Debates in the world of anthropology

This has been hanging around in my news feed for a while now with the intention of posting it here. Over at Scientific American Kate Clancy (who I have mentioned before, so she must be good) blogs at 'Context and Variation' about "human behaviour, evolutionary medicine ... and ladybusiness." In this article "Lady anthropologist throws up her hands, concedes men are the reason for everything interesting in human evolution" she picks apart of piece of research that looks at the reasons for women having a lifespan that extends beyond their ability to reproduce. Some of it is a bit 'science speak' for me, and you probably need to be a serious student to understand all the references without looking them up, but you can get the gist of the argument:

"Despite citing the overwhelming literature on the topic, these authors situate human menopause as an “evolutionary puzzle.” They then point out that a model that recognizes male mating preferences for younger women, with a splash of infertility-causing mutations, produces the evolution of menopause. What this suggests is that if men choose to mate with younger women, female-specific, infertility-causing mutations that affect later reproduction could build up, since those women aren’t reproducing. Ergo, the uselessness and undesirability of older women – we all know how that is – leads to their becoming infertile and menopausal."

"I used to think that part of the reason humans are menopausal may not be because menopause serves a particular purpose, but because we have extended lifespans. We may have extended lifespans not because longevity is selected for, but because longer periods of childhood and social learning were selected for."

"Before my revelation that the men are all who matter, I would have also favored the grandmother hypothesis. This hypothesis isn’t mutually exclusive with the others. Originally the grandmother hypothesis contended that post-reproductive life evolved because grandmothers are important to the reproductive success of their offspring (Hawkes 2003; Hawkes et al. 1998; Hawkes et al. 1997)."

She uses her argument to also pick fault with the sexism and cultural bias that exists within this academic sphere and concludes:
"So really, even if men had little to do with menopause, they get… well, they get pretty much everything else, so long as you whiz by several decades of egalitarian anthropology research. Which is fun, like roller skating!"

The comments section is just as interesting as the article, where several male commenters miss the point altogether. It is interesting to know that there are so many people out there concerned with the whys and wherefores of menopause. I'll just go back to quietly menopausing now.