Page 12 - Boca ViewPointe - July '20

Page 12, Viewpointe July 2020

Book Review

Why Menopause? & The tribes. Until transition to the shorter Agrarian Era that
enforced Patriarchy and devalued the equality status of
Grandmother Hypothesis women; followed by The Modern World, with capitalism
and unsustainable population growth. The Modern
Susan P. Mattern. The Slow Moon Climbs, The Science, World also invented Retirement, with volunteerism and
History, and Meaning of Menopause. Princeton: Princeton mentoring the young, which actually had already existed
University Press, 2019. under a different, honorable name: in Mattern’s phrasing,
Germaine Greer. The Change, Women, Aging, and the “putting men in menopause.”
Menopause. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992. Notable scholar and feminist author Germaine
“He’s speaking now, or murmuring, Greer in her classic study presented the change, the
‘Where’s my serpent of the Nile?’ .... Think on me, climacteric, through her prism of feminist ideology, in
That am with Phoebus’ amorous pinches black, a less benevolent light. She would agree with Susan P.
And wrinkled deep in time.” Shakespeare’s Cleopatra Mattern on the actualization of the term menopause in

Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be, Book Review on page 13
The last of life, for which the first was made.
Robert Browning’s Rabbi ben Ezra

By Dr. Ronald J. Meyers

My introduction to the
nascent field of Women
Studies mid-last century
was firstly influenced by
my good luck. Yes, blessed
by nature by my doting
teen-age mother, and with
my six decades long, loyal,
loving, virtuous wife.
Doubly fortunate to have Jeffrey S. Fromowitz, M.D., F.A.A.D.
been instructed by two Marjories, Dr. Marjorie Coogan
and Dr. Marjorie Hope Nicholson; the first who not only Board Certified Dermatologist Fellow American Society of Dermatologic Surgery
taught me Freshman Composition at Brooklyn College-- Fellow American Society of Mohs Micrographic Surgery Fellow American Society of Laser Medicine Surgery
but set the standard for teaching writing through positive
reinforcement and individual student guidance; and Ms. Fellow American Academy of Dermatology Diplomate American Board of Dermatology
Nicholson at Columbia, how to enter the mind and soul • General Dermatology • Chemical Peels
of John Milton being a guide to translate meticulous
research into dynamic teaching. I also encountered the • Mohs Surgery • Laser Therapy
anthropological work of Ruth Benedict as well as her ® TM ® ®
mentor Margaret Mead in my undergraduate studies, • Botox , Juvéderm , Restylane and Perlane • Licensed Aestheticians
and the astounding, brilliant Emily Dickinson, later • Dysport , Radiesse ®
®
Germaine Greer; and finally, Sarah Blaffer Hrdy whose
comprehensive study of motherhood among diverse Medicare & Most Insurances Accepted
species of the animal kingdom was eye-opening and
became a staple of my Literature and Science course for All new patients receive a FREE Gift after your first visit!!
several decades.
Sarah P. Mattern has made a recent contribution with *Certain restrictions apply. New patients only
her timely research, and explanation of menopause. Dermatology of Boca
She both proposes and intuits the function of what she
terms its “puzzle”. Is it genetic, merely a biological 4601 North Federal Highway • Boca Raton, FL 33431
phenomenon? or is it some purposeful activity willed
on the basis of natural selection for the benefit of our 561-362-8000
species? Her central argument is that menopause was
indeed a pause, an adaptive exercise, which had the effect Dermatology of Boca 14.pmd 1 1/19/2012, 9:22 AM
to restrict the unchecked growth of the human population.
The survival of nearly all species depends upon enhanced
growth of their populations and, she notes, it is usually
accomplished by fertility and reproduction up until death.
While humans are not unique, she cites, that females for
example chimpanzees our closest relative, whales and
elephants also have a post-reproductive life in which they
continue to serve their families as mentors and guides.
She couches her argument in a dizzying quantification
of mathematical studies. But she offers a simplistic but
powerful characterization, the Grandmother Hypothesis.
Everyone has their favorites grandmother reminiscence
which illustrates the central argument that menopause
offers the opportunity for a rich post-reproductive life
that altruistically serves to benefit the species.
She speculates upon and re-creates the prehistoric,
preliterate past, the Paleolithic Age, the oldest and
longest in the history of our species beginning some
three million years ago. When Homo Erectus, perhaps
evolving from chimps, learned to walk on two legs,
enlarged their brains, extended their lifespan, invented
stone implements and created the family structure with
its division of labor. Then our cousins, the Neanderthal
and finally Homo Sapiens, Hunter/Gatherers, the man out
hunting and gathering while the woman attending to the
home and coalescing the tribal bond. Even beyond her
reproductive age, when her man might stray to a younger
companion, this woman continued to make herself useful.
Spared the urgency of reproduction, she used the pause
by continuing to collect tubers, prepare clothes, cook and
serve as “granny” and care-giver to the young. Professor
Mattern presents this in a favorable light. She argues
that these practices continued to be followed in the most
primitive societies surviving in the modern world such as
the !Kung of the Kalahari Desert, the Hazda of Tazmania
and the Ache of Paraguay all of whom, she speculates,
maintain the basic social structure of the Paleolithic