I mean you put the /s but that is pretty much it in a nutshell.
A lot of people don’t want to acknowledge that women have been oppressed under the threat of violence. Both inside the home on a domestic level as well as on a societal level. Women who dissented were subject to whatever cultural horrors were deemed as fit punishment.
Oppression is a modern lens. Men were predominantly "in charge" because war and death were constant and dominant factors and birth control wasn't available. Survival was the main focus.
Women shine in a world where "might does not make right," which is a very, very recent and potentially fragile innovation. Historically, women were as safe as their largest, most aggressive male family member. Nature is replete with examples.
It's simple to imagine that you have a man and a woman stranded on an island alone for years. Supposing they're both of average build and intelligence, they are critical allies and the loss of either one would be a tremendous blow to their chances of survival.
Now make her thoroughly pregnant and therefore unable to gather, hunt, build, etc. Now she's a necessary liability that doubles the man's workload in the hopes that her furlough will be temporary, except there's no formula. She's the only one that can feed the child, so it's become her liability and a reason to avoid risk taking behavior like fighting or hunting. During those points, if her one man dies, she may die and so might their child.
At the end of the day, we did what we did because it was advantageous. We're here at all because of it. The fact that we don't behave that way now is a product of our technology and circumstances, not our nature.
This is the culmination of our past decisions and dynamics. From a purely economic standpoint, restricting women to certain roles and excluding them from the workforce meant that society was not utilizing the full potential of its population. This completely ignores the lack of agency and choice women had.
Women's oppression cannot be justified on any grounds because it violates fundamental principles of human rights and equality. Oppression leads to significant personal and societal costs. Societies that abide by gender equality generally have far better outcomes. So if we had done so earlier, it would have been far more beneficial
“The thick ideology around gender privilege includes all kinds of claims that the status quo is best. Patriarchal culture, for example, is full of messages that women prefer strong men who dominate them and make all the "big" decisions: When a woman says no to sex, she at least means maybe and probably means yes; women "ask" for all kinds of trouble, especially what's otherwise known as rape, sexual harassment, and being beaten by domestic partners; male superiority is a natural arrangement dictated by genes and other biological imperatives; men are naturally breadwinners, and women are naturally best suited to having bread won for them and tending to children and keeping the house clean. It doesn't matter how much evidence is weighed against such notions. It doesn't matter how often women complain about male control or how often they insist that no means no. It doesn't matter that women have been major "breadwinners" for virtually all of human history and that staying home and being supported by men is a historical anomaly that doesn't apply to the vast majority of people in the world and never has.
The truth doesn't matter, however, because ideology isn't about truth or accuracy. Rather, its purpose is to get privileged people off the hook and preserve the status quo.”
“Instead, the status quo typically is defined as normal, le-gitimate, and unremarkable, and slides along paths of least resistance that assume everything is basically alright.”
“The truth, however, is more complicated. When we participate in a social system, we feel drawn toward paths of least resistance that shape how we perceive and make sense of things.
Every system of privilege is organized to encourage subordinate groups to keep quiet and pretend there's no oppression going on lest the wrath of those above them make things a whole lot worse than they already are. And dominant groups are encouraged toward the subtle arrogance of not paying attention to the reality of the oppression that supports their privilege.
Not surprisingly, if anyone breaks the silence, it is usually those nearest the bottom, who also tend to have the fewest resources for making change.
As a result, oppressed groups often feel backed into a corner where making trouble seems the only way to draw attention to what's going on.”
Again, for 2.2 million years, men and women were egalitarian. There was not a discrete hierarchy where men assumed leadership over women. Patriarchal and patrilineal societies are a very recent invention. Edit: please do research for yourselves. You would be surprised.
“Contrary to common belief, research shows that the patriarchy isn’t some kind of “natural order of things” – it hasn’t always been prevalent and may in fact disappear eventually. Hunter-gatherer communities may have been relatively egalitarian, at least compared to some of the regimes that followed. And female leaders and matriarchal societies have always existed.” [source](https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2022/sep/analysis-how-did-patriarchy-start-and-will-evolution-get-rid-it#:~:text=Contrary%20to%20common%20belief%2C%20research,of%20the%20regimes%20that%20followed)
Patriarchy arose later on once our societies became more agrarian.:
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2003.2535
I read the first few paragraphs of your source and had to stop. Nomadic tribes have hierarchies and a spouse could not just leave the relationship. The Huns and mongols were nomadic tribes and we have fairly decent historical accounts on how their societies function. Men did not get an advantage during warfare while everything was equal prior. This is easily observable in the current world. Hyenas for example. The females are dominate because (stay with me here) of a size differential. They do the hunting, the territorial disputes and (also stay with me here) rape the males.
I’m curious on why you think there wasn’t a gender dominate structure through all of the evolution of hominids. Humans have not been around for 2.2 million years. Hominids have. Can you name off other species that have an egalitarian social structure? Other primates? Apes definitely have gender based dominate hierarchies. Chimps and bonobos definitely do and they are our closest living relatives.
Send me your source, this is the first I've heard of what you're talking about. I studied anthropology in college and learned gibbons exhibit low sexual dimorphisim and pair bond for life. There is no domination or oppression like in hyenas or chimpanzees. Maybe it's changed
Google “gibbons gender hierarchy”. I mean it’s google so ya I’m not claiming to be an expert on the matter. Even if I’m completely wrong, it doesn’t in any means change the argument that OP is spouting. If I’m wrong then I’m wrong.
Here’s one link so at least I don’t fully sound like derp derp GoOgLe iT
https://denverzoo.org/animals/white-cheeked-gibbon/#:~:text=White%2Dcheeked%20gibbons%20live%20in%20small%20families%20comprising%20a%20male,the%20adult%20male%20is%20last.
Since you mentioned hyenas look up african wild dogs aswell, their social groups prop up their weakest members, which is quite egalitarian, unlike hyenas, which do the opposite.
If it worked so well, why did it have to be changed? Also, both men and women farmed. They have both been heavily involved in agriculture for 20,000 years.
Notice how often your source says “may” or something similar. You’re arguing as if it’s a concrete fact but it’s not actually proven. It’s speculation.
Our world is falling apart. We are in the midst of a climate crisis and at the edge of nuclear war. Every hour, we drive 3 species to extinction, totaling to 30,000 per year. 280 million people have depression worldwide. This wasn’t advantageous at all,the world is fucked
He said it WAS advantageous. Not that it is or will prove to be should it continue. And since humanity is here, right now, it’s safe to say it was in fact advantageous.
This is the culmination of our past decisions and dynamics. From a purely economic standpoint, restricting women to certain roles and excluding them from the workforce meant that society was not utilizing the full potential of its population. This completely ignores the lack of agency and choice women had.
Women's oppression cannot be justified on any grounds because it violates fundamental principles of human rights and equality. Oppression leads to significant personal and societal costs. Societies that abide by gender equality generally have far better outcomes. So if we had done so earlier, it would have been far more beneficial.
In your initial question you were asking for an explanation, not for a justification. The people in the comments are trying to give you possible explanations but you seem to be taking those answers as justifications for oppressing women. But let's carry on.
To your point that not oppressing women would be more beneficial: I agree. However, humans are not rational calculating machines that are always trying to get the optimal outcome. I mean, lots of people smoke and drink for instance even though they know it's bad.
I also do not think women were excluded from the work force that much. Work is such a relatively new concept. In the industrial revolution women could and did work in the factories. Before that, women worked on the family farm or in service to a lord. It's not like women have just been forced to sit at home for hundreds of years.
In the past 100 years, the stay-at-home mom became more popular as jobs started paying enough to feed a family. Why it was always the women that stayed at home I don't know. It could have to do with them already not being able to work while being pregnant and then feeding a newborn. I think that it always being the woman who stayed home might not have started as a consequence of oppression, but I do think it enforced or created a lot of the misogyny and oppressive ideas we find today.
Also, as to where the gender inequality started, I do think religion plays a very large role in that. Look at the garden of Eden story for instance, where it was Eve who fucked over Adam. There's a bunch more stuff in there that either portrays women as inferior or just simply wombs to bare progeny.
So yeah that's my take.
I actually acknowledged that women were heavily involved in the workforce in my other comments! Nice to see someone who knows that. Was it not in the 1950’s that the narrative arose that women were to stay at home? Even then, 50% of women stayed at home
Yes I saw those comments of yours after posting mine! I think it was even earlier than that but it might depend on which part of the world. But it became fashionable especially in the 50's, there were even ad campaigns and popular books about it iirc.
I also saw you talking about women not being involved in politics. This, however, is not just a modern thing as women in ancient Greece were also not allowed to partake in democracy.
I did ask for an explanation, but imbued within were justifications.
“At the end of the day, we did it because it was advantageous.”
“We are all here because of it.”
“We do what works.”
Human rights and equality are not fundamental to success as a species. They're a recent luxury based on Christian beliefs.
You're such a fish you can't see the water. Did you post this question so you could strut your moral superiority among praising sycophants or was it entirely masturbatory?
I have no moral superiority over anybody here. I didn’t realize the environment would be so hostile. Tooafraidtoask has given me excellent answers in the past, so I returned to it again because I wanted to have a discussion.
human rights are indeed fundamental to the success of the species. Their roots span across many societies that do not indulge in Christian beliefs. Societies that promote human rights and equality tend to have more stable, cohesive, and incredibly innovative communities.
groups that practice fairness and cooperation tend to survive longer.
human females are incredibly valuable and essential to protect within our species if survival isn’t guaranteed. It takes 9 months to make a baby and for a good portion of that period the female is pretty incapacitated and requires more resources and protection. That mother then has to spend years caring for the child, as without constant care young humans are very likely to die (or even guaranteed to die). Males are much more expendable. If a group had 1 man and 10 women, 10 children could be made. Reverse those numbers and that group is going to die off.
