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As many of you no doubt know, the name for this blog was inspired by a rant from an anonymous MRA type who was angry that women today weren’t appreciative enough for all the things men had allegedly done for them over the centuries.
“Men gave you this modern world,” he wrote,
now you take it for granted we hunted the mammoth to feed you we died in burning buildings and were gassed in the trenches but that was just for fun right?
How quick and conveniently you forget who made this possible.
He went on, and on, but you get the idea. As I note in the Mammoth FAQ, this rant was such
an amazing clusterfuck of misogyny, entitlement and unwarranted self-importance – not to mention historical ignorance – that the bit about mammoths became a catchphrase around here, neatly conveying pretty much everything this blog is against. And so I decided to make it the name of the blog.
Now, there has long been evidence suggesting that the bit about hunting the mammoth was just wrong; numerous studies show that women in prehistoric society hunted alongside the men.
And now a new meta-study has pretty much dealt the finishing blow to the “only men hunted the mammoth” school of (pre)history. As New Scientist reports,
The idea that men hunt while women stay at home is almost completely wrong, a review of foraging societies around the world has found. In fact, women hunt in 80 per cent of the societies looked at, and in a third of these societies women were found to hunt big game – animals heavier than 30 kilograms – as well as smaller animals.
So women hunted, and sometimes they hunted the mammoth.
For the study, anthropologist Cara Wall-Scheffler at the University of Washington in Seattle and colleagues
looked at a database called D-PLACE that has records on more than 1400 human societies worldwide made over the past 150 years. There was data on hunting for 63 of the foraging societies recorded and, of these, 50 described women hunting.
And these women weren’t just hunting small animals they ran across while foraging. New Scientist notes that
for 41 of these societies, there was information on whether women’s hunting was intentional or opportunistic – that is, whether they were going out to hunt rather than catching animals they stumbled upon while gathering plants, say. In 87 per cent of cases, it was intentional.
Looking beyond the D-PLACE database, there’s pretty definitive archeological evidence that prehistoric women were hunters. A 2020 study found that of “27 individuals found buried with hunting weapons in the Americas, nearly half were women.”
You may ask: what about the babies? Weren’t these prehistoric women having babies all the time? Wall-Scheffler says that women hunters sometimes dealt with the baby situation by simply strapping their offspring to their backs when they were on hunting expeditions. In general, women had to adopt more flexible hunting styles because of the complications of pregnancy and infant children. But that didn’t mean they didn’t hunt.
In any case, we can say pretty conclusively that cave women didn’t just laze around the cave all day eating prehistoric bon-bons. They were out hunting, often for big game, even if it meant wearing babies on their backs.
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Half of the population did half of a particular sort of work. Oh, what a shock. Now how badly are the conservatives melting down over this latest revelation?
People often overlook that the division of labor between men and women got a lot more strict during the Enlightenment period, with women being forced out of work that was done by guilds.
Well, at least this anonymous MRA guy was gassed in the trenches for me. Thanks, Anon. I’ll think of you every time I pass the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
Heck yeah. But going back to the “we gave you the world” bs for a moment — It always strikes me as ironic that those diatribes credit men and have no space to credit the tools. “A woman can’t take down a mammoth, therefore it didn’t happen.” Uh — a man can’t take down a mammoth either. You need tools — whether that’s communication, teamwork, weapons, or a handy cliff. Same with fighting fires or working on a car.
It is also ironic that these men show so little interest in other human survival skills like knitting, weaving, and sewing.
Well not just that but the nuclear family of a mom, dad and a couple of kids wasn’t a thing that far back (and that’s mostly true in tribal and urban communities today, really). There were always adults around who weren’t pregnant, finished raising their own kids, or just with more free time who watched the children of those who went out hunting.
I did read a lot of the paper, and it said there was also a good amount of opportunistic hunting as well.
@Ann
they also don’t take into account that women invented all of the household stuff that got taken care of so men didn’t have to think about it, like laundry soap! Or that women invented beer!
they also never consider that most of the worlds modern inventions were built on templates invented by PoC.
As a person who works at a library and loves to research things for fun, the levels of loud ignorance I’ve seen on the internet is always astonishing to me. Not so much that people could be wrong, but that they are so incredibly loud and obnoxious about being wrong!
I always go back to: “Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did but backwards and in high heels”..
Pretty much says it all.
@Lakitha Tolbert:
they also never consider that most of the worlds modern inventions were built on templates invented by PoC.
See a (Ghanaian?) native known as Onesimus, who saved hundreds of lives in Boston by teaching the smallpox inoculation technique long practiced by his people to his enslaver Cotton Mather:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onesimus_(Bostonian)
As a person who works at a library and loves to research things for fun
Thank. You. For. Your. Service—and may you be safe, respectfully treated, paid a living wage, permitted to do your job without the Self-Appointed Minders Of Other People’s Business breathing over your shoulder, and one of enough staff to focus on said job without having to juggle five other people’s. (Although I realize the statistical unlikelihood of that.) I assure you I vote for every levy that comes my way.
