Why do many people feel as though women have contributed nothing over the past 500+ years?

Question

I suppose this stems from the patriarchal view that machines are more important than relationships. But women have definitely been contributing their half of work--producing humans. It is a full-time job to raise a child from infancy into an adult, and not one to be slighted either. I do find it interesting that during the mid-life crisis men usually want a more active role in their family, and women have an interest in work beyond the household.

Answer 1

your right, you think that they would at least credit the process that allowed them to enter the world - childbirth and the feeding that followed. you'd think a lot of people created themselves from their own super intellect and the world was just a play toy

Answer 2

Most people are stupid.

Anyone who likes the microwave can thank a female scientist who researched uranium.

Any devote christian can thank ancient women who convinced there husbands to convert.

The list goes on and on.  The world and everything in it wasn't caused by one gender or the other, it was caused by both genders=humanity.

Answer 3

Women have been raising children a lot longer than 500 years.  but they have made many contributions outside of the home for several thousand as well. Not as men have, because as previously mentioned, they were raising children and providing life (food, upkeep of shelter and other day to day needs).

Answer 4

I guess then I am not "people" because I have never thought that women contributed nothing.  

I do disagree that there is a so-called "patriarchal view", and especially one that esteems machines more than relationships.   Look at all the writings, philosophy, famous relationships and dashing heroic actions we male automatons have done!

It might also be considered that most inventions benefitted women anyway.  I admit it is a bit of a stretch to say that in most cases an inventor was driven by the personal love for a woman or his family to invent what he did.  But in some cases, these inventors were deeply romantic.  Similarly, these hard working women also knew that thier place in their own family structure was valued and vital.  It is always difficult to judge yesterday by the standards and marals of today without being accused of revisionism..

Answer 5

IMO the only people likely to think this are misogynists ...... and to be honest do their opinions really matter anyway?!

Answer 6

SPUDDY - where do people like you, get ths eternal bragging from, do you deal in facts

Before search engines there was a complete list of all webservers. The list was edited by Tim Berners-Lee and hosted on the CERN webserver. One historical snapshot from 1992 remains[1]. As more and more webservers went online the central list could not keep up. On the NCSA Site new servers were announced under the title "What's New!", but no complete listing existed any more[2].

The very first tool used for searching on the (pre-web) Internet was Archie.[3] The name stands for "archive" without the "v". It was created in 1990 by Alan Emtage, a student at McGill University in Montreal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_se...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Emtage

The program downloaded the directory listings of all the files located on public anonymous FTP (File Transfer Protocol) sites, creating a searchable database of file names; however, Archie did not index the contents of these sites.

Alan Emtage (born November 27, 1964) conceived of and implemented the first version of Archie, a pre-Web internet search engine for locating material in public FTP archives.

A native of Barbados, and the son of Sir Stephen and Lady Emtage, he attended high school at Harrison College from 1975 to 1983 (and in 1981 becoming the proud owner of a Sinclair ZX81 with 1K of memory), where he graduated at the top of his class, winning the prestigious Barbados Scholarship.

In 1983 he entered McGill University in Montréal, Canada studying for an honors Bachelor's degree in computer science which was followed by a Master's degree in 1987 from which he graduated in 1991. Emtage was part of the team that brought the first Internet link to eastern Canada (and only the second link in the country) in 1986. In 1989 while a student and working as a systems administrator for the School of Computer Science, Emtage conceived of and implemented the original version of the Archie search engine, the world's first Internet search engine and the start of a line which leads directly to today's Altavista, Yahoo!, Inktomi and Google.

In 1992, Emtage along with Peter J. Deutsch formed Bunyip Information Systems the world's first company expressly founded for and dedicated to providing Internet information services with a licensed commercial version of the Archie search engine used by millions of people worldwide.

http://www.answers.com/Alan%20Emtage

http://www.amazines.com/Alan_Emtage_rela...

Answer 7

I really don't know who's dumb enough to think that.

Extreme ignorance might be the only reason.

Answer 8

Women have contributed in so many ways to our society, not only child rearing, we just don't get the publicity, I wonder why?

Answer 9

Well, it seems to be a feminist view as well that women have contributed nothing over the past 500+ years.  Producing children, and raising them, is not regarded as important by feminists, they think life begins and ends in the workplace, the 'real world' as they call it.

While you are, of course, correct, that producing and raising children is very important, the fact is that for most of history women were expected to do a great deal more than that, and in fact were actively involved inthe business of production of food, clothing, household items etc.  Not to mention being involved in other trades as well.

