Even though I run a blog with the deliberately ironic title “We Hunted the Mammoth,” I’m still regularly amazed by how eager men who’ve accomplished nothing of value in their entire lives are to claim a kind of vicarious credit, by virtue of being men, for everything good that we humans have accomplished here on planet earth.
Consider this astoundingly un-self-aware bit of almost literal we-hunted-the-mammothing from a recent A Voice for Men post, written (very, very badly) by Peter Wright and Paul Elam:
Harnessing men’s utility can be witnessed from the erection of Stonehenge to the Roman Empire to the moon landings. Cures for diseases and vaccines to prevent them happened from the intensely intelligent actions of the human male. Exploring new territories and engineering the transport to send people to new places has changed the world, almost all of it through risk and hardship borne by men. Men have driven civilization forward since we first walked away from the African savannah. Men’s blood, sweat, tears and sacrifices are the fuel rods that have always driven the big machine of our society.
So much passive voice! So many mixed metaphors! Can anyone explain to me how blood, sweat and tears (liquids) can be fuel rods (solids, specifically “long, slender, zirconium metal tube[s] containing pellets of fissionable material”)? Or how “sacrifices” (an abstract concept) fit into the mix?
I will give an official We Hunted the Mammoth Award of Artistry to anyone who can draw me a picture — or make a diagram — of Wright and Elam’s terrible paragraph.
Oh, in case anyone is wondering, the ultimate point of that Wright and Elam post is to try to convince troubled men not to go to therapists unless the therapists are wise to the alleged evils of “gynocentrism.” You know, the evil force that made men do all that hard work for the lazy women of the world, who apparently spent all of human history watching soap operas and complaining about the men who were doing all that exploring and engineering and utility-ing and intensely intelligent actioning for them.
If you are searching for a therapist make sure and ask one question: “Have you heard of gynocentrism?” If they haven’t walk away and don’t hire them. In fact be prepared to do so much walking away that your steps will number enough to walk around the entire planet three times.
Well, that last bit, however cringeworthy the prose, is probably true. Because blaming men’s problems on “gynocentrism” is not just psychological quackery, it’s a highly obscure form of psychological quackery.
What a strange way the folks at AVFM have of demonstrating “compassion for men and boys,” as their old slogan had it.
Also, I’m pretty sure that at some point in the development of human civilization, and possibly even before it, women did some things too.
History in our culture is recorded and taught in a pervasively ethnocentric way. Since our culture is androcentric, anglocentric, and competitive our view of history tends to be about Great White Male Winners and Great White Male Victories.
History as it’s taught in the American public school system only comes marginally close to accuracy and doesn’t even attempt to approach the complex truth of the matter.
If our culture was gynocentric like these people claim, wouldn’t we have an entirely different conception of historical events? How do they rationalize that issue, or did they even bother to think on it?
Speaking of Ada Lovelace, here was a list of inspiring women mathematicians, scientists and technologists I drew up for Ada Lovelace Day (http://findingada.com/about-finding-ada/) a few years ago:
Sophie Germain: the first mathematician to have a proper go at solving Fermat’s Last Theorem and did a pretty good job of it too despite a) the primitive mathematics of her time, and b) being mostly self-taught; she was forbidden to attend lectures because she was a woman.
Émilie du Châtelet: for work on the theory of kinetic energy. Wrote textbooks. Had an affair with Voltaire. Was generally an all-round awesome Englightenment person.
Ada Lovelace: for being the first to understand the profound importance of programming as something more than mere number-crunching.
Lise Meitner: for figuring out nuclear fission; another team split the atom but Meitner proved that was what they had done.
Rosalind Franklin: for research leading to the discovery of the structure of DNA. She was robbed of her proper credit.
Grace Murray Hopper: for expanding the use of computers in business rather than just being a tool for scientists and mathematicians.
Delia Derbyshire: for arranging the (original, best) theme for “Doctor Who”.
Temple Grandin: for advocacy of people with autism-spectrum disorders and the humane treatment of animals.
Jeri Ellsworth: for making all kinds of cool stuff
With this logic as a woman can I get a “thank you” for all the women who birthed all of humanity? And inventions and discoveries that women made in the past? We gathered the berries for you and skinned that mammoth!
Ælfscýne
“Nobody knows which gender built Stonehenge.”
Patriarchy 101: if you don’t know who invented, built, discovered, etc it automatically think it’s a man.
I keep hearing “men built civilization!” But yet it’s so hard to build a male shelter.
To quote Dorothy Parker:
What fresh hell is this?
Women were likely the first artists (using images to teach children) and the first tool/weapon users (as is the case with female chimps who use tools to compensate for the “handicap” of carrying a child around). The newest speculation about how Stonehenge was built is that it was all hands on deck with men and women alike dragging those stones the many hundreds of miles they had to travel. The lead software designer for the Apollo mission was a woman. Edward Jenner was the father of vaccination, but before him Mary Montague paved the way in the western by demonstrating the effectiveness of inoculation. Women isolated the cause of AIDS and the structure of penicillin. A surprisingly large amount of civil engineering/traffic infrastructure breakthroughs come from woman engineers.
Also, females do the whole, “giving birth to absolutely everyone,” thing. But hey, if there’s one thing men throughout the ages have always seemed to best us at, it’s taking credit for shit they didn’t do. (Seriously, they even tried to do this with childbirth, you guys. “Semen” is related to “seed” because the menz wanted to believe that women’s bodies were just incubators.)
