(a wonderful creative commons offering from aaron logan off flickr)
Happy Friday everyone! I wonder what that chimpanzee is thinking about. I wonder if they are thinking of the same weird questions about stories, storytelling, and menopause that I am thinking of after an article or two came out about how chimpanzees apparently go through menopause which is really cool (and seems obvious to me that they would since they are one of our closest cousins). Except at least one of the articles had headlines that was a bit like..WHAT??????? MENOPAUSE????? Why on EARTH?????
The first article from Scientific American was more, well, scientific about the question of why any organism would outlive its ability to reproduce, citing reproduction as the only real reason to be alive. This is, I take it (as I am not a biologist, scientist, or evolutionary anything, nor am I a journalist) the only real reason any of us at all in life in any form exist; to reproduce. I mean, I guess?
Why these chimps undergo menopause is a bit trickier to explain. After all, it’s a bit of an evolutionary mystery why an organism would outlive its reproductive capacity. One of the prevailing explanations for menopause in humans, known as the “grandmother hypothesis,” posits that it is evolutionarily advantageous for older women to stick around and help raise the next generation.
But “that’s not really possible for chimpanzees because they don’t live with their daughters,” says Peter Ellison, an evolutionary anthropologist at Harvard University, who was not involved in the study. Adult female chimps tend to move to a different family when it’s time for them to have babies, and they tend to raise them communally, meaning that there is no genetic incentive for the primates to favor their own grandchildren.
Instead the research suggests that menopause may simply be a feature of mammalian reproductive systems that emerges if such an animal lives long enough. “It may have been something that was shared by the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees,” Gunter says. And perhaps because of their isolation from human-induced stress, the Ngogo chimps tend to live for a long time.
The New York Times Article (I think this is a gift link), held similar information, but the questions posed still rankled. Many of the scientists seemed generally puzzled that chimps (and other species like Orcas and Pilot Whales) would go through menopause, though several also determined that perhaps there are multi-causal effects.
To look for other possible evolutionary explanations for the menopause in chimpanzees, Dr. Langergraber and his colleagues are looking to whales.In many wild species, females become less fertile with age. But until now, only five species of whales had displayed the distinctive signs of menopause, defined as a sharp halt to their reproductive years long before the end of life.
Studies on killer whales have revealed that the offspring of older females are less likely to survive than those of younger females. “Older females lose out when they breed at the same time as younger females in the same group,” said Dr. Cant, who led some of the research. It appears that the female whales come into conflict, perhaps over food.
Menopause in killer whales might allow them to put their efforts into helping their pods stay alive, rather than having more babies. Dr. Cant and his colleagues have found that old females often lead their fellow whales on long trips to hunting grounds, perhaps taking advantage of their decades-old memories.
Dr. Langergraber speculated that menopause might have first evolved in small-brained apes in a similar manner. Later, when our ancestors evolved big brains and helpless babies, the benefits of help from grandmothers may have favored menopause even more. “It’s probably going to be a multi-causal story,” Dr. Langergraber said.
Over on Twitter, X, or whatever the hell it’s called (and yes, I should delete my account), quite a few people took great issue with the NYT reporting. You could simple hear the rage-cackle in the tweets, which I adored and reposted with glee. I felt a bit bad for the writer, Carl Zimmer, because really he’s only asking the question the scientists are asking and it’s wonderful click-bait, but come on, I also don’t feel that bad.
I love this tweet, which I cannot embed because Txwitter is not playing well with Substack.
There were scores of these tweets, primarily from women’s accounts, who can tell another story. We might just exist to…exist. To enjoy not having babies past the point of having to have them (or not even having them at all).
The traditional story is, the one science and biology tell us, is that babies are the point and there are these headlines like BUT BUT BUT WHAT? in response to this interesting new fact. The old story-baby spiders, baby elephants, baby chimps, baby people-everything exists to have more of themselves. So, why would we not just die at 45 when our periods peter out? I mean…couldn’t it be that we still have things to offer?
That’s a new story, right? That our aging, old, non birthing bodies have a deep and abiding purpose post reproduction or even outside of birthing, and so much so that other species experience menopause or some kind of post-fertility life. I think that’s glorious. It makes life that much more complex and amazing to me.
This quickly written post is most definitely a clumsy raspberry rage beret, the kind I’d have at a Happy Hour bar, for sure. Given how much anger I need to vent (see this incredible piece by
Mine went towards Carl, I’m afraid, though truly he’s simply the messenger for the story that our bodies really are vessels only for popping out babies (something we are seeing mirrored in our state houses and federal judiciaries and cultural touchstones).
That middle aged, old (but not deep time old) story of patriarchy, that seemed to ebb even just a touch, is roaring back with gale force power. For it? I have deep rage. I want the oldest story and the most ancient magic which is perhaps simply a mystery of goddesses not gods, of cyclical birth, life, death and rebirth, rather than some weird full stop. I wish the articles had headlines about these topics like OH COOL LOOK AT THIS THIS IS NEW! GUESS WHAT EVERYONE?
I know, I know. I already said it. I’m not a scientist. I’m also not a journalist so I should probably be more forgiving. I am an observer though. And a storyteller that gets curious about how those stories get told, and about the stories that DON’T get told. Because those untold stories still count. And the could provide us with a far more egalitarian and wonderful future, I think.
I’m also in menopause. I still have things to do, Carl.
I stand with the Granny Chimps and the Meemaw Orcas and I want to help the young and fuck shit up.
Have a great weekend everyone! Thanks as always for reading and supporting. I appreciate it!