So, men would engage in the more immediately dangerous activities that needed to be done. This societal interworking of the genders has been developing within our species for a long time (men are dangerous and expendable, women are to be protected). This stayed with our species, and as societies with different cultures and different rules emerged, this ideology was kept. That’s why a lot of societies didn’t have women in the workforce or the military. There was a world for men, and a world for women. The idea that women and men are fundamentally the same and should engage in the same things is a relatively new concept. I’m sure there’s always been women throughout history that wished for an equal society, as men were the ones that built societies (and thus built it in favor of themselves). But, equality between any two groups is only really possible with an advanced society. Before advanced society, decisions were made by whoever had the power to force others to comply.
I’m not arguing with anyone who answers me, this has been moreso a debate than an argument for me, though some have devolved into insults. If I see someone insinuate that women weren’t truly oppressed throughout history, that women being oppressed for long was actually advantageous, that women’s independence was actually a net negative for society, or that men are primitive creatures (which is why women were so heavily opressed), of course I am going to contest.
That’s sexist rhetoric at its core.
I have the right to stand up in the event that someone spews bull, and I have a complete right to show an inkling of anger when someone suggests something absurd.
are you just sitting there typing paragraphs away to strangers? no one is arguing against your rights lol, they're just answering your questions. relax.
I wasn’t looking for a fight. I posted here because this sub has been amazing at answering my question in the past. I just find it insensitive that they suggested that oppression was advantageous
There is no one, single answer to the question, though. This is a rarely discussed topic. i have an answer, but it is neither thorough enough nor comprehensive enough to duly address my question.
I wanted further insight that the single answer could not sufficiently provide. I first searched up the inquiry and was nit satisfied with the answers. There were barely any comments at all and the thread was very outdated.
You should stop consuming doomer content on the news. The world has objectively gotten better for people in the past 50 years. Child mortality has plummeted, quality of life for billions has risen, and global tensions are far lower now than they were before.
I’m just saying that the world would have been better off had women not been so widely oppressed.
*Rebuttal to “At the end of the day, we did it because it was advantageous.”
I agree, we need to change. This patriarchy is not working and it destabilizes families. Matriarchal families are much more stable, long term. Way more sustainable than patriarchal lineages.
The world did just fine before us, and will do just fine without us. 99.9% of species that ever existed are already extinct, yet the world keeps on spinning.
"
# The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles … hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worldwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages … And we think some plastic bags and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet isn’t going anywhere. WE are!" - George Carlin
2 things caused this: corruption by power, and the difference in physical strenght between men and women.
People get corrupted by power, whether this is power in the form of money, assets, or dominance over others, all power corrupts. Now add on to that the fact that men are generally stronger. And ontop of that, especially back in the day, a lot of jobs required men to be even stronger physically then now. So your end result is a men who can quite literally pick up a woman and throw her across the room if she doesnt do what he wants, and you get a pretty clear power issue. Men can do what they want and if the woman disobeys he can harm her. Power always corrupts so eventually most men started to work toghether to keep their power, and to increase it, this can be done in the form of laws, rules over who can do what, rules over who can do what, and more like that.
Repeat this for a couple hundered years and you get the idea.
In my opinion, I think misogyny was maintained through a multitude of social, cultural, religious, and biological factors but I do think that the very first "starting point" was the fact that men were physically stronger than women.
I think it's because, men are physically stronger, and once men got a taste of being the dominant group, they set systems in place to enhance and solidify their dominance. It just snowballed from there.
Misogyny and female oppression stem from a complex history of biological, social, and cultural factors that have created and reinforced gender inequality. While progress has been made, eradicating deeply rooted misogyny remains a challenge.
I think the narrative that women are oppressed and societies were patriarchal is a little bit wrong.
That tends to be based on looking at the history books that detail the lives of political leaders and warlords which are disproportionately male - but there have been supremely influential women leaders in all of human history (from Cleopatra to Victoria and Catherine). But that’s like 0.000001% of humans.
Most people in most of history were effectively serfs, working grueling agricultural jobs. Men worked their bodies, and were often conscripted soldiers in some foreign war. Most were illiterate. It’s not like they pursued the finer things while women toiled away.
Meanwhile, women raised families. Child mortality through all of human history until like 1950 was staggeringly high. You needed 4 kids just to hope to see 2 make it to adulthood. Having 4 kids before the era of formula and refrigerators meant a woman had to spend *all of her 20’s & 30’s* breastfeeding and into her 40’s actually raising kids.
It was the medical advancements of child mortality and reproductive control that allowed women to advance - so ~1950.
It was of course the Industrial Revolution that allowed labor to specialize and get into knowledge fields, once we unleveled the tech tree that allowed average *men* to pursue interests and economies rather than just farm enough food to not die.
So men weren’t really freed *either* until like the late 1800’s until technology and political thought advanced during and immediately following the Industrial Revolution.
So you *really* only had like a maybe 70 year period in human history where men had a clearly better deal - but plenty of factory work or being in ww1 trenches was very not awesome, so even then I’m not totally sure.
I am looking at this through a fairly western lens.
There are cultures that are much more misogynistic - but honestly I struggle to name truly misogynist cultures with sufficiently developed economies with the *exception* of the Middle East.
Some parts of the world like India or Latin America or Asia have more pronounced gender roles, but it’s pretty obvious in many of those places women call the shots in family dynamics.
So from about 2 million BC when descended to the trees until about 1850, most of us were finding food and raising children so we didn’t die as a species while 0.001% of rich people read books.
Then men were able to pursue knowledge fields at real scale after the Industrial Revolution, then 70 years later women could after a medical revolution.
The idea of deeply ingrained historical patriarchy is a really simplistic and politically driven assessment of history. It’s just wrong.
Yes, both men and women did not have the best chances in history, but this does not negate the fact that women were barred from occupying political positions and attaining education. This doesn’t negate from the fact that women were largely considered property of their husbands.
Women didn’t stay at home for most of history, that was only affluent/middle class women in the 1950’s. More women worked through history than stayed at home.
The vast majority of women were farmers.
Women were barred at a greater level from educational pursuits. For example, Colonial America designed education after boys. In addition, women were prevented from entering higher education to any degree. They were relegated to dame schools, if anything. This persisted until the 19th century. Even then, their options were limited. today, it’s illegal in some countries for women to receive schooling.
> women were barred from occupying political positions and attaining education
Okay, but again everyone except from nobility was barred from that stuff too.
We didn’t have high citizen participation in representative democracy until the early 1800s and even then most of the west didn’t get it until even later
The reason and mechanisms of exclusion still differed. The exclusion of women was both distinct and systematic. They had limited property rights, excluded from education and employment in a wider degree.
even so, a lag in the attainment of rights perfectly exhibits the favorability even the common man retained in the eyes of the system. 70 years comprises 28% of the USA’s existence as well as nigh half when such rights were obtained by women.
“The combination of denial and calling oppression and privilege something else often results in the claim that everyone actually prefers things the way they are. I often hear whites, for example, say with great confidence that blacks would rather live among other blacks, reflecting a supposedly natural human tendency to choose the company of "your own kind." In fact, however, research shows clearly that most blacks would prefer to live in integrated neighborhoods. If anyone wants to live "with their own kind," it is whites. It is whites who enforce the extreme level of residential segregation found in the United States and the devastating consequences that result.
Segregation is also portrayed as a matter of simple econom-ics: blacks and other people of color don't live among whites because they can't afford to. But in fact, it is racism, not income, occupation, or education, that stands in the way of integrated living for most people of color, especially those in the middle class.*
The thick ideology around gender privilege includes all kinds of claims that the status quo is best. Patriarchal culture, for example, is full of messages that women prefer strong men who dominate them and make all the "big" decisions: When a woman says no to sex, she at least means maybe and probably means yes; women "ask" for all kinds of trouble, especially what's otherwise known as rape, sexual harassment, and being beaten by domestic partners; male superiority is a natural arrangement dictated by genes and other biological imperatives; men are naturally breadwinners, and women are naturally best suited to having bread won for them and tending to children and keeping the house clean. It doesn't matter how much evidence is weighed against such notions. It doesn't matter how often women complain about male control or how often they insist that no means no. It doesn't matter that women have been major "breadwinners" for virtually all of human history and that staying home and being supported by men is a historical anomaly that doesn't apply to the vast majority of people in the world and never has.
The truth doesn't matter, however, because ideology isn't about truth or accuracy. Rather, its purpose is to get privileged people off the hook and preserve the status quo. It supports the all too human tendency to soothe yourself into thinking there's nothing unpleasant or challenging here to deal with, and certainly nothing to do with you. And when someone dares to challenge that comforting reality, it's easy to confuse the bearer of bad news with the bad news itself. When blacks call attention to the divisions caused by race privilege, for example, they're often accused of creating those divisions, as if racism isn't a problem unless you talk about it. Talking about privilege rather than privilege itself gets defined as the problem.
Being part of the solution to a trouble that already divides us begins with coming together around the simple truth that we're all in trouble and that pretending we aren't is a key to what keeps us apart.”
“Denial can be a powerful and useful psychological defense mechanism. When something is too horrible to deal with, denial can be a lifesaver, especially for children. Usually, however, denial exacts a price by standing between us and our power to see our lives clearly and to do something to make them better.”
“Given how risky it can be to acknowledge painful realities, it's not surprising that we might deny that patriarchy exists rather than risk ridicule, rejection, or worse by seeing it for what it is. For men in particular, denial can be militant and confrontational, but it usually appears as a stubborn inability to see or understand. It may begin with something as simple as calling gender issues "women's issues," an easy way for men to disassociate themselves from the problems of the "other." From there, denial gets thicker and harder to penetrate.”
“Instead, the status quo typically is defined as normal, le-gitimate, and unremarkable, and slides along paths of least resistance that assume everything is basically alright.”
