vaspider:

fandomsandfeminism:

shadows-ember:

wuuthradical:

fandomsandfeminism:

wuuthradical:

fandomsandfeminism:

wuuthradical:

fandomsandfeminism:

wuuthradical:

themagicofthenight:

Well considering gender has literally nothing to do with biology I doubt that would happen.

Gender has everything to do with biology. We wouldn’t have a binary without it. They’re inseparable.

Surprise: There is no binary. The binary is an oversimplification that is largely contextualized within Western culture.

We wouldn’t be here right now if there wasn’t a gender binary. Complex lifeforms need one to perpetuate themselves.

Also incorrect. Sex is a spectrum. You’ll find that reality is rarely as simple as pure and uncompromising binaries.

Sex isn’t chromosomes: the story of a century of misconceptions about X & YThe influence of the XX/XY model of chromosomal sex has been profound over the last century, but it’s founded on faulty premises and responsible for encouraging reductive, essentialist thinking. While the scientific world has moved on, its popular appeal remains.

Have you considered that those scientists might be bias and pushing an agenda. Gender is a biological absolute.

Gender is highly contextualized by time and place. Like, if you want to talk about scientists being biased and pushing an agenda, look at modern western science for pushing a flawed binary narrative.

Non-binary genders are not a modern invention. The idea of third genders/non-binary genders is as old as human civilization, because gender is socially constructed and subjective, and people’s ideas about gender have changed over time and between cultures.

In Mesopotamian mythology, among the earliest written records of humanity, there are references to types of people who are not men and not women. In a Sumerian creation myth found on a stone tablet from the second millennium BC, the goddess Ninmah fashions a being “with no male organ and no female organ”, for whom Enki finds a position in society: “to stand before the king”.

In Babylonia, Sumer and Assyria, certain types of individuals who performed religious duties in the service of Inanna/Ishtar have been described as a third gender.

Inscribed pottery shards from the Middle Kingdom of Egypt (2000–1800 BCE), found near ancient Thebes (now Luxor, Egypt), list three human genders: tai (male), sḫt (“sekhet”) and hmt (female).

The Vedas (c. 1500 BC–500 BC) describe individuals as belonging to one of three categories, according to one’s nature or prakrti. These are also spelled out in the Kama Sutra (c. 4th century AD) and elsewhere as pums-prakrti (male-nature), stri-prakrti (female-nature), and tritiya-prakrti (third-nature).

Many have interpreted the “eunuchs” of the Ancient Eastern Mediterranean world as a third gender that inhabited a liminal space between women and men, understood in their societies as somehow neither or both. In the Historia Augusta, the eunuch body is described as a tertium genus hominum (a third human gender),

The ancient Maya civilization may have recognised a third gender, according to historian Matthew Looper. Looper notes the androgynous Maize Deity and masculine Moon goddess of Maya mythology, and iconography and inscriptions where rulers embody or impersonate these deities. He suggests that the third gender could also include two-spirit individuals with special roles such as healers or diviners

Anthropologist Rosemary Joyce agrees, writing that “gender was a fluid potential, not a fixed category, before the Spaniards came to Mesoamerica. Childhood training and ritual shaped, but did not set, adult gender, which could encompass third genders and alternative sexualities as well as “male” and “female.” At the height of the Classic period, Maya rulers presented themselves as embodying the entire range of gender possibilities, from male through female, by wearing blended costumes and playing male and female roles in state ceremonies.“

Andean Studies scholar Michael Horswell writes that third-gendered ritual attendants to chuqui chinchay, a jaguar deity in Incan mythology, were “vital actors in Andean ceremonies” prior to Spanish colonisation.

Two-spirit individuals are viewed in some Native American cultures as having two identities occupying one body. Their dress is usually a mixture of traditionally male and traditionally female articles, or they may dress as a man one day, and a woman on another.

In Pakistan, the hijras are officially recognized as third gender by the government,

[Source] [Source] [Source]

[Read More] [Read more] [Read more]

Well that’s stupid. All this proves is that special snowflakes are older then we thought.

Wait, did someone argue myth when discussing science? Really? There isn’t a third gender, there are genetic mutations and abnormalities. There are genetic flukes that are usually sterile because they are mess ups and their genetics were never meant to continue.

What my examples show if that GENDER has been conceptualized as something separate from biological sex for THOUSANDS of years. The idea that gender is a self identification that does not always align with expectations based on sex is not new and it is not isolated. THAT is what my examples are demonstrating.

And not all people with atypical chromosomal and genital genotypes and phenotypes are sterile. And their existence should point us toward the fact that sex is a complicated interaction between SEVERAL FACTORS, with some combinations more common than others- not a neat set binary.

Watching people try to claim that gender = sex, and further that sex = binary, and then flailing their arms like Muppets when they’re given, you know, tons of sources going back thousands of years, is always awkward.

