Thousands of years ago, long before the time of stone slates or books, we only have a few preserved human and animal remains to guide us. All we really know is that we used to eat each other and were able to light fires.

As with any lack of evidence, there is only logic to guide us. The cavemen needed food and shelter and possessed a natural instinct to procreate.

One strand of logic points to decent behaviour (decent in the modern sense), where cavemen may even have got engaged before procreating their species.

Another strand of logic, which I prefer to the idea of engagement parties in the caves, points to cannibalism and clubbing enemies and women into submission. I prefer this strand of logic because of examples still prevalent today.

the problem is that man kills for the pleasure whilst all other animals kill for the food.
man will over kill without any thought for what will happen next year, as with buffalo's, dodo, fish, whales
the only time this is different is when some groups of men (usually referred to as being tribal, backward or living off nature) such as eskimo, american indians, live by the same standard as the animals and only kill for their immediate needs.
they know fullwell that killing too many, and too many young ones, will mean a reduction in availability for the next couple of years. they fully understand the need for conservation.

Personally, if you go by some examples, eg Rooney, it's perfectly clear that we haven't advanced much.....

Let's be very clear about this. There is very little that we can assert about our very distant ancestors, their mental process and customs.

We know they prized beautiful things, and had great manual skills. I have see so called 'crude' stone tools that were not just functional, but had been turned into things of beauty. I once saw a flint knife that was so beautifully crafted, it left me breathless.

As for cannibalism. It leaves traces. Where people are eaten, you would expect to find remains with typical butchery marks on the bones. To the best of my knowledge there is only a small amount of questionable evidence that points at all to cannibalism.

Remember, cannibalism is in nature a very high risk strategy, as the outbreak of Kuru in New Guinea showed.

I'm not saying that it never happened, and there IS evidence of ritual cannibalism in some pacific tribes. However, there is no clear, unequivocal evidence to suggest cannibalism was widely practised.

Rape as a weapon of war has always been there, but violent rape as a cultural element? I don't think that's terribly likely.

I seem to have talked myself into standing up for feminism, which is weird. I believe men mistreated women throughout history, now that I've thought about it more, starting off by clubbing them for sex way back.

Without wandering too far into the realms of fantasy (again), what about some recent examples from our own green and native land?

Henry the eighth cut off their heads if they no longer pleased him, and as little as 80 years ago women had to chain themselves to railings to get the vote.

It seems highly likely that our even older ancestors didn't treat them any better. It's little wonder that some women prefer the company of other women instead of the likes of Rooney. Or Giggs. We've got women priests and women marrying each other, and we've only got ourselves to blame.

I'm not quite sure about the logic of your arguement here.

For instance instead of clubbing them over the head as you say used to be the case, we now go clubing downtown and try to pull them in a slightly more civilised sort of way.

I've not recently heard of any Kings lopping off the head of their Mrs, though no doubt there was one Royal not so long ago who may well have been tempted.
The fact that she did eventuallly lose her head was in my view more a case of accident than design.

As for women wanting to marry women, I would suggest that quite a few of them are that way inclined anyway, regardless of the guys behaviour, but there again we may as well carry the can for it, as we do for most things that aint our fault.

In short the points you raise seem to suggest that the females of the species have made substantial progress thru the course of time.

Sometimes too bloody much for my liking.

Well Dick, I'm sure you're just like me, a male chauvinist pig, in my case thinly disguised as a Liberal.

I've got an MCP tie in my wardrobe, presented to me by a bunch of feminists I was working with, and I'm rather proud of it, and hope that they weren't too serious at the time because we got on rather well.

Your historic reference is a poignant one, Princess Di and the Duchess of York would have lost their heads only a couple of centuries ago. Today, if they had been living a couple of thousand miles to the east, both would have been stoned to death.

That's the truth, half of the world adores them, the other half wants to stone them to death.

Not really HBG.
I think its just this forum and a few of the ladies on here that bring out the wicked side of me.
In every day life I like to look on myself as a real gent.
I mean I have occasionally been known to hold a door open for a lady or even share a little bit of my umbrella when it's not raining to heavy.
Can't say any fairer than that now can I ?
Honest guv.

You're bringing tears to my eyes, I'm just as sincere as you are; I walk on the right side, open the doors for them, whisper in their ears, and all I want to do is **** the arse of them.

Luckily most of the ladies I know love it.

Haven't been reading this thread but just dipped in. But this is a glaring error. I'd just point out that women fancying women has got precious little to do with men. (Except in the case of child abuse victims) It's not all about you you know! Ask yourself if men who fancy men hate women. I think you'll find they love them...Just not in a way you'd necessarily understand!

IMHE women feel happier socialising with gay men, they don't see them as a threat of any sort, and the men don't see the women as a threat either.
it appears to lead to a very easy going relationship.

rgds

Seems it's still not all quite done and dusted.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-17534652