Page 7 - Presentation

“Ms. Folwell’s study of the hemiclitores began when she noticed there were reams

of publications describing the many shapes and sizes of snake hemipenes, but only
scant mentions of female sex organs. That includes the clitoris, a structure present

in all mammals, all lizards and some birds. The few papers she did find either
offered no anatomical description or provided incorrect ones…

…‘Darwin described females as coy and passive participants in sexual selection,’
said Malin Ah-King, an evolutionary biologist and gender researcher at Stockholm

Univesity in Sweden who was not involved in the study. ‘These Victorian gender
notions influenced Darwin and have been with us in evolutionary biology ever
since.’

In an extreme example of a male-centric point of view, Dr. Brennan said one study

of lizard hemiclitores went so far as to suggest their function might be to stimulate
the male during mating.

‘Now that more researchers are exploring the female side of things we get to know
more of the details of what’s really there,’ Dr. Ah-King said. ‘Each person’s

perspective has limits, and this research shows how bringing in more perspectives
can give us a more complete picture.’”

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Megan Folwell, PhD(c), Dr. Patricia Brennan, Mount Dr. Malin Ah-King, Stockholm
University of Adelaide Holyoke College University