Find your inner ape, women told

Feminist Natalie Angier says female primates usually fend for themselves in matters of finding shelter and feeding their offspring. Photo / Wikimedia Commons image by Thomas Lersch

Reproductive technology means that menopause can no longer be considered "the end of the line" for women, says Pulitzer Prize-winning author and feminist Natalie Angier.

"If we can extend our fecundity that will help in many areas of our lives including our perception of ourselves as ageing women," Angier said.

She says medical technology, such as the ability to store ovarian tissue and use it to produce eggs when the woman is no longer fertile, will help remove the stigma of ageing.

It will also challenge negative attitudes towards ageing, which, Angier says, seem "to fall much harder on women than ... men".

"You reach a point in your life right around the age of 40 when a woman's worth is considered to drop off considerably," she said.

"That, I think, is something that we have to deal with because people are living longer and people are healthier so the old demarcations seem to me to be ridiculous. Yet I see so many women just get completely obsessed with ageing."

The obsession with ageing has come at a time when women are making ground in their quest for freedom and independence - an area in which Angier says they have been trailing apes.

"Women are in a lot of ways less free than a lot of female primates," Angier said.

"Historically women have tended to get their power through men and identify their power through male forces like their fathers or husbands or even brothers.

"This doesn't normally happen with primates - the females get their own food, make their own sleeping places, take care of their kids - so for a female primate to get power was very natural.

"Now I think women are much more back to that original female primate model of getting power directly for themselves and, in many cases for their offspring.

Angier addresses the question of what it means to be female in her book, Woman - An Intimate Geography.

Writing the book made Angier "feel that there was something about being a woman that was maybe ultimately superior".

"I've lately begun to wonder if woman aren't perhaps a little bit more grounded than men are," she said.

Angier acknowledges that men have been given a raw deal in some aspects, too.

"[Men have been] denied a lot of feelings that they actually have," she said.

- AAP