren’t going anywhere. It’s tough, in his little life he has experienced a lot of loss. He is very settled now and is hugely affectionate boy and has settled into nursery. Nothing can beat when a child will look at you after all that and they really believe it, it’s all worth it. Eve: It’s amazing that you can give him the forever home he needs. So, you are quite an advocate for adoption an at Merci Maman we are sharing journeys of motherhood. What are the taboos? (20:15) NFM: I think there are a lot, one is It can be the same as having a biological child, that connection, how can it be the same. That all children that are adopted are unable to recover in any way from what they have experienced. There are also taboos about the adopters that we have the perception of them being these superhero’s that sweep up and rescue these children. Just also things being asked that shouldn’t be asked, I have had the most absurd things. Eve: With your inclusive shop, why did you start this? (22:35) NFM: I started it because there was nothing for me with adoption which angered me. I had worked with big retail companies before, so I knew things can be changed. I realised I was not the only person and people contacting me saying they felt the same I felt I had to use my skills to do something positive. Eve: What is your main mantra you live your life by? (24:55) NFM: My main mantra is hold on and take courage and that is something I have on an item of clothing of mine. I would have this stuck on a post it note in my notebook and would look at it whenever I was really struggling and now it has been a phrase that other women are using. Eve: Thank you so much, you have been fabulous!
Today we speak to Alice Wadey from @Alice.In.Type.Wonderland on her experience of living and dealing with Type 1 Diabetes. https://www.instagram.com/alice.in.type.wonderland/ Eve: Today we are speaking to Alice about Type 1 Diabetes. Do you want to start telling us about yourself? (0.30) Alice: I have been a Type 1 diabetic since I was about 11. I have been married for 6 years now and live in a little village in West Sussex. I have two daughters, Matilda who is 2 and Florence who is 3 months old, a lockdown baby! Eve: How did you find out you had diabetes? (1:15) Alice: I’m type 1 diabetes, which is more common whilst in childhood and a young age. There are 3 main types of diabetes that people have heard of, but there are so many others. When I was diagnosed, I was very lucky, I was very sporty, but my mum picked up on the symptoms and did a home test kit on me to test my blood sugars. The diagnoses happen very quickly, I went to the doctors and hospital the next day. A lot of symptoms are weight loss, tiredness, vision blurring. I was a sporty 11-year-old and was always losing weight and being tired. Eve: What are the three main types of diabetes you mentioned? (4:00) Alice: The differences are mainly how it comes around. Type 1 is an autoimmune disease where your body attacks yourself and you require insulin. There is no cure. Type 2 is more common in adults. It’s more of a lifestyle thing. This is where your body doesn’t use insulin correctly. Then there is gestational diabetes which is what a lot of pregnant women get during their pregnancy. For the majority it is temporary and when the baby is born the diabetes goes. There is also Lada diabetes, which is a form of type 1. It can take 3 or 4 years for the symptoms of this type to appear. There is Neonatal diabetes as well which is from birth. This can come and go, or it can stay. Eve: Wow, I honestly didn’t know there was so many types! How does your type 1 diabetes impact your life day to day? (6:35) Alice: In every way possible. I think deep down its really best to embrace your diabetes. When I was younger, I was really unwell with my diabetes. I had an appendix and any form of an infection if you have diabetes is not good, and so I was in intensive care for a bit. Things like stress, illness, exercise can change your levels without you doing anything to them. Food is really big thing when being diabetic, you have to carb count. You have to work out your ratios of insulin and over how many hours this is. It can be very overwhelming. I’m very positive about my diabetes and I’m proud to be diabetic. It made me grow up at a young age and become independent. Eve: You said you ignored it in your teenage years, what do you mean by this? (10:15) Alice: Most diabetics should test their blood sugars 8-10 a day and inject every meal. I never just used to inject, I would eat chocolate. My mum used to ask my how my diabetes was, and I would say they are fine, well