As an indigenous Canadian I can confirm this.
Both of my parents were born and raised in the wilderness. I don't mean that they were born in a modern hospital and later raised in the bush. They were born in the 40s in a teepee with the help of traditional midwives.
Dad was a great hunter and trapper and did all the things you could imagine a hunter and gatherer could do.
Mom did the same as well, not as much or as well as dad but good enough to survive on her own or with children. She hunted birds, fished and could bring down gut clean prepare butcher moose, caribou, bear, wolf, lynx and any other large animal if she had to .... when she was a young woman that is. She could also travel, walk, snowshoe, use dog team, paddle a canoe, portage, sail, and survive alone in the bush for weeks or months on her own. In her prime, she was a far better hunter and gatherer than most men I know now including myself.
It only makes sense .... prehistoric hunters and gatherers didn't sit around and relegate women to only do certain things. Everyone no matter what gender had to be capable of doing everything in order to ensure and secure the survival of everyone.
Early enough in human history we weren't even relying on weapons to hunt as much as the fact that despite not having as high of a top speed as our prey, we could literally chase them until they died of exhaustion, that doesn't seem like gender would make too much of a difference in it. We all get out ran by prey in the short term, and we all have the stamina and speed to catch up.
Literally just walk down animals and eat them, like a paleolithic terminator. We could carry water and possibly some jerry/nuts, so could literally go for days without stopping.
Horses can gallop for like a mile or two and maybe go for like 20 without stopping.
And we have tracking abilities. There was some meme about that paleolithic terminator thing. Like an animal would see these weird naked apes in the distance and that's it, they're done. Doesn't matter if they run or not, death is coming.
And we definitely still have that ability, physically.
Check this out.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliff_Young_(athlete)
Albert Ernest Clifford Young OAM (8 February 1922[1] – 2 November 2003[2]) was an Australian[2] athlete from Beech Forest, Victoria. A farmer, he became notable for his unexpected win of the inaugural Sydney to Melbourne Ultramarathon in 1983 at 61 years of age.[3][4]
In 1983, now aged 61 years old, Young won the inaugural Westfield Sydney to Melbourne Ultramarathon, a distance of 875 kilometres (544 mi). The race was run between what were then Australia's two largest Westfield shopping centres: Westfield Parramatta in Sydney and Westfield Doncaster in Melbourne.[8] Young arrived to compete in overalls and work boots, without his dentures (later saying that they rattled when he ran).[9] He ran at a slow and loping pace and trailed the pack by a large margin at the end of the first day. While the other competitors stopped to sleep for six hours, Young kept running. He ran continuously for five days, taking the lead during the first night and eventually winning by 10 hours. Before running the race, he had told the press that he had previously run for two to three days straight rounding up sheep in gumboots.[10] He said afterwards that during the race he imagined he was running after sheep trying to outrun a storm. The Westfield run took him five days, fifteen hours and four minutes,[1] almost two days faster than the previous record for any run between Sydney and Melbourne, at an average speed of 6.5 kilometres per hour (4.0 mph).
And what a sportsman:
All six competitors who finished the race broke the old record. Upon being awarded the prize of A$10,000 (equivalent to $36,011 in 2022), Young said that he did not know there was a prize and that he felt bad accepting it, as each of the other five runners who finished had worked as hard as he did—so he split the money equally between them, keeping none.[11] Despite attempting the event again in later years, Young was unable to repeat this performance or claim victory again.
Ayo fellow Canadians here though not indigenous. Thanks for sharing your story!
It makes me sad how overlooked the stories and lessons of the indigenous people are in Canada and the discrimination still present to this day.
Best comment on this thread
Also, amazing life
I think this is just whitewashing history... Even if you look to the ancient Western world, they had goddesses like Artemis
Generally, men fought wars. Like a lion pride - the males are the defenders because they're bigger and stronger. Hunting doesn't require raw strength - it requires diligence, patience, and/or endurance
But they all hunt. Lionesses are known for it, but lions do it too. Complete division of responsibilities is an insect thing
Absolutely badass. Crazy to think that folks just a coupla generations up from us had lives without modern medicine and stuff (eg birth in a teepee!) Incredible. I guess sometimes it feels like modern medicine has been around longer than it has.
This study this meme is based on is completely incorrect and should be retracted. Here's a lay summary of its issues:
And the published article detailing the problems with that study's issues:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1090513824000497
To say it's "completely incorrect" is an exaggeration at best. The paper you cited is far more nuanced than that.
A bit of an exaggeration, sure. But only a bit. The lay summary of the article I referenced states the following:
Venkataraman et al. find that the paper commits every error that it was possible to make in the paper: leaving out important papers, including irrelevant papers, using duplicate papers, mis-coding their societies, getting the wrong values for “big” versus “small” game, and many others.
"commits every error that it was possible to make in the paper," and, "completely incorrect," aren't very different.
I urge everyone to look up the book Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez. The cultural patriarchy is crazy.
Nobody questions how archeology is influenced by contemporary culture. When archeologists find a grave and goes "the body is buried with weapons and a shield, therefore it must be a warrior and thus a man. And they still fucking note how it's weird that this definitely-a-man is smaller than other men from this culture, and his hips are wide, almost like a woman... But he's a dude, he's got weapons after all!" smh
I got the audiobook and I couldn’t finish it. I just couldn’t. I felt so much anger.
But what I managed to get through was fantastic. The part about public transport during winter was so eye opening.
I hate to break it to you, but She-Ra is less about hunter gatherers and more about interstellar empires with magitech
don't forget evil wizards
I'm gonna use that saying, lol
I thought everyone knew this. Tasks based on sex were not so prevalent until high cultures formed and people started settling down instead of being nomadic.
