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.
(Sorry, not sorry)
Came across this the other day, for anyone who would like to spread the news about badass women scientists from throughout the ages: https://www.facebook.com/WInScience and https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/women-in-science-card-game#/story
You know, men only had all this time to make all this shit because they were passing off all the jobs to their slaves and women. Or taking credit for the shit women and their slaves had done as their own.
Who do you think grew the food? Who do you think cooked it? Who took care to see these men were taken care of when they were sick? Who made sure their clothes were clean? Their houses were clean? Who helped them make money?
Many male inventors and thinkers rode on the backs of others to get them to their goal. If they grew their own food and cooked it by themselves and tried to make a living wage they wouldn’t have time for the shit they made, would they?
That’s one reason why we had a technological boon this and last century. Most of the plant growing, clothes making, cleaning, cooking, medicine, etc. has been streamlined so people can sit on their asses all day and think about shit or do other things. And all that happened because people were able to sit on their asses and have slaves do the work for them.
I mean, for fuck sakes. Many of the men they praise couldn’t have done everything without subjugating people so they wouldn’t have to work.
@pardoxicalintentions, just wanted to say that video is so very true. I wish the best for sex workers – but I know it is hard, very hard, out there, and many would rather be anywhere else.
@Fruitloopsie: The koala gif is from the tv show Ugly Americans. It only ran for two seasons, but it was really good. It looks like netflix doesn’t have it available for streaming anymore, but Comedy Central has season 2 up on their website.
As a male anthropology major….
… what the actual fuck? Extrapolation much? Most of the advancements and direction of human history and prehistory had strong components from both sexes.
1) No one knows much about the people who built the Stonehenge. It could have been either gender, or (my guess) both.
2) The Roman Empire had strictly assigned gender roles, and more and more evidence and testimony is pointing out that women actually had a huge hand in it all… but don’t always receive credit.
3) There are a large number of cures and vaccines developed by women. Again, women in STEM historically have done much and not received their fair share of credit. We should rectify this as a culture.
4) Engineering transports / exploration: this is not only sexist, but horridly western-centric. Far before anyone from Europe launched the classic “age of exporation”, a -vast number- of cultures and peoples had already explored and settled across these “unexplored” lands. And not just Native American ancestors in the Americas: there is evidence the Chinese came to the Americas, the polynesians have made it to just about everywhere in the Pacific, and of course the Vikings settled Newfoundland hundreds of years before other Europeans. Vikings commonly used men and women as warriors and explorers.
5) Leaving the Savannah… seriously? Never mind that the most famous fossilized early human fossil outside the Savannah, the Australopithecus Afarensis named Lucy, is obviously female. Never mind that people of the time were likely -foragers- and -scavengers-, and they moved to follow the food, or due to climate factors. And never mind that you need -both men and women- to start a viable population… apparently according to Wright and Elan, it was men who did it all.
The fact is, in all these examples, we weren’t there. We didn’t see who was directing what, who was pulling what legwork. In the historically documented examples, there is a laundry list of evidence that the role of women was downplayed.
And now they want to keep men from therapy they need because their therapist is not familiar with “gynocentrism”? This is a very, very damaging bit to say… especially to them men who really need it.
*Heavy sigh*
To add to the chorus of peoples talking about the contributions of women throughout human history, there’s this: “Our prehistoric forebears are often portrayed as spear-wielding savages, but the earliest human societies are likely to have been founded on enlightened egalitarian principles, according to scientists.” http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/may/14/early-men-women-equal-scientists
I fucking love Ugly Americans, although they kinda changed Mark’s character a lot in the second season.
First season: I never, ever want kids. Ever. Evvveeerrrr.
Second season: Oh, I’ve been planning my future children’s, Ethan and Desiree, life since I was in college! I even keep track of the money I have for their future college fund on a cork board at work! Aren’t I so flanderized?
Thanks childrenofthebroccoli and thanks to everyone who posted links to women in history. There is a saying “Behind every great man there is a woman”
Yes, my MALE professor in US History from 1865 to present made exactly this statement, that it has been observed here since Jamestown early 1600s, that whenever there is a settlement populated by men with very few or no women, the inclination of those men will be towards drinking and violence.
Also during Haiti’s earthquake and the resulting devastation, the aid societies were making a point of giving rations to women because the children had the best chance of getting something to eat that way. They found that giving the rations to the men meant that the men would feed themselves first, and the women and children would eat if there was anything left.
I think my favourite thing about it is the ultra-special specialness of them thinking this happened without any female input whatsoever. I mean, food and drink just happened, rather like clean clothes, clean housing, and so on. They appear out of thin air, as manna from heaven.
It’s starting to appear to credible archaeologists as though things like agriculture were actually pioneered by people doing the gathering side of the “hunting and gathering” equation (essentially, one or more gatherers put together the observation that where seeds fell, plants grew, and thought, “now wouldn’t it be nice if we had everything right here, where we are, instead of having to wander around the area all flippin’ day collecting them? Then we could spend longer processing them so they’re actually edible!”). Now, what’s the typical gendering for hunting and gathering cultures in Western thinking? (Based on approximately zero evidence, of course) It has the male people as hunters, the female people as gatherers.