knowing that I hadn’t checked in about 2 or 3 days. There was a result of being like this and I became very very unwell. Eve: So now you look after your diabetes very well, but how do you stay positive every day? (11:30) Alice: I think one of the things that helped me was the advance in technology. Having a flash glucose monitor was really useful. Just looking at my phone to see what my sugars are doing on a graph and not having to prick my finger all the time makes it a lot easier. I’m on an insulin pump and it’s just a disc that sticks to the skin. All I have to do is just type in how much insulin I need at mealtimes. Eve: You now have 2 children, and you have been open with your fertility struggles. Could you tell us more about this? (14:20) Alice: At the time, I kept it to myself and it’s not till after that I shared things about this. We tried to conceive for about 4 years after getting married. With my health and other issues there was this debate whether I had polycystic ovaries or endometriosis. There were these background issues and not falling pregnant and miscarriages. I spoke to my GP and she said she thought there could be some issues. She referred me to a specialist to get things checked over. To this day I think we could have been stuck in the system if we hadn’t been referred so quickly. She was invested in me and my health. We had what is known as unknown fertility struggles, they didn’t know what was wrong. After several months to nearly a year we were sent down to a fertility clinic where they said hormone treatments might help. We went through IVF and had 2 failed rounds. We decided we would have one last try and we couldn’t afford to not go through the NHS as that can get very pricey. We knew we had 17 weddings coming up, so we took a break. Then the next month we found out we were pregnant with Matilda! It was a very difficult pregnancy, for at least the first 20 weeks I was worried whenever I went to the toilet there would be blood. Any tweak or pain I thought the worst. We always talk about Matilda as our miracle baby. Eve: That’s so great! What about Florence? (18:20) Alice: Florence was natural. We got to thinking about having a second child and thought we may have to go down the IVF route. We thought about trying and then fell pregnant within 2-3 months. We were both shocked! I’m so happy to have both of my girls now. Eve: How was your pregnancy and birth with both of them? (19:00) Alice: Let’s just put it this way, I have a very good relationship with my diabetes nurse and after Florence they both said, don’t do this again to us! Both were very high-risk pregnancies, and both needed a lot of monitoring. They were very touch and go the whole way through. Matilda’s birth was deemed trauma and there are open cases with the hospital about ways it was managed. And a very emotional pandemic birth with Florence. I’m really lucky I have two healthy girls at the end of it. Eve: Did your pregnancy impact your pregnancy other than it being monitored all the time and high risk? (20:35) Alice: All diabetes is deemed into a high-risk category. You need a lot more appointment and higher up people. I had a team of 6 medical professionals around me supporting me. You have the maximum number of scans. My appointments were 3 or 4 hours long. With Matilda’s pregnancy my body took a battering, but she was born perfectly at 35 weeks. Her birth was really difficult, both mine and her stats kept dropping. There were lots of complications and ended up being a forceps delivery. She stopped breathing and needed to be resuscitated. She was taken straight up to the special baby unit. We had Christmas that year in the special baby unit, the hospital made it very special. She came on very quickly and we were only in hospital for about a week with her. We came home on new year’s at 10pm. Eve: How did you recover mentally from all the trauma? (26:20) Alice: I didn’t it in all honestly. I swept it up under the carpet and kind of forgot about it for a while. The hospital did their own investigations, but I didn’t that. I was happy, I had my daughter. I put it all down to my diabetes nurse, she is so supportive and positive. It all came flooding back when I gave birth to Florence. She was a planned C- Section at 37 weeks. I remembered the sounds, noises and the smells of how it was before. I thought at the time that I wasn’t over this. Eve: What’s your main mantra you live by and why? (30:00) Alice: It’s going to sound a bit negative but, prepare for the worst as anything else can be a positive. Eve: Thanks so much for coming on, it’s been so informative and eye opening.
