Shhhh! don't confuse the poor dears with facts.

Besides, they were held down by the Patriarchy! that's why they weren't inventing things and making history!

First it's more money!

Now it's credit for the things they did?

Will it never end???????????

They are complaining that men have more lines in a story where the main character is female and mute?

They are complaining in anther story that women aren't bonding in the tavern and proceeding to do evil unnecessary violence?

I love the idea that women need to talk more but it doesn't matter what they say. Talk about feeding a stereotype! Also, where does Frozen fit in all of this? Cherry picking your data much? Next they will call sleeping beauty lazy for napping all the time.

Feminists never complain that too few women are dying on oil rigs or volunteering to stay behind when lifeboats lack space.

I get so tired of these "first person of identity group X to do Y" stories. It doesn't impress me any more. I'm a lot more impressed by "first person to do X, period" stories. I get the need for role models, but the extent to which we have Balkanized that is ridiculous. Can I not look up up to Admiral Grace Hopper because I am male, or to George Washington Carver because I am white?

Somebody went to the trouble of counting male vs. female lines? And here I thought "The Defenestration of Ermintrude Inch" was just a story.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Defenestration_of_Ermintrude_Inch

Just like the morons who complained that Hollywood movies are too white . . .

Fine, then raise your own money and make your own movie!

And, when it tanks at the box office be sure to blame white males for not respecting your viewpoint.

And yes, Amy, you are spot on that they never complain about men dying in more dangerous jobs or giving up their "privilege" to save some women's life. But, God help the man who doesn't put women first in a dangerous situation - they'll blame him for not putting women first.

Lastly, Brad is right. Someone went through the trouble of counting male vs. females lines? Good lord, they have way too much time on their hands.

Someone went through the trouble of counting male vs. females lines? Good lord, they have way too much time on their hands.

What else can you do when you're looking for a dissertation topic in Ethnic Wymyn's Studies?

And as a reminder, the titular character gave up her voice voluntarily to the other main female character. Does this mean that Ursula is a self-loathing patriarchal stooge?

That right there should be the basis for a dissertation.

So, the next cartoon will have women characters talking all the time and taking charge - and people will then complain that the women are being portrayed as gabby and bossy.

Apropos of all of this, there has been a longstanding question as to what role Ada Lovelace had as first programmer, or inventor of programming. Was she the the first programmer or is her title as that a bunch of grade inflation?

Stephen Wolfram took a stab at that:
http://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2015/12/untangling-the-tale-of-ada-lovelace/

Assuming his reasearch is accurate, hey feminists, Wolfram changed my mind. Ada Lovelace deserves that title.

And ya know, it would probably make a great movie.

The Final Story

The story of Ada and Babbage has many interesting themes. It is a story of technical prowess meeting abstract “big picture” thinking. It is a story of friendship between old and young. It is a story of people who had the confidence to be original and creative.
It is also a tragedy. A tragedy for Babbage, who lost so many people in his life, and whose personality pushed others away and prevented him from realizing his ambitions. A tragedy for Ada, who was just getting started in something she loved when her health failed.

We will never know what Ada could have become. Another Mary Somerville, famous Victorian expositor of science? A Steve-Jobs-like figure who would lead the vision of the Analytical Engine? Or an Alan Turing, understanding the abstract idea of universal computation?

That Ada touched what would become a defining intellectual idea of our time was good fortune. Babbage did not know what he had; Ada started to see glimpses and successfully described them.

For someone like me the story of Ada and Babbage has particular resonance. Like Babbage, I have spent much of my life pursuing particular goals—though unlike Babbage, I have been able to see a fair fraction of them achieved. And I suspect that, like Ada, I have been put in a position where I can potentially see glimpses of some of the great ideas of the future.

But the challenge is to be enough of an Ada to grasp what’s there—or at least to find an Ada who does. But at least now I think I have an idea of what the original Ada born 200 years ago today was like: a fitting personality on the road to universal computation and the present and future achievements of computational thinking.

It’s been a pleasure getting to know you, Ada.

"Women may have achieved a number of things,"

Women invented beer. They invented bread. God bless them for that; there would have been no civilization without those.

The Little Mermaid came out in 1989. As Ben pointed out, they're cherry-picking data here. If they had used more recent movies- Frozen, Tangled, or Brave- the results would not have given them the results they needed.

Honestly, little mermaid, the story of a transman should be remade to fit today's standards. Instead the role was made by the patriarchy to fit patriarchy's needs. Hence the conventionally beautiful face and upper torso, "Ariel"'s conventionally beautiful name, her very whiteness, and of course her misogynistic fish vagina.

Because in real life women invented the airplane...

Nope. An airplane is an object that is heavier than air, is manned, can take off and land under its own power, and is controllable in all three of its axes (roll, pitch and yaw).

The credit goes to the Wright Brothers. They are the first to invent a flying machine that meets all this criteria. You know, like history books tell you?

...the steam engine...

Wrong again. The first steam turbine (which was a novelty rather than something with practical use) was invented in the first century CE by a dude named Hero.

Credit for the first practical use of a machine that employed steam power goes to Jerónimo de Ayanz, who created a steam-powered machine to remove water from mines, in the early seventeenth century.

Near the end of the seventeenth century, Thomas Savery invented the steam engine.

...the automobile...

Nope. The first automobile, which used steam, was invented by Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot. The next variant was an electric invented by Robert Anderson. The first gasoline-fueled automobile was invented by Karl Friedrich Benz.

