anthro in the news 6/8/15

Porn-driven female genital esthetics

The Globe and Mail reported on growing industry in women’s genital esthetics, illustrating its point with some details about genital-area waxing and skin treatment for women available in Toronto. The article quotes Eileen Anderson-Fye, the Robson Junior associate professor of anthropology at Case Western Reserve University: “Because of technological advances, we have greater access to pornographic images that explicitly and implicitly convey aesthetic and erotic ideals…“These images hold women to increasingly singular standards about beauty and desirability.” [Blogger’s note: there’s an even more serious question here about what drives porn to portray sexually desirable female genitals as child-like].

Culture, hormones, and menopause

A Reuters article describes findings from a survey about vaginal pain during intercourse in several Western countries. The results, which reveal substantial cross-country variations, will not be surprising to anthropologists. Researchers conducted an online survey asking 8,200 older men and women in North America and Europe how menopause affects their sex lives and relationships. While similar complaints were reported across all countries, the magnitude of suffering for vaginal dryness, hot flashes, and weight gain varied. According to Melissa Melby, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Delaware, the findings are limited because the survey recruited only women with vaginal pain and men who experienced it with their partners. Even so, she continues, the cultural differences about menopause highlighted by the survey underscore how regional differences in diet, physical activity, attitudes toward aging, and expectations about menopause influence how women experience symptoms.

Good news: First woman president in Mauritius

Anthropologyworks’ Sean Carey published an article in the New African on the election in Mauritius of its first woman president, Ameenah Gurib-Fakim, an eminent scientist specializing in ethnobotany. She will also serve her country as its ceremonial Head of State, a move that has caused some controversy but also much support. She vows to be an “apolitical president.” Well, let’s see says Carey, a longtime observer of politics in Mauritius. Continue reading “anthro in the news 6/8/15” →

Anthro in the news 9/22/14

Paul Farmer in Liberia to address Ebola

All Africa carried an article about the arrival of Paul Farmer, medical anthropologist and Partners in Health (PIH) co-founder, in Liberia, as part of a high level delegation from PIH. They are in Liberia to hold discussions with relevant partners on the outbreak and spread of the deadly Ebola virus disease. The PIH delegation, led by Farmer, is jointly in Liberia with a partner institution, Last Mile Health (LMH). The objective of the team’s visit includes seeking the guidance of the Government on the proposed set of immediate response programs to be implemented by the coalition in partnership with the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare and the County Health Teams, including managing an Ebola Treatment Unit (ETU) in southeastern Liberia as well as scaling up community-based interventions. The delegation will also discuss strategies for ensuring that the global response works to strengthen national and country-level institutions by building local capacity (public and private, including for community-based care for Ebola and other diseases). Continue reading “Anthro in the news 9/22/14” →

Chimpanzees eat the ants, and we eat the chimpanzees

By Barbara Miller

Chimpanzees and other nonhuman primates possess a range of cultural skills that enhance their lives. Depending on the species and location, these learned and shared capabilities include nest building, tool use to access choice food items such as ants and honey, greetings including the “raised hand clasp,” food preparation such as washing an item before eating it, and use of a leaf by males after sex for wiping off their penis.

Crickette Sanz, a professor of primatology at Washington University in Saint Louis, has devoted years to studying wild chimpanzee populations in the Goualougo Triangle, Republic of Congo. She and her co-authors have recently published important new findings about a “tool set” that chimpanzees use to access and eat army ants. The chimpanzees in several different communities use a wooden tool made from a sapling to perforate the ant nest. Then they use the flexible stem of a particular herb as a “wand” for attracting the ants from their nest so that the chimpanzees can eat them.

The more primatologists study nonhuman primates in the wild, especially the great apes, the more evidence they produce about the richness of nonhuman primate culture. But theirs is a race against time. Or, more aptly, a race against us and the ravages of “civilization” and consumerism.

The authors note: “Further research is needed to determine the ecological and social factors shaping the diverse and complex tool technology of these apes. There is an immediate need to conduct this research, as the conservation status of Great Apes in the Congo Basin is jeopardized by mechanical logging, bushmeat hunting, and disease epidemics…” (p. 6). Destruction of the habitat is also having detrimental effects on the ant population, especially army ants.

Protecting the chimpanzees and ants for science is definitely important and rational from the point of view of science. But isn’t there a larger reason? Shouldn’t the habitats, chimpanzees, and even the ants be protected for their own sake? And what about the local people whose ancestors have long lived in the region? If science can provide some muscle for organizations that lobby for regional habitat protection, then that’s certainly a good thing. An image of David and Goliath comes to my mind, with science facing off against massive commercial interests and greedy governments. But, after all, the small guy won.

Sanz, and a co-author, David Morgan, provide some practical insight into the complicated and urgent questions of preservation in a report prepared for the IUCN/SSC Primate Specialist Group, titled Best Practice Guidelines for Reducing the Impact of Commercial Logging on Wild Apes in West Equatorial Africa (2007).

What can we do? Change our consumption practices to rely more on pre-used items and to rely more on less stuff in general. Support organizations that work to protect the habitats where great apes and other primates live, as well as the indigenous/local populations:

The Great Ape Trust

Survival International

Cultural Survival

Map of Goualougo Triangle by David Morgan. Photo by Crickette Sanz. Special thanks for permission to use their images.