Who discovers and invents? Men or women?

Years ago women weren’t listened too but I would say both men and women invent and help society.

Inventions aren’t made through generalizations.They are made by individuals, regardless of sex.
Patriarchal societies tend to lay claim to invention when often these inventions came from the women in these societies.Had this been a matriarchal society,the opposite would be true.
If you really understood women,you would know that nothing gets invented without our permission.Now go ask your mother what she thinks.;)
Necessity is the MOTHER of invention. XD XD XD

All people, regardless of gender, are capable of invention and have done so in the past. Women are not able to create people without involvement of men – it takes two to make a baby. As to whether we, as humans, are innately driven to invent – that is a much more interesting question but I wouldn’t separate any specific sex and/or gender. Your last question doesn’t make sense – women, like all people, make society what it is even if they’re also influenced by it; activities and hobbies are part of society and inventions are for society’s sake, for the most part.

Women invent?? News to me. With the major exception of Marie Curie.
I’d never consider giving birth inventing anything. LOL !!

@Aster You can begin here, if you’d like.

I never heard of any of them, Simone, but if I had the time I’d look each one up!

Women and men invent both ideas and materials…........Yes, in the past women, as well as others were discouraged from participating, and this could still be true in some places.

I see it going something like this:

“Eli! I’m tired of listening to you complain about having to pick those little bitty cotton seeds out of the cotton. All the other wives are tired of their husbands belly aching too. The neighbor ladies and I were washing clothes on the scrubber board on wash day, and we got an idea. If you do this and this and this (kind of like washing clothes) then you will have a machine that will get the seed out for you. You need to watch the kids for a month or two while I go build it. And don’t forget to have dinner ready for me when I come in from the shop.”

Why men invent stuff of course. Women just stand there looking twee & pretty XD Whoa! Whoa! Hold your fire, I was speaking in jest. I suppose one way of looking at it is to say, men invent lies while women discover the truth. Call it women’s intuition if you will. Although that is largely a sweeping generalisation as we all know :¬)

I’d love to invent something but I’m just so busy shoe shopping and painting my nails!

:-/

Women like Rosalind Franklin and men like Watson and Cricks getting all the credit.

Marie Pasture… :)

I just stumbled on this old question but, @Aster, here are a few female inventors for you: 1. Stephanie Kwolek. She was the Dupont chemist who invented Kevlar, the fiber, of course, that is used in bullet proof vests for police and the military. That is it’s most important application but it is used many other things. And, believe it or not, 2 Heddy Lamarr!, who co-invented “frequency-hopping” as a means to prevent the enemy jamming of radio-controlled torpedoes during WWII, was issued a patent, but wasn’t taken seriously by the U.S. military. Also, according to {this article, 3-Mary Dixon Kies was the first woman in the U.S. to be issued a patent, in 1809, and based on patents issued in the U.S., currently 20% of inventors are women and that figure is expected to increase to 50% in the next generation. Not sure how they calculated that last figure, but it is certain to increase as women position in science, industry and manufacturing become more equal and possibly when more bright, inventive women start tinkering around in their garages.

Before about 1960, usually if women came up with an invention a man would take credit for it.