> 70 years compromises 28% of the USA’s existence
Okay but you’re sure moving goalposts here.
Your original comment was about global history. I acknowledge a relatively period between the Industrial Revolution and medical revolution where men were freed for higher pursuits than women… but that was largely dude to technology.
> they had limited property rights, excluded from education
Again, most *people* were neither landowners nor educated. Public education wasn’t really a concept until the mid 1800’s, and landowning was rare until then too. University was an institution restricted to nobility.
> the favorability the even the common man retained
Bluntly, you seem to have this presupposition of patriarchy and are looking for evidence to support your political position rather than actually taking an honest anthropological & sociological look.
Implicit in your statement is this idea that job title dictates quality of life and cultural influence. That is simply *wrong*. You’re looking at a fairly small part of the human experience during a fairly small window of time and calling it the whole.
You need to look at culture, family life, traditions - how people actually lived their lives.
Look at carnival, an Indian wedding, how people celebrate on the holidays. That’s really what life is about, and in so many aspects of our society are designed around the desires of women.
Most polling and interviewing of women suggests that *women are happier overall* than men, and isn’t that the ultimate measurement?
Though most of human history women and men have had very *different* experiences, but to look at the advantages of one side without acknowledging the disadvantages is just an intellectually dishonest evaluation.
Yes, but women also report a higher rate of dissatisfaction than men. They have higher rates of depression, anxiety, and overall sadness. I am not denying the suffering of men; merely asserting that men were not discriminated against by virtue of their gender.
I am unsure how women’s current life satisfaction correlates with the present matter at hand. We are assessing past instances of oppression. This is not a contest, and I fear you perceive it as such in several regards. Patriarchy is well-documented in legal, political, and social structures that favored men.
Yes, public education and widespread land ownership were limited before the mid-1800s, but men still had greater access to both compared to women
Consider the implications: Women's limited property rights resulted in having less economic independence and power, which influenced their quality of life and societal status directly.
An honest examination of history acknowledges both the privileges AND disadvantages faced by varying genders. To ignore the systemic nature of patriarchy is to dismiss the significant progress made in gender equality and the struggles that led to it.
A patriarchy denotes a society in which those who hold power are predominantly male, whereas women are largely excluded. This definition is widely accurate to many societies over the course of the past 200 years.
What I have to wonder is why you might be inclined to deny the societal privilege that accompanies maleness. I have no presupposition of patriarchy. I merely analyzed the social structures we live in today. This has little to do with politics in any regard.
“Given how risky it can be to acknowledge painful realities, it is not surprising that we might deny that patriarchy exists rather than risk ridicule, rejection, or worse by seeing it for what it is. For men in particular, denial can be militant and confrontational, but it usually appears as a stubborn inability to see or understand. It may begin with something as simple as calling the consequences of male privilege a ‘women’s issue,’ an easy way for men to disassociate from the problems of the other. From there, denial gets thicker and harder to penetrate.”
I read a book on privilege and a book on patriarchy to understand why you might be vehemently in denial as to the benefits that men have historically possessed over women. To me, I live these realities, observe them on the daily. To you, these are invisible. You might be inclined to defend such systems as it is the path of least resistance, or you find benefit in upholding the status quo (I am going to assume you are male because of this)
“as prices go, it isn’t very high. The problem, though—and a major reason men may feel blamed even when they are not being blamed—is that most men’s identification with patriarchy runs so deep (consciously or not) that they experience criticism of the system as a personal attack. The evidence of women’s oppression is everywhere, and it is hard not to know that cultural misogyny is real and that men and manhood are culturally defined as superior.”
A few memorable women leaders doesn’t mean women held power equally. Women are around half of the population, so with true equality, about half of leaders should be women. That is still not true in most political bodies or businesses. Ask yourself how many historical male leaders you remember compared to the few women leaders.
True. I'm convinced when we were cavemen and cavewomen it was 50/50 in everything. When currency and property came into the mix, everything changed to patriarchal.
Because we're great apes and behave thusly. On the bright side, women have equality in first world countries. On the down side, women in places like Saudi Arabia definitely don't.
As for the why, I think it stems from our primal instinct to have the strongest call the shots. Since men are stronger than women, they had to do whatever men said.
From elsewhere on Reddit: “Pre copper age human tribes are posited to be actually more egalitarian than most people imagine. The first chapter draws a comparison between the popular understanding of "natural" humans and the very violent chimpanzees, when in reality, evidence suggests it was more like bonobos (more cooperative. People often wonder what separates humans from animals, and our ability to cooperate, according to Hrdy, is absolutely our strongest distinction, and our cooperation is the very reason we were able to make it at all in the beginning).
To define what I mean by more "egalitarian": Hunter gatherer tribes/bands had women in the gathering position and men in the hunting position, where gatherers brought in the majority of calories and men brought in important micronutrients via meat. Males did not dominate via a patrilineal system of breeding or a system of patriarchal chieftdom because there was no reason to value men's strength intrinsically above what women brought to the table in terms of food and social bonds.
Egalitarian societies survived in the beginning, to simplify, because:
Southern Africa during the Paleolithic and early neolithic ages was a very hard place to survive. Frequent warfare wouldn't make sense if your numbers are small and there will always be a new hunter-gatherer territory to move to. Humans being EVERYWHERE hadn't happened yet, and neither had agriculture.
As the environment was harsh, child rearing of our particularly vulnerable infants was more important than settling some debt in blood with a neighboring tribe, that you could simply move away from.
It was cooperate or die. Evidence suggests that it behooved bands of families to gift-give to neighboring tribes, in the event their hunting/gathering failed to make the caloric goal for the day. There is no room for a system of "oppression" when you have to focus on social bonds and getting food.
Sticking to European civilizations at least, egalitarian tribes stopped "making sense" the second humans stopped being 10,000 strong at best in Southern Africa, and started competing with one another for resources as they spread upward and outward. When us as clever tool-users figured out agriculture and domestication, settling down in one place became a "thing"... and so did bloodshed over those places. People could no longer just pick up and move to greener pastures because those pastures had some other tribe/village, and you'd have to fight for it.
Their environment was telling them that physical strength was vital for survival. It "makes sense", from here in 2018, to see societies begin to value it in the neolithic and copper ages, and value men as protectors (as the people allowing their early societies to keep surviving against the odds). This did not make it impossible to see matrilineal or matriarchal or egalitarian societies, but it was rare.
Might makes right in such a world overpopulated by us, where land is valued, and resources differ depending on location. It has been this way for thousands of years. We are able to see more equal societies in modern times because strength-based survival happens on a larger scale and isn't so individual-based (having an army you choose to join rather than having every able man de facto defending a village and thus being responsible for survival). You still see larger gender divides in societies where it is seen as, or is, more necessary to see men as "protectors" who do physical labor to provide for the family.
TL;DR High human population, and land and resources having intrinsic value made humans go from a more egalitarian (not perfectly obviously) to a more patrilineal and "oppressive" societal structure, where physical strength literally meant the survival of you and yours.” https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnthropology/comments/9nozym/comment/e7o67r9/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
“Intellectual preening” would imply that I presented the most cohesive and robust arguments out of every participant, when this was not even close to the case. I did not want to argue nor did I intend to fight. I am sick of bringing up women’s issues and oppression and being constantly met with opposition and hostility.
Today I have had individuals suggest that women weren’t truly oppressed in history (and that such an assertion was devoid of sense), that women’s oppression was advantageous, a skill issue, that women’s attainment of independence was a net negative for humanity, etc. I couldn’t have predicted how catastrophic and covertly hostile the comments would be.
I am legitimately flabbergasted at the responses.
This was just a hypothesis, I wanted a more robust answer. I have never taken an anthropology class. This perspective is relatively outdated and does not answer the full extent of my query.
There's a theory that it started when there was a lot of war and disease. This meant that population numbers were rapidly declining. Resulting in women being kept home to have babies and raise them. And
women being abducted from other tribes, raped.
We've then got the rise of religion. Books being written saying a woman should serve a man. Be kept home. Be subservient. Religion spread across the world. Colonisation. These ideas spread and are pushed into other cultures and religions.
> I find it misandrist that so many continually assert that the natural state of humanity is for women to be oppressed, and for men to call the shots.
I think you mean misogynistic
Part of it stems from moving away from living to provide for your group and survive towards wealth and, therefore, inheritance. When you have wealth and power you want your children to inherit it to ensure they're well looked after, and in an egalitarian copper age society your chances of knowing who's kid is who's are low when it comes to the fathers. In comes monogamy, and then marriage, and the passing on of the fathers name to keep track
Also, the movement from hunter gathering towards agriculture means that women can have more kids since they don't have to carry them as they move. Having more kids means more help on the farm, but having more kids also means more time pregnant and breastfeeding and doing childcare. This leads to an increasing imbalance between the freedom men have versus women, and societal norms move on to reflect this new way of life - women are house keepers barefoot and pregnant (gag), while the men go out and "get stuff done"
Look i dont have the answers as this is an insanely complex topic, but I just recently learned that about 5000 years ago the average males ability to reproduce dropped drastically to the point where for every 17 women reproducing there was only one male reproducing. This is evidenced by a drop-off in genetic diversity around that time. The crazy thing is nobody really know what happened, just that it did. Whatever it was, its possible that in the process of correcting the disparity we fundamentally shifted how the sexes interacted until this day
[It basically comes down to two reasons. First that power in an agricultural society comes from having people and what makes more people. Second is identity, these elites wanted to know that their legacy would be passed down to their child, so by controlling the thing making that child you controlled your legacy.](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/factually-with-adam-conover/id1463460577?i=1000554933659)
To answer questions like why we're here and who made us.
The dominance of man was brought upon when tribes had men hunting and fighting to protect their pack while women stayed behind to cook. And cooking took legit 12 hours.
