What is the obstetrical dilemma (Washburn 1960)?
The hypothesis that bipedalism narrowed the pelvis while encephalization enlarged infant heads, creating an evolutionary conflict between walking and birth.
What does Walrath argue about the obstetrical dilemma?
It is culturally constructed and empirically unsupported.
What empirical fact undermines the obstetrical dilemma?
2.5 million years of Homo reproductive success.
What does Snorton add to critiques of the obstetrical dilemma?
The clinical data supporting it was extracted from enslaved women under coercion.
What is vesico-vaginal fistula (VVF)?
An opening between the bladder and vagina caused by obstructed labor, resulting in incontinence.
Who were experimental subjects for VVF surgeries?
A: Anarcha, Betsey, Lucy, and other enslaved women.
Q: What structural causes produced VVF in enslaved women?
A: Malnutrition, forced labor, lack of prenatal care.
Q: What did Sims call VVF?
A: An “accident” — erasing slavery’s role.
Q: What is “ungendered flesh” (Spillers → Snorton)?
A: The captive Black body stripped of personhood and gender recognition.
Q: How did Black women become foundational to gynecology?
A: Their bodies were used experimentally while denied subjecthood.
Q: What was concealed in Sims’s clinic?
A: White women’s bodies (covered with sheets).
Q: What is geometric similarity?
A: The assumption that body structures scale proportionally.
Q: What disproves geometric similarity in pelves?
A: A 65 mm range in female bi-iliac breadth.
Q: What is bi-iliac breadth?
A: Maximum pelvic width across iliac crests.
Q: What predicts bi-iliac breadth most strongly?
A: Population history (η² = 76%).
Q: What is sexual dimorphism?
A: Systematic morphological difference between males and females.
Q: How accurate is pelvic sex determination?
A: ~96%.
Q: How does Walrath reinterpret dimorphism?
A: As evidence of successful adaptation, not compromise.
Q: What are the four pelvic types?
A: Gynecoid, Android, Anthropoid, Platypelloid.
Q: What was problematic about pelvic typology?
A: It embedded racial hierarchy into obstetrics.
Q: What are sleeping metaphors (Martin 1991)?
A: Cultural narratives embedded in scientific language that appear objective.
Q: What is secondary altriciality?
A: The idea that humans are born “premature” due to pelvic constraint.
Q: What is the obstetric midplane?
A: Narrowest part of birth canal (ischial spines).
Q: What explains most midplane mediolateral variance?
A: Biological sex (η² = 63%).
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Lecture 2/2451
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"Bodyminds Reimagined"43
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“Prenatal Genetic Testing and Disability Rights: Addressing Disability Bias in Practice.”50
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“Disability/Anthropology: Rethinking the Parameters of the Human.”44
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“The Morphology of Intersectionality: Discordance between Ancestry Estimates and Social Identifiers”38
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“Anatomically Speaking: Ungendered Flesh and the Science of Sex”40
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“Bones, Biases, and Birth: Forensic Anthropology and the Construction of Sex”38
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“Embodying Sex/Gender Systems in Bioarchaeological Research”45
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“‘Chinese Peptides’ Are the Latest Biohacking Trend in the Tech World”38
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CRISPR recording featuring Neville Sanjana (NYU)40
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Why This Disability Activist Fears CRISPR12
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“Peptides and the Pursuit of the ‘Perfect’ Body: Biohacking Trends and Ethical Implications”30
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Imago by Octavia Butler37
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Lecture 3/351
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Science Readings31
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"The Egg and the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male- Female Roles"33
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EXPLORATIONS: AN OPEN INVITATION TO BIOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY, 2ND EDITION48
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Adult sex estimation from cranial morphological traits - Garvin45
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Sex estimation using pelvis morphology - Klales40
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The Five Sexes33
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Chapter 1, 2 and 4 in The Sexual Evolution35
