Chapter 10 Response

What began as a bit of a gigglefest of childhood playground memories quickly turned into an extremely interesting article concerning a theory of why the Neandertals fizzled out. I found myself becoming very much engrossed in the debate of differing attitudes toward sex, especially when Mr. Summer made the point about the two different types of Chimpanzees and their differing attitudes toward sex. Not only was this interesting in terms of the ongoing debate between evolution vs. genesis, I also found it interesting how well the subject matter matched up with parts from our other reading "The Handmaid's Tale" (sorry for the quotations there, should be underlined I know). What struck me most about the comparisons between the two is during the period where we come to learn of the men's lack of interest in sex and how, because of this, many of the men were becoming sterile (including Offred's Commander). Going back to Summer's article and his argument that because the Neandertals reaction to sex differed so greatly from ours that their population finally began to dwindle seemed to connect perfectly back to "The Handmaid's Tale" and the shift of power from the patriarch to the women (handmaid's). On a complete side note, this also made me think of the recent film "Children of Men" which dealt with the same type of problem of a world filled with sterile men and the mass panic of a dwindling population. Amazing film if you ever get the chance to see it, especially now with what we are talking about in class.