So much of the nonsense about the gender binary is projection, and imposition of cultural biases on top of biology. Case in point: this very silly post that claims that putting feathers on dinosaurs is a woke attempt to make them more feminine.
Male and female birds and dinosaurs had feathers, it wasn’t like a drag queen draping themselves in a feather boa. Also, the change in size is, I think, an echo of the Jurassic Park velociraptors, which were portrayed as much larger than the fossils showed — it was a case of Spielberg making them bigger to be more threatening, most definitely not scientists shrinking them down to make them more feminine.
Whoever was trying to make this case has not raised chickens, which given the right temperament can be utterly terrifying in their ferocity, despite being small and feathered.
So even female T Rex’s were “powerful masculine killers”? That’s such a non-sensical claim it would be laughable except there are forces at work in this country that would push the agenda to “bring back real dinos”.
I can attest to the ferocity of chickens. One summer when I was a kid I was staying at my grandparent’s farm in Georgia along with some cousins. We’re not sure what happened, but one of my cousins probably tried to grab a chick and the hen went after my cousin. The hen chased my cousin all the way around the house, claws flaring, jumping up at her head. I doubt my cousin ever messed with a chick again.
They also conveniently forget that most male birds have very bright and showy feathers. Just imagine all those transgender peacocks.
The national symbol of the USA, the Bald Eagles, also have feathers.
They aren’t even bald on their heads.
They have white feathers there.
This guy is an idiot.
Having feathers doesn’t make you feminine.
It makes you a bird. Or a dinosaur. Birds are the descendants of dinosaurs.
This dipshidiot: Feathers on dinosaurs are feminine and woke!
Me, an intellectual: Try petting a pissed off parrot and see if you keep all of your fingers…
When I was a kid, my little sister raised a pet chicken that grew to ginormous size and was the terror of our yard. I must respect chickens.
Someone needs to point a pissed off goose in his direction
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)
The Female of the Species
WHEN the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride,He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside.
But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.
When Nag the basking cobra hears the careless foot of man,
He will sometimes wriggle sideways and avoid it if he can.
But his mate makes no such motion where she camps beside the trail.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.
When the early Jesuit fathers preached to Hurons and Choctaws,
They prayed to be delivered from the vengeance of the squaws.
'Twas the women, not the warriors, turned those stark enthusiasts pale.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.
Man's timid heart is bursting with the things he must not say,
For the Woman that God gave him isn't his to give away;
But when hunter meets with husbands, each confirms the other's tale—
The female of the species is more deadly than the male.
Man, a bear in most relations—worm and savage otherwise,—
Man propounds negotiations, Man accepts the compromise.
Very rarely will he squarely push the logic of a fact
To its ultimate conclusion in unmitigated act.
Fear, or foolishness, impels him, ere he lay the wicked low,
To concede some form of trial even to his fiercest foe.
Mirth obscene diverts his anger—Doubt and Pity oft perplex
Him in dealing with an issue—to the scandal of The Sex!
But the Woman that God gave him, every fibre of her frame
Proves her launched for one sole issue, armed and engined for the same;
And to serve that single issue, lest the generations fail,
The female of the species must be deadlier than the male.
She who faces Death by torture for each life beneath her breast
May not deal in doubt or pity—must not swerve for fact or jest.
These be purely male diversions—not in these her honour dwells—
She the Other Law we live by, is that Law and nothing else.
She can bring no more to living than the powers that make her great
As the Mother of the Infant and the Mistress of the Mate.
And when Babe and Man are lacking and she strides unclaimed to claim
Her right as femme (and baron), her equipment is the same.
She is wedded to convictions—in default of grosser ties;
Her contentions are her children, Heaven help him who denies!—
He will meet no suave discussion, but the instant, white-hot, wild,
Wakened female of the species warring as for spouse and child.
