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Why does the whole human race, especially women, have to pay the price of Adam’s sin (eating from the apple tree) and be subjected to pain, labor and hardships?

Our God is gracious and merciful, He does not punish us because of Adam and Eve's sin, but in His mercy He has saved us from death. God created man in His own image. He commanded man saying "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die" (Gen 2:16-17). Man did not keep this one command; but disobeyed God. The result was that they and their offspring, not just died, but remained in the state of death and corruption.

St. Athanasius explains the situation saying "it was unthinkable that God, the Father of Truth, should go back upon His word regarding death in order to ensure our continued existence. He could not falsify Himself; what, then, was God to do? Was He to demand repentance from men for their transgression? You might say that was worthy of God, and argue further that, as through the Transgression they became subject to corruption, so through repentance they might return to incorruption again. But repentance would not guard the Divine consistency, for, if death did not hold dominion over men, God would still remain untrue. Nor does repentance recall men from what is according to their nature; all that it does is to make them cease from sinning. Had it been a case of a trespass only, and not of a subsequent corruption, repentance would have been well enough; but when once transgression had begun men came under the power of the corruption proper to their nature and were bereft of the grace which belonged to them as creatures in the Image of God. No, repentance could not meet the case. What--or rather who was it that was needed for such grace and such recall as we required? Who, save the Word of God Himself, Who also in the beginning had made all things out of nothing? His part it was, and His alone, both to bring again the corruptible to incorruption and to maintain for the Father His consistency of character with all. For He alone, being Word of the Father and above all, was in consequence both able to recreate all, and worthy to suffer on behalf of all and to be an ambassador for all with the Father."

You can read more about this topic in "On the Incarnation" By St. Athanasius.

The Holy Bible does not mention the kind of fruit Adam and Eve ate so we do not know that it was an apple!