Yahoo Autos 7 Times Men Tried To Take Credit For A Woman’s Work Or Erase Them From History Entirely
It's a hard truth, but men sometimes take credit for women's accomplishments. So, of course, there are going to be countless examples throughout history of men co-opting and completely erasing women's contributions to the world. Men have been improperly credited for inventing everything from the disposable diaper to the hair straightener and even for huge scientific discoveries like nuclear fission and dark matter — all things invented or discovered by women.
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And it's no different when it comes to pop culture history. Here are seven women who, despite making massive contributions to music, art, literature, and society in general, were cheated out of receiving the proper recognition they deserve:
1.The creation of One Direction was improperly credited to Simon Cowell.
During a 2013 livestream to promote their Midnight Memories album, One Direction sat down with Cowell, and Harry Styles straight-up asked him whose idea it was putting the band together. Cowell took all the credit, stating, "I just said, 'Why don't we put these five into a group?' And it literally took 10 minutes."
A whole nine years later, the truth came out. In 2022, The X Factor UK released previously unseen footage that shows guest judge Nicole Scherzinger actually putting the band together. In an interview later that year, Scherzinger said, "I never thought this footage would see the light of day. I thought Simon burned it."
Fremantle / Via youtube.com
2.The board game Monopoly was NOT invented by an unemployed Charles Darrow in his basement during the Great Depression.
Elizabeth Magie, an anti-capitalist and daughter of an abolitionist, created The Landlord's Game in the early 1900s, which had two separate forms of gameplay. The first was basically what Monopoly is today: accumulating land and wealth and taking it from other people. The second, though, was about spreading wealth equally. Magie created this game to promote her anti-monopolist beliefs.
But when the game started to spread, a man named Charles Darrow stole the idea and marketed it to Parker Brothers in the 1930s as solely his idea. Since some higher-ups at Parker Brothers were a bit skeptical of Darrow, they ended up covering all their bases and paid Magie $500 for her original patent. Imagine Magie's surprise when she saw her invention, now known as Monopoly, a game that actually promoted capitalism, become extremely successful, all with another man's name on it. She tried to set the record straight in a newspaper article, but the damage had already been done.
3.Kanye West took credit for Taylor Swift's career.
In 2016, seven years after Kanye West very famously interrupted Taylor Swift's acceptance speech at the 2009 MTV VMAs, West released his song "Famous." In the song, he takes credit for Swift's fame, saying, "I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex / Why? I made that bitch famous." West said he had permission from Swift to release the song with those lyrics, which Swift denied. In a Grammy acceptance speech shortly after "Famous" came out, Swift seemed to address the whole situation.
Even though Swift argued that she never told West he could use those lyrics, Kim Kardashian, West's wife at the time, released video footage of a recorded phone convo between West and Swift, where Swift seemingly gives him permission. Swift, now publicly perceived as a liar, started getting harassed online by the #TaylorSwiftIsOverParty, disappeared from the public eye before reemerging in 2017 with her Reputation album.
THEN, in 2020, the Kardashian video was released in its entirety, and we found out that Swift was telling the truth. She did not approve of any lyrics calling her a "bitch" and actually sounded super uncomfortable when Kanye asked, "What if I said...'I made her famous?'"