The final episode of the mini series! We hope you've all enjoyed listening. Today we speak to Ali Byatt on her journey to adopting her two children, and the highs and lows of this. Go check out her Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/Im.winging.it.too/ Eve: Today I’m joined by Ali Byatt from @im.winging.it.too to speak about her journey to motherhood and also her journey to adoption. Ali adopted 4 years ago and today she documents her family life over Instagram. Ali: I’m 39, the big 4 – 0 this year, hopefully out of lockdown. I became a mum in 2016 we adopted our 2 children; they were brother and sister and they came to us at the same time and it flipped our lives upside down in the most amazing way. It was also challenging at some points as well. I started my Instagram to find other families that have adopted. I think social media gets quite a bad rep but if you keep your boundaries it can be some type of therapy and a powerful thing to support you. Eve: We have actually had a few people on the podcast saying they have found friends on Instagram that they would not have found otherwise. It’s really lovely. What’s your journey to motherhood? Ali: I had a number of operations when I was younger that means that my lady parts weren’t working as they should. I put children on the back burner as I was very carer driven and worked in early years. I met my husband 11 years ago and he was 7 years younger than me and children wasn’t really on the cards. A really good friend of mine, her father passed away and we were very close with him and this shifted things into perspective. I had always thought about adoption and it would have been something I would have considered even if I could have children naturally. I have some issues with hospitals from operations in the past and I thought I could not physically put myself through the IVF process. It took us about 18 months to be approved as adopters. The second profile of the children we saw, I just knew they were for us. We only got approved for a toddler and one child, so we had to get re approved for siblings. We’ve had to learn a lot about how we parent as some children can come with a lot of trauma from spending time with their birthparents. Eve: How long did the adoption process take? Ali: We registered as adopters in February 2015 and it consist of 3 phases. The first phase is information gathering, you have a medical and then phase 2 is training. Eve: How did you find this emotionally? Ali: I buried a lot of emotions about things up until the children moved in and about 6 months after. I hadn’t realised how my infertility and my relationship with my father had both affected me. After 6 months of the children moving in I started to experience panic attacks and anxiety so I sought therapy. I made things much more difficult for myself than necessary and I also thought these children need perfection because of what they had experienced previously coming to me. The thing I’ve learnt the most I can teach them is emotion regulation and resilience. With my son if we feel like things are rising he goes and blows bubbles at the back door as we know it regulated his breathing again. I’ve learnt I need to go a lot easier on myself. From working with children and being with children, I thought I knew a lot more than I did. Eve: That’s not a bad thing to admit! Its self-learning and self-realisation. Ali: I’m quite a placid person and I’ve never met people that can wind up my buttons like my children can! We all love the bones of each other and know how to make each other happy but we also know what winds each other up. Eve: What was it like the first time you met your two children? Ali: I remember the exact moment. They were at their foster house and we had to drive a long way to meet them. We walked up the drive and my son had this big smile which I now know is actually his very scared smile. He was waving at the window and my daughter was clinging onto the foster carer. The introduction happened and then they came home with us 10 days later. Eve: How did your children take to you in those first few weeks? Ali: They did take to us really well, my son Thomas called me Mummy from the moment he met me. Tiggs wasn’t talking and walking yet and the second day she did stay with the foster carer. The first time she touched me we were playing in the sand and she touched my hand, and I was really trying hard not to cry. Eve: How are you today? Ali: Today we are ok, we miss our space. I was furloughed most of the year which was a blessing as the kids were at home, so I needed to be around. Thomas is transferring to a new special school at the moment where he will hopefully get on better as he didn’t like his previous school. I miss my friends at the moment, I’m a very sociable person, but Instagram is good at this! We’re very lucky to be honest, we live by the sea and we have found lots of walks to go on the beach and in the woods. We got a new dog in March and he’s perfect, the children both love him. Eve: What advice would you give to people starting the adoption process or have thought about it before? Ali: I would 100% recommend adoption. I would go onto Instagram and follow all the UK adoption communities. If you do decide to start the process is to take as much time for yourself as when the children come, they’re is not that much time for yourself. When going through the process you find a lot out about the children and what they have been through and you feel a lot of sympathy for them. I think it’s really important to change this into empathy. Your children need you to look after yourself so you can look after them in the best possible way. Eve: What does Motherhood mean to you? Ali: It means everything! Although parenthood is challenging its helped me improve everything about myself. Motherhood to me is realising you are worth fighting for and changing for as well as just your children. Eve: Who do you look up to in life and why? Ali: Definitely my mum. She is just amazing and is there for me no matter what. She was a single mum and has raised me and my brother really well. I don’t think I would have got through without her. She’s everyone’s mum and you can talk to her about anything! Eve: What is your main mantra you live your life by? Ali: There isn’t such a thing as a perfect mum or perfect woman, your flaws are what make you. If I hadn’t had gone through what I went through when I was a child, I wouldn’t be the mother to the children I am. If you ask yourself who’s asking yourself to be perfect, it’s probably your own mind. Eve: You have been amazing, so interesting. Thank you!
