11.1 It's a Girl! (the history of being born female)

Her Half of History

In the days before ultrasounds, expectant mothers still wanted to know if they were having a boy or a girl, and experts from Aristotle to celibate male monks to midwives were eager to help them find out. Methods ranged from dubious to really, really dubious, but if you want to try any of them out, this episode will tell you the most common methods. Assuming you actually were born a girl, then your problem was survival in a world with not just high infant mortality, but adult-assisted infant mortality. Documenting female infanticide is tricky, but there is no doubt that it happened pretty much everywhere.

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