A thread about annyoing re-writings of history

[Sakura]

Just thinking about how feted male authors/artists/scientists/revolutionaries in our culture and how female equivalents are ignored. Dworkin wrote of how good writing by women is despised, not in a romantic way, but actually despised.

I opened up Sep 27 2010 issue of Newsweek today and saw this enormous 5 page article called Men's lib. IN the first paragraph:

...As the U.S evonomy has transitioned from brawn to brain over the past three decades, a growing number of women have gone off to work....

Immediately this paragraph denies the brawn of domestic drudgery that women have undertaken, the fact that women worked in the factories for a pittance, that they were the cheap labour that drove the industrial revolution, that they did the back-breaking work of carrying water, hoeing, harvesting and cooking..that today women still get the low-status manual labour and that while men do carry out manual labour, a hell of a lot of men have kept the cushy, light, prestigious jobs for themselves.

In one fell swoop, the sentence denies Herstory with a rewriting of history. How often does this "mistake" happen on a daily basis? Does it serve to brainwash the new generation of men and women that women only started working after the fifties when men finally "allowed" them to ?

sorry Austria, not Germany

Brilliant thread!

I am starting a full-time degree course in Heritage Management, errrm, tommorrow morning! . The course is part of the university School of Humanities and Cultural Industries, but is run by the History Department.

The course is very much concerned with the ways we as individuals and as a society interpret and re-interpret "history" to reflect the values of today (one of my courses this year is Public History and Identity).

Watch this space.....

Must say, feel v. depressed at the way nothing seems to have changed since I was last debating the role and contribution of women to literature and history about 30 years ago.

great stuff MrsFlittersnoop - am going to send you a PM....

Maybe this is off topic? But way back, in History of Homo Sapiens type literature we used to have loads about Man the Mighty Hunter.
Then it began to be pointed out that women contributed to the food stocks too, by going out and gathering assorted tubers, berries etc etc. And primitive societies began to be referred to as hunter/gatherers.
Recently though, I have noticed that women are again being written out of the equation, as I find umpteen references to Man the Mighty Hunter/Gatherer.
Makes me want to piss off to another planet with all my sisters and leave them to it.
Only joking.

If you're interested in that continuum concept/evolutionary biology stuff, Sakura, have you read Sarah Blaffer Hrdy? I think she's great, & really interesting on the mother-baby bond.

Mrs Flittersnoop. You may be interested in Dale Spender who has written on this subject.

Women and labour unions short article bottom line seems to be that when employers can pay significantly lowed wages to anyone, they will. Antagonism between men's unions and women workers and their separate unions was maybe a case of divide and conquer by the employers. Apparently the men's unions couldn't see that having one union for all would result in a better position vis a vis the employers, and wanted to safeguard what they had for themselves. Men therefore actively working against women's interests in factory or trade employment and why?

The thing about Hrdy is that whilst she tells a great story, nothing she says is really any more than conjecture - I appreciate it's educated conjecture, but it's not provable, it's not to be taken as truth in any way. She presents ideas very well, great NYT copy, but it's not good science.

I'm learning so much on here.

Was on the train today talking to a couple of men about evolution etc. They were both talking about Darwin as if "survival of the fittest" was synonymous with being the biggest, baddest & fightiest. But surely it's about ensuring the survival of your descendants and those you share genes with, e.g. your larger family/community, and therefore being a fighting machine is not going to get you anywhere in evolutionary terms if your family/tribe get wiped out. So it's not about individual survival, more about ensuring that your children/granchildren/nephews/nieces etc are protected.

It struck me that the men I hear constantly harping about evolution all seem very keen to make out that "fittest" means best in terms of macho qualities. I pointed out that I was more of a hider, and that that would probably get me just as far in evolutionary terms as being able to do Kill Bill style fighting. :)

They haven't heard the 'sneaky fucker' take on fitness
Basically, beta males get a bloody good go at passing on their genes, as they sneak in while alpha males are off being alpha.
(Basic stuff!)

Elephants - I've seen an interesting hypothesis regarding the reason women are often more involved with their daughters' offspring than their sons (think of all the horrid MIL threads on MN). Women know that their daughter's children are definately their biological descendants, but can't be 100% certain of the true parentage of their son's kids. They have a "Darwinian" investment in the raising of grandchildren they know to be biolgocally related to them.

Certain cultures tradtionally allow women to return to their mother's home for the birth of a child, and to remain there for the "40 day" post-partum seclusion period required in for example, Jewish, Moslem and Hindu communities. There seems to be evidence that the survival rate for newborns improves under these conditions.