Unprovoked and awful charges—even so the she-bear fights,
Speech that drips, corrodes, and poisons—even so the cobra bites,
Scientific vivisection of one nerve till it is raw
And the victim writhes in anguish—like the Jesuit with the squaw!
So it comes that Man, the coward, when he gathers to confer
With his fellow-braves in council, dare not leave a place for her
Where, at war with Life and Conscience, he uplifts his erring hands
To some God of Abstract Justice—which no woman understands.
And Man knows it! Knows, moreover, that the Woman that God gave him
Must command but may not govern—shall enthral but not enslave him.
And She knows, because She warns him, and Her instincts never fail,
That the Female of Her Species is more deadly than the Male.
Yes, I know it’s flawed but I still think it well worth while.
Now here’s a real pea-brained “reptile” who only relies of sci-fi fantasies for dinosaur knowledge and not have a single clue about what dinosaurs were really like based on fossil evidence!
…and don’t get my started on a Tyrannosaurus named Sue.
Incidentally, the donosaur in the picture has anatomically problematic hands. Theropod hands can’t rotate like that and the palms should be facing each other.
Cassowary
To whoever thinks feather equals to feminine: if you think of drag queens or LGBT people first whenever you see the word “feather”, it says a lot about you other than them.
And a shitty AI image to boot.
This is the stupidity that had infected the world.
We are so fucked.
Feminine? Weak? I think often people are just scraping up random qualifiers they perceive as negative, to express their dismayal that dinosaurs aren’t like they used to be. I think it mostly relates to the feathers, and bright colors (featherless dinosaurs can be portrayed as colorful, too), and the growing paleoart trends depicting predatory dinosaurs doing something else in their lives than killing prey.
Various “raptors” are hugely popular topics in modern paleoart, and while some of them were actually impressively large, a lot of the time you’ll see art depicting feathered animals even smaller than the actual Velociraptor.
Also, there’s constant weird online drama around Spinosaurus reconstructions, but I haven’t heard of it being given feathers, even as a joke. I have heard of it being made a hugely blubbery walrus-like animal as a joke.
Next up: Trump orders Smithsonian Natural History museum to remove all references to dinosaurs having feathers from exhibits or the bookstore. Henceforth, all pictures and replicas of Archaeopteryx are banned, as well.
🦕 Back before the 90s, in the more traditional-minded 60s, we were educated to believe that both birds and dinosaurs were small, domesticated, and trained to do household chores inside stone enclosures, “Rawk!” they would say, “It’s a living!”
The size issue was Michael Crichton’s fault. There are dinosaur raptors that big but they have more technical names. He knew this when he wrote the book but went with the cooler name. The movies kept the book name and it just stuck from there. They may also have increased in size from the book to the movie even more. Utahraptor or Achillobator would be the right size but Velociraptor just sounds better.
I suspect this opinion is from one those alt-right dude bros who also whinge that women won’t date them.
Showing the feathers of the feathered dinosaurs is not at all feminizing or weak. I invite dude to go mess with a crocodile nest so he can test his weak feminine reptile hypothesis.
I don’t know the exact ratio, but I’m guessing close to half of dinosaurs are female.
@10 Beat me to it. I would also add pissed off Emu to the list. I mean we fought a whole war against them and lost…
Considering that decorative, even sumptuary, display of feathers was “for men” (at least in the West and, as I understand it, in preColumbian North America) long before it was “for women” — and that decorative display was largely in service of announcing martial prowess/status — it’s clear that social evolution has made human-female display of feathers more advanced.
@JM
And then they keep doing it in all the subsequent movies. They could fix this, or parts of this, if they wanted. Fix the wrists, have someone call them utah raptors, have a bit about how they removed the feathers when making them because people thought the feathered ones are not scary (scene where the raptor sticks it’s head in a lampshade optional)
Oh, and of course Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds’. That may not be the scariest movie ever made, but it’s in the conversation for sure.
indianajones, yeahbut.
me: Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds’ — were any birds hurt during filming?
BB: Yes—birds were harmed, both physically and ethically, during the filming of Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963).
