“If civilization had been left in female hands we would still be living in grass huts.” - Camille Paglia

Except women can (and did) hunt both small and large game. I'm sure if men hadn't been around but women had still reproduced somehow, we would've managed.

Yep, Google tells me that:

"hunter gatherers in equatorial regions lived in rich but challenging environments. Survival depended on broad diets, deep ecological knowledge, and strong cooperation, with gender roles that were often less rigid than commonly assumed. Less emphasis on large game hunting, greater reliance on plants, fish, and small animals, more year-round food availability (but still effort-intensive).
Often more flexible gender roles, especially in group hunting"

Great post.

@TheSunjustcameout sorry, just to say I know you qualified what you were saying by specifying "when it comes to the survival of the species". I don't think you are the problem. But the trouble is the likes of Paglia fail to qualify any of their statements like that and make it the basis of their arguments. Which then sets the ground people have to argue the points on to something inherently stupid and depressing.

hunting presumably became more important in the balance as humankind spread away from more equatorial regions to latitudes with increasing seasonality?

Men aren't disposable. Noone is.

This is the problem I have with Paglia and the "philosophers" like her. They start of by criticising Marxism for being anti-human (and conflate that with everything left wing and progressive usually). They do have a sort of point in that classic Marxism had a very mechanistic (don't know if that's the right word) view of people. There isn't any understanding of the value of humans as individuals or the idea that the value of humans comes from the fact they are humans.

Peterson, Paglia etc criticise that, but are completely trapped in that way of thinking themselves. The answer to "what are men/women FOR” isn't "we need men to invent things and hunt and women to have babies" anyway. It's way more complicated than that and as has been discussed here the idea only men can invent things, provide shelter and food etc is laughable. But it's also a stupid question. And a circular one. If the "point" of women is to have babies etc then what's the "point" of the babies. If there is no inherent point in humans, them there isnt any point in the continuation of the human race so arguing that the point of humans is ultimately to continue the human race is dumb.

Its partly a result of "philosophers" thinking they are much better at science than they are. Scientists might talk about what's an evolutionary advantage. But "evolution" doesn't want anything. It isn't a conscious thing, or anything with moral imperative. I evolved to want to eat sugary food. That doesn't mean there is a moral imperative to eat sugary food or that my purpose as a human is to eat biscuits. But people like Paglia and Peterson use scientific sounding terms to make their arguments sound more intellectual.

And the problem with provocative arguments by the likes of Paglia is people then get drawn into debating the specifics. Because her central point that we "need" men because it would only ever occur to a man that the roof shouldn't legal is dumb. But that them provides fodder for people saying "you see modern society/feminism/etc think men are useless". On the other hand, if we agree men's "use" is to provide shelter that's not a nice feeling either.

Either you tale the religious view that humans are created in god's image and therefore have inherent value. Or you take a humanistic one that humans have inherent value. Or an absurdist one that lifes a joke and deaths the final laugh. Or you seethe in misery like Peterson and the other post-modern anti-postmodernists.

Finally, people quote the 80/20 thing a lot like it's some mathematical rule. It isn't. The person who first identified it didn't think it was. It's a very good way of predicting the approach of pseudo-science though.

*descend

@ChamonixMountainBum indeed. The 20%/80% of calories isn’t as simple as they are making it out to be. As you said, have to consider protein and fats plus the vitamins from offal (the ate all of the animal). To add to that, you can starve in one winter and winter is the season where you can only get food from hunting or fishing. Both hunting and gathering were essential. If one sex didn’t exist then they would still have to both hunt and gather.

Without women humanity would have starved to death very quickly indeed. Without men, we'd feast.

These kind of threads always decend into this kind of moronic oneupmanship nonsense. Hunter gather societies, unsurprisingly as the name implies, relied on both endeavours for a balanced diet that benefited the whole group. Collecting plants, berries, nuts, seeds, roots, and tubers provided a reliable, everyday food supply and this required detailed knowledge of seasons and landscapes which in turn lended itself to early medicinal knowledge. Hunting required tracking skills, also knowledge of landscapes and migrations, skill in killing small game to large mammals, the use of tools like spears, bows, traps etc More unpredictable, but a rich source of protein, high in calories when successful and supplied by products insofar as furs, tools, essential oils etc.

Also a massive fire risk, prone to pests and expensive to maintain, but they look nice on the cover of Country Magazine.

Not to mention we still have thatched cottages in this country, what's that if not a grass roof? Environmentally friendly, biodegradable and insulating. And growing grasses is a lot better for your health than slate mining was back in the day.

Also, it’s such a culturally narrow-minded statement. If we think of grass-hut-living societies of say the last 250 years, did they have lead poisoning? children working in mines or factories? phossy jaw? industrial accidents? syphilis? etc … and on the other hand did they have rich oral and sung traditions and artisanal/land and water practices suitable to their environment … plus the presence of men in such societies.

