When you are denied basic literacy, it is difficult for you to pass your knowledge. That happened for centuries. Not just that, but wise women were considered witches and literally tortured and killed.
They were married while still being children and forced into pregnancies that many times killed them. And if they survived the pregnancy and birth, they were expected to take care of the children, work in the fields/factories, and do domestic chores. So not much time to discover or invent things. Meanwhile, men have more time thanks to some women doing those chores for them.
Yet, some women did discover and invent things just for some men to take credit for their achievements. I mean, if Marie Curie's husband haven't died before their investigation was finished, do you think we would know about her? Unlikely.
https://www.scoopwhoop.com/women/inventions-discoveries-by-women-that-men-took-credit-for/
I guess the point is that sure, men have done good things, but it seems that there is this expectation that those good things make up for the ones that weren't so good or where women got the "short end". Well, no. No invention justify denying basic human rights to half the humanity.
You might think that feminist are being unfair by pointing out how women's contribution have been co-opted or denied, that that is putting the focus in women. But aren't you putting the focus back on men? Again.
The focus have been on men for centuries. Now it is shared and it might feel to men as if now they don't have any. But if you turn on the TV and count the time granted to men and the time granted to women, you'll notice that men still get most of the time. If you take rates with population, you'll see that men are still over represented.
So if feminist devoted half her time to men, since men won't devote any time to women, the ratios would skew even more to over represent men.
When you get used to have certain things, not having them feels unfair. But the initial distribution wasn't fair to begin with. So if you move to a fairer distribution of credit and resources, that would mean some men to feel unhappy. I mean, if you used to control both your wife and your income and treat it as exclusively yours, when you would be only granted yours, you would feel that you have been denied something that was "yours". And it used to be like this, since women weren't allowed to have their own bank account. There are plenty of examples like this.
So I ask you, what is your aim when asking for feminist to acknowledge the "good" (that is, the inventions). That we don't complain about women weren't denied rights? That it was a "fair" sacrifice that women must made in order to have current inventions?
Because if it's that, I want to point out that we would never know which inventions have been lost due to have a women denied developing their full potential. We would never know the opportunity cost of burning "witches" in health and medicine. And since scientist and inventors use previous knowledge by other people, we would never know wich inventions could have been made by men if they would have counted with inventions and discoveries by women.
In fact, it is said that last century are the one with more advances. Coincidently is also the one where women started to get rights. And while technical advances helped women, I would also say that women being allowed to study also helped to have more advances since without the women, men would have took double time doing them. And the list I linked can be used as an example. Or do you think that without programs and ENIAC or radio frequency we would have so many discoveries today?
And if men's inventions and discoveries are a positive thing, how it is that women's inventions and discoveries aren't considered a positive thing?