Today we speak to the wonderful Beth Sandland, from @bethsandland. In this podcast, we openly discuss Beth's experience of pregnancy after loss (TW), and the stigma around this. We also chat about her feelings and thoughts, coping mechanisms around this, and where she is today. Beth's Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/bethsandland/ Zoe's Book - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pregnancy-After-Loss-day-day-ebook/dp/B08572VWXF Eve: Today were speaking to Beth from @bethsandland about her journey of motherhood in particular her experience of two miscarriages. Do you want to start by introducing yourself? Beth: I'm 25 and I live in south London with my husband. We got married in October and we had a tiny pandemic wedding. I am a lifestyle Blogger and pre pandemic I did travel blogging. We spent all of 2019 abroad which took us to lots of places and it was incredible. We spent a lot of time in Australia and really fell in love with it. We also went to Sri Lanka which I didn’t know much about this before and now I should be on some kind of commission for the tourists. If anyone asks where to travel, I always say there as it suits any traveller! Eve: I actually went to Sri Lanka in 2019 as well, it was incredible! The people are so friendly and happy to help, I would love to go back. As a brand this year and our campaign we are really trying to cover all journeys of motherhood. What’s your journey to motherhood? Beth: I first found out I was pregnant in November 2019, it was unplanned and felt like a blessing, it was perfect timing. We had just returned home from that 12-month trip. You had been on this whirlwind time and you’re back home doing the dishes and putting the bins out. Being pregnant was our next adventure! I then had a missed miscarriage which was diagnosed at a scan and it was a complete shock. I knew about miscarriages from the internet but like most people, I never thought it would happen to me. It shook my world going to the scan and someone saying there is going to be no baby. I didn’t know how to process this, and the grief was very real. There is still a lot of stigma attached to it and people think why has this happened to me, I’m the only one to have experienced this. If you asked your friends and they were really honest, you would find this is something a lot of women go through. Eve: The statistics do say 1 in 4 women will experience this in their lifetime, which is huge. Beth: We really battled with the loss and this happening twice. We had made room in our hearts to extend our family and then it’s all gone again. There is very much a stigma and a lot people say things which they think are well meaning that are fundamentally unhelpful. It’s the at least’s, the at least you weren’t further at along, at least your young and it makes you wonder whether there was a baby and whether you can grieve. There is a lot of seeking validation to see people that had gone through it and now working. No matter what anyone says when you find out your pregnant, you start planning and having a date in the diary for 9 months’ time. It completely changed our priorities and we needed a few months to recover emotionally. I had the D&C surgery to ‘manage’ the miscarriage. The pandemic took away all my coping mechanisms. I was just starting to work and going out socialising with my friends. We weren’t sure what impact the virus would have on pregnancy. We started trying again in the summer and I fell pregnant again quickly, but this ended up in an early bleed. This was a very different feeling to the first time around. I was much more preoccupied whether there was anything wrong with me. Eve: Did you find it any easier to cope with because you had been there already? Beth: Maybe, it wasn’t as much as a shock and not nearly as traumatic as the first miscarriage which was further along. It was very upsetting, but I could cope with it more. We decided to have a break after having a more negative tests and we got married and we were focusing on planning a pandemic wedding. We took the pressure off and the universe had very different plans as I’m now 7 months pregnant. I sought therapy