Everything that explains the world has in fact explained a world that does not exist, a world in which men are at the center of the human enterprise and women are at the margin "helping' them. Such a world does not exist - never has.
Interpretation
The quote critiques the historical narrative that centers men while relegating women to a marginal role, asserting that this skewed perspective misrepresents reality.
Gerda Lerner's quote challenges the traditional narratives that have historically depicted men as the primary actors in the human story, while portraying women as peripheral figures. She argues that this outlook not only distorts the true fabric of society but also ignores the significant contributions women have made throughout history. By emphasizing that a world where women are merely 'helpers' to men never truly existed, Lerner calls for a re-evaluation of historical accounts to include the full participation and influence of women.
In practice
In a discussion about gender roles in history, this quote can emphasize the need for a broader representation of women's contributions.
Men develop ideas and systems of explanation by absorbing past knowledge and critiquing and superseding it. Women, ignorant of their own history [do] not know what women before them had thought and taught. So generation after generation, they [struggle] for insights others had already had before them, [resulting in] the constant inventing of the wheel.
When I started working on women's history about thirty years ago, the field did not exist. People didn't think that women had a history worth knowing.
If women are supposed to be less rational and more emotional at the beginning of our menstrual cycle when the female hormone is at its lowest level, then why isn't it logical to say that, in those few days, women behave the most like the way men behave all month long?
I have been envious of male characteristics, if not the men themselves. I'm jealous of the ease with which they seem to inhabit their professional pursuits: the lack of apologizing, of bending over backward to make sure the people around them are comfortable with what they're trying to do. The fact that they are so often free of the people-pleasing instincts I have considered to be a curse of my female existence.
The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says, 'It's a girl.'
Women must pay for everything. They do get more glory than men for comparable feats, but, they also get more notoriety when they crash.
Women's lib, Frannie had decided, was nothing more nor less than an outgrowth of the technological society. Women were at the mercy of their bodies. They were smaller. They tended to be weaker. A man couldn't get with child, but a woman could---every four-year-old knows it. And a pregnant woman is a vulnerable human being. Civilization had provided an umbrella of sanity that both sexes could stand beneath.
They say that women talk too much. If you have worked in Congress you know that the filibuster was invented by men.
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