The rigid seperation of home and workplace that we think of as normal nowadays did not exist in the pre-Industrial world.  Up until about the mid-eighteenth century, most people were at least partly self-sufficient, and lived mainly by farming, producing their own foodstuffs, and selling the surplus.  The women were generally in charge of the poultry and the dairy, and would raise chickens, milk cows, make their own butter and cheese and sell the surplus etc.  They would brew ale and sell that (the 'ale-wife' was a familiar figure in medieval life).   and of course at a time when there was very little fresh food availabel in winter, the preservation of food for consumption in winter was absolutely vital.  women were also expected to be the family doctors, and to have a good knowledge of medicine and first aid (household manuals from the medieval and early modern periods even contain instructions for setting broken bones).  They would make their own home remedies, and recipes would be passed on from mother to daughter.

And of course their role in producing the material for clothign was absolutely vital, spinning is a job that has been done by women ever since textiles were invented, and women would spend hours every day spinning wool or flax into thread, some for their own use, some for sale to professional weavers (who in medieval times were often women, though in the early modern period men took over the profession).  Spinning was such a commonplace occupation for women that in the 20th century 'spinster' was still a usual word to describe an unmarried woman, and january 7th used to be known as 'St Distaff's Day' because it was the day when women traditionally resumed the all-important work of spinning after the long Christmas holiday (christmas in the medieval period lasted for 13 days).

And since most people worked in their own homes in those days, businesses were carried on at home, and it was normal for women to be involved in them.  There were about 500 trade guilds in London in the 16th century for instance, of which only 5 excluded women from membership.  it was quite common for a widow to carry on running the family business after her husband died.  And some married women were in business on their own account, they were known as 'femme soles' and were responsible for their own debts etc (normally a husband was considered to be responsible for his wife's debts).  

In the early colonies in America, the colonists would most definitely not have survived without the vital skills of women, producing the clothing, foodstuffs, and other household items vital for survival, tending the sick etc.  "It is not known whether man or woman be more necessary" as  the Virgina House of Burgesses put it in 1619.

Feminists, however, will keep saying peculiar things like "women weren't allowed to work" as if work is some kind of treat, whereas in fact women have always been expected to work, and work extremely hard.  There has never been any question of women not being "allowed" to work.

Answer 10

I just learned yesterday that the inventor of the search engine that would become Google is a woman, and she is now working on an even powerful search engine that will try to compete with Google.

Answer 11

Who are these "many people" you speak of? Or is that your personal opinion?

I don't think many people would make a claim that women haven't contributed anything in the last 500 years.

Answer 12

I doubt that anyone you've heard saying that means it in that context.

Ive heard people use the inventions point to argue that men and women are different.

Of course women have been contributing, I have found that the male contribution has been relegated to simply violence  rape and some global conspiracy called the "patriarchy"  by the fem. brigade. Perhaps we should be giving each other more credit.

Hold on, wasn't it feminism that attacked the importance of the female role?

Answer 13

Think when women where not in the work force an stayed home. There was low unemployment an homeless people. An there where no phycos except the ones on the big screen good work new age women.

Answer 14

Silly questions usually don’t deserve really good answers; today you have gotten some really good answers to a poor question

Not least an excellent answer from Louise C, also great answer Eohan thanks!

If one listens to feminist brag and brag about nothing, in my mind I ALWAYS remember the old adage, (empty barrels make the most noise) din, racket!! lol

Yet one never hear feminist celebrate the great and wonderful works of women who moved mountains and gave their life to the cause, and in doing so changed the world, Men & Women - Why is that? WHY?

I easily identify those women, as thinkers, actionist, activist, liberationist, & freedom fighters, HEROS

A great example of this would be the unbelievable work done and the legacy given to us by Florence Nightingale, who is directly responsible for modern ‘Health Care’ on top of which she was all of the above, a tireless campaigner for women’s rights

Again an again I myself have posted special days honouring these great figures that inspire us all, here on G&WS only to have it ignored and several times deleted

Check these examples

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/ind...

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/ind...

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/ind...

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/ind...

So the actual problem is you, and the others are NOT here to use the opportunity to teach and inform

You are here to score cheep shots & one-upmanship, and this is because you & they are laughably Inadequate, thus feel that it must be as a result of MEN, and as it is self fulfilling, funny enough IT IS.....

