The first recorded writer probably was a male, indeed. That's because most ancient societies were blatantly misogynistic. It's unlikely women were afforded the opportunity to be educated or trained in the scholastic, monastic, or financial professions which were most likely to leave some form of written record. So, yeah, the odds, based on historical predicates, are that the first recorded human's name was a male nam…
> That's because most ancient societies were blatantly misogynistic. I have serious ethical concerns with such a claim. It gives a simplistic view of history, to the point of severe distortion. It implies that all women terribly oppressed, while all men had lives of unrelenting leisure. That's simply not true. What is true is that the Mesopotamian civilizations were violent, hierarchical, racist, genocidal, poor, etc…
> [From further down in this chain:] I'm arguing against the ideas proposed by certain groups of people. People who (in my experience) typically argue that "that culture is misogynistic" means "all men have it better than all women".
Ah. Okay. Thank you for explaining and admitting this.
I do NOT subscribe to the line of thinking you are apparently disputing at all. Saying that "culture is misogynistic" means "all men have it better than all women" is absolutely idiotic, in my view. Reference the statements I made regarding patriarchal societies that also had male slavery. Many, many (probably most?) ancient civilizations included class-based socioeconomic systems. In many, the women in higher classes were much better off than the men in lower classes, on average
I'm not making any of the arguments or statements which you are arguing against. Thank you for clarifying that what you were actually reacting to and arguing against was something other than my statements, as I found your leaps in logic very surprising based on what I actually said/claimed/argued.
> I've run into many of these people online and in daily life.
I understand. Unfortunately, extremism and poor logic are all too common in discussions of important matters today. It's disappointing and frustrating.
I hope you can reflect here, though, and realize you are adding to this problem, in this example. You made an assumption about my worldview which wasn't based on any particular statement I made, and which absolutely does not represent my thoughts whatsoever. You then argued, and were even incendiary, based on that flawed presumption. This is the sort of thing that spins debates online and offline into bad places, which partially happened here as well.
> If you don't believe this, I'm sorry for insinuating you do.
Thank you, truly, very much for saying this. I feel a lot better now knowing what was actually happening here, as it made no sense to me previously. I think it's big of you to step back and reflect here.
> I was reacting to the normal use of that terminology, which, in my experience, does have the meaning I said.
I can see what you're saying, but again note that this doesn't apply to any argument I made. Thank you for clearing this up.