To Think That Archaeology Proves That Men Cannot Be Women

Very few archaeological remains, of any material, are discovered intact. This is especially true for earlier/older archaeological remains. The discover of a "pelvis" is actually usually the discovery of a fragment of a bone that is part of the pelvis, the same way the discovery of a "pot" is often a potsherd or a "house" is often the foundations. It may not always be possible to reconstruct enough of the morphology of the pelvis from discovered fragments to determine the sex of that individual. As stated above by another person, DNA analysis can tell us more.

tell us you're not a midwife without telling us you're not a midwife

Do they? I was under the impression that female (human) pelvises have a gap in the front and male ones don't - are there exceptions?

I'm very aware of the McDermott and Leroy paper. It has never been widely respected among experts in the field. Even when it was recently published, it was seen as an outlier theory without any real data to back it up. It's also pulling up on 30 years out of date. Most modern research on the topic is, thankfully, much more quantitatively robust.

a) you're on the Internet, so anything you say, as with anybody else, is unprovable.
b) it's a typo from when I was on the bus. I meant to type drug fuelled, as in they'd have to have been off their tits to see that as evidence that women might have thought it was what they looked like due to the absence of mirrors (McDermott, Leroy (1996). "Self-Representation in Upper Paleolithic Female Figurines"). Pretty sure the person who carved it would have seen a woman before, so no wobbly puddles would have been necessary either (Bisson)
c) if you think that a typical female form including breasts, vulva and traces of red can't possibly be described as female, I despair of science.

Because 1) you aren't that important, and 2) you have the right to choose whatever name you want, and the onus is on me to respect that as per the rules of everyday courtesy.

Thank you for showing us all who you are with this lovely comment.

Possibly because of the slight suspicion that you had mental health problems

why wouldn't you have the courage to tell me I was being ridiculous to my face, like a normal adult?

Whats wrong with my name?

If that's how you introduced yourself, sure I would. Why wouldn't I? I would laugh my head off once out of earshot, though.

I have never, and would never, publish a paper on the basis of identifying that figurine, or any, by their sex or gender. I would describe it as an anthropomorphic figurine made from oolithic limestone, with certain physical features (the striking hair or headpiece, for instance), associated with a specific Palaeolithic techno-culture (the Gravettian).

Had there been a little more sympathy for (as only one example) the women in the female prison estate who were locked up with violent male sex offenders as per the policy of the Scottish Prison Service, who were (deliberately) advised incorrectly of the EQA 2010 by lobbying groups and
concern about them feeling unsafe, I imagine the landscape would look rather different now.

As it was, women were sent death and rape threats for expressing concern that women were being turned away from rape crisis services and told to 'reframe their trauma'.

No debate didn't work. Be kind was basically 'shut up women'. Now it's 'both sides!!'

No.

To be fair, it wasn't GC women who put the heat in.

I agree that some commentary has been crowing, some comments have been harsh, even unkind. But mean comments are in no way synonymous with what TRAs have routinely dished out to women who disagreed with them, for years and still currently. You can't expect women to get threatened with violence for wanting to have the right to a name for our own sex class, for years, and then not exclaim a bit now.

It's not fair to say 'oh extremists on both sides aren't helping ' when the extremes in one side is saying mean things and the extremes on the other is violence, rape threats and death threats. They're not equivalent and we don't like it when its suggested that they are.

Same with murder victims. The Long Island Serial killer has a victim who was found skeletonised and was wearing woman’s clothing but is male .

Interested to see some think YABU.

Off to read the thread properly now,

I agree with you op but having spent the last 15 or so years editing archaeology papers for publication you'd be amazed at the muddled thinking around this, especially from early career stage academics . Sex and gender are regularly conflated or used interchangeably to prove points that are just not backed up by fact.

it's not sarcasm. it's gender ideology. tell me why that figure is a woman and not a man.

Ah yes. Sarcasm is often the default way to make a point when one has run out of actual facts. I'm out.

how can you possibly claim that the figure with a womanly body was not in fact a man with lady feelings?

What?

how can you possibly say that? I find that frankly transphobic.

I have never suggested that it was, or that anyone with expertise on this topic thinks that.

does anyone think it was a bloke with lady feelings?

You've just waded into an argument about archaeology that you don't understand. I am, quite literally, one of the world's experts on the Venus of Willendorf and I can tell you, unquestionably, nobody of any knowledge on the topic thinks that artefact is a drug icon.