So the Big Puppy and I were talking about how male dominance came into play to begin with. He said he read some book about how the plow is the reason men are boss, because plowing apparently gives women miscarriages and men started suddenly being the major food providers.
Dear fucking god, when are they going to stop giving academic hacks who use outdated theories publishing deals?
Here’s the thing- that whole Big Man Bring Home the Bacon thing never really existed. Women have traditionally brought in the bulk of food. And there wasn’t some “men are the manly ones who kill the meat” thing either.
We humans started as fucking scavengers people. You know, like vultures. We ran in after a bigger animal killed a smaller animal and then we sucked out the marrow from the bones. And that is how we became protein fattened ominvores.
And when we became hunters in our own right, it wasn’t a lone fucking spearman in the jungle. We worked as a tribe, men and women together, to run the beast down until it was too tired to fight anymore. Group fucking effort requiring every last one of us.
But let’s ignore the meat part for a second. It’s only in recent decades of mass production that meat has become a daily staple. It used to be, for the majority of people, a special occasion/ seasonal only thing. The daily food was/is women’s work. The grains, the veggies, the fruits. The picking of, grinding of, preserving of, cooking of.
This is where that women do 90% of the labor in the world but own only 10% of the resources number comes in. It starts with hunter/gatherers. There has always been a lot more gathering going on than hunting.
And it turns out that one of the most awesome human developments was not big manly spear hunter dude- but grandmothers who went through menopause. OMG- you mean dried up old crones are useful! Who knew? (Well every single new mom who ever had their own mother come help out does, but why take the experience of people with lady brains into account?)
So wait- how does this show where male dominance comes into history? Violet’s got some ideas, but I think it’s a matter of work load.
People like to talk about the division of labor. It’s a big deal, division of labor. When tasks become specialized, societies become more complex. We have this idea that this where men went out and did specialized jobs like pottery or hunting or weapon making while all the women did was cook the bacon brought back by the dudes. Except women were doing the same work men were. If their family farmed, they learned farming and worked in the fields. If their family made pots, they learned to stoke the kilns. And while they were at it, they also managed to have babies and feed their families. There was no take out, no grocery store, no deli, to provide ready prepared meals. You cannot specialize out the actual providing of food, at least not until McDonald’s shows up.
So women have been crazy busy with the whole helping us evolve by making sure that we are born and fed and men might be a wee bit grouchy that no matter what they do- they can’t top the whole giving life thing.
So they use the spare time they have while we are birthing babies and cooking dinner to think of ways they are powerful too. Look, women get all big and round and slow at the end of pregnancy! Men don’t. Look women are generally shorter than us! And not as bulky in the upper arm area! And too many pregnancies can make them weak or even dead!
End if you need even more proof that it is workload- I give you the following videos.
1st- because I cannot embed (and sorry OD- It’s a link to Jezebel. I lurveee you!) Woman do all the work- via Of all the fucking places- MTV
Then Sarah haskins shows us all about feeding your fucking family
And let’s just contrast that with a commercial that was PULLED off the air in the UK because a guy took on the girly role of feeding his fucking family and being all gay.