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Originally posted by Regret
Historical Fact or Historical Fiction?

I am stating a hypothetical for the sake of generating interesting discussion. It is not my belief, but it is an interesting thought, I think Please don't get all feminist and attack me about this, it is actually a more feminist attitude than the current one that says all the women throughout history up until recently were not intelligent, and that it took women thousands of years to gain basic rights

Assumptions:

1) Women are intelligent, and have always been intelligent. I think we can agree that women are very often more intelligent than most men.

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Originally posted by Regret

2) Women understand the aspects of being a woman that make them valuable, and have understood these things since the beginning.

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Originally posted by Regret

3) Women often are more than slightly capable at manipulating men into doing anything they want us to do, and again this has existed forever.

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Originally posted by Regret

4) Women have always understood intrigue and politics better than they let on, throughout history.

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Originally posted by Regret


Hypothesis:

Now, given our assumptions, we will reinterpret the state of women through history including the past century or so.

At some point in the ever distant history women were also hunters (and probably survived more frequently than men.)

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Originally posted by Regret
At some point following this women stopped being hunters. Why did they stop? Because they found that if they crooned over some dumb caveman's hunting prowess the stupid man would do it, and they wouldn't have to risk their lives to get meat.

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Originally posted by The Omega
PEOPLE are intelligent or not. Why do you think “we” can agree that women are often more intelligent than men??

What makes you assume this? As opposed to what?

Again: What is this assumption based on? Have you considered that women, being unable to beat a man, have found it necessary to use “other weapons”?

Again: What is this assumption based on?

According to anthropologists MEN were usually the hunters and WOMEN the gatherers, camp-defenders and child-tenders. Both “jobs” were equally dangerous. So on what do you make the assumption that women survived more often than men? Survived what?

See above. It’s very difficult to hunt while carrying children of different ages that will make noises and scare off the game. On what do you make the assumption that women stopped anything which you have not proven they ever did?

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Originally posted by Regret
The assumptions are based on the fact that it is possible, didn't look for support. I believe that women are and always have been equal to men in genetic makeup.

Your perception of women throughout history is based in original archaeology. The early theories of men and women and their roles were created during a period when women were more "suppressed" by men who believed that men were superior. Newer theories are based somewhat in the older theories. Is it possible that the theories are wrong? Is it possible that we have interpreted much of history from our perspective, especially archaeological history? Look at the animal kingdom, are females helpless with children? Written history was written, for the most part, by whom? Men or women?

This isn't a statement of fact. It is a statement saying "what if?" What if the general interpretation of history is not correct? What if? Is your stance on this based in fact, or the perspective that we see things? We do not know what history was like, archaeologists make extremely educated inferences and guesses as to things like this topic based in large part on the world they live in. I believe they are probably right, I won't second guess them, they have a lot more education on the subject than I. But, it is an interesting thought. I prefer to believe that women chose the roles they filled. I have difficulty believing women were forced to do things they did not want to do. I believe that women are smarter, stronger, and more capable than it seems many people say they were. So yes, I do dislike the typical picture painted of the historical woman. I did not set out to prove anything, just to say "what if?"

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Originally posted by The Omega
Yes. But we could also assume that reindeers could fly… You need to make a case for your assumptions first, I’d say. No, the male and female are NOT equal in genetic make-up. Men usually have the capacity of being stronger, women of being more enduring. Intelligence-wise men are generally better at focused single-mindedness while women are better at multi-tasking. Neither is better than the other.
The anthropological sources I mention are NOT from a time were women were “suppressed.” They made their conclusions based on findings, on how “original” and isolated tribes live today and on psychological differences between men and women.

You seem to somehow assume I found pre-historical women helpless, despite me writing that early women were – among things – defenders of the camps against predators. A woman with a newborn CANNOT go hunting, simple fact. If YOU find camp-protection, gathering and child-raising as less valuable than hunting than YOU are showing a prejudice there already, based on current values?

There are most certainly instances were the “woman was behind the man” up until a certain point in history. Newer accounts of the “Father of Chemistry” Lavoisier now makes mention of his wife who contributed as much as he did.

You must remember that women have always been physically inferior to men. And with the threat of physical violence hanging over their heads… well then… ? Then you must also remember that most major religions make a CASE of fearing women to the point of making them inferior to men, Satans tools, to be kept our of decision-making etc. Perhaps your first jobs should be to ask why THIS happened?