Anyone in power will seek to keep their power, so if there is an unfit leader who wants to cling to their position, they'll sway laws and society to think like them. Thus, the idea of men being stronger than women and women being sensitive little things was born.
In the early early days, women were worshipped because they could make babies. Many statues depicted wide and fat women that were worshipped for their vitality.
My guess would be religion. At some point religions started moving towards male centered households. Women were taught to love and honor their husbands. And men were taught that their families are their property.
I've read stories about how priests would travel from town to town like rock stars, laying pipe every chance they had. Men would offer their wives up as tribute thinking it would help the family become closer to god. It became so bad, that the church had to create the celibacy rule.
I'm thinking that around the time humanity switched from hunter/gatherer to farmers and towns property rights became an issue. They needed to establish rules and laws of who owns what land. Most of these laws were probably established from religious morals. During this chaotic time, they had to try and establish a leadership to keep the peace for the benefit of the tribe. That would default to spiritual leaders. This would spread the message to everyone in the town.
Also something to remember is it's only been about 10,000 years since the immediate instinct of encountering another human being didn't result in a fight to the death.
Childbirth was the number one killer of women for most of history, and not preventable. Periods can be debilitating. Women in general are weaker. We have a sucky biology in my opinion.
That's only been overcome very recently, historically speaking.
There are history books that offer some suggestions on this, and a lot of it comes down to shifts to agriculture, accumulation of wealth by small groups, and the hostilities that took place between them - and the impact that has on roles played by both genders.
> “*Why were women opposed so widely worldwide?*”
Common men, women and children were widely opposed. Only the upper class had it good.
Until 100 years ago, common men and women in the West couldn’t even vote. Common women in the West have been allowed to vote 7 years in average after common men were.
> “*Why is misogyny so prevalent and ingrained in so many cultures?*”
Define “misogyny”.
I feel like humans attack those they feel threatened by.
(As a generalization) White people have attacked black people for decades- black people are known to sing and dance better and seem to be more athletic.
Women can carry life, take care of many people, keep her shit together under pressure, and are more empathetic, patient and tolerant.
Honestly, thinking on it a while, white men throughout history have really fucking screwed everyone else and are the biggest fucking entitled cry babies. They wanna oppress and control.
The thing is we don’t have clear evidence of what humans were like before recorded history. We have theories and ideas, but before anything could be written down we have no way of proving if humans were truly egalitarian since our emergence.
Saying that the earliest humans were more egalitarian than what came after is true, but it's also imprecise. When nothing exists to own, you can't really hoard wealth.
When agriculture was invented the idea of amassing resources was invented, so people started making rules about how they work. And once that happened, naturally men, being physically stronger made rules that unfairly favored themselves. Men also tended to go to war more because women going to war is more likely to destroy your entire community.
Men are bigger and stronger. So they can oppress women.
Women also needed men to protect them, not just from animals but other men. And things you protect get locked away, enough generations and it becomes a tradition. Now we have entire societies and law to protect women but back then you needed fighters.
Also women's reproduction was critical to a societies success, because when the world was more empty besides food shortages there was almost no issue to population growth and the more young men you had the more fighters/soldiers. You could many of lose the men and one man could have multiple wives to father multiple babies at once, but each woman could only have one baby at a time. So reproduction was more vital to increasing a nation and any nation trying to maximise efficiency would pressure women to breed. Lest your belligerent neighbour state outnumber you ten to 1 in a generation...
It really depends how you define oppression and misogyny. Throughout most of history many of us followed some sort of cultural norm where men were obligated to work some grueling, difficult or dirty job (since business offices weren’t always around) to put food on the table while women had and reared children. Men were (are) often in charge of building and maintaining the infrastructure, enforcing order and protecting the community even if it costs their lives. That which you (and many) call oppression I call being privileged and being coddled. In my opinion, men and women are innately different and egalitarianism is delusion
That’s actually only partially true. There’s loads of evidence of women working throughout history. There’s even the example of the oldest profession in the world. However, the concept of only the wealthy having the luxury of having a single provider is inaccurate. Especially in western nations as having a system where majority of the workforce was male meant businesses had less employees to pay, which meant the employees they had earned more. But back then, the family unit was stronger and women didn’t feel obligated to establish any sort of independence. Families often had more children and that’s what women more often focused on. It’s only nowadays where women are independent and the family unit is effectively destroyed where the explosion of the labor market happened since women make up the vast majority of spending.
Not necessarily a negative thing for the economy. It’s great for the economy but often bad for family structure as well as the sudden shift in culture where we overvalue materials as well as other hedonistic pursuits. This isn’t beneficial to the society we’re fortunate to be in. Not to sound pessimistic but it’s expected that women (as well as everyone in society) to take for granted the hard work (blood, sweat and tears) that went into building the many conveniences we have and the ability to step outside without worrying we’re going to get shot at. All we do is flip switches and watch water pour or lights turn or we push buttons and our cars turn on and the roads are just there but we never think who’s responsible for the road being there. I can assure you that’s not a fun job
You know, it wasn’t that long ago when women died in childbirth in droves. My wife is the love of my life. If she died giving birth I’d never love another woman. I’d treat them all coldly. I couldn’t take the loss. Misogyny is easy after that.
I’m honestly not. I am getting really sick of this narrative. Why would I just want to argue? This had made me feel like genuine ass water. Why would I want to bring this upon myself?
I’m like three comments away from snapping. I’ve tried to remain civil, but I’m tired.
The "best argument" I've heard is that it's tied to lineage and producing heirs. It's pretty damn obvious who the mother of a child is but before modern paternity tests there was no reliable way to tell who the father actually was outside of just making sure a woman couldn't sleep with anyone else. I've also heard this is one reason why as a greater human society drugs (mainly psychedelics for this example) can be so frowned upon. Allegedly it was making people more sexually free to the point some people saw confirming lineage being an issue.
What evidence do you have that our earliest ancestors were what you consider egalitarian? The fact that half of the species was unable to hunt or gather for years at a time would indicate that whoever controls the gathering of resources would have the most social sway in the community. Pregnancy and breastfeeding alone take you out of the field for a few years at the least. It’s only recent that technology and society has caught up to the fact that things that were communally necessary thousands of years ago are no longer needed, and by extension oppressive.
Oppressing half the population is a pretty big skill issue. Imagine how much more humanity would have progressed if women weren’t so oppressed for so long.
Primitive men were egalitarian. So they did not discriminate based on gender. Hunter gatherers had neither the time nor the resources to discriminate. Their primary objective was to survive
Humans did not dwell in caves, they occupied a variety of areas, from grasslands, to forests, to deserts. Also, both men and women contributed to species survival. Women did not stay behind. They both gathered and hunted for the survival of the species.
Not just women. The big guy rules. You either go out into the wilderness alone or take it up the ass. This is how it worked till relatively recently. And how a lot of chuckle fucks are trying to keep it.
> I find it misandrist that so many continually assert that the natural state of humanity is for women to be oppressed, and for men to call the shots.
You're mixing everything up from the beginning. What do you expect from that?
> Our earliest humans were egalitarian and did not uphold the hierarchical structure that is prevalent today across many societies
Absolutely not, and, if you want to change things, you need to reliable on facts, not your beliefs.
Men are naturally physically stronger.
The most base way of asserting your way is by being stronger.
Therefore, men have historically been able to assert their way better, meaning they get and stay in power.
Then, since men are the ones in power, they set up systems that value themselves, so male characteristics, which turns into a self-perpetuating loop.
There's also other things that play into it like men being generally more assertive and/or logical in their acting and thinking.
It's not necessarily something that men always consciously have done, but when you're surrounded by only other men, the things that are important to women and not men will generally just not be recognized.
Me man, big and strong. You women, small and weak. /s
I mean you put the /s but that is pretty much it in a nutshell. A lot of people don’t want to acknowledge that women have been oppressed under the threat of violence. Both inside the home on a domestic level as well as on a societal level. Women who dissented were subject to whatever cultural horrors were deemed as fit punishment.
"The strong do what they will. The weak suffer what they must."
Name checks out🫡
Why did you do a /s? First of all it’s fucking stupid in general but second how is this sarcastic? This is literally the answer.
Just didn't want anyone thinking I meant it. I guess /j might have been a better choice.
🦧 🦍🐒
Throughout most of history, yeah.
Also, me man, can make babies all me life. You women, can only make babies in 20s.
? Pretty common for women back then to have kids in their 30s, 40s, too until menopause. That’s how some ended up with 10+ kids woman*
Oh my sweet summer child... You have been lied to.
Oppression is a modern lens. Men were predominantly "in charge" because war and death were constant and dominant factors and birth control wasn't available. Survival was the main focus. Women shine in a world where "might does not make right," which is a very, very recent and potentially fragile innovation. Historically, women were as safe as their largest, most aggressive male family member. Nature is replete with examples. It's simple to imagine that you have a man and a woman stranded on an island alone for years. Supposing they're both of average build and intelligence, they are critical allies and the loss of either one would be a tremendous blow to their chances of survival. Now make her thoroughly pregnant and therefore unable to gather, hunt, build, etc. Now she's a necessary liability that doubles the man's workload in the hopes that her furlough will be temporary, except there's no formula. She's the only one that can feed the child, so it's become her liability and a reason to avoid risk taking behavior like fighting or hunting. During those points, if her one man dies, she may die and so might their child. At the end of the day, we did what we did because it was advantageous. We're here at all because of it. The fact that we don't behave that way now is a product of our technology and circumstances, not our nature.
