Scientific American Rewrites History, Claims Women Have Always Been Hunters

An article in Scientific American attempts to challenge the traditional belief that women primarily stayed at home to nurture children and cook, claiming they were also engaged in hunting during prehistoric times, similar to men.

“The notion that men evolved to hunt and women to tend to children and domestic duties is one of anthropology’s most influential ideas,” reads an X caption for the Scientific American’s November cover story, “Woman the Hunter.”

“But the available data do not support it,” the caption continues. “Evidence from studies of physiology, archaeology and fossils point to women having a long history of hunting animals for food.”

In their story, the article’s female authors cherry pick various data points they claim show women are not only capable hunters, but better than men in some aspects, and claim gender disparities in fields like physiology and paleoanthropology, traditionally male-dominated, play a role in the underrepresentation of research on female athletic abilities.

An infographic accompanying the article also claimed a woman’s wider pelvis “may be more efficient for carrying hip-placed” loads.

Wider pelvis helped women carry hip placed loads with the fanny packs not yet invented. pic.twitter.com/VFNY3BDyW9

— brian t muldoon (@brian_t_muldoon) October 18, 2023

The article’s ludicrous premise was immediately challenged on the X social media platform, where users accused Scientific American of attempting to sow confusion by turning traditional gender roles on their head.

“Hey look, we found some exceptions that prove the rule. Let’s use them to instead topple the rule in alignment with our ideological priors!”

— Matthew Pirkowski (@MattPirkowski) October 17, 2023

The first lesson every scientist seemingly needs to learn nowadays is that the world is not shaped according to your wishes, and you should try to find objective fact, not see the world through a lens that fits your own imagination. The article makes the following assumption and…

— Thomas Czypionka (@CzypionkaThomas) October 17, 2023

I have a simple hypothesis.

Infants need milk and there was no refrigeration.

Food supply had to be close by at all times because very young babies eat very often.

Where would the infant be other than with the only person who could feed it? pic.twitter.com/im7ddpCvVn

— Aurelian of Rome 🕌 (@AurelianofRome) October 18, 2023