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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

If you are a man wanting to post here, please read this first

118 replies

DeviTheGaelet · 11/02/2017 17:14

www.inquisitr.com/3508199/mens-rights-activism-and-the-mad-rush-to-victimhood/

This is what male posters often do and this is why we might get short with you.
Don't do this and you will be fine.

OP posts:
Xenophile · 14/02/2017 18:00

Explains UKIP then

M0stlyBowlingHedgehog · 14/02/2017 18:30

Snort!

AskBasil · 14/02/2017 19:31

Arf.
Is it true we're all descended from Charlemagne as well?
Or is that an alternative fact?

ErrolTheDragon · 14/02/2017 19:44

I think you mean this sort of thing www.nature.com/news/most-europeans-share-recent-ancestors-1.12950 - which is rather different to the specifically Y chromosome Genghis thing.

Xenophile · 14/02/2017 21:10

Is this like one of those Facebook quizzes where it magically turns out that everyone was descended from Anne Boleyn?

TeiTetua · 14/02/2017 21:57

From what I understand though, in most species only about 10-20% of males get to reproduce anyway (because the females are choosing, not because males are enslaving females).

In many species of mammals and birds, the males fight or compete, and the females just accept whichever ones win. Aren't we glad humans don't behave that way.

venusinscorpio · 14/02/2017 22:50

It would be very unlikely for anyone to be able to claim descent from Anne Boleyn Smile

makeourfuture · 15/02/2017 07:41

Those that did often lived to a ripe old age, which meant they were a burden on their families. So, rich ones were packed off to convents and poor ones accused of witchcraft and strangled at various points in history.

This is of interest. I was curious about the works of Margaret Murray, her witch cult theory. It isn't well liked by the scientific community. But there seems to be something to it.

The goddess Diana keeps turning up though in my readings of European folk mythology. Night rides, the Huntress/warrior.

It led me to this book, a real work by a modern anthropologist who was investigating historical household financial records. She started off not from a feminist perspective but simply looking at bookkeeping. She noted that, of course, records were much more frequent from rich households, but that there were indeed enough rural agrarian type things to make a proper study.

They painted a picture of high involvement of women in the running of an agricultural society. And too, a commiserate level of prestige. I may be getting a bit Wiccan here. But it made me think of Murray's work. We know of the cunning woman. The White witch who knew how to pickle and plant and predict the weather. Medicines, midwifery. Records show that women were involved in every aspect of agricultural life. The book went on to posit that it was the move to urbanism, and specifically the closed shop factory system that stripped women of prestige.

Murray says the Catholic Church, in order to consolidate power, hunted down the White witch. She is decredited. But we do know that the Church did exactly that with the Cathars. We too know that like any society Western Europe had flourishing folk mythologies that reflected thought and culture - and that female symbols, powerful, involved symbols were present across the whole continent.

A caveat: I can't remember the name of the aforementioned book nor the author.

Moreover, I am probably mansplaining to people with a hell of a lot more knowledge.

Xenophile · 15/02/2017 09:21

I know venus, which is why when people post it on FB, I have a private giggle about it Grin

DeviTheGaelet · 15/02/2017 20:12

Interesting make
Women had to have been involved if men were being sent to fight and die in wars. Who was running the farms etc?
It's breathtaking that this has been so totally erased from history really.
I read an article about Darwin being a sexist at the weekend. It said he thought women must be less intellectual as they hadn't contributed to history Sad

OP posts:
VestalVirgin · 15/02/2017 20:36

Murray says the Catholic Church, in order to consolidate power, hunted down the White witch. She is decredited. But we do know that the Church did exactly that with the Cathars.

Yeah, the Catholic Church took more of a "witches are superstition" approach for much of history. I think Lutherans were more keen on witch-burning.

But I think one can safely say that there was a lot of misogyny involved in the witch hunts.
That book on hunting witches that two German men wrote is chock full of misogyny. I think there's also a piece on witches allegedly stealing penises and keeping them in boxes in there, but I might misremember.

HelenDenver · 15/02/2017 21:36

Why keep penises in boxes, when they make such good fertiliser?

Wink
VestalVirgin · 15/02/2017 21:47

Yeah, that's how you can tell it's written by men. Wink

CantReach · 15/02/2017 22:28

This thread is fascinating! I didn't know any of that about the crash in Y chromosome variety.

On another point, the women running the household post industrial revolution we're in effect the mangement in many senses. The man tended to provide physical labour, as did the woman (either in or outside the home) but the women managed the budget. The idea that it's all dusting is a recent dishonouring of all their work, isn't it.

EnormousTiger · 16/02/2017 14:06

I recommend the BBC series The Ascent of Woman -

which shows we used to have quite a bit of power and gradually lost it in many cultures from 5000 years ago although we are getting a bit more on now.
CantReach · 18/02/2017 21:15

Yes, loved that series! What looked like a non-patriarchal civilisation was very interesting!

LateDad · 21/02/2017 13:55

BarrackerBarma I read the threads because I want to try to understand.

BarrackerBarma · 22/02/2017 01:04

Then you would appear to be the exception, LateDad, and welcome!

Mostly the fellas drop by to tell us how wrong we are, and it is quite the conundrum why they feel such a compulsion to spend so much time with us.

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