Not true as clearly evident from the number of single mothers in any country around the world, especially after war.

Men are far more dispensable than women in society when it comes to survival of the species. One man can impregnate many women but most women cannot give birth to more than a dozen children.

Also, women invented farming while the men were out hunting for meat often for long periods of time. Women were also the first doctors, cooks, bakers and brewers - the latter is where the witch's hat originates. Women brewers wore tall black triangular hats to be visible in markets in the middle ages.

It's lost in time, but the indications are that women were the ones who learned to use fire. (In just about all "non-techno" cultures I've heard of it's women who tend the flame or hearth.) Women likely invented spinning and weaving. Ever tried to carry groceries home without a bag? That's how important ropemaking and knotting or weaving would be to hunter-gatherers trying to live in villages and have a society. Women likely invented agriculture. Root bits or seeds tossed out the back door and harvested later are the earliest form. And in non-tech cultures, it's women who do that. It goes on and on. Women invented rolling luggage. Motherhood is one long marathon of inventions. Women here can probably confirm?

Invention doesn't primarily involve risk. It involves smarts and the ability to put things together in new ways. That talent isn't gender-limited. Or even related. (Yes, sure, once women are properly oppressed their minds shut down. But that's true of men too. It's how depressed brains work.)

And Camille Paglia hasn't been right about anything, ever, as far as I know. She's made her name being a mouthpiece for the patriarchy, so you wouldn't expect much else from her.

Nope. I didn't say men shouldn't have equal rights, or be treated badly, or oppressed, or owned by women, or anything like that.

I stated a fact: That, reproduction aside, women don't need men to run a perfectly successful society (true) and that on a demographic level, men cause more problems (violence, rape, oppression, war, etc) than they solve – because they do. Men often tout themselves as protectors, but protectors from who? Other men!

Of course, a person's value doesn't rest upon how much they're 'needed', luckily.

If you took that as misandry, I think you have a lot of internalised misogyny to untangle.

I honestly don't know why she doesn't date men. Her girlfriend must be a strange woman to put up with someone who denigrates the abilities of the majority of women (with exceptions of course including dear Camille herself!) and praises men in comparison all the time. Not to mention the paedophilia advocacy...!

Camille Paglia is so obviously a "pick-me-girl". Please don't spread her misogynistic notions.

On average men can certainly maintain social bonds but often in a more activity-based way. Hence old boys' networks etc

Any people wonder why feminism gets a bad name?
This it literally the female version of the manisphere.

There's a scene in the film where Katherine Johnson needs the loo, finds the one by the computers' office is labelled 'whites only' and has to run several buildings away to one she's allowed to use.

That 'whites only' loo was a women's one. So white women weren't in the film but they were certainly in the building. They have their own stories.

White women weren't the focus of the film, but films are not reality - they are merely a very small window. There were certainly some women (white and otherwise) in that era playing stupid to get partners, but others were working at MIT and coding for Apollo missions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MargaretHamilton(software_engineer)

Studies of modern hunter gatherer societies show women generally provide about 80% of the food. Men provide 20% and yet eat over 50%. Without women humanity would have starved to death very quickly indeed. Without men, we'd feast.

And are men incapable of building and maintaining social bonds? If so, explain the 'old boys networks' that have proved such a barrier to women's advancement and to social mobility in general.

I’ve somehow not yet seen Hidden Figures but in that era there were also white women in the US doing engineering/computing and facing all the sexist barriers though not the massive additional racial ones obviously. And would-be astronauts such as the Mercury 13.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_13

My first reactiom "Pignuts!". Though I doubt I could feed many on them and would need precise knowledge to avoid poisoning. Somebody had to do a lot of risk taking with that family of plants.
Darwin noted, and could not explain, that it was customary for men in his society to choose less intelligent women as mothers for their families. This would, of course, lead to a regression among the offspring.
Anecdotally, I can contribute the opinion of a teaching colleague that I might find it easier to find a partner if I pretended not to be intelligent. I am still partnerless. The idea of spending my life oretending to be stupid! I would be, of course.

Have any of you seen the film "Hidden Figures"? I didn't notice first time round, what with the actor normally seen as Sheldon playing bright but socially thick, and rooting for the "computers", but where the hell were white women? These "colored" women were extremely bright. The whites? Playing stupid I suppose. The heiresses of Lovelace learning how to impress their husbands' bosses in their sororities.

For the benefit of those with no access to rural Britain, pignuts are a root swelling about the size of a ground nut, in a plant related to parsley, parsnip, carrot and also hemlock, hogweed and other stuff you don't want contact with. A site on medieval eats cites it but it's small and it doesn't accur in large enough patches to feed one person, let alone a family. It's a satisfying explative though. It's amazing how many food plants also have poisonous relations, and somebody had to find out what were nutritous and which were deadly.

Sounds like Naomi Alderman's The Power...I must read, sounds good...