Shlain should know that the feminist revolution reached into anthropology more than 30 years ago and no one now doubts that women were big-time players in evolution. To suggest that women should have their own genus name, Gyno sapiens, seems not only dated, but a bit silly.
There are also some telling mistakes that undermine his thesis. For example, the human brain did not suddenly expand 150,000 years ago with the appearance of modern humans, but about 1.5 million years ago, when brain size doubled for the first time and then continued to do so. The idea that menstruating women figured out the monthly calendar is also off because women without birth control who are pregnant or lactating rarely have periods, and in any case, many cultures do not follow a monthly calendar.
Shlain also seems to believe that there is a purposeful trajectory of human evolution that landed us here as masters of the universe. Evolution is a much more zigzagging, messy process, and our history, like that of all animals, is fraught with mistakes and dead ends. Thinking that human evolution was guided along by women toward some clean and neat end is just wrong.
Shlain also pushes too far when he waxes lyrical from iron to the development of language, homosexuality, death, laughter, art, incest, fatherhood and patriarchy. Yes, human behavior is complex, but is it really necessary to speculate on every single human behavior and assume they all make evolutionary sense? In the end, the message about iron, which is an interesting tidbit, is lost in Shlain's need to impress the reader with his wide-reaching intellect.
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