You’d think at some point they might examine the idea that the people shouting “there’s only ever been a binary” might have an agenda, but … no such luck.

http://getbullish.tumblr.com/image/141804674374

>.>

And here, esteemed audience, can we see the goalpost mover in their natural habitat. As you can see they are utterly immune to citations and scientific proof, a fascinating ability found mainly in niche dwellers like the male rights bawler and the common racist. Careful now, we’ll try to get a closer look –

jimtheviking:

pinstripebones:

lesbiananglerfish:

thinkphrontistery:

zzazu:

hot-tea-nanako:

theonewhosawitall:

ohmygil:

ultrafacts:

aussietory:

kvotheunkvothe:

ultrafacts:

Source For more facts follow Ultrafacts

EVERY TIME SOMEONE BRINGS UP THE LIBRARY OF ALEXANDRIA I GET SO ANGRY.

The library was destroyed over 1000’s of years ago. The library consisted of thousands of scrolls and books about mathematics, engineering, physiology, geography, blueprints, medicine, plays, & important scriptures. Thinkers from all over the Mediterranean used to come to Alexandria to study.Most of the major work of civilization up until that point was lost. If the library still survived till this day, society may have been more advanced and we would sure know more about the ancient world.

That graphic grinds my gears every time I see it

romans.

Julius Caesar to be precise

Remember this when you’re conquering. Keep the books.

THIS HURTS MY HEART SO MUCH EVERY TIME ITS BROUGHT UP

Julius Caesar needs to be stabbed for this

I know we should totally stab Caesar

Does March 15th sound good for everyone??

Oh.

Oh god no.

Oh GOD no.

Okay, so first off, Holy Eurocentricism, Batman. Alexandria wasn’t that huge a loss, all things considered, since there were contemporary libraries of comparable size all over the world, including, but not limited to, the Library of Timgad in Algeria, the Imperial Library of Constantinople, the Library of Nalanda (which is is also considered the first University) in India,
The Academy of Gundishapur in Iran, and the Theological Library of Cæsaria Marina in Israel. All of which contained at a minimum of 3000 volumes.

Next!

Thinkers from all over the Mediterranean used to come to Alexandria to
study.Most of the major work of civilization up until that point was
lost. If the library still survived till this day, society may have been
more advanced and we would sure know more about the ancient world.

So gratuitously incorrect! I mean, did you even read the (incredibly simplified but essentially accurate) blurb from Ultrafacts? Very few of the manuscripts or scrolls in Alexandria were originals, and even those that were were in no way at all the only copies. And because of the miracle of scribal errors (oh GOD do I hate scribal errors) there’s no way that the copies would have been 100% true to the original anyway. That’s the thing with manual transmission of works: Transcription errors, ‘helpful’ emendations, spelling mistakes, and all sorts of other shit gets thrown in every time a manuscript is copied, despite best efforts. Also, how in the hell would society have been more advanced? It’s not like 3rd Century Greeks were using nuclear fission or 4th century Egyptians had the Internet. Hell, most of what we used for physics and calculus and optics and chemistry and all the rest is based on Islamic sources, which wouldn’t be written for two hundred years after the last sacking of Alexandria. Seriously. Look up
Al-jabr wa’l muqabalah

and marvel at the fact that most of our algebra (including the goddamn name) came from that single school.

And then the Chart.

The goddamn Chart.

Because a) way to paint all Christians between 500CE and 1500CE as anti-science and backwards, b) way to ignore the tradition of Monastic education, and c) way to ignore 1000 years of education and science OUTSIDE OF WESTERN EUROPE. I mean, Christ, even if it wasn’t so goddamn racist, The Chart ignores the fact that the fucking University of Paris was founded in 1150, and most education was handled by the Church, as they were the guys who had the infrastructure to do so, except for that whole Carolingian Renaissance when Charlemagne decided that “hey, universal literacy and a uniform script would be awesome” and then introduced them. In the 8th fucking Century. Or the Ottonian Renaissance in Central Europe during the 11th century. Or the 12th Century Renaissance when Islamic scholarship hit Western Europe. I mean, it’s not like Western Europeans (because that’s all the Chart seems to concern itself with) were living naked and without fire in the ruins of Glorious Rome until 1st January 1500 when they invented SCIENCE and were able to build houses and start fires and create clothing again. It’s not like scholars like Alcuin of York or the Venerable Bede or Saxo Grammaticus or the First Grammarian weren’t, you know, Christians.

TL;DR: Decent if Simplified Ultrafact post is Decent if Simplified. Bad and racist commentary is bad and racist.

I don’t even care about the Library of Alexandria but jesus Jim that gif is so amazing I love this post xD

potatoimperatrix:

sapper-in-the-wire:

build-wall:

sapper-in-the-wire:

thefuturemayyetbewon:

teenagers in Ancient Rome: You are all hateful bigots, this is ***476*** and the barbarians just want to have the benefits of our empire!

