I suppose someone needs to swim against the flow, here, yet I do agree there may be an agenda. If so it is a necessary one. For most of so-called 'history' it has been one sort of male violence or another which has dominated song, poetry, folklore, and 'heroic' actions. This has been the 'agenda' all these centuries, to elevate men (not just white, but in today's version, mostly white) to an undeserved, privileged and 'entitled' position. We are completely immersed in it from birth and more often than not, unaware of it. We need to learn that African sailors visited the Americas long before Columbus or even the Vikings. We need to know that women do (and did) much, if not most of the hard labor and farming, thus bread winning in the world. We need to acknowledge and revere the tireless nature of nurture and the opportunities it makes for creative work, like child rearing, home making and yes, even commercial goods. We men, who lament the lack of hero worship, mostly make claim to destruction of this work in war and predatory commerce, slavery and accumulation of 'things' as our glory. We insist that monuments to dead warriors is our identity, not homage to our mothers (it is Mother's Day, after all, a celebration of Peace, originally), fathers, neighborhoods and living, prospering friends. We need to know that women not only create philosophies, they live them. They (most often) try to make a world safe for children, we (seemingly) try to recruit younger and younger child soldiers. Men make and sell weapons to destroy the present, women make and sell hope for the future. So enough. Sure there are agendas. The A-bomb frightened an entire generation. Sadly, we seem no longer afraid of the atom, even after Japan's second great 'mishap' with it. We needed to (and still do) examine our goals, our past, and see if another way might be found. I salute those who tried and still do. "War is a racket ..." said USMC General Smedley Butler, "for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many." It was true before WWII and still is. Happy Peace (Mother's) Day!

jRup wrote:I suppose someone needs to swim against the flow, here, yet I do agree there may be an agenda. If so it is a necessary one. For most of so-called 'history' it has been one sort of male violence or another which has dominated song, poetry, folklore, and 'heroic' actions. This has been the 'agenda' all these centuries, to elevate men (not just white, but in today's version, mostly white) to an undeserved, privileged and 'entitled' position. We are completely immersed in it from birth and more often than not, unaware of it. We need to learn that African sailors visited the Americas long before Columbus or even the Vikings. We need to know that women do (and did) much, if not most of the hard labor and farming, thus bread winning in the world. We need to acknowledge and revere the tireless nature of nurture and the opportunities it makes for creative work, like child rearing, home making and yes, even commercial goods. We men, who lament the lack of hero worship, mostly make claim to destruction of this work in war and predatory commerce, slavery and accumulation of 'things' as our glory. We insist that monuments to dead warriors is our identity, not homage to our mothers (it is Mother's Day, after all, a celebration of Peace, originally), fathers, neighborhoods and living, prospering friends. We need to know that women not only create philosophies, they live them. They (most often) try to make a world safe for children, we (seemingly) try to recruit younger and younger child soldiers. Men make and sell weapons to destroy the present, women make and sell hope for the future. So enough. Sure there are agendas. The A-bomb frightened an entire generation. Sadly, we seem no longer afraid of the atom, even after Japan's second great 'mishap' with it. We needed to (and still do) examine our goals, our past, and see if another way might be found. I salute those who tried and still do. "War is a racket ..." said USMC General Smedley Butler, "for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many." It was true before WWII and still is. Happy Peace (Mother's) Day!

Point well taken. But studying the bloody history of white men is not to condone their actions. I agree about the misguided hero worship, and I completely agree with General Butler. Warmongers still the rule the day, they just change the rhetoric.

History will always have a bias and a narrative, but I say learn the facts before all the post-modern theorizing.

There are some truths and some misconceptions in what you're saying. It's your opinion, though, and I respect that. I'm glad you've decided to participate in the conversation.

Let's take a look at your "so-called 'history'". It definitely advocates might as a virtue and power over another as a legitimate right to have/take something from another but it is not exclusive to males.

The West's first Historian, Herodotus, tells of a female Naval commander who fought in the battle of Salamis for Xerxes. Her courage and strategy were highly praised even though she fought for the enemy. She gave council to the great king and despite her advice being ignored, bravely fought for him. Her name was Artemisia of Caria. Before that there's Homer and the Epic of Gilgamesh in which there are powerful women in all three books. In Virgil we have Dido. We have Cleopatra in Egypt. Before Cleopatra there is Hatshepsut. In Rome we have Hypatia. In Athens there is Aspasia. Plato wrote of a female philosopher in his Dialogues. Joan of Arc. The women on the posters during WWII. Women have not been absent in history - they have always been right there and sometimes they have the greatest roles.

This has been the 'agenda' all these centuries, to elevate men (not just white, but in today's version, mostly white) to an undeserved, privileged and 'entitled' position.

