Have women accomplished anything throughout history?
Even the most ardent historian, male or female—citing Amazons and tribal matriarchies and Cleopatra—can’t conceal that women have basically done fuck all for the last 100,000 years. Come on—let’s admit it. Let’s stop exhaustingly pretending that there is a parallel history of women being victorious and creative, on an equal with men, that’s just been comprehensively covered up by The Man. There isn’t. Our empires, armies, cities, artworks, philosophers, philanthropists, inventors, scientists, astronauts, explorers, politicians and icons could all fit, comfortably into one of the private karaoke booths in SingStar. We have no Mozart; no Einstein; no Galileo; no Ghandi. No Beatles, no Churchill, no Hawking, no Columbus. It just didn’t happen.
Nearly everything so far has been the creation of men—and a liberal, right-on denial of it makes everything more awkward and difficult in the long run. Pretending that women have had a pop at all this before but ultimately didn’t do as well as the men, that the experiment of female liberation has already happened but floundered gives strength to the belief that women simply aren’t as good as men, full stop. That things should just carry on as they are—with the world shaped around, and honouring, the priorities, needs, whims, and successes of men. Women are over, without having even begun. When the truth is that we haven’t even begun at all. Of course we haven’t. We’ll know it when we have.
~Caitlin Moran
Do you agree or disagree with the above sentiment and statements, and why or why not?
-------------
NOTE: I'll be contrarian in the discussion, both because I find it fun, and also because echo chambers are boring.
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Unseen on -
I guess we'll have to put our heads together in 100-200 years or so to know the truth, but research indicates that very early on, before children can have absorbed gender stereotypes, male and female children have different toy preferences, with girls tending toward soft-edged roundish toys (dolls, stuffed toys) vs. boys tending more toward the more hard-edged toys (trucks, toy tools, etc.). (source)
Another study discovered that men and women treat parental leave differently:
When both male and female college professors have the freedom to take post-birth parental leave, the men almost never do half of the infant care from birth to age 2, even when they believe that child care should be shared equally.
The reason female professors do more infant care may boil down to the fact that they enjoy it more than men do – and that reason may be rooted in evolutionary differences between the sexes, suggests a new, first-of-its-kind study, co-authored by Steven Rhoads, a political scientist in the University of Virginia's College of Arts & Sciences.
The study concludes that gender-neutral policies extending paid post-birth leave to male professors should be re-examined – and possibly repealed. (source)
Women took longer leave than men and used it differently. Why? The conclusion was that women enjoy taking care of babies more than men. And given their biology, why wouldn't they?
But, I ask you this: given that virtually everywhere male and female behavior show gender differences, why are you so insistent on the counterintuitive hypothesis that humans are different from the other higher animals? I think the idea that humans are different from other mammals is the extraordinary hypothesis in need of extraordinary proof.
-
Permalink Reply by Claire Couch on -
I think, given the last sentence of my preceding post, that it should be clear I accept some difference. I frankly don't know if I could have been clearer. I will try, though.
There are differences between the genders in humans. But, the imbalance of perceived contributions to the sweep of history or the advancement of humankind can not possibly be attributed with any certainty (at this point) to these differences, in light of the huge societal difference in the sexes in a vast number of areas.
Therefore, I think it reasonable to think that (Some difference biologically)=/=(no contributions to society ever)
And the preceding statement isn't even totally fair, as I know that is not your real position.
But, even allowing for differences, I that it pretty evident that, given more (equal) opportunity, a lack of systemic suppression, and fair reporting of results, I think the gender contributions would be a LOT closer. Perhaps, we might even see women significantly ahead, as the differences you point out may be advantageous in a lot of endeavors..
Apologies for my earlier lack of clarity. I hope that this clears things up.
-
Permalink Reply by Unseen on
-
I'm not sure what counts as suppression. You might count as suppression expectations that society in general (meaning both men and women) find valuable for whatever reasons even if they aren't innate. These can work both ways. In another thread on this board, a male nurse detailed the prejudice against men in nursing school and, one can fairly assume, in employment as well. It would seem fair to suppose similar prejudices keep men from going into such fields as elementary education and "mannying," etc.
But it's nice we're not that far apart.
-
Permalink Reply by Gregg R Thomas on -
I like turtles. :D
- ‹ Previous
- 1
- …
- 10
- 11
- 12
- Next ›
What's new today
Forum
What Is TPP? Biggest Global Threat to the Internet Since ACTA
Started by Morgan Matthew in Announcements. Last reply by Unseen 24 minutes ago. 13 Replies 2 Likes
Blog Posts
God spared our church...
Posted by Keith Konecny on May 24, 2013 at 9:30pm 0 Comments 0 Likes
Events
Services we love
Check out our new mobile/tablet version of Think Atheist! www.ThinkAtheist.com/m
© 2013 Created by Morgan Matthew.