This is an insult to Rome. They were far more accepting of foreigners and foreign customs than us today. They would add foreign Gods to their pantheon, and adopted nearly every culture and custom they came across.

Most of the foreigners they were surrounded by in a religious sense were also pluralistic and accepting of synthesis. The Romans completely rejected, mass-murdered and destroyed the temple of the one group that were not like this because they constantly tried to rebel, subvert and mass-murder Romans, partially due to their unbending religious beliefs. Ooh sounds familiar!

Outside of religion the Romans certainly DID NOT ‘adopt nearly every culture or custom’… tell that to the Celts, Iberian peoples, Carthaginians, Numidians and others whose cultures they destroyed and amalgamated into a Romanised mould.

What the fuck are you on about? In no way, shape or form was Rome insular. Yes, the Empire whose sword was Iberian, whose arches were Etruscan, whose armies were modeled after the Greeks, then Celts, then Parthians, the Empire that gave citizenship to everyone, regardless of origin, yeah, they were really insular and racist.

“Mass murder” they wiped out fortresses and armies that resisted, but otherwise the Romans were tolerant of the Jews and would often patronize them and their ceremonies, especially when it would piss of the Greeks. Yup, even the Christians were so persecuted that you could find Christians in the imperial court of Diocletian.

They didn’t destroy cultures you fuckwit. Coloniae and municipia mostly kept to themselves in a sea of “barbarism”. The locals were not forced to adopt Roman language or customs. (Tacitus, Agricola, also see

L.A. Curchin, Roman Spain: Conquest and
Assimilation.) In time they would voluntarily adopt things that they liked, but there was no official practice of forcing anything upon conquered peoples, besides taxes.

The post wasn’t alluding to war practices, it was trying to make a half baked implication on Roman immigration policy. Rome in no way was anti-immigration. If they were, they would have been stamped out by more numerous enemies like the Etruscans or Samnites. Rome was always marked by a willingness to incorporate people and nations into their empire. Hell, they were willing to provoke a war with Carthage in order to adopt Saguntum into their empire, weren’t they?

You’re half right, the Romans didn’t adopt everything they came across – they didn’t have any of the racial superiority of the Greeks. In Athens, you couldn’t be a citizen unless you were of “Athenian blood,” you could work and live in Athens, but you couldn’t own property, vote, or marry an Athenian woman. The Athenians were so worried about foreign blood they locked their women up on the second floor of their houses to prevent interbreeding. Meanwhile the Roman Edict of Caracalla declared that all free men in the Empire were full Roman citizens, regardless of origin. By the 2nd Century CE, around 50-60% of Senators were non-Italian. (M. Hammond, “Composition of the Senate, A.D. 68-235”)

In fact, the only culture or ethnic group the Romans were openly hostile to were the Greeks. Graeculus was a pejorative that the Romans used to describe anything corrupt and excessive. The Romans considered their own origin as that of rusticitas, i.e. they thought of themselves as barbarian. (N.K. Petrochilos, Roman Attitudes to the Greeks.)

Romanization was a two-way street, the Romans had no working practices that enforced anything near resembling Roman ethnic or cultural superiority.

I’m really at a loss as to how you can be so fucking daft. Multiculturalism was the the defining aspect of Roman conquest, and the primary reason they’re the longest lasting empire in Europe. It only took 150 administrators to look after 60 million citizens in the 2nd Century (K. Hopkins, “Taxes and Trade in the Roman Empire”). Subjects of the Empire were happy to be part of the Empire because they got citizenship without being forced to give up who they were.

So honestly, go fuck yourself. The Romans will not be used as an excuse for modern racism and insularism.

Hey I haven’t read all of this but in case you are interested there is a paper issued by Waseda University of Japan, “Multiculturalism and the Roman Empire,” penned by Kim Kyung-hyun. It does not only talk about multiculturalism itself but also draws a parallel with diversity in America.

Classic ancient Maya “collapse” not caused by overpopulation and deforestation, say researchers

archaeologicalnews:

For years, archaeologist Anabel Ford has been arguing the case that the ancient Maya knew well how to manage their tropical forest environment to their advantage, eventually sustaining large populations even beyond the time when many archaeologists suggest the Maya declined and abandoned their iconic Classic period pyramidal and temple constructions and monumental inscriptions during the 8th and 9th centuries CE. She challenges the popular theories long held by many scholars that the Maya declined because of overpopulation and deforestation from increased agricultural production, perhaps aggravated by drought and climate change.

“In the past there was no extensive deforestation,” states Ford.

At the base of her reasoning stands years of research related to the ancient practice of the Maya in cultivating ‘forest gardens’, a method of sustainable agroforestry that employs an agricultural methodology called the Milpa Cycle—Read more.

This is particularly interesting having just recently read about failed societies.