after the first miscarriage. One of the things I told the therapist was that I worried pregnancy would never be a surprise again and would always be planned and tracking cycles. It’s the trying to conceive that no one talks about. It was so lovely in the summer to find out I was pregnant again; I remind myself each day that I’m a day closer to meeting our baby. Eve: As you said miscarriage is a very tough subject for people. As suffering 2 miscarriages yourself, has this changed your outlook on life? Beth: It changed my outlook and my priorities. We’re not in control you can only plan so much. When people ask the where do you see yourself in 5 question, you can influence things, but you can’t plan out your life. Eve: When I was younger, I used to say I’m going to get married at x age and have a baby at x age and when you get older there are different factors and your life changes a lot. You are an amazing advocate for support over on Instagram and are very open speaking about your experiences. How did it affect you and also your partner as well? Beth: Seeking therapy was good for me since I was grieving deeply. It took time for me to think it was ok that I was feeling the way I was. My husband was very open with me about it, which is very important as men sometimes get forgotten about with their feelings about a pregnancy. We really did communicate well as a team. I decided to share online after some time as it felt like the right thing to do and to reflect. It felt impossible to ignore. I would go to hit the publish button 5 days in a row as I didn’t know how this would be received. A lot of the support I have received has been online and is invaluable. I get messages from people opening up telling me they have not told anyone what they are going through. Eve: Where would you advise people to go to, if they are struggling today? Beth: The Saying Goodbye charity run by Zoe is all about baby loss, her and her charity have time for anyone. She has a few books which have been really helpful to me. Tommy’s charity is also brilliant, and I have spoken to them. There are a lot of charities out there where you can talk to them without having to pick up the phone. I think writing it down and getting it off your chest is a good thing to do. Eve: What does motherhood mean to you? Beth: My perception of motherhood has changed a lot, I’ve learned that you don’t have to have a baby in your arms to be a mum. I think there is a clear stereotype of a mum being at home with a baby. Motherhood can be in different forms its whatever you make it. I know amazing women who don’t have their children with them due to loss but they are still very much mothers. What a family looks like is not the 2.4 linear model anymore. You can be a family without children. My husband and I are already a family, I think a family is what you choose for it to be. Eve: How’s your pregnancy been so far, I know you’re getting closer now, has this been a smooth journey for you? Beth: Health wise it’s been a straightforward pregnancy with no complications. It has not been physically tiring but mentally for the first trimester I was always on high alert and super anxious. It took me a long time for me to think that this is a baby we are going to bring home with us. I break things down into milestones, so I can tick things off as we get closer. I needed to get by day by day. Where we are at now is planning the nursery and talking about names. Everyone’s journey is different, but I have found that in the scope after loss it does get easier. We have started hypnobirthing recently. I sent her an email before being really honest saying I don’t have any fears around labour, but I’m was scared I won’t bring my baby home from the hospital. Since then, we have done a couple of sessions and it has really helped improve my headspace, I feel a lot calmer. Eve: What is the main mantra you live your live by? Beth: I would say every day is a new day and take it as it comes and think this applies to all areas of life. The sun rises every day and time keeps going. It’s the one constant we can rely on. Eve: Thanks so much for being very open, I found it incredibly interesting!