This is the culmination of our past decisions and dynamics. From a purely economic standpoint, restricting women to certain roles and excluding them from the workforce meant that society was not utilizing the full potential of its population. This completely ignores the lack of agency and choice women had. Women's oppression cannot be justified on any grounds because it violates fundamental principles of human rights and equality. Oppression leads to significant personal and societal costs. Societies that abide by gender equality generally have far better outcomes. So if we had done so earlier, it would have been far more beneficial “The thick ideology around gender privilege includes all kinds of claims that the status quo is best. Patriarchal culture, for example, is full of messages that women prefer strong men who dominate them and make all the "big" decisions: When a woman says no to sex, she at least means maybe and probably means yes; women "ask" for all kinds of trouble, especially what's otherwise known as rape, sexual harassment, and being beaten by domestic partners; male superiority is a natural arrangement dictated by genes and other biological imperatives; men are naturally breadwinners, and women are naturally best suited to having bread won for them and tending to children and keeping the house clean. It doesn't matter how much evidence is weighed against such notions. It doesn't matter how often women complain about male control or how often they insist that no means no. It doesn't matter that women have been major "breadwinners" for virtually all of human history and that staying home and being supported by men is a historical anomaly that doesn't apply to the vast majority of people in the world and never has. The truth doesn't matter, however, because ideology isn't about truth or accuracy. Rather, its purpose is to get privileged people off the hook and preserve the status quo.” “Instead, the status quo typically is defined as normal, le-gitimate, and unremarkable, and slides along paths of least resistance that assume everything is basically alright.” “The truth, however, is more complicated. When we participate in a social system, we feel drawn toward paths of least resistance that shape how we perceive and make sense of things. Every system of privilege is organized to encourage subordinate groups to keep quiet and pretend there's no oppression going on lest the wrath of those above them make things a whole lot worse than they already are. And dominant groups are encouraged toward the subtle arrogance of not paying attention to the reality of the oppression that supports their privilege. Not surprisingly, if anyone breaks the silence, it is usually those nearest the bottom, who also tend to have the fewest resources for making change. As a result, oppressed groups often feel backed into a corner where making trouble seems the only way to draw attention to what's going on.”
Tell me you grew up in a developed nation without telling me you grew up in a developed nation.
Again, for 2.2 million years, men and women were egalitarian. There was not a discrete hierarchy where men assumed leadership over women. Patriarchal and patrilineal societies are a very recent invention. Edit: please do research for yourselves. You would be surprised. “Contrary to common belief, research shows that the patriarchy isn’t some kind of “natural order of things” – it hasn’t always been prevalent and may in fact disappear eventually. Hunter-gatherer communities may have been relatively egalitarian, at least compared to some of the regimes that followed. And female leaders and matriarchal societies have always existed.” [source](https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2022/sep/analysis-how-did-patriarchy-start-and-will-evolution-get-rid-it#:~:text=Contrary%20to%20common%20belief%2C%20research,of%20the%20regimes%20that%20followed) Patriarchy arose later on once our societies became more agrarian.: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2003.2535
I read the first few paragraphs of your source and had to stop. Nomadic tribes have hierarchies and a spouse could not just leave the relationship. The Huns and mongols were nomadic tribes and we have fairly decent historical accounts on how their societies function. Men did not get an advantage during warfare while everything was equal prior. This is easily observable in the current world. Hyenas for example. The females are dominate because (stay with me here) of a size differential. They do the hunting, the territorial disputes and (also stay with me here) rape the males. I’m curious on why you think there wasn’t a gender dominate structure through all of the evolution of hominids. Humans have not been around for 2.2 million years. Hominids have. Can you name off other species that have an egalitarian social structure? Other primates? Apes definitely have gender based dominate hierarchies. Chimps and bonobos definitely do and they are our closest living relatives.
Gibbons
A quick google search shows it depends on the subspecies. Many have the female as the dominant.
And many aren't don't pick and choose
Are you saying. “Many aren’t. Don’t pick and choose”? Many aren’t what exactly? I can only find that females are often in charge. Use your words
Send me your source, this is the first I've heard of what you're talking about. I studied anthropology in college and learned gibbons exhibit low sexual dimorphisim and pair bond for life. There is no domination or oppression like in hyenas or chimpanzees. Maybe it's changed
Google “gibbons gender hierarchy”. I mean it’s google so ya I’m not claiming to be an expert on the matter. Even if I’m completely wrong, it doesn’t in any means change the argument that OP is spouting. If I’m wrong then I’m wrong. Here’s one link so at least I don’t fully sound like derp derp GoOgLe iT https://denverzoo.org/animals/white-cheeked-gibbon/#:~:text=White%2Dcheeked%20gibbons%20live%20in%20small%20families%20comprising%20a%20male,the%20adult%20male%20is%20last.
Since you mentioned hyenas look up african wild dogs aswell, their social groups prop up their weakest members, which is quite egalitarian, unlike hyenas, which do the opposite.
And for the last ten thousand years, technology == farming == manual labor == males. I mentioned technology in my original post. We do what works.
If it worked so well, why did it have to be changed? Also, both men and women farmed. They have both been heavily involved in agriculture for 20,000 years.
In many parts of the world it hasn’t changed. Women are still oppressed. It’s just that in modern society we see a need to be more egalitarian
How well do the countries fare in which gender inequality is the most prevalent?
That's not a causal relationship per se tho
The infant and maternal mortality rates say it didn't work very well. They were ridiculously high.
That’s my point, tbh
Notice how often your source says “may” or something similar. You’re arguing as if it’s a concrete fact but it’s not actually proven. It’s speculation.
Not to mention the existence of Native American tribes that were naturally matriarchal.
Our world is falling apart. We are in the midst of a climate crisis and at the edge of nuclear war. Every hour, we drive 3 species to extinction, totaling to 30,000 per year. 280 million people have depression worldwide. This wasn’t advantageous at all,the world is fucked
He said it WAS advantageous. Not that it is or will prove to be should it continue. And since humanity is here, right now, it’s safe to say it was in fact advantageous.
This is the culmination of our past decisions and dynamics. From a purely economic standpoint, restricting women to certain roles and excluding them from the workforce meant that society was not utilizing the full potential of its population. This completely ignores the lack of agency and choice women had. Women's oppression cannot be justified on any grounds because it violates fundamental principles of human rights and equality. Oppression leads to significant personal and societal costs. Societies that abide by gender equality generally have far better outcomes. So if we had done so earlier, it would have been far more beneficial.
In your initial question you were asking for an explanation, not for a justification. The people in the comments are trying to give you possible explanations but you seem to be taking those answers as justifications for oppressing women. But let's carry on. To your point that not oppressing women would be more beneficial: I agree. However, humans are not rational calculating machines that are always trying to get the optimal outcome. I mean, lots of people smoke and drink for instance even though they know it's bad. I also do not think women were excluded from the work force that much. Work is such a relatively new concept. In the industrial revolution women could and did work in the factories. Before that, women worked on the family farm or in service to a lord. It's not like women have just been forced to sit at home for hundreds of years. In the past 100 years, the stay-at-home mom became more popular as jobs started paying enough to feed a family. Why it was always the women that stayed at home I don't know. It could have to do with them already not being able to work while being pregnant and then feeding a newborn. I think that it always being the woman who stayed home might not have started as a consequence of oppression, but I do think it enforced or created a lot of the misogyny and oppressive ideas we find today. Also, as to where the gender inequality started, I do think religion plays a very large role in that. Look at the garden of Eden story for instance, where it was Eve who fucked over Adam. There's a bunch more stuff in there that either portrays women as inferior or just simply wombs to bare progeny. So yeah that's my take.
I actually acknowledged that women were heavily involved in the workforce in my other comments! Nice to see someone who knows that. Was it not in the 1950’s that the narrative arose that women were to stay at home? Even then, 50% of women stayed at home
Yes I saw those comments of yours after posting mine! I think it was even earlier than that but it might depend on which part of the world. But it became fashionable especially in the 50's, there were even ad campaigns and popular books about it iirc. I also saw you talking about women not being involved in politics. This, however, is not just a modern thing as women in ancient Greece were also not allowed to partake in democracy.
I did ask for an explanation, but imbued within were justifications. “At the end of the day, we did it because it was advantageous.” “We are all here because of it.” “We do what works.”
Yes I understand that better now after reading some more comments
Human rights and equality are not fundamental to success as a species. They're a recent luxury based on Christian beliefs. You're such a fish you can't see the water. Did you post this question so you could strut your moral superiority among praising sycophants or was it entirely masturbatory?
I have no moral superiority over anybody here. I didn’t realize the environment would be so hostile. Tooafraidtoask has given me excellent answers in the past, so I returned to it again because I wanted to have a discussion. human rights are indeed fundamental to the success of the species. Their roots span across many societies that do not indulge in Christian beliefs. Societies that promote human rights and equality tend to have more stable, cohesive, and incredibly innovative communities. groups that practice fairness and cooperation tend to survive longer.
human females are incredibly valuable and essential to protect within our species if survival isn’t guaranteed. It takes 9 months to make a baby and for a good portion of that period the female is pretty incapacitated and requires more resources and protection. That mother then has to spend years caring for the child, as without constant care young humans are very likely to die (or even guaranteed to die). Males are much more expendable. If a group had 1 man and 10 women, 10 children could be made. Reverse those numbers and that group is going to die off. So, men would engage in the more immediately dangerous activities that needed to be done. This societal interworking of the genders has been developing within our species for a long time (men are dangerous and expendable, women are to be protected). This stayed with our species, and as societies with different cultures and different rules emerged, this ideology was kept. That’s why a lot of societies didn’t have women in the workforce or the military. There was a world for men, and a world for women. The idea that women and men are fundamentally the same and should engage in the same things is a relatively new concept. I’m sure there’s always been women throughout history that wished for an equal society, as men were the ones that built societies (and thus built it in favor of themselves). But, equality between any two groups is only really possible with an advanced society. Before advanced society, decisions were made by whoever had the power to force others to comply.
Having taken a read through this post, it’s clear that you are the one who is hostile.
why do you ask a question if you're just going to argue with anyone that answers you?
