Cornflower: <"Just goes to show that women are just as smart and just as stupid as men">

Yes!!

Cornflower you are turning into a feminist at last, gasp!

Anyway, well said.

Yes,...but FAIL through a sneaking suspicion that there are some things that men do better than women and vice versa. Like the Kiwi male who drank more than the breathalyser was capable of measuring (even if it was only to get his ticker up for his date out there in a pasture somewhere). Could a woman have beaten him, no siree!

Pynchme,
Just as well men don't feel the need to list everything invented by men,
otherwise this thread would be very long indeed.

Pynchme,

Your claim that Tabitha Babbitt invented the circular saw in 1812 seems problematic:

"Various claims have been made as to who invented the circular saw:

A common claim is for a little known sailmaker named Samuel Miller of Southampton, England who obtained a patent in 1777 for a saw windmill. However the specification for this only mentions the form of the saw incidentally, probably indicating that it was not his invention.

Gervinus of Germany is often credited with inventing the circular saw in 1780

Walter Taylor of Southampton had the blockmaking contract for Portsmouth Dockyard. In about 1762 he built a saw mill where he roughed out the blocks. This was replaced by another mill in 1781. Descriptions of his machinery there in the 1790s show that he had circular saws. Taylor patented two other improvements to blockmaking but not the circular saw. This suggests either that he did not invent it or that he published his invention without patenting it (which would mean it was no longer patentable).

Another claim is that it originated in Holland in the sixteenth or seventeenth century.This may be correct, but nothing more precise is known.

The use of a large circular saw in a saw mill is said to have been invented in 1813 by Tabitha Babbit, a Shaker spinster, who sought to ease the labour of the male sawyers in her community."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_saw

Dear me,
and that was only the first of your claims for female inventors.

funny how we acknowledge inventors and then make up such dumb stories like evolution when it comes to humans.

Oh dear Proxy, you have two options.

1. Read the link that references it:

"Saws
Saws are toosl with a thin metal strip with teeth on one edge or a thin metal disk with teeth on the periphery. In 1777, Samuel Miller invented the circular saw in England, the round metal disk type of saw that cuts by spinning and is used hand-held or table-mounted. Large circular saws are found in saw mills and are used to produce lumber. In 1813, Shaker-Sister, Tabitha Babbitt (1784-1854) invented the first circular saw used in a saw mill. Babbitt was working in the spinning house at the Harvard Shaker community in Massachusetts, when she decided to invent an improvement to the two-man pit saws that were being used for lumber production. Tabitha Babbitt is also credited with inventing an improved version of cut nails, a new method of making false teeth, and an improved spinning wheel head.

In 1807, William Newberry invented a band saw. In 1780, Gervinus also invented a circular saw, however, a more primitive one."

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bltools.htm

2. Take up any dispute with the authors concerned; links to the referencing sites have been provided.

FYI:

"Until about 1840, only 20 other U.S. patents were issued to women. The inventions related to apparel, tools, cook stoves, and fire places. Patents are the proof of "ownership" of an invention and only the inventor(s) can apply for a patent. In the past, women were not allowed equal rights of property ownership (patents are a form of intellectual property) and many women patented their inventions under their husband's or father's names. In the past, women were also prevented from receiving the higher education necessary for inventing. (Unfortunately, some countries in the world today still deny women equal rights and an equal education.)

We will never know all the women who deserve credit for their creative labor, as the Patent and Trademark Office does not require gender, racial, or ethnic identification in patent or trademark applications..."

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blwomeninventors.htm

It's not a M v F contest Proxy, but justice in recognizing contributions that have been made.