One of the comments reads : Actually, we will probably never figure out, was it man or woman. but I thought this comment of the professor was an interesting eye opener. https://mastodonapp.uk/@MarkHoltom/112070436760917344

  • D61 [any]
    ·
    8 months ago

    A man makes blankets and he "works in textiles" a woman makes blankets and she "has a hobby making quilts".

      • D61 [any]
        ·
        8 months ago

        I can't quite remember the class in college where this was pointed out to me, if it was an actual gender studies class or some something more anthro/history oriented but its stuck in my brain.

        Especially poignant when my partner was called a "housewife with a hobby" by a bank loan officer when trying to get a small loan for farm equipment.

  • happybadger [he/him]
    ·
    8 months ago

    I similarly like that feminist theory of Venus statues. They aren't dummy thicc proto-porn but the perspective of someone who's pregnant looking down at their reflection in a river and cataloguing the most dangerous/important point of their life.

    • AlpineSteakHouse [any]
      ·
      8 months ago

      It makes more sense for the former unfortunately.

      The original theory was that it could have been a pregnant women looking down and that's what lead to the proportions. The idea was they wouldn't have been able to see themselves in a river or something. But rivers and puddles, not to mention OTHER pregnant women, were extremely common so it's less likely.

  • Demonen@lemmy.ml
    ·
    8 months ago

    It occurs to me that the solution might be to start referring to men as "wermen" again, and revert "men" to it's gender neutral roots. That also means we can have a bunch of other prefixes for other genders.

    Languages are fun.

      • huf [he/him]
        ·
        8 months ago

        lol what the fuck, yeah right, ancient germanic word "man" derives from latin... whoever drew this didnt bother to open up the dictionary once...

          • blawsybogsy@lemmy.ml
            ·
            8 months ago

            "Entomology (from Ancient Greek entomon 'insect', and -logia 'study')[1] is the scientific study of insects, a branch of zoology. In the past the term insect was less specific, and historically the definition of entomology would also include the study of animals in other arthropod groups, such as arachnids, myriapods, and crustaceans. This wider meaning may still be encountered in informal use."

            • huf [he/him]
              ·
              8 months ago

              pff nah, entomologists are experts at entoming people. you know, like putting them in a tom underground. dead. like that cara loft lady.

  • FiskFisk33@startrek.website
    ·
    edit-2
    8 months ago

    "man" as in human kind.

    I agree the linguistics here are unfortunate, but here we are, and that word, in that context, is normally gender neutral.

    Also, 28 day calendar probably means it's the moon.

      • ProfessorOwl_PhD [any]
        ·
        8 months ago

        You mean apart from them occuring at set intervals? The length of time between the average women's periods is 28 days, but the moon's 28 day cycle is 100% reliable, and always happens regardless of individual stressors. Having a regular solar event that confirms you're accurately keeping track of days is pretty practical.

    • huf [he/him]
      ·
      8 months ago

      well yes, but 28 day months dont divide nicely into 365/366 days, so it would not have worked well.... uh, hang on. i'm being handed a note. huh. apparently our current calendar also doesnt solve this neatly at all, and is in fact a patched monstrosity more batshit than anything any single malicious person could come up with. well.

      • fox [comrade/them]
        ·
        8 months ago

        Anyone working with dates and times was cursed in a past life. Timezones are a pain to work with. Daylight savings sucks. Some countries change daylight savings at different times. Some countries change timezones sometimes. Go further back and some countries had their own leap days. Different calendars don't form neat cycles and must be manually synchronized every few years. Did you know Easter, for about 300 years, needed to be announced by the Pope each year because it was a lunar holiday based on a Jewish calendar but the Christians followed a different one? Also, every now and again we throw a leap second into the computers because the Earth's rotation is gradually slowing down and 365/366 days isn't quite precise enough anyways.

        • SoyViking [he/him]
          ·
          8 months ago

          I once read that when Sweden decided to switch from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar they didn't do it all at once, disliking the idea of jumping so many days forwards/backwards (I can't remember which way the Julian is out of sync). Instead they opted for a plan to move their calendar one single day every year over several decades. I remember the place I read about it saying that it just confused everyone and the plan was scrapped after a few years.

      • NuraShiny [any]
        ·
        8 months ago

        Let's go with 12 28 day months and the overhead days are universal vacation days during summer. There you go.

        • huf [he/him]
          ·
          8 months ago

          well yes, the clear answer is to have "days outside the calendar". this is how the hobbits do it too :)

        • WaterBear [they/them, comrade/them]
          ·
          8 months ago

          What about summer not being at the same time everywhere? Which hemisphere do you wanna favor? What kind of problems do vacation days in summer create in agriculture?

          • NuraShiny [any]
            ·
            8 months ago

            Essential work will always need doing on holidays. Anyone doing essential work gets their free days at other times before of after these holidays.

            Good point about hemispheres though. Put half of the days in between December and January and half in between June and July. Since it's an odd number of days (unless it's a leap year), alternate which of these gets one more every year.

  • FoolishFool [she/her]
    ·
    8 months ago

    I'm guessing the implication is they were tracking their period?

  • smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.de
    ·
    8 months ago

    Yeah, no way to know what gender someone had so we just pick one based on our twisted worldview where some gender must be better than other because reasons.

    • Tankiedesantski [he/him]
      ·
      8 months ago

      we just pick one based on our twisted worldview where some gender must be better than other because reasons.

      The only one doing this here is you.