I’m not arguing with anyone who answers me, this has been moreso a debate than an argument for me, though some have devolved into insults. If I see someone insinuate that women weren’t truly oppressed throughout history, that women being oppressed for long was actually advantageous, that women’s independence was actually a net negative for society, or that men are primitive creatures (which is why women were so heavily opressed), of course I am going to contest. That’s sexist rhetoric at its core. I have the right to stand up in the event that someone spews bull, and I have a complete right to show an inkling of anger when someone suggests something absurd.
are you just sitting there typing paragraphs away to strangers? no one is arguing against your rights lol, they're just answering your questions. relax.
Oh, Jesus fuck I shouldn't have bothered.
This was a post looking for a fight, so yea, not responding at all is looking like the best response.
I wasn’t looking for a fight. I posted here because this sub has been amazing at answering my question in the past. I just find it insensitive that they suggested that oppression was advantageous
But you have displayed you have the answer, and have demonstrated that you are more looking to argue than you are an answer to your question.
There is no one, single answer to the question, though. This is a rarely discussed topic. i have an answer, but it is neither thorough enough nor comprehensive enough to duly address my question. I wanted further insight that the single answer could not sufficiently provide. I first searched up the inquiry and was nit satisfied with the answers. There were barely any comments at all and the thread was very outdated.
It at least is pretty cool to see an unhinged thread like this
You should stop consuming doomer content on the news. The world has objectively gotten better for people in the past 50 years. Child mortality has plummeted, quality of life for billions has risen, and global tensions are far lower now than they were before.
I’m just saying that the world would have been better off had women not been so widely oppressed. *Rebuttal to “At the end of the day, we did it because it was advantageous.”
You wanna go back in time and unoppress them? What are you preaching here, I don't get it
Sure, but what do you expect these redditors to do about it?
I agree, we need to change. This patriarchy is not working and it destabilizes families. Matriarchal families are much more stable, long term. Way more sustainable than patriarchal lineages.
The world did just fine before us, and will do just fine without us. 99.9% of species that ever existed are already extinct, yet the world keeps on spinning. " # The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles … hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worldwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages … And we think some plastic bags and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet isn’t going anywhere. WE are!" - George Carlin
2 things caused this: corruption by power, and the difference in physical strenght between men and women. People get corrupted by power, whether this is power in the form of money, assets, or dominance over others, all power corrupts. Now add on to that the fact that men are generally stronger. And ontop of that, especially back in the day, a lot of jobs required men to be even stronger physically then now. So your end result is a men who can quite literally pick up a woman and throw her across the room if she doesnt do what he wants, and you get a pretty clear power issue. Men can do what they want and if the woman disobeys he can harm her. Power always corrupts so eventually most men started to work toghether to keep their power, and to increase it, this can be done in the form of laws, rules over who can do what, rules over who can do what, and more like that. Repeat this for a couple hundered years and you get the idea.
In my opinion, I think misogyny was maintained through a multitude of social, cultural, religious, and biological factors but I do think that the very first "starting point" was the fact that men were physically stronger than women.
The egalitarian bit of hunter gatherer culture is pure speculation. Men are, by and large, larger and stronger.
I think it's because, men are physically stronger, and once men got a taste of being the dominant group, they set systems in place to enhance and solidify their dominance. It just snowballed from there.
Misogyny and female oppression stem from a complex history of biological, social, and cultural factors that have created and reinforced gender inequality. While progress has been made, eradicating deeply rooted misogyny remains a challenge.
It might just have to do with the fact men are generally bigger and stronger
I’m bigger than Tom Cruise
that’s why the term generally is included in the comment above
Fa sho
I think the narrative that women are oppressed and societies were patriarchal is a little bit wrong. That tends to be based on looking at the history books that detail the lives of political leaders and warlords which are disproportionately male - but there have been supremely influential women leaders in all of human history (from Cleopatra to Victoria and Catherine). But that’s like 0.000001% of humans. Most people in most of history were effectively serfs, working grueling agricultural jobs. Men worked their bodies, and were often conscripted soldiers in some foreign war. Most were illiterate. It’s not like they pursued the finer things while women toiled away. Meanwhile, women raised families. Child mortality through all of human history until like 1950 was staggeringly high. You needed 4 kids just to hope to see 2 make it to adulthood. Having 4 kids before the era of formula and refrigerators meant a woman had to spend *all of her 20’s & 30’s* breastfeeding and into her 40’s actually raising kids. It was the medical advancements of child mortality and reproductive control that allowed women to advance - so ~1950. It was of course the Industrial Revolution that allowed labor to specialize and get into knowledge fields, once we unleveled the tech tree that allowed average *men* to pursue interests and economies rather than just farm enough food to not die. So men weren’t really freed *either* until like the late 1800’s until technology and political thought advanced during and immediately following the Industrial Revolution. So you *really* only had like a maybe 70 year period in human history where men had a clearly better deal - but plenty of factory work or being in ww1 trenches was very not awesome, so even then I’m not totally sure. I am looking at this through a fairly western lens. There are cultures that are much more misogynistic - but honestly I struggle to name truly misogynist cultures with sufficiently developed economies with the *exception* of the Middle East. Some parts of the world like India or Latin America or Asia have more pronounced gender roles, but it’s pretty obvious in many of those places women call the shots in family dynamics. So from about 2 million BC when descended to the trees until about 1850, most of us were finding food and raising children so we didn’t die as a species while 0.001% of rich people read books. Then men were able to pursue knowledge fields at real scale after the Industrial Revolution, then 70 years later women could after a medical revolution. The idea of deeply ingrained historical patriarchy is a really simplistic and politically driven assessment of history. It’s just wrong.
Yes, both men and women did not have the best chances in history, but this does not negate the fact that women were barred from occupying political positions and attaining education. This doesn’t negate from the fact that women were largely considered property of their husbands. Women didn’t stay at home for most of history, that was only affluent/middle class women in the 1950’s. More women worked through history than stayed at home. The vast majority of women were farmers.
Men were illiterate serfs too. The elite got all the goodies.
Women were barred at a greater level from educational pursuits. For example, Colonial America designed education after boys. In addition, women were prevented from entering higher education to any degree. They were relegated to dame schools, if anything. This persisted until the 19th century. Even then, their options were limited. today, it’s illegal in some countries for women to receive schooling.
> women were barred from occupying political positions and attaining education Okay, but again everyone except from nobility was barred from that stuff too. We didn’t have high citizen participation in representative democracy until the early 1800s and even then most of the west didn’t get it until even later
The reason and mechanisms of exclusion still differed. The exclusion of women was both distinct and systematic. They had limited property rights, excluded from education and employment in a wider degree. even so, a lag in the attainment of rights perfectly exhibits the favorability even the common man retained in the eyes of the system. 70 years comprises 28% of the USA’s existence as well as nigh half when such rights were obtained by women. “The combination of denial and calling oppression and privilege something else often results in the claim that everyone actually prefers things the way they are. I often hear whites, for example, say with great confidence that blacks would rather live among other blacks, reflecting a supposedly natural human tendency to choose the company of "your own kind." In fact, however, research shows clearly that most blacks would prefer to live in integrated neighborhoods. If anyone wants to live "with their own kind," it is whites. It is whites who enforce the extreme level of residential segregation found in the United States and the devastating consequences that result. Segregation is also portrayed as a matter of simple econom-ics: blacks and other people of color don't live among whites because they can't afford to. But in fact, it is racism, not income, occupation, or education, that stands in the way of integrated living for most people of color, especially those in the middle class.* The thick ideology around gender privilege includes all kinds of claims that the status quo is best. Patriarchal culture, for example, is full of messages that women prefer strong men who dominate them and make all the "big" decisions: When a woman says no to sex, she at least means maybe and probably means yes; women "ask" for all kinds of trouble, especially what's otherwise known as rape, sexual harassment, and being beaten by domestic partners; male superiority is a natural arrangement dictated by genes and other biological imperatives; men are naturally breadwinners, and women are naturally best suited to having bread won for them and tending to children and keeping the house clean. It doesn't matter how much evidence is weighed against such notions. It doesn't matter how often women complain about male control or how often they insist that no means no. It doesn't matter that women have been major "breadwinners" for virtually all of human history and that staying home and being supported by men is a historical anomaly that doesn't apply to the vast majority of people in the world and never has. The truth doesn't matter, however, because ideology isn't about truth or accuracy. Rather, its purpose is to get privileged people off the hook and preserve the status quo. It supports the all too human tendency to soothe yourself into thinking there's nothing unpleasant or challenging here to deal with, and certainly nothing to do with you. And when someone dares to challenge that comforting reality, it's easy to confuse the bearer of bad news with the bad news itself. When blacks call attention to the divisions caused by race privilege, for example, they're often accused of creating those divisions, as if racism isn't a problem unless you talk about it. Talking about privilege rather than privilege itself gets defined as the problem. Being part of the solution to a trouble that already divides us begins with coming together around the simple truth that we're all in trouble and that pretending we aren't is a key to what keeps us apart.” “Denial can be a powerful and useful psychological defense mechanism. When something is too horrible to deal with, denial can be a lifesaver, especially for children. Usually, however, denial exacts a price by standing between us and our power to see our lives clearly and to do something to make them better.” “Given how risky it can be to acknowledge painful realities, it's not surprising that we might deny that patriarchy exists rather than risk ridicule, rejection, or worse by seeing it for what it is. For men in particular, denial can be militant and confrontational, but it usually appears as a stubborn inability to see or understand. It may begin with something as simple as calling gender issues "women's issues," an easy way for men to disassociate themselves from the problems of the "other." From there, denial gets thicker and harder to penetrate.” “Instead, the status quo typically is defined as normal, le-gitimate, and unremarkable, and slides along paths of least resistance that assume everything is basically alright.”