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Originally posted by Regret
Assumptions:
1) Women are intelligent, and have always been intelligent. I think we can agree that women are very often more intelligent than most men.
2) Women understand the aspects of being a woman that make them valuable, and have understood these things since the beginning.
3) Women often are more than slightly capable at manipulating men into doing anything they want us to do, and again this has existed forever.
4) Women have always understood intrigue and politics better than they let on, throughout history.

Hypothesis:
5. At some point in the ever distant history women were also hunters (and probably survived more frequently than men.) At some point following this women stopped being hunters. Why did they stop? Because they found that if they crooned over some dumb caveman's hunting prowess the stupid man would do it, and they wouldn't have to risk their lives to get meat.
6. Thus mating for longer periods of time, and to an individual man began to be a good idea. Why was it a good idea? Easy, if you told a man you liked him long enough you could eventually tell him to do anything, given proper phrasing of the desired act. If you told some other dumb caveman he was great you would undermine the brainwashing you had been doing to your main man, so one man was a good idea.
7. So women did most the rest of the work, men just killed big dangerous animals and brought it back to the waiting woman. Women thought about this, and decided "Hey, why not get him to do everything that I don't really enjoy doing?" So they, the women, start slowly getting men to do more. Now the men are gutting and cleaning their kills before bringing them home. Suddenly men start doing the gathering of fruits, and farming. Women were smart, they had reduced men to little more than trained beasts of burden.
8. Some men started thinking that women should be doing more, that they should work outside the home as well. So women described the work necessary around the home, and explained to the men that they did not like to do this work, that it was demeaning. They utterly convinced men that the gender roles were his idea, that he forced her to stay at home, she would love to go work outside the home, but she had to stay and do the household work. So now she was able to stay at home, and do all the work she needed to at home without having to travel to a place of work.
9. Then over time women forgot their intelligent, cunning, plan. Eventually women decided that it really was men that forced them into this state. They forgot that life really sucks, and it is awful nice to work in the home compared to outside the home. And so, in less than a century, women undid the careful work their predecessors had done.

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Originally posted by Mindship
Many of your assumptions are iffy (which is good that you presented them as assumptions). Some of your hypotheses also seem to be more assumption than testable statement.

Regardless, your overall position seems to be this: throughout history, the Smart Scheming Woman (SSW) has manipulated the Big Dumb Man (BDM) into doing what she wants, the BDM having no clue about this and just lumbering along his merry way. The SSW got so good at this that, eventually, she screwed herself over.

Sounds like a soap opera. IMO, men and women are both smarter, more caring about each other and more cooperative than your assumptions present. Your assumptions also seem to be more reflective (again, as you stated) of perhaps the last 30-40 years, in lieu of "feminism" and our hypercompetitive, everyone-out-for-themselves society.

Forgive me if, in my brevity, I've oversimplified. But I didn't want to write as much.

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Originally posted by Regret
Alright, I'll concede then. Still, I like the idea that women controlled the direction gender roles took. I also do not believe that women were always inferior in the strength department, or that either gender was as to any other genetic difference. I believe that evolution may have occurred, but that roles taken probably influenced both gender's evolution, males being the larger/stronger of the two may have been due to the fact that males took the role they did. Evolution is blind, but it is directed by the actions a species takes.

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Originally posted by A.J
well im stronger than my gf but she always makes me do stuff with emotional blackmail and i done it to her and she ended it up working out for her WOMEN GRRRRRR

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Originally posted by The Omega
Again – I’m an avid opponent of the gender dichotomy. The idea that what men are and have as traits women do not. And vice versa. Male chauvinists and hardcore feminists are each as bad as the other, and neither do their gender ANY service.

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Originally posted by The Omega
I’m an avid opponent of the gender dichotomy. The idea that what men are and have as traits women do not. And vice versa. Male chauvinists and hardcore feminists are each as bad as the other, and neither do their gender ANY service.

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Originally posted by Lord Urizen
You guys are forgetting that not all women are the same, as not all men are the same.

Some men are stronger than women, some women are stronger than men. Some women are better parents than men, and some men are better parents than women.

Some men are more hateful than women, while some women are more hateful than men...and so on and so on.

Every individual is different, and thier gender only plays a fraction of a role in thier being.