Frootloopsie:
http://i.imgur.com/bX9rk4o.gif
Me:
http://arewomenhuman.me/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/sick-burn.gif
Aren’t these exactly the same people who would say something to the effect of “You can’t blame all white people for what happened during slavery!” if anyone brought up the subject of historical (and ongoing) Racism?
Funny how they only take credit for all the inventions, and civilization, and glory… and none of the war, corruption, atrocities, or any of humanity’s many, many face-palms.
And they only take credit for the good inventions. Is nobody going to boast about how men invented the Pig Piano?
It is funny to me how confident they are that their historical counterparts are always leaders and inventors, rather than cannon fodder or dying of diarrhea.
What about all the getting strung-out on heroin and sponging off girlfriends that men do? That ain’t easy neither!
Yeah, but even when the feeeemale lady-womens did stuff, they had to be supervised by men because, as well all know, women can’t organize themselves and they don’t have what it takes to supervise — they simply don’t have the upper-body strength or mental stamina required to sit around or walk around and watch other people work. (Hey, it’s always been hard out there for a pimp.)
Ah, but that’s just it! Look at the first paragraph again: “Men have driven civilization forward since we first walked away from the African savannah.” The men were driving while walking. That’s just how awesome it is to be a man.
On Red Dwarf, Rimmer claims at one point to have been, in a past life, Alexander the Great’s chief eunuch.
Paradoxical Intention
That koala bear gif is one of the greatest gifs I have ever seen
Nobody should ever talk about the lingering effects of slavery, segregation, and the legal subjugation of women, ever ever ever, because that’s all in the past and something something bootstraps and meritocracy.
Wow. They’re encouraging men to not seek help for their mental problems. Except for, in effect, Elam and AVFM hangers on that offer “therapy,” as they’re the only ones who would have heard of this made up bullshit. And anyone who does believe in it is only going to offer you one answer to your problems: blame women. One of the drivers of male suicide is the reluctance to seek help. They’re reenforcing that so that they can make a buck.
As a man who has attempted suicide: fuck you Paul. You don’t give a shit about me. Quit using me as a rhetorical prop to further your cash grab dead-end anger cult.
@rugbyyogi
Sorry, your writing is too good. It was fixed for you by me.
Funny story: The erection of Stonehenge is why I’m no longer welcome in the UK.
(That joke would work way better if I were a cis dude.)
When we’re talking about the inventions and accomplishments of other men, MRAs are very eager to hitch their wagons on the grounds of sharing gonads.
But when we’re talking about rape, it’s suddenly #NotAllMen.
This bit just makes me so angry. I’m a woman and a scientist and I actually work with a known human pathogen. I’m trying to keep babies from getting sick.
http://i.imgur.com/pqnXV9o.gif
And what are these guys doing? Yelling a people on the internet and expecting credit for the work of others.
http://i.imgur.com/FG39BTa.gif
PS. Thank you to everyone who has already posted bad ass women throughout history.
Soon echon logon
“As a man who has attempted suicide”
http://memecrunch.com/meme/19NSK/panda-hug/image.png?w=400&c=1
Rugbyyogi and Zoon echon logon
“We, women, have birthed and brought forth all of humanity. The berries and roots we gathered provided the fuel to take those first steps off the savannah. We skinned the mammoth and made the fur into loin cloths so we could go to colder climes. We butchered the mammoth and fed the whole tribe.
…so men owe ME personally, totes obvs.”
“All of humanity was birthed and brought forth by women. The fuel to take those first steps off the savannah was provided by the berries and roots that were gathered by us. The skinning of the mammoth and the making of the fur into loin cloths that enabled us to go to colder climes happened through the intensely intelligent actions of the human female. The harnessing of the fuel rods of female utility can be witnessed through the butchering of the mammoth that led to the feeding of the whole tribe.”
http://media.giphy.com/media/IU2SFx9zVMyBi/giphy.gif
Thanks, Fruitloopsie. 🙂
@zoon – yes, my style was not sufficiently mockerish. Thank yuo. I blame my female 7th grade English teacher who was not keen on the passive voice. Dang wimmin.
I guess walking around the globe three times to avoid dealing with a person who did not hear of your made up concept must be an example of intensely intelligent actions of (some) human males.
Crediting men with everything, and taking credit for everything when the playing field has never been anywhere near level through human history, and considering that they, personally, have never done anything important, is just a plain joke.
Not to mention the fact that most of the inventors through history did not lead “alpha” lifestyles, but ones dedicated to their studies and science. They would definitely be considered beta to all these whiny little boys today.
There have also been studies done that have determined that societies with mostly men are largely lawless, chaotic, and self-destructive, and that it’s WOMEN that have a civilizing effect on society.
So no, men =/= civilization.
@ej
That lipstick gif is awesome!
They are passing on getting the credit for most domestic violence, though. Paul Elam is going to make a presentation on June 4 and 5, at Ryerson University in Toronto, as an invited guest at a “domestic violence” AVFM conference, to make just that point! One has to go to the conference organizers’ site to see that the conference is being put on by Attila Vinczer, AVFM staffer, and the many points of viewcome from esteemed academics including Stefan Molyneux, Anne Cools, Erin Pizzey, and Elam. http://www.donotlink.com/framed?5362
Will Attila send out a press release to the media pretending this is a true conference of experts in the field?
Will Elam pretend the Maltese Charitable Trust is not an AVFM creation?
Will all the panelists agree, women get the credit for domestic violence, at least?
Does popcorn taste better if one breaks down and allows a little melted butter and salt? Tune in and see!