What a statement. If you look at history I'm sure you'll see the opposite trend is true my friend. Besides, you're ignoring matrilineal and matrilocal societies in which females play a stronger role in the decision making of the group. Many of these societies are/were very aggressive and warlike. (certain native American tribes)

We need to learn that African sailors visited the Americas long before Columbus or even the Vikings.

What the hell? Where did you get this from? First, if this is true it would have most likely been by the Semitic people of Carthage. They were IN Africa but they were not black - they were Phoenecian. Egypt was also Semitic but had black people - I highly doubt their reed-built boats could make the journey. (Thor Heyerdahl is a great adventurer and writer but he's full of sh*t.)

We need to know that women do (and did) much, if not most of the hard labor and farming, thus bread winning in the world.

This belongs in an anthropology discussion, not a history discussion, and it needs to be included in the section which talks about gender responsibilities to the family unit. It's all dependent on the civilization under scrutiny. As women are removed from bread-winning their political power within society does decline. As men are removed from being able to fight for their country, their citizenship comes under question. Men have been oppressed as women have. It's difficult to find a place on earth that has not witnessed slavery.




Listen, the reason men were revered is because without them it meant death and slavery. If you read Thucydides you'll read of tireless warfare. If you read Roman history you'll read the same. Men will not cease to want and will not cease to take. Without protection you can not survive. The age of man is probably gone - the age of brute force is a thing of the past. Because society does not NEED men anymore, you'll find that we will become more and more marginalized. The world doesn't need physical strength - hell, it's nothing but threatened by it and lashes out against it. But we cheer when females knock out men in movies - we find nothing 'wrong' with that. Ages ago it would have stirred men because they based their worth on their ability in battle - the ability to protect their family, property, and polis.

Don't forget about Men. We've done great things. Strength, human physical strength, is still an admirable quality. No one should ever honor a man for his genitalia alone unless he's Ron Jeremy. Manhood, though, what it means to be a man - should still be celebrated and not forgotten about.

Women make nearly equal wages with men and I know a lot of families that the wife/girlfriend makes more money. Women are on equal footing today. Women are as ambitious as men are. Don't think they're sugar, spice, and everything nice. To think females won't wage war is.... ridiculous.

Having said that - it becomes easier to see why history is filled more with great warriors (usually men) than anyone else.

You seem to be proving my point by citing 'powerful' women in the distant past, warriors and supernatural creatures ... placed on high in order to ignore them on Earth. It might be said that the same is true for men, for I'm told that the very meaning of 'hero' is "consumed by fire" ... Surely women can be ambitious, even vile and murderous, but the question seems to be 'why do we admire and promote the predatory instead of the vast majority of history which is one of peaceful cooperation, especially before over population made large government projects such as enemies and armies a desirable feature" ... I "the hell" got Black Africa's voyages and settlements in the New World from the evidence of giant negroid heads as early as pre historic Olmec culture in Mexico (ca 4-600BCE), long established African settlements, animals and art from northern Brazil to Central America, and the historic voyages out of Congo kingdoms (a quite simple trip on trade winds and currents) by whole convoys which expected to remain in the 'new world' as colonists ... Ivan Van Sertima's book "They Came Before Columbus" covers this and many other things Euro-centrist educators do not want studied .... Thor Heyerdah cites evidence of Inca admirals taking trade fleets across the Pacific and back on balsa rafts which were so sophisticated they could sail 'against the wind' and early European sailors logged their astonishment of the vessels when they first encountered them back in the 16th century. Sure, we should not discount Phoenician voyages, or even the European Alban people (as Farley Mowat calls them in "The Farfarers") who were chased across Europe by warlike tribes, first Celts, then Vikings to the Faroes, then Iceland, Greenland and finally to the St. Lawrence River region, where they allied themselves with Native tribes in order to wipe out the Vikings, who called them Scraelings ... this 500 years before Columbus and Vespusi (both of whom had 'secret' knowledge of a land in the west, learned from Black traders) ... but once again, these voyages were as much in search of treasure (at sword/gunpoint) as they were for honest trade (the China route) ... Blacks sailed eastward, too, out of many ports for trade with India and China, thousands of years before what we call 'history' ... this the kind of study being outlawed in Arizona right now (because it causes 'resentment' among minorities?) perhaps because it gives the underclass a sense of themselves as something besides lawn care specialists and field workers. Our libraries are filled with books about the white man's achievements. It is no secret and never has been. But the contributions of other races and cultures and sexes have been repressed and deserve to be acknowledged, put in perspective and balance. The current 'war against women' echoes some of the concern expressed above and I sometimes get the feeling that male patriarchs think letting go of its warrior image instead of 'evolving' as better human beings is somehow a sign of weakness ... and that they must exert/re-assert their power over women, minorities, animals, the environment, the future, the past .... etc., ... yet this is a sign of fear and weakness, an indication that only violence remains as a solution to every ill. Somebody said, 'war is the utter failure of everything sane' ... or some such. I share that sentiment.

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