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In today’s episode we’re excited to welcome our friend and colleague, Eve Bodeux. Eve Lindemuth Bodeux is a 20+-year veteran of the language services industry and has worn many hats. She is an ATA-certified French to English translator focusing on the translation of corporate communications, market research and international development content. She is also the owner of Bodeux International LLC, offering multilingual project management to clients worldwide. Eve is co-host of the long-running Speaking of Translation podcast and author of Maintaining Your Second Language: practical and productive strategies for translators, teachers, interpreters and other language lovers. She sponsors an online book club for translators called the Global Reads Book Club that focuses on books in translation. She is currently serving a term on the Board of Directors of the American Translators Association through 2021. Here’s what we talked about with Eve:• How to consistently work on maintaining your second-language skills• How to make language practice fun• How to get out of a "rut" when it comes to improving/maintaining your second language• What strategies you can use when raising bilingual kidsResources we mentioned in this episode:• Eve Bodeux’s website and Twitter account• Eve’s Global Reads Book Club• Speaking of Translation podcast• Speaking of Translation episodes: “Maintaining your second (third, etc.) language” and “Raising bilingual children”• Maintaining Your Second Language by Eve Bodeux:o Purchase Eve's book on Apple Bookso Purchase Eve's book Amazon (Kindle or print)o Purchase Eve's book directly from her by contacting her at eve@bodeuxinternational.com• American Translators Association (ATA)• Eve’s interview with English into Italian translator and author Jenny McPhee• Eve’s interview with Nina Schuyler, the author of The Translator: A Novel• Marleen Seegers of 2 Seas Agency interviews Eve on the Make Books Travel podcast• Bose SoundLink around-ear wireless headphones II• WONDERBOOM portable waterproof bluetooth speaker• Asana• Selfie ring light with an extendable tripod stand and flexible phone holder• Nobody Will Tell You This But Me: A true (as told to me) story by Bess Kalb• Organized Enough: The Anti-Perfectionist's Guide to Getting—and Staying—Organized by Amanda Sullivan• Watching You: A Novel by Lisa JewellFor a full list of resources, visit the show notes page for this episode: https://smarthabitsfortranslators.com/podcast-episodes/30
Who were our first parents--Adam and Eve--How did God create man--God created man, male and female, after his own image.--Of what were our first parents made--God made Adam's body out of the ground and Eve's body out of a rib from Adam.--Questions and Answers 14-15 in First Catechism https---www.gcp.org-ProductDetail.aspx-Item-020030
How is it that a talking serpent got into the garden of Eden to tempt Adam and Eve-- How is it that Satan got into the serpent-- Who is Satan-- Who created him-- How powerful is he-- Was he created good, or was he always evil-- How is it that evil got into Satan--
How is it that a talking serpent got into the garden of Eden to tempt Adam and Eve-- How is it that Satan got into the serpent-- Who is Satan-- Who created him-- How powerful is he-- Was he created good, or was he always evil-- How is it that evil got into Satan--
How is it that a talking serpent got into the garden of Eden to tempt Adam and Eve- How is it that Satan got into the serpent- Who is Satan- Who created him- How powerful is he- Was he created good, or was he always evil- How is it that evil got into Satan-
How can we answer this common skeptical objection? Does it prove there were other people when God created Adam and Eve? How do we explain the apparent moral and biological problems with the logical biblical answer? Support CMI Our audio and video content are freely available but not free to produce. To support the ministry go to visit our site or simply text a donation to 84321. And thank you! Helpful Resources The Genesis Account The Genesis Academy The High Tech Cell + Mitochondrial Eve What does the Bible really say about Adam and Eve? Links and Show Notes Who was Cain’s wife (Creation Answers Book) Cain’s wife and brother-sister intermarriage Adam, Eve and Noah vs Modern Genetics A review of Adam and the Genome What were Adam’s and Eve’s blood types? Did Adam and Eve Exist? Scopes at 100:The “monkey trial” shaped an entire century Inbreeding and the origin of races ‘Parade of Mutants’—Pedigree Dogs and Artificial Selection Why don’t we live as long as Methuselah? Follow us (if you want) ► eNewsletter ► Facebook ► Twitter ► Instagram
