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Support systems within families
Published in George E. Dickinson, Brenda S. Sanders, Aging in the Family, 2018
George E. Dickinson, Brenda S. Sanders
For years, evolutionary biologists and anthropologists have sought to explain the existence of grandparents and living past reproduction, a life stage not shared with our primate relatives. It is common for animals to die after their reproductive capacity is diminished. Just what is a benefit for females to stop having children with decades yet to live? asked science reporter Joseph Stromberg (2012). He reports that the answer is grandmothers! Stromberg cites anthropologist Kristen Hawkes’ proposal of the “grandmother hypothesis,” a theory that explains menopause by citing the under-appreciated evolutionary value of grandmothering. Hawkes notes that grandmothers can help collect food and feed children before they are able to feed themselves, freeing mothers to have more children. Without a grandmother present and with the birth of a child when the mother already has a three-year-old child, the odds of that child surviving are reduced, because unlike other primates, humans cannot feed and care for themselves immediately after weaning. The mother’s time must be devoted to the new infant at the expense of the older child. Grandmothers can solve the problem by being supplementary caregivers, says Hawkes. Stromberg admits that the theory is not definitive, yet it gives reason to go and thank your grandmother!
The Entanglement of Being: Sexuality Inside and Outside the Binary
Published in Studies in Gender and Sexuality, 2021
It is still unclear why homosexuality and in particular same-sex pair-bonding persist in the face of competitive sexual selection. Several theorists, including Roughgarden (2013), a trans biologist at Stanford, have argued that sex and evolution are not exclusively explained by Darwinian sexual selection, but that sex as a source of pleasure and connection also strengthens alliances and social ties within groups of animals. These behaviors may not directly contribute to individual sexual selection, but promote group selection through social cohesion and diverse forms of collaboration. Akin to the grandmother hypothesis, where childrearing is strengthened in three-generation families, gender role variation also appears to function to create a range of kinship and generative, protective social ties (Hawkes, 2004). Roughgarden (2013) illustrates this intricacy and fluidity of both gender roles and physical expressions of sexual biology that abound including species with multiple types of each sex, sex transition at mid life span, same-sex bonding, and diverse caregiving constellations. These phenomena help distribute mating, food acquisition, and offspring care effectively and uniquely.