By Kristy McCaffrey
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“What must I do to convince her to have sex with me?”
If you strip away every cultural accoutrement, every
interplay between the sexes, it whittles down to this basic question of males.
Women acquired the ability to refuse sex as an adaptation to the dangers of
childbirth—if she would die, she would choose when, where and with whom she
became intimate. So, the age-old dilemma of men was born, “What do women want?”
On a side note, the issue of rape must be addressed. Men
frustrated and unwilling to cooperate with these new set of rules put forth by
human women have, and still do, practice the overpowering of females. They
practice rape. This is not a healthy mating strategy and society consistently
shuts down this taboo, yet, as we know, the practice continues. This has
created a bitterness that still poisons male-female relations today.
But having the choice of saying no has come at a cost to
women. Every month they bleed and deplete their stores of iron.
So, what do women want? They want iron.
A red blood cell’s main function is to pick up oxygen in the
lungs, transport it through the blood vessels, and deliver it to every organ in
the body. A healthy man has 15 percent more red blood cells than a woman. In
order to function, a red blood cell requires a protein called hemoglobin. At
the center of hemoglobin is the element iron.
Iron leads to well-being and vitality and ensures that a
woman can birth healthy babies. Women lose iron not just through menses, a
process that will deplete approximately forty quarts of blood during her
lifetime. Blood loss also occurs during pregnancy, when a mother transfers her
iron stores to her fetus. The average dietary intake for a woman is about one
milligram of iron per day. During pregnancy, she must transfer 350 milligrams
of iron to her unborn child, the equivalent of a year’s worth of the mineral.
A third cause of iron loss occurs during delivery. Vaginal
births can release bleeding in the pelvic tissues. No other mammal experiences
such difficult births as a human woman.
A fourth cause of blood loss also occurs during childbirth,
concerning the placenta. Human women are the winners in the placenta arena. It
can transfer more nutrients more quickly than any other primate. But when the
placenta separates from the uterine wall, nearly a full pint of blood will be
discharged from the female.
A fifth source of blood loss is a bit more circumspect, but
nonetheless important. All other mammalian females have an urgent hunger to
consume the placenta when expelled. Human women have lost their craving for
this delicacy. The placenta is filled with iron, amino acids and essential
fats; it has everything a mother needs to replenish herself following birth.
It’s the equivalent of one or two blood transfusions, but most hospitals label
the placenta as toxic waste.
The final, and sixth, source of iron loss for women occurs
during breast feeding. Infants must get all their iron from their mothers to
fuel their immense brain growth. Lactational iron loss occurs more slowly over
a span of several years.
Iron must be eaten, and unfortunately for humans most
plant-based iron is unavailable to us. The human digestive tract lacks common
but critical enzymes that aid in the absorption of iron from plants. But we can digest iron from animal sources. A
side effect of our ancestors gravitating to a more meat-based diet was the
shortening of our guts. This freed up more oxygen for our brains, and hence our
brains became larger, and intelligence flourished. In general, carnivores are
smarter than herbivores. A coyote is slyer than a cow.
Man as hunter is born.
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| Painting by Emmanuel Benner (1836-1896) |
Don’t miss Part IV: Why Do Women Bleed?
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