Not just nomadic. Many sedentary societies lack strong gender divisions in labor as well.
Its almost as if people need to be flexible to stay alive
THIS IS A GROUP EFFORT, PEOPLE!
No, you don't understand, this is all communist propaganda! /j
My mom would puke at these, even I feel some nausea. It just was such a horrible time to be alive. I wouldn’t wish these times on my worst enemy
That's why when you see documentaries about tribes that had little to no contact to the outside world, women are often hunting and do the heavy lifting and men are at home raising kids and taking care of the village while the women are out there. I mean i haven't seen it, but according to this one weird paper they must exist.
Sources?
Which tribes?
they're being sarcastic, since they find it preposterous that women are people
Would be a nice plot twist, but do you habe any sources for your claim? If this is real I would like to know more
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10306201/
This paper has a lot of back and forth. Another commenter posted a rebuttal.
Check out "The Dawn of Everything" by Wengrow and Graeber
Different point of view on your “source”, which is a mass market paperback made to sell and be consumed, not for serious scientific inquiry.
The only thing that might predispose women is when they get pregnant. Most forms of hunting don't require excessive strength. This is not speculation, prehistoric people do not give a shit about your value system or how it imposes itself on science. Animals in animal world be animals.
Eıŋtcint Siþıėnz a-ſ hæd ƿimin æz worıyṙz. T inu̇f v æn ekſtent ðæt ðı muıt bı ð beıſiſ f ð Æmėzȯn worıyṙz v ledjend.
spoiler
Ancient Scythians also had women as warriors. To enough of an extent that they might be the basis for the Amazon warriors of legend.
Minecraft enchanting table lookin ass
So what do men have to offer besides being dumber more violent women? I hate my gender so fucking much.
I would really like it if yhe people down voting Mr would offer a counter argument because I wish I could go a day with out hating myself
You might need to get off the internet for a minute
dont tell me what to do
If you can afford it, you should try to find a therapist. Therapy helps.
I am American so that's not an option
Didnt downvote but ill bite.
Dont self-hate. There's so many self-proclaimed misogynistic chauvanists to hate.
You offer your humanity. That is unique and not about the gender binary.
Your intrinsic traits mean people are more likely to listen to you.
If you're into a long form video essay, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBn5VF_On2k
You get to be inclusivity batman
If your up for a punk song https://propagandhi.bandcamp.com/track/refusing-to-be-a-man
Gender is made up. A social construct used to divide, for the purpose of economic imperialism. If youre up for a book:
https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781557100238
Self-love is needed if you're going to uplift others. Your intentions seem to be in the right place. Meet that with humility, humanity and accountabilty to learn and grow from mistakes and you'll do fine.
One more thing that feels relevant, a sentiment from a friend:
I think that a lot of people on the left are focused on the idea of forgiveness coming from the people who were wronged, but I think that's a misguided notion. It's not my place to seek forgiveness from those I have wronged, and I don't have any obligation to forgive those who have wronged me. I think that the harsh reality is that we live in an unjust world, where justice only exists if we fight tooth and nail for it, and will it into existence with our choices and actions.
So then if you believe what you're saying, be a part of the fight to make our grass the greener
You're living up to your user name.
Well for starters the meme is BS, check the other comments. Or just use common sense; there are plenty of traditional tribal societies around today, many of which are well documented. Have you EVER seen a woman from one of those communities hunting big game? I've been trying to think of one for the last 5 minutes and I can't. I'm sure it happens but not a single example comes to mind.
🥚
My SO has a theory that if the group of people lived in a harsh environment, ie. having to work for what you had with no guarantee of food or safety, etc, it was common for women to work just as much as men. Such a society needed all hands on deck, so to speak. But, when we start becoming "civilized", and things started getting made for us, (as opposed to an individual making it themselves.) Women and men start having diverging roles. Essentially, there's just not enough work, so womens role turns into raising the babies, to fill the time. Eventually, for whatever reason, "civilized" society just forgot about the hard times and assumes women have always been there just to raise babies.
Disclaimer: This is based on absolutely nothing. Maybe some random information that explain that women did "men" jobs too, once. Idk.
I promise you that there remains 'enough work' in early sedentary societies. The work, in fact, is endless - moreso than in a hunter-gatherer society, which is more reliant on circumstance than labor.
Divergence of roles seems to be connected to control of social power. As men come to dominate one sphere (typically warfare, since the average woman in the pre-modern period is intermittently disadvantaged in that by several months of pregnancy numerous times throughout her life), that power imbalance is used to strip power from women in other spheres (social, economic, sexual, etc).
This was more my take. I mean, like women just sat there and said, "Whelp, there's nothing to do. Let's just take care of the kids." It's not some natural evolution. And, for all the people studying the past (in the past) to just be like, "Men hunt, women gather," is ignoring how women ended up in those roles in the first place. The fact that they needed "evidence" of this is, before comming to that conclusion is...disappointing, but not surprising.
It's called the neolithic revolution.
Crap. They just took it from somewhere else and passed it off as their own. Jerk.
Edit: But then why is this even being debated?
*more than
a feeling
Can't we just, you know, ask hunter gatherers how they do it?
We can, sort of.
Not really, as I don't think any currently remaining hunter-gatherers practice persistence hunting? But in the very loose sense that a lot of anthropology does indeed rely on studying some modern hunter-gatherers.
Isn't it wild to think there are still a few uncontacted tribes which are classified as hunter-gatherers (although they're partly pastoral and horticultural)?