Quote-- ("Remember no one can make you feel inferior without your consent." —Eleanor Roosevelt)

Even in this question you are doing the very same thing, you don’t bring information, you don’t note the information given, there is no analysis and thoughts on the issues

So the answer to you is –WHEN-YOU-BRAG- we (men) simply say PROOVE it, and smile, as you get angry! lol

Answer 15

I don't think some people realize today just how much women have been oppressed and held back.  You see it more in Europe and in developing countries, where times haven't changed so much.  Women are baby makers and wives/girlfriends to be there for the men.  They are not to have their own careers at the expense of having a family or a husband.  Their real goal in life is marriage and kids.  That's it.  Some women have other ideas and pursue careers and are successful, but they are going up against centuries of oppression and it isn't easy...

Answer 16

virtually no one believes women have contributed nothing over the last 500 years. Why tell blatant lies like this?

Answer 17

I think it is interesting that people always assume that throughout most of history women's work has been primarily bearing and raising children. This is the greatest fallacy ever foisted upon us by the patriarchy.

In hundreds of societies over thousands of years women have been a massive agricultural, industrial and financial force.

Agriculture - the basis of civilisation - would NEVER have been possible without the women who planted the seeds that THEY had gathered from the forest. Who tended the plants and fertilised and weeded them. Who reaped the crop THEY had sown while their husnands built shelters and hunted and dfended the tribe from marauders.

In ancient Rome women with money financed many a hopeful Senator to buy his way to power. She could divorce him if he legislated against her own political agenda and take her money (hence his power) with her. And often did. Women were powerful kingmakers and rarely came out the worse for their political wranglings.

The industrial revolution was launched off the backs of cottage industries run almost solely by women and children. Small home weaving mills, yarn spinners and carpet makers provided the first consumer goods available on anything like a mass scale. Later in the 19th century women made up over 60%of the workforce in Britain's factories and mills. All working class women worked outside the home. They had to, for the meagre wages of their husbands meanrt they could not survive without ALL members of the family going to work. Children as young as six held down full time jobs. Only middle and upper class women had the luxury of staying home abd caring for their children.

During WWI the military on both sides would have starved and gone without bullets or guns if women had not taken up the jobs left vacant by the millions of young men who had been sacrificed to the war.

It was only upon their return from the battlefields when a post war slump slowed the economy that working class women were FORCED back into their homes. It was said that men had more "right" to paid employment than women. There was a lot of anger from returned servicemen that they had suffered so much for their country, only to find some woman had taken their job in their absence and they were unemployed. It was electorally popular to make the woen go home. So they did.

History repeated itself during WWII. And again the women were forced back into their homes when returning soldiers demanded employment. This time the patriarchy used clever manipulation of popular culture to foist upon us this fiction that a woman's place historically had been with hearth and home. They meant to force us to remain without the economic autonomy that so many of our forebears had possessed and to think that was the natural state of affairs.

The 1950's and 1960's did not see the advent of feminism, but its resurgence. Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem were important steps in the history of the women's movement but they are not its founding mothers. The Suffragettes of the 1900's were not. Even Mary Wollonstonecraft in the 1790's was not - though she was the first to give "woman" a separate voice and a separate philosophcal identity.

Women did not leap unannounced from the chains of their kitchen sinks in 1965. They have been present and very much active in economies the world over since the dawn of human society.

And they will remain there.

EDIT: I think Louise C may have misread her feminists if she believes that they claim women were never allowed to work outside the home. They claim (because it's true) that historically and in contemporary society  women have not been properly recompensed for their work - either inside or outside of the home-  and that domestic labour is not recognised as a powerful contributior to the economy. The homemaker readies the units of labour required to keep the industrial/capitalist society functioning and therefore all of society would crumble without it.

Stop trying to set women at each others throats. We have plenty of men attacking us already.

Answer 18

women have contributed a lot in all epochs!

Answer 19

"Academic research since the 1980s rejects the notion of midlife crisis as a phase that most adults go through. In one study, less than 10% of people had psychological crises due to their age or aging. Personality type and a history of psychological crisis are believed to predispose some people to this "traditional" midlife crisis. People going through this suffer a variety of symptoms and exhibit disparate behaviors."

But that's not to say there sometimes isn't a bit of role reversal.  Even that's getting to be rare because both women and men have careers these days.  Men are starting to take an active role in child rearing and things that had been relegated to the "domestic scene" (like cooking, and even house cleaning. Some can actually do the laundry.  We are becoming more androgynous, and it makes us more fulfilled and therefore happier than being forced into a gender-role stereotype straightjacket.

Most women have ALWAYS had interests "beyond the household", including but not limited to career aspirations.  They just didn't always have the opportunity to follow their dreams.