There were always adults around who weren’t pregnant, finished raising their own kids, or just with more free time who watched the children of those who went out hunting.
Among people whose bias is that evolution is necessarily for something, you periodically see the argument that menopause provides grandmothers undistracted by babies of their own to help with child care. What I’ve never seen, for some mysterious reason, is the argument that age-related erectile dysfunction serves a similar purpose: better for a grizzled silverback to spend his golden years imparting his wisdom to the grandkids than saddling them with fresh new aunts and uncles to babysit.
Not so much that people could be wrong, but that they are so incredibly loud and obnoxious about being wrong!
That’s what happens when Right (as well as Smarter Than The Sheeple) becomes installed, as a constant and defining attribute, in someone’s sense of identity: any questioning or contradiction can then be construed as a personal attack.
@Kat:
Well, at least this anonymous MRA guy was gassed in the trenches for me. Thanks, Anon. I’ll think of you every time I pass the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
Ever notice how the sort of people who like to proclaim, “We saved your asses in World War II!” never seem also to say things like, “We dragged your asses kicking and screaming from Africa!”, or, “We drove your asses down the Trail of Tears!”, or “We herded your asses into ghettoes and then burned them!” It’s like victorious versus defeated sports teams.
@ FMO
“This sad little lizard told me that he was a brontosaurus on his mother’s side. I did not laugh; people who boast of ancestry often have little else to sustain them. Humouring them costs nothing and adds to happiness in a world in which happiness is always in short supply.”
~ Lazarus Long
@Full Metal Ox
They also love claiming credit and responsibility for anything long-dead men have done that they personally view as positive, but are utterly enraged by any suggestion that they may bare some level of accountability for the acts of cruelty committed by men every single day. Fascinating.
THE BOASTFUL GEESE
A FARMER with a long rod in his hands was driving some Geese to
town, to sell them, and hoping to make a good bargain, he was
hurrying them on rather urgently. Consequently, the Geese com-
plained loudly to every passer-by.
“Were ever Geese more unfortunate than we? This farmer drives
us along as roughly as though we were common, ordinary Geese. He
is such an ignorant fellow himself that he does not know that he ought
to pay us great honour, because we are the noble sons of those famous
Geese that once saved Rome from destruction.”
“And is that your reason for expecting people to honour you to-
day?” one of the passers-by asked them.
“Why, yes, our fathers, the Geese of Rome — ”
“I know, I have read all about that. But what I am asking you,
is of what use have you yourselves ever been? What have you
done?”
“We? Why, nothing!”
“Then why should you expect to be held in honour? Let your fa-
thers sleep in peace — they received their reward. But you, my
friends, are fit only to be roasted.”
(Krilov, Fables. Adapted from the translation by William R. S. Ralston.)
I took a community college intro Anthropology course a couple of years back (don’t ask), and the text was quite clear that the women hunted with the men.
So, pointless dying and suffering somehow [SCENE MISSING] accelerates modern progress? And what about the men who started all these fires and wars? Are we meant to be thanking them too?
Women’s sacrifices, of course, don’t count because women are supposed to serve men and it’s really uppity of them to want acknowledgment when only men’s sacrifices have meaning.
…we died in burning buildings and were gassed in the trenches …
He got better!
@Full Metal Ox
No! Thank you guys! I appreciate people who appreciate my job!
People who love the library are the reason I have a job, and yes, my job is the way you described. I’m fortunate enough to work in one of the largest research libraries in the US, and it’s a massive and well funded system (with a union, so yes, we have a large enough staff in my department.)
@jsrtheta: I first read that as ‘the text was quite clear that the women hunted the men’. Que mental image of a silly scene in Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life. I guess I am perpetually 12.
If the only thing you have going for you is that you were born a white male, then perhaps you should reflect on your own life instead of tearing others down to build yourself up.
No doubt more efficient, hence effectively …
@Ten Bears
Is that a Sabo-tabby kitten I see in your icon?
Subsistance societies probably don’t have time for MRAs and incels.
“NO MAN CAN SLAY THE OLIPHAUNT!”
Doesn’t surprise me, but it’s cool to see new research come out. And @Full Metal Ox, thank you, I didn’t know anything about Onesimus before.
@Lakitha Tolbert – That is a cool job, and a lot of work! My dad was a college librarian (now retired).
Which I can totally take personal credit for, by MRA logic…or I could if I were a man. “We hunted the databases to inform you!” etc.
@Everyone: What you said.
@Dave: Absolutely not! No room for whiners who just want to sit around the cave doing nothing, hating the women and children (while eating the food others work hard for). That’s a drain on the band, and there are many dangerous things out there.
Like “Oh whoops, useless boy accidentally fell off the big rock/got trampled by the mammoth/stood in front of a spear, so sad”.
@David: Lovely picture! Although girlfriend could use more layers. I like her looking at the viewer all “Watch this, noob.”