'Fittest' was a terrible choice of words by Darwin. He probably meant 'best at adapting'; fitness is taken literally and out of context by a lot of people who equate it with physical prowess, muscles, 'he-men', alpha qualities.

And surely too, if women are the weaker sex and not as fit as men we would have died out long ago..

LOL at "I'm more of a hider" and the "sneaky fucker" references. It's so not about physcal fitness is it. What about people who have slower metabolisms. In times of plenty they get fat quickly, but during famines they're the survivors.

iskra thank you for the link

MrsF Where I live in Japan, women go back to their mothers' place to give birth, often for over a month. THey don't do any housework.

I think the MIL over-involment grates women so much because it's a disruption of the natural order. Again, in Japan, patriarchal society, DILs of the eldest son and MILs live together. I married the last son, thankfully- no inheritence but lots of freedom. Anyway I think it's unnatural for the father's family to ride roughshod over the mother.
I do believe that the paternal grandmother feels an instant biological bond to grandchildren she knows are hers though, just like fathers

I agree with the Survival of the fittest meaning "the best at adaptign to the situation and ensuring the continuance of the species"

It definitely includes everyoen pitching in to look after the babies and children. It's to do with keeping them safe, dry, warm and fed. (and teaching them the essentials to do the same when it's their turn)
the Alpha male thing, regarding hunting and fighting off beasties is only half of the battle. What's the point of dragging home a huge carcus if the family's been wiped out by a disease? what's the point of fighting off a big beasty is it injures that man so that he can't mate (if there are no other types of men around)?
Why does the patriarchal society assume that men are the most important? isn't the whole point that all the family and their friends/neighbours help each other out? Isn't the idea that everyone does the job that they are best at?

I think the peaceful communities were wiped out to a certain extent nickelbabe,
I should imagine the Aborigines and Native Americans cooperated a lot.
That's why the men alive today are driving human beings to extinction

I read somewhere that women find alpha males more attractive at certain points in their menstrual cycle (when they're most likely to conceive) but Beta males attractive at other times. The beta male is more likely to stick around and give the offspring a fighting chance because it gets the undivided attention of two parents;, the alpha male is more likely to bugger off but may possibly have handsome genes
Could be bollox, though

I've been pondering about the "Dark" Ages, after reading E&M's post "the Roman empire which was AFAIK exceedingly macho and didn't have much time for women or anything other than military might."

Then there was the dark ages and eventually the enlightenment came, with the Industrial revolution. For the first time, work was properly separate from home life, and earning wages became the norm. It made it easier for the industrialists to divide and conquer their workforces.

Thanks math and vesuvia, I guess that answers my question. Interesting.

Sakura, that's the ultimate tragedy, isn't it? the peaceful communities wiped out by, oh ,yes!, man's desire to conquer and control.

Instead of learning from those communities, they enslave them.
(that's possibly another debate)

For hundreds of years, historians have very often attributed actions of women in history to emotion rather than e.g rational political ability.

For example, Boudica is said by numerous historians to have attacked the Romans as revenge for the murder of her family, with the implication that she was not motivated by the same motives as an unemotional male chief, who would attack for the survival of the tribe as a whole.

Theresaholeinyourmind wrote - "Recently though, I have noticed that women are again being written out of the equation, as I find umpteen references to Man the Mighty Hunter/Gatherer."

I have recently read "The Whole Woman" by Germaine Greer for the bookclub and she mentions that male hunters only do the occasional hunt for ceremonial feasts and sport, but it's the women gathers who keep everyone fed and watered on all other occasions.

Not just fed and watered; I imagine (without much justification except what is known about primitive people in today's world) that communities that didn't know anything about treatment and prevention of illness, parasites, or management of childbirth and the perinatal period, would have died out just as quickly as communities that were raided by a group of he-men. Women might have been the keepers of that sort of knowledge and may have passed on useful information to other societies if they became enslaved.

Thinking over this thread late at night, I suddenly remembered the Jean Auel novels, Clan of the Cave Bear and so on, and had a bit of a laugh. Her heroine seems to have invented civilisation single-handed, from horseriding to the wheel, and many other nifty inventions I have forgotten about over the years.

Maybe going a bit too far the other way?

oh yes, Ayla and Jondalar. He was a fab lover IIRC but then I suppose porn hadn't been invented then to confuse the poor men about what women actually like.