In addition, there’s things like the use of fire, fermentation, and various other cooking techniques to render foodstuffs a) edible and digestible; b) more palatable; and c) less likely to actually kill you outright. Probably down to the ancestral gatherers as well (meat protein, for example, becomes much more chewable and digestible for humans once it’s been denatured by heat – prior to that, you’re spending just as much energy masticating it as you’re gaining from it). Once you’re not spending pretty much all of your waking hours solely in accumulating and consuming enough calories to survive the day, it’s amazing what can happen next…
(It also seems likely the domestication of herd animals might have been a “gatherer” notion, based off the recognition that if they were going to spend so much time chasing the damn things away from their crops, they might as well profit from it!)
So yeah, feel free to thank our ancestral gatherers (who, let’s not forget, we tend to assume were women) for things like, oh, I dunno, making civilisation possible in the first place?
“Harnessing men’s utility can be witnessed from the erection of Stonehenge…”
Probably the only erection MRAs don’t blame t3h wimminz for.
On the topic of badass women throughout history, I’ve recently learned about Cecilia Payne: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecilia_Payne-Gaposchkin
PH. D in Astrophysics and responsible for influencing MANY women to pursue scientific careers at a time when it was a completely male-dominated field.
But the best part is that she’s the one who discovered that Stars were made of mostly hydrogen gas (conventional wisdom at the time assumed that Stars were made up of the same stuff of planets), and recognized that stars differed by how hot or cold they were.
So yeah, our current knowledge of star composition is thanks to the work of a feeeeeeemale.
Um…the video didn’t mention sex workers at all? It was talking about double standards that all women everywhere deal with, or more specifically, women in Lily Allen’s line of work, which is being a singer, deal with.
And let’s not stereotype sex workers as the “poor pitiful women in need of saving” to further fuel a “savior complex”. I’d rather just not have them or the work they do stigmatized.
In fact, it seems to be the only erection they want to take all the credit for.
Art is subjective, my friend. I saw women being forced to act in grossly sexual ways and that’s what came across for me. Singers do have this same pressure, I agree on that.
An awesome fact about the Nobel Prize: The Curie family has earned the most Nobel Prizes. Marie Curie has three Nobel Prizes, one of which she shares with her husband. Her daughter Irene and her husband also have a Nobel Prize together.
I love all the comments here! I’m going to put this post in my bookmarks to learn more about women’s contributions throughout history since it has often been neglected and overlooked.
But guys, you need to understand the thought process behind this MRA rhetoric. Patriarchy never existed, our whole history was gynocentric which means that women couldn’t possibly be disadvantaged, basically men were busting their asses working and women rested at home, drinking tea and gossiping. When you rewrite history like that, the only conclusion you can come to is that women are incapable of doing anything significant. And this rezgoric usually comes from men whose biggest technological contribution was changing a light bulb.
Oh that article. So many gems of painful, painful irony.
So assuming the writer(s) is taking the binary approach to gender, they’ve gone and noted this ‘innate tendency’ (ugh) of men to succeed, their socialization into the role of the achiever, the creator, the ‘world-building hero’, assumingly contrasted this with the roles women are similarly expected to internalize – the role of care provider, nurturer, domestic goddess, empath, and concluded that… men are the self-sacrificing gender. It’s the worth of men, not women, which is measured by how they meet the ‘wants and needs of others’.
Is there enough headdesk in the world?
http://s870.photobucket.com/user/ace1phoenix/media/Tumblr/headdesk.gif.html
No. No, there is not.
*and this rhetoric usually comes, sorry
I see in the article that Wright and Elam are very concerned about women being depicted as damsels in media. Seems like a great WHTM article idea since I’m sure they’ve said just the opposite if they’ve ever spoken about Sarkeesian’s series.
For MRAs, damsels in distress tropes are destroying society (if an MRA notices it) but are no big deal / don’t exist / please ignore (if a woman/feminist notices it).
I quickly skimmed through the comments below the article, one commenter said that female therapists are automatically excluded just for their gender because of course all women are brainwashed feminazi zombies, right? The great thing is that comments like those are perfectly acceptable on AVfM.
Let’s not forget that a LOT of history has been filtered through the lens of (primarily male) historians. So a bunch of warriors who were buried with their weapons and armor were OBVIOUSLY male, no need to do any testing here, amirite guys? Then, whoops, turns out a good number of those warriors were female, after doing DNA testing.
I don’t doubt there’s a fair number of discoveries and advancements and impressive feats that were accomplished by women and then later attributed to a man or covered up entirely.
@Catalpa
Exactly. Who knows what would history look like if it was written through the perspective of, say, a black woman.
its not like the person who wrote the code for the apollo mission was a woman no way it was 100% man
But seriously, citing the Apollo missions as a great accomplishment of men is ridiculous when it was basically a single woman (Margaret Hamilton) that made it all possible
@Catalpa Yeah, well, that’s like your opinion, man.