> 70 years compromises 28% of the USA’s existence Okay but you’re sure moving goalposts here. Your original comment was about global history. I acknowledge a relatively period between the Industrial Revolution and medical revolution where men were freed for higher pursuits than women… but that was largely dude to technology. > they had limited property rights, excluded from education Again, most *people* were neither landowners nor educated. Public education wasn’t really a concept until the mid 1800’s, and landowning was rare until then too. University was an institution restricted to nobility. > the favorability the even the common man retained Bluntly, you seem to have this presupposition of patriarchy and are looking for evidence to support your political position rather than actually taking an honest anthropological & sociological look. Implicit in your statement is this idea that job title dictates quality of life and cultural influence. That is simply *wrong*. You’re looking at a fairly small part of the human experience during a fairly small window of time and calling it the whole. You need to look at culture, family life, traditions - how people actually lived their lives. Look at carnival, an Indian wedding, how people celebrate on the holidays. That’s really what life is about, and in so many aspects of our society are designed around the desires of women. Most polling and interviewing of women suggests that *women are happier overall* than men, and isn’t that the ultimate measurement? Though most of human history women and men have had very *different* experiences, but to look at the advantages of one side without acknowledging the disadvantages is just an intellectually dishonest evaluation.
Yes, but women also report a higher rate of dissatisfaction than men. They have higher rates of depression, anxiety, and overall sadness. I am not denying the suffering of men; merely asserting that men were not discriminated against by virtue of their gender. I am unsure how women’s current life satisfaction correlates with the present matter at hand. We are assessing past instances of oppression. This is not a contest, and I fear you perceive it as such in several regards. Patriarchy is well-documented in legal, political, and social structures that favored men. Yes, public education and widespread land ownership were limited before the mid-1800s, but men still had greater access to both compared to women Consider the implications: Women's limited property rights resulted in having less economic independence and power, which influenced their quality of life and societal status directly. An honest examination of history acknowledges both the privileges AND disadvantages faced by varying genders. To ignore the systemic nature of patriarchy is to dismiss the significant progress made in gender equality and the struggles that led to it. A patriarchy denotes a society in which those who hold power are predominantly male, whereas women are largely excluded. This definition is widely accurate to many societies over the course of the past 200 years. What I have to wonder is why you might be inclined to deny the societal privilege that accompanies maleness. I have no presupposition of patriarchy. I merely analyzed the social structures we live in today. This has little to do with politics in any regard. “Given how risky it can be to acknowledge painful realities, it is not surprising that we might deny that patriarchy exists rather than risk ridicule, rejection, or worse by seeing it for what it is. For men in particular, denial can be militant and confrontational, but it usually appears as a stubborn inability to see or understand. It may begin with something as simple as calling the consequences of male privilege a ‘women’s issue,’ an easy way for men to disassociate from the problems of the other. From there, denial gets thicker and harder to penetrate.” I read a book on privilege and a book on patriarchy to understand why you might be vehemently in denial as to the benefits that men have historically possessed over women. To me, I live these realities, observe them on the daily. To you, these are invisible. You might be inclined to defend such systems as it is the path of least resistance, or you find benefit in upholding the status quo (I am going to assume you are male because of this) “as prices go, it isn’t very high. The problem, though—and a major reason men may feel blamed even when they are not being blamed—is that most men’s identification with patriarchy runs so deep (consciously or not) that they experience criticism of the system as a personal attack. The evidence of women’s oppression is everywhere, and it is hard not to know that cultural misogyny is real and that men and manhood are culturally defined as superior.”
But yet history had Elizabeth I, Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, Sappho.............
You do realize Joan of Arc was killed partially for heresy due to wearing men’s clothes and assuming men’s roles?
This is true.
That was the utter exception, not the norm.
A few memorable women leaders doesn’t mean women held power equally. Women are around half of the population, so with true equality, about half of leaders should be women. That is still not true in most political bodies or businesses. Ask yourself how many historical male leaders you remember compared to the few women leaders.
True. I'm convinced when we were cavemen and cavewomen it was 50/50 in everything. When currency and property came into the mix, everything changed to patriarchal.
Because we're great apes and behave thusly. On the bright side, women have equality in first world countries. On the down side, women in places like Saudi Arabia definitely don't. As for the why, I think it stems from our primal instinct to have the strongest call the shots. Since men are stronger than women, they had to do whatever men said.
But we were initially an egalitarian society, for 2.2 million years, where neither men nor women were oppressed. So why now?
According to whom?
Anthropologists
So what's their hypothesis about why things changed?
From elsewhere on Reddit: “Pre copper age human tribes are posited to be actually more egalitarian than most people imagine. The first chapter draws a comparison between the popular understanding of "natural" humans and the very violent chimpanzees, when in reality, evidence suggests it was more like bonobos (more cooperative. People often wonder what separates humans from animals, and our ability to cooperate, according to Hrdy, is absolutely our strongest distinction, and our cooperation is the very reason we were able to make it at all in the beginning). To define what I mean by more "egalitarian": Hunter gatherer tribes/bands had women in the gathering position and men in the hunting position, where gatherers brought in the majority of calories and men brought in important micronutrients via meat. Males did not dominate via a patrilineal system of breeding or a system of patriarchal chieftdom because there was no reason to value men's strength intrinsically above what women brought to the table in terms of food and social bonds. Egalitarian societies survived in the beginning, to simplify, because: Southern Africa during the Paleolithic and early neolithic ages was a very hard place to survive. Frequent warfare wouldn't make sense if your numbers are small and there will always be a new hunter-gatherer territory to move to. Humans being EVERYWHERE hadn't happened yet, and neither had agriculture. As the environment was harsh, child rearing of our particularly vulnerable infants was more important than settling some debt in blood with a neighboring tribe, that you could simply move away from. It was cooperate or die. Evidence suggests that it behooved bands of families to gift-give to neighboring tribes, in the event their hunting/gathering failed to make the caloric goal for the day. There is no room for a system of "oppression" when you have to focus on social bonds and getting food. Sticking to European civilizations at least, egalitarian tribes stopped "making sense" the second humans stopped being 10,000 strong at best in Southern Africa, and started competing with one another for resources as they spread upward and outward. When us as clever tool-users figured out agriculture and domestication, settling down in one place became a "thing"... and so did bloodshed over those places. People could no longer just pick up and move to greener pastures because those pastures had some other tribe/village, and you'd have to fight for it. Their environment was telling them that physical strength was vital for survival. It "makes sense", from here in 2018, to see societies begin to value it in the neolithic and copper ages, and value men as protectors (as the people allowing their early societies to keep surviving against the odds). This did not make it impossible to see matrilineal or matriarchal or egalitarian societies, but it was rare. Might makes right in such a world overpopulated by us, where land is valued, and resources differ depending on location. It has been this way for thousands of years. We are able to see more equal societies in modern times because strength-based survival happens on a larger scale and isn't so individual-based (having an army you choose to join rather than having every able man de facto defending a village and thus being responsible for survival). You still see larger gender divides in societies where it is seen as, or is, more necessary to see men as "protectors" who do physical labor to provide for the family. TL;DR High human population, and land and resources having intrinsic value made humans go from a more egalitarian (not perfectly obviously) to a more patrilineal and "oppressive" societal structure, where physical strength literally meant the survival of you and yours.” https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnthropology/comments/9nozym/comment/e7o67r9/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
So, you knew the answer and just wanted to show off what you learned in Anthropology?
Oh, yea, this was a post to argue/fight, maybe some intellectual preening, not a post to actually ask a question.
“Intellectual preening” would imply that I presented the most cohesive and robust arguments out of every participant, when this was not even close to the case. I did not want to argue nor did I intend to fight. I am sick of bringing up women’s issues and oppression and being constantly met with opposition and hostility. Today I have had individuals suggest that women weren’t truly oppressed in history (and that such an assertion was devoid of sense), that women’s oppression was advantageous, a skill issue, that women’s attainment of independence was a net negative for humanity, etc. I couldn’t have predicted how catastrophic and covertly hostile the comments would be. I am legitimately flabbergasted at the responses.
That is the most pretentious thing I have read in a while
This was just a hypothesis, I wanted a more robust answer. I have never taken an anthropology class. This perspective is relatively outdated and does not answer the full extent of my query.
I doubt many people casually browsing reddit can come up with something better than the people who spend their lives studying this.
And you think you'll find it on a random sub reddit?
"My boy's wicked smaht."
I'm guessing it's because women are the only ones that can produce more humans and men want control over that.
Nail on head.
Were???
It isn't misogyny to point out that humanity has mostly been misogynistic throughout history.
Physical strength
"The strong do what they will. The weak suffer what they must."
were? try are.
Agriculture
There's a theory that it started when there was a lot of war and disease. This meant that population numbers were rapidly declining. Resulting in women being kept home to have babies and raise them. And women being abducted from other tribes, raped. We've then got the rise of religion. Books being written saying a woman should serve a man. Be kept home. Be subservient. Religion spread across the world. Colonisation. These ideas spread and are pushed into other cultures and religions. > I find it misandrist that so many continually assert that the natural state of humanity is for women to be oppressed, and for men to call the shots. I think you mean misogynistic
I would argue it’s both. It poses men as violent oppressors and women as inadequate
Part of it stems from moving away from living to provide for your group and survive towards wealth and, therefore, inheritance. When you have wealth and power you want your children to inherit it to ensure they're well looked after, and in an egalitarian copper age society your chances of knowing who's kid is who's are low when it comes to the fathers. In comes monogamy, and then marriage, and the passing on of the fathers name to keep track Also, the movement from hunter gathering towards agriculture means that women can have more kids since they don't have to carry them as they move. Having more kids means more help on the farm, but having more kids also means more time pregnant and breastfeeding and doing childcare. This leads to an increasing imbalance between the freedom men have versus women, and societal norms move on to reflect this new way of life - women are house keepers barefoot and pregnant (gag), while the men go out and "get stuff done"
Look i dont have the answers as this is an insanely complex topic, but I just recently learned that about 5000 years ago the average males ability to reproduce dropped drastically to the point where for every 17 women reproducing there was only one male reproducing. This is evidenced by a drop-off in genetic diversity around that time. The crazy thing is nobody really know what happened, just that it did. Whatever it was, its possible that in the process of correcting the disparity we fundamentally shifted how the sexes interacted until this day
[It basically comes down to two reasons. First that power in an agricultural society comes from having people and what makes more people. Second is identity, these elites wanted to know that their legacy would be passed down to their child, so by controlling the thing making that child you controlled your legacy.](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/factually-with-adam-conover/id1463460577?i=1000554933659)
Religion
Religion
Religion isn't the reason why women have been oppressed, religion was just another medium that men used to oppress and control women.