Are you tempted by things you want but don't need? Why is no repentance forthcoming from Adam? What was God's purpose in creating Adam and Eve? How did God feel when Adam and Eve ate the fruit? Jeremiah 2:13. God wants to be pursued. God was underestimated by Adam and Eve. What does God have as a vision and dream for your life? Anyone who loves has a desire to receive love from the object of their love. Colossians 1: 15-17, 19. Do you seek God's opinion before you make decisions? Photo by Eric Ward on Unsplash Dr. David Levy Podcasts on:iTuneshttps://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/dr-david-levy-gods-wisdom-freshly-revealed/id1403541244?mt=2 Google Playhttps://play.google.com/music/m/Itnylngdsghg425rjbhhcfzfw2y?t=Dr_David_Levy_-_Gods_Wisdom_Freshly_Revealed Websitewww.DrDLevy.com YouTube Channelhttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK7aq4WGV71EkeEWnAkVunQ
Get our free IELTS video training course now Learn how to ask about someone’s New Year’s Eve plans like a native English speaker! Here are some phrases that you heard in yesterday’s Meeting Monday: To ring in the New Year (expression): To celebrate the beginning of a new year. “How are you going... Read More The post AEE 31: What Are you Doing for New Year’s Eve? How to Ask Like a Native English Speaker appeared first on All Ears English Podcast | Real English Vocabulary | Conversation | American Culture.
Drama of Creation * The purpose of the allegory of Adam and Eve * How you were created in the Beginning * Who is your I AM Presence and Higher Self * About the ritual of the ascension * What the second death is Quote: "I think some people think in terms of a mate or a person that God has created especially for them, almost after the fact, as the Lord God took Eve out of the rib of Adam. This allegory in the Book of Genesis did not make sense to me for a long time. I pondered it as a child and in my youth, and it seemed to me very strange and not quite real because I was looking at it in the literal sense. And so many things in the Bible are startling and puzzling when we look at them in the literal sense. But as I was meditating in the past years, I came to realize what is being explained in that passage." -- Elizabeth Clare Prophet MORE from FAMILY DESIGNS PODCAST: BUY MP3 Audio CD "Family Designs for the Golden Age": Better understand yourself as a spiritual parent and create your family environment to unlock your children’s genius. Lectures by Elizabeth Clare Prophet include: "Karma, Reincarnation, and the Family, " "Your Marriage Made in Heaven, " "Your Marriage Made on Earth," "Charting the Cycles of Your Family," "The Key to Unlock the Genius of Your Child," "What It Means to Be a Parent," "New-Age Children—The Coming Avatars." Plus ascended master dictations through Elizabeth Clare Prophet: "The Matrix of the Holy Family" by Saint Germain, "The Child of the Heart" by Jesus the Christ, and "This Hallowed Circle" by Mother Mary. Item #M10004, 11 hours, $14.95. BUY Visit Pathway for Families...Spiritual and Educational Resources for Families Parenting, Spiritual Lessons, Youth, Relationships, Webinars, Fun and Games, Community (LINK) The Summit Lighthouse - About Us: LINK The Summit Lighthouse helps spiritual seekers with opportunities and support for a unique path which embraces all faiths and nationalities with the Teachings of the Ascended Masters. Building community for more than 50 years, like-minded friends share at various levels of affiliation. CONTACT US for information on Books, eBooks, CDs, MP3s, DVDs, and seminars, conferences, online courses. The Teachings of the Ascended Masters are available in 30 languages. Email: TSLinfo@TSL.org Phone: 1-800-245-5445 or 406-848-9500 Facebook: LINK YouTube: LINK Twitter: LINK Mail: The Summit Lighthouse, 63 Summit Way, Gardiner, MT USA 59030-9314
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