...the mechanical harvester...

Nope. Cyrus McCormick.

...the sewing machine...

Wrong again. Josef Madersperger. (Not Elias Howe.)

...the typewriter...

Nope. The first working typewriter was invented by Pellegrino Turri. Although Henry Mill is credited with the first patent for one. The first commercially successful one was invented by Christopher Latham Sholes.

...the radio...

Wrong again. The first radio signal was sent and received by Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi. Who later transmitted an "S" across the English Channel.

...the television...

No. Philo T. Farnsworth invented the first means of transmitting images electronically.

Precursors were a mechanical variety, which didn't do much more than transmit shadows.

...the electric light bulb...

Wrong. While not the first electric light, the first electric light bulb was a platinum filament inside a vacuum tube and was invented by British scientist Warren de la Rue. Platinum being too expensive, the idea was never a commercial success.

...the grammophone...

That's "gramophone," not "grammophone," and it was invented by a guy named Emile Berliner.

...and the computer.

Pinning down the inventor of the computer is not quite so easy, because the definition of "computer" has changed. In the 1940s, it actually meant "a person doing calculations."

The first woman I see associated with computers is Ada Lovelace. However, she is preceded by the "Analytical Engine," invented by Charles Babbage.

There are great women inventors, such as Patricia Bath (four patents to her credit), Mary Anderson (invented windshield wipers), and Marion Donovan (invented disposable diapers). And here's one I bet you didn't know: Hedy Lamarr. Yes, that Hedy Lamarr.

But let's not try to rewrite history. Okay?

"And as a reminder, the titular character gave up her voice voluntarily to the other main female character. Does this mean that Ursula is a self-loathing patriarchal stooge?"

Sound more like 'An exposition on the patriarchal nature of contract law'. Blah blah blah, evils of capitalism, blah, turning women against the sisterhood, blah.

I see you missed the sarcasm Patrick.

These gals just need to get in the kitchen and bake some pies and leave the thinking to the menfolk.

Mmmm. Pie.

Um, the main character in the little mermaid had no voice for half the movie. Kinda hard for her to talk. And in my experience (I am NOT a talker), men talk more than me. I can rarely get a man to shut up. I used to actually time some guys, how long they'd run their mouth before I was required to make any noise at all. 45 mins was pretty average.

I don't CARE what women invented in the past. Or what they invent in the future. So long as there is no law saying women CAN'T do _______, I don't care if women choose to actually do it, or knit and bake cookies.

Patrick, she was saying that ironically.

Jerry, I went through the same thing with Ada Lovelace. I used to think that the legend surrounding her was, well, legend. Several years ago, I was in London and visited the British Museum, where they had a Babbage exhibit at the time, and there was quite a bit of material on Babbage and Lovelace. After seeing that and reading some other material, I also came to the conclusion that yeah, she was the real deal, the first girl geek. What impresses me the most is that she intuitively figured out some principles of programming that would be re-discovered and written out in the early 1950s. She was way ahead of her time, and I wonder how much quicker the art of programming might have moved had she lived long enough to put some of ideas in a book.

Feminists never complain that too few women are dying on oil rigs or volunteering to stay behind when lifeboats lack space.

...or driving trash trucks

I don't CARE what women invented in the past. Or what they invent in the future. So long as there is no law saying women CAN'T do _______, I don't care if women choose to actually do it, or knit and bake cookies.

Posted by: momof4 at February 2, 2016 3:27 PM
__________________________________________

Trouble is, it's too easy for some young people to assume that if women or people of color didn't used to achieve things as often as they do now, it's only because they're getting unfair "advantages" in this century and not because there were, in fact, discriminatory laws, once upon a time. This is why we laud women and minorities who succeeded "before their time" and point them out to students.

From Bratfree, in 2012 (it's partly in response to the Indian-American author of the "misandry bubble" blog):

http://www.refugees.bratfree.com/read.php?2,256384,256457

Yurble wrote:

"On the subject of inventions I do not see how you can look at several hundred years of history where women were not given access to higher education, capital, or the means to promote their inventions and conclude that most things were invented by men. One could equally well say that most inventions were made by white people, ignoring the social factors which limited the opportunities for non-whites for hundreds of years. By his logic, India is leeching off British inventions and has been for two hundred years. :crz Without a level playing field it is impossible to see what category of people is most inventive...and then you still have to answer the question of whether inventions are the only important contributions one can make to society, and if people who share characteristics with the group in question share the glory."

"One could equally well say that most inventions were made by white people, ignoring the social factors which limited the opportunities for non-whites for hundreds of years. "

By and large, white people created the culture that made those inventions possible. People from other cultures get no free passes because the culture that they lived and supported was dysfunctional. It's delusional to think that, for example, 17th-century Arab culture could have invented calculus or the pendulum clock or the telescope, if only white people had been nicer to them. By then their culture had discarded the basic principles of rational thought and scientific inquiry that would have made inventions of that sort possible.

I do give some credit to people who overcame discrimination back when organized discrimination was a thing, as in my cites of Grace Hopper and George Carver above. However, Hopper's and Carver's accomplishments would have stood out in any age, discrimination or no. And now that organized discrimination is not a thing (and anyone who says otherwise is, quite frankly, a liar), "the first person of group X to do Y" stories get no notice from me, especially when that person is the hundredth or thousandth person to do Y. Accomplishing Y may be an achievement notable in itself, but no extra credit for identity groups.