Over 25,000 live birds were used on set, including gulls, crows, ravens, sparrows, and finches. Animal trainer Ray Berwick was tasked with capturing and handling them, but reports indicate that many birds were subjected to distress, mishandling, and even injury.
The most notorious example involves Tippi Hedren, who endured five consecutive days of filming with live birds tied to her costume. These birds pecked her repeatedly, and handlers hurled others directly at her during takes. She suffered physical trauma and emotional exhaustion, requiring medical intervention.
While no comprehensive record of avian fatalities exists, contemporary accounts and retrospective analyses confirm that the production prioritized realism over animal welfare. The mechanical birds initially planned were abandoned due to poor screen performance, leading to widespread use of live birds under harsh conditions.
Mano elsewhere on freethoughtblogs.com routinely gets bullied by roving gangs of turkey thugs. Tell ’em they’re girly. Go on, tell ’em. I dares ya.
https://freethoughtblogs.com/singham/2021/03/01/the-turkey-siege-may-not-have-been-personal/
X-D
FWIW. Soemone on youtube redid some of the Jurassic Park raptor scenes withfetahered versiosn which we can see eg here (30 seconds long) whic I think I;ev shared here before on the Infinite thread but still. Different, yes, less scary? I don’t think so. feminised? Umm, they were always clever grl;s so what the?
In Jurassic Park – both the original novel and movies -the original dinosaurs were actually ALL deliberately created female because of just such silly misogynist gender stereotyping – and because they didn’t want them to breed. Nature of course “found a way.” Meaning some JP dinos literally transitioned from female to male becoming kinda both biologically and artificially male. (They were biological and they were artificially created and hybrids with amphibian DNA etc..)
Another video I’m pretty sure I’ve shared on the Infinite thread before is here – Which RAPTOR is Actually in Jurassic Park? (Hint: IT’S NOT VELOCIRAPTOR) (20 mins long) by the wonderful Clint’s Reptiles channel.
As #17 JM points out the name Velociraptor was Michael Crichton’s choice and very misleading.
I dunno Ach-Kill-o-bator sounds scarier to me albeit a bit cartoony. Maybe its the ‘bator bit? ;-)
Thinking cool names the latter movies came up with Atrociraptor and Pyroraptor which sound pretty awesome – I was almost surprised to find they were, in fact, real dinos see :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrociraptor
Plus :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyroraptor
Although again, they made Pyroraptor seem much bigger in their movie than it was in life and did anyone else find it really ironic that it featured scene was (under 5 mins long) in water and ice. I did like the more feathered look of those in that more recent movie(s?).
Achillobator sounds like a character that should be played by Schwarzenegger in a 1980s movie.
Now when I were a lad, we had real dinosaurs. Like the allosaurus. You didn’t mess with an allosaurus.
Clever girl.
Look at this sissy…and despair.
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%2Fid%2FOIP.5TFqBSWN4AYSBhWsp9p7nAHaFj%3Fpid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=f5571d59a1f08afc059e8c97b8df742fdd3a578653c06946d45b358ebebe8852&ipo=images
boy do I recognize the defensive fear in that guy’s post.
that need to identify with the great powerful beast
that compulsion to maintain some illusionary story and not just accepting reality what ever it turns out to be.
@13
I used to think once upon a time we had all ready passed through the age of Enlightenment. Clearly that was just some kind of wishful thinking.
We all know what dinosaurs looked like, back when:
Worst CGI ever. I mean look! You can see the strings!
Also terrible rotoscoping.
You can see the zipper too!
I must admit, when I was a kid, learning that dinosaurs had feathers did make them less ferocious in my eyes. But then again, I was just a kid who thought that ferocity was the ultimate cool™, and unlike this @Spino_Legend, I grew up.
I just wonder how heartbroken Spinolegend will be when he discovers that bald eagles have feathers too!
Feathers are just dragon scales modified to make flight easier.