Feminism Is For Everyone

Feb 13, 2009,11:57 AM

History doesn't explain it all

In the traditional view of prehistory, "Man the Hunter" is responsible for developing communication and social organization through hunting (since hunting, especially of large animals, most likely could not have been achieved by the individual). However, it is probably women who can credited with developing social organization, language, and spurring more complex brain development:

"The need to organize for feeding after weaning, learning to handle the more complex socio-emotional bonds that were developing, the new skills and cultural inventions surrounding more extensive gathering- all would demand larger brains." (Sally Slocum, from Who Cooked the Last Supper? The Women's History of the World by Rosalind Miles)

Hominid babies were significantly heavier than than ape infants and less body hair would have made it more difficult for babies to cling to their mother. Of course, women did not have adequate childcare back then (ironically, that's still a problem millions of years later) and would have had to take their infants with them, at least until they were weaned, when they went about gathering food and later cultivating the land (another huge contribution to society that we can most likely thank prehistoric women for). Most likely, women developed some type of sling to hold the baby against her chest, which she would have positioned so that the child was carried on her left side so that it could be comforted by the sound of her beating heart. Therefore, the right hand would have been freed to do work- which is probably the reason why most of us and right-handed today.

In addition, infant girls today develop handedness and speech much more quickly than boys. This is probably a result of prehistoric women having to communicate and organize themselves to gather food for the tribe, regardless of if they had an infant of their own to care for (In fact, it is estimated that it was gathering food by women, not hunting done by men, provided the majority (up to 80%) of the food for prehistoric tribes.)

So, It really should be no surprise that girls, and often not boys, play with dolls during childhood. Of course, society most certainly has an impact on defining gender roles of girls and boys (before the child is even born we paint the baby room either pink or blue). In fact, a recent has demonstrated that vervet monkeys showed the same sex-typical preferences of toys- females preferred a doll or cooking pot and males preferred a ball or police car. (Psychology Today)

There has been so much talk about history, from the early hominids to modern day- I think it's about time we go back and look at herstory.