Yes. But why were those religions made up in the first place.
To answer questions like why we're here and who made us. The dominance of man was brought upon when tribes had men hunting and fighting to protect their pack while women stayed behind to cook. And cooking took legit 12 hours. Anyone in power will seek to keep their power, so if there is an unfit leader who wants to cling to their position, they'll sway laws and society to think like them. Thus, the idea of men being stronger than women and women being sensitive little things was born. In the early early days, women were worshipped because they could make babies. Many statues depicted wide and fat women that were worshipped for their vitality.
My guess would be religion. At some point religions started moving towards male centered households. Women were taught to love and honor their husbands. And men were taught that their families are their property. I've read stories about how priests would travel from town to town like rock stars, laying pipe every chance they had. Men would offer their wives up as tribute thinking it would help the family become closer to god. It became so bad, that the church had to create the celibacy rule. I'm thinking that around the time humanity switched from hunter/gatherer to farmers and towns property rights became an issue. They needed to establish rules and laws of who owns what land. Most of these laws were probably established from religious morals. During this chaotic time, they had to try and establish a leadership to keep the peace for the benefit of the tribe. That would default to spiritual leaders. This would spread the message to everyone in the town. Also something to remember is it's only been about 10,000 years since the immediate instinct of encountering another human being didn't result in a fight to the death.
Childbirth was the number one killer of women for most of history, and not preventable. Periods can be debilitating. Women in general are weaker. We have a sucky biology in my opinion. That's only been overcome very recently, historically speaking.
Religion and control over women is likely the reason. All reinforced by toxic masculinity.
There are history books that offer some suggestions on this, and a lot of it comes down to shifts to agriculture, accumulation of wealth by small groups, and the hostilities that took place between them - and the impact that has on roles played by both genders.
You should be asking this in r/askanthropology
Womb envy
Pregnancy and childbirth.
Unless there is a rule of law to prevent it, the strong will try to dominate the weak. It's constant theme through history and not isolated to gender.
> “*Why were women opposed so widely worldwide?*” Common men, women and children were widely opposed. Only the upper class had it good. Until 100 years ago, common men and women in the West couldn’t even vote. Common women in the West have been allowed to vote 7 years in average after common men were. > “*Why is misogyny so prevalent and ingrained in so many cultures?*” Define “misogyny”.
I feel like humans attack those they feel threatened by. (As a generalization) White people have attacked black people for decades- black people are known to sing and dance better and seem to be more athletic. Women can carry life, take care of many people, keep her shit together under pressure, and are more empathetic, patient and tolerant. Honestly, thinking on it a while, white men throughout history have really fucking screwed everyone else and are the biggest fucking entitled cry babies. They wanna oppress and control.
Physical strength and size because no laws protect women anymore
Men have time and energy for violence bc they don't have ovaries or reproductive cycles Period . No pun intended.
The thing is we don’t have clear evidence of what humans were like before recorded history. We have theories and ideas, but before anything could be written down we have no way of proving if humans were truly egalitarian since our emergence.
Because of how valuable our time, afford and talent is. We need to be put in our place
Saying that the earliest humans were more egalitarian than what came after is true, but it's also imprecise. When nothing exists to own, you can't really hoard wealth. When agriculture was invented the idea of amassing resources was invented, so people started making rules about how they work. And once that happened, naturally men, being physically stronger made rules that unfairly favored themselves. Men also tended to go to war more because women going to war is more likely to destroy your entire community.
Men are bigger and stronger. So they can oppress women. Women also needed men to protect them, not just from animals but other men. And things you protect get locked away, enough generations and it becomes a tradition. Now we have entire societies and law to protect women but back then you needed fighters. Also women's reproduction was critical to a societies success, because when the world was more empty besides food shortages there was almost no issue to population growth and the more young men you had the more fighters/soldiers. You could many of lose the men and one man could have multiple wives to father multiple babies at once, but each woman could only have one baby at a time. So reproduction was more vital to increasing a nation and any nation trying to maximise efficiency would pressure women to breed. Lest your belligerent neighbour state outnumber you ten to 1 in a generation...
It really depends how you define oppression and misogyny. Throughout most of history many of us followed some sort of cultural norm where men were obligated to work some grueling, difficult or dirty job (since business offices weren’t always around) to put food on the table while women had and reared children. Men were (are) often in charge of building and maintaining the infrastructure, enforcing order and protecting the community even if it costs their lives. That which you (and many) call oppression I call being privileged and being coddled. In my opinion, men and women are innately different and egalitarianism is delusion
Most women worked through history. They occupied agriculture, largely. Only affluent moms could afford to stay at home.
That’s actually only partially true. There’s loads of evidence of women working throughout history. There’s even the example of the oldest profession in the world. However, the concept of only the wealthy having the luxury of having a single provider is inaccurate. Especially in western nations as having a system where majority of the workforce was male meant businesses had less employees to pay, which meant the employees they had earned more. But back then, the family unit was stronger and women didn’t feel obligated to establish any sort of independence. Families often had more children and that’s what women more often focused on. It’s only nowadays where women are independent and the family unit is effectively destroyed where the explosion of the labor market happened since women make up the vast majority of spending.
Just to clarify, you are asserting that women gaining independence was a negative thing?
Not necessarily a negative thing for the economy. It’s great for the economy but often bad for family structure as well as the sudden shift in culture where we overvalue materials as well as other hedonistic pursuits. This isn’t beneficial to the society we’re fortunate to be in. Not to sound pessimistic but it’s expected that women (as well as everyone in society) to take for granted the hard work (blood, sweat and tears) that went into building the many conveniences we have and the ability to step outside without worrying we’re going to get shot at. All we do is flip switches and watch water pour or lights turn or we push buttons and our cars turn on and the roads are just there but we never think who’s responsible for the road being there. I can assure you that’s not a fun job
Mate, this is Too Afraid To Ask, where you ask questions you’re afraid to ask and you get answers. It’s not a debate sub.
You know, it wasn’t that long ago when women died in childbirth in droves. My wife is the love of my life. If she died giving birth I’d never love another woman. I’d treat them all coldly. I couldn’t take the loss. Misogyny is easy after that.
That is such a weird thing to say
[удалено]
I’m honestly not. I am getting really sick of this narrative. Why would I just want to argue? This had made me feel like genuine ass water. Why would I want to bring this upon myself? I’m like three comments away from snapping. I’ve tried to remain civil, but I’m tired.
The "best argument" I've heard is that it's tied to lineage and producing heirs. It's pretty damn obvious who the mother of a child is but before modern paternity tests there was no reliable way to tell who the father actually was outside of just making sure a woman couldn't sleep with anyone else. I've also heard this is one reason why as a greater human society drugs (mainly psychedelics for this example) can be so frowned upon. Allegedly it was making people more sexually free to the point some people saw confirming lineage being an issue.
What evidence do you have that our earliest ancestors were what you consider egalitarian? The fact that half of the species was unable to hunt or gather for years at a time would indicate that whoever controls the gathering of resources would have the most social sway in the community. Pregnancy and breastfeeding alone take you out of the field for a few years at the least. It’s only recent that technology and society has caught up to the fact that things that were communally necessary thousands of years ago are no longer needed, and by extension oppressive.
Skill issue
Oppressing half the population is a pretty big skill issue. Imagine how much more humanity would have progressed if women weren’t so oppressed for so long.
Because of the primitive mentality of men
Primitive men were egalitarian. So they did not discriminate based on gender. Hunter gatherers had neither the time nor the resources to discriminate. Their primary objective was to survive
It actually happened because the women had to stay in the cave
Humans did not dwell in caves, they occupied a variety of areas, from grasslands, to forests, to deserts. Also, both men and women contributed to species survival. Women did not stay behind. They both gathered and hunted for the survival of the species.
I'm talking about the Stone Age
Me too
Ok
Sheldon? Is that you? Or maybe Amy Farrah Fowler?
Easy: As John Lennon said - women are the “N-word” of the WORLD.
Not just women. The big guy rules. You either go out into the wilderness alone or take it up the ass. This is how it worked till relatively recently. And how a lot of chuckle fucks are trying to keep it.
> I find it misandrist that so many continually assert that the natural state of humanity is for women to be oppressed, and for men to call the shots. You're mixing everything up from the beginning. What do you expect from that? > Our earliest humans were egalitarian and did not uphold the hierarchical structure that is prevalent today across many societies Absolutely not, and, if you want to change things, you need to reliable on facts, not your beliefs.
Seems…..obvious.
Lol I hope she sees this bro.
Men are naturally physically stronger. The most base way of asserting your way is by being stronger. Therefore, men have historically been able to assert their way better, meaning they get and stay in power. Then, since men are the ones in power, they set up systems that value themselves, so male characteristics, which turns into a self-perpetuating loop. There's also other things that play into it like men being generally more assertive and/or logical in their acting and thinking. It's not necessarily something that men always consciously have done, but when you're surrounded by only other men, the things that are important to women and not men will generally just not be recognized.