Something being a social construct has nothing to do with its importance. There are many social constructs that are extremely important, and many that are less so.
Something being a social construct has nothing to do with its importance. There are many social constructs that are extremely important, and many that are less so.
I mean technically all of human behavior is an automatic response of the nervous system. That doesn’t mean it’s not influenced by culture or personal experiences. What constitutes a threat is highly modified by your past experiences, and people can learn to behave differently in stressful environments. We don’t just completely turn off the brain when frightened, that’s nonsense.
I’m not sure this is generally true but if there was a difference it’d likely be due to social conditioning.
I just don’t think the evidence that supports this idea is very strong at all. Like maybe men on average did more hunting than women, but I haven’t seen any evidence to support this framing that women only hunted in times of need.
Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to know much for certain about the culture of prehistoric humans. But there is strong circumstantial evidence, like women buried with hunting implements, etc. which suggests that female hunters were prominent in at least some cultures.
I wouldn’t consider 9% to be that large in this context. Certainly a difference that would be overshadowed by individual variation.
Even if we assume women are physiologically 9% slower at persistence hunting (which that statistic is far from proving) it still suggests they could and likely were successful at it, albeit maybe not the very best.
I can’t believe so many people upvoted this comment. Do they just assume because there are lots of words and you referenced the original paper that this is a good critique? But I guess a lot of people just turn off their brain when they feel cognitive dissonance.
Do you know what a survey is? It’s not meant to be comprehensive, it’s supposed to be representative. Furthermore, it is based on existing ethnographic data, so it’s obviously not going to include data on tribes that are currently uncontacted, because there is little or none. The reasons why are obvious but since you don’t seem to understand, we can spell it out.
Conducting anthropological research on these tribes typically involves going to the tribe and living with, observing, and interviewing them for an extended period to fully understand their culture and way of life. This is not advisable with uncontacted tribes because it is dangerous for researchers and dangerous for the tribe which may lack exposure to endemic diseases in the rest of the world. It’s simply not done and I guarantee no ethics board would approve such research today.
Furthermore, it’s hilarious to suggest that the authors deliberately omitted cultures we know little about to reinforce their own agenda. How would they even know which tribes the exclude? And, as others have pointed out, even if all of these uncontacted tribes had only male hunting (a fact which would be highly surprising), it would barely change the conclusion here that in most forager societies, women engage in hunting.
Overall, this seems a very bad-faith critique. It’s good to delve into the science and examine whether a given paper was conducted in a sound way, but you need to approach it with an open mind, not just seek to undermine it with the simplest and most superficial criticism you can conceive of that supports your pre-existing position.
I agree that they overstated their point there. But regardless, I think it’s fair to say that any differences between men and women in these sports are fairly small, so I don’t think it changes the overall conclusion.
Certainly a question for the ages. If only there was some way to learn more about this topic… perhaps some kind of article. Maybe one that even addresses this very point. But alas…
Abigail Anderson and Cara Wall-Scheffler, both then at Seattle Pacific University, and their colleagues reported that 79 percent of the 63 foraging societies with clear descriptions of their hunting strategies feature women hunters.
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This might be better for wealthy people but it’s hard to see how this would benefit the very poorest who are in most need of health care. What does this solution do for them?
Well, the theory is that persistence hunting was one of the main hunting strategies during a large portion of human evolution before ranged weapons were invented. So it may well have relevance for distribution of labor between men and women during most of human prehistory, and therefore our evolutionary psychology.
I’m opposed to capitalist exploitation but don’t you think that’s a bit tangential here? Like we don’t see this sort of hand-wringing about buying a video game console.
Personally I try not to participate in capitalist consumption more than necessary, so I wouldn’t buy a skull for that reason. But that’s not why this upsets people. Otherwise they wouldn’t be constantly buying new clothes, gadgets, etc. to amuse them. Those industries are if anything more likely to exploit and harm people, so focus your scrutiny there if you are so concerned with the global workers.
This reminds me of the fake concern for sex workers that is used to shun and exile them from polite society. Yes, sex-workers are exploited, but when you’re using that exploitation as a shield for your real agenda, that needs to be examined critically.
We are beasts. The separation between humans and animals is pure mythology. This idea is part of that myth.
Does it matter? I understand this could be emotionally sensitive for some people but the only reason I could see this being relevant is if my purchase somehow induced more slavery or genocide. That seems very unlikely—in fact I can think of a number of common purchases people make all the time without a second thought that are far more likely to encourage such crimes.
This is where I disagree with the rest of society. Dead people are dead and don’t have rights, so I don’t see how most skulls would be unethical.
So the real question is will it upset the living and how much do you want to accommodate those people’s feelings? I’m not sure there’s a clear and unambiguous answer to this question.
In the current moment I would agree. I’m not sure that would be true in comparison to a hypothetical sole superpower China. But who can say for sure.
What do you mean by keeping write-offs from occurring?
I can’t draw anything, unfortunately. I feel like I can picture him pretty well though.