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From: lunde@casbah.acns.nwu.EDU
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: opportunities
Message-ID: <1991May4.002343.745@casbah.acns.nwu.edu>
Date: 7 May 91 17:38:53 GMT
References: <1991May1.175906.5106@isc.rit.edu>
Organization: Ministry of Silly Walks
Lines: 34
Approved: tittle@ics.uci.edu
Nntp-Posting-Host: blanche.ics.uci.edu

"Anonymous was a woman"

In article <1991May1.175906.5106@isc.rit.edu> pad6516@ritvax.isc.rit.edu
(DANN, PA) writes:
>         GENERALLY SPEAKING The way I see society is that it is based
> on the discoveries, inventions, and ideas of the male species. The
> freedom that we as Americans have is basically the result of the men.
[... goes on at length...]

The problem with this line of argument is that men are much more
likely get historical credit for anything they do.

It is worth looking at what a little historical digging by historians
and anthropologists with alternate viewpoints have found.  Documented
examples of suppressed and forgotten history get harder to
substantiate as one goes further back, but there are definite trends.
Being male, christian, european, heterosexual or upper-class each tend
to make one's acts better recorded in the times and cultures leading
to ours.

Read "The Dinner Party" or "Gay American History" or "Orginial
Blessing" or histories of Islam tracing its contributions to europe
... almost anything that starts from a different norm, and you will
find parts of history that are largely ignored. Scholars may know of
it but it's not in the dominant mythos.  Read "How To Suppress Woman's
Writing" by JoAnna Russ.

If you argue that in X culture there was a division of labor between
men and women doing Y and Z, it is still likely that women made
inventions in their spheres of activity.

Another source of historical bias that may be related is that
inventions and cultural traits that serve imperialism are spread by
cultural conquest.