Kirbmarc wrote:
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Men have oppressed women because women are, at least on the average, physically weaker than men and until a few centuries ago physical strength was a source of power hard to counter in meaningful ways.
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But if women were physically stronger than men... they'd be the ones oppressing white, hetero, cis males, unless society kept a careful balance of powers to minimize oppression.
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Service Dog wrote:Have men actually oppressed women? Throughout history, didn't men actually put women on a privileged pedestal, due to their reproductive role?
Women were exempt from combat, exempt from the most deadly professions, exempt from the death penalty for crimes, from self-sacrifice, chivalry, exempt from directly earning their own keep.
Kirbmarc's contention was "physical strength was a source of power hard to counter in meaningful ways".James Caruthers wrote: Yes and yes.
Yes they were oppressed.
Yes they were kept sheltered from many dangers.
You have to be ignorant of archeology, anthropology and history to honestly argue that there has not been an historical pattern of patriarchal societies (meaning patrilineal societies where women are treated as property of their husbands and fathers) since around the time agricultural revolutions allowed for societies to remain in one place and for populations to expand rapidly.
A group of people can be sheltered from dangers in many ways while also being oppressed in other ways. Marital rape or violence, for example, not being considered crimes because the woman was property of her husband.
You would never argue that fundamentalist Islam (or Judaism for that matter) is not sexist against women. Well, the state that exists within fundamentalist Islam regarding women is similar to that which historically existed in many societies. In those Islamic societies, the women are not on the front lines in combat (usually.) But they are still oppressed.
I suppose those physically-large male brutes never slept, so their wives never had any opportunity to slit their sleeping throats.
And I suppose those bygone women were stupider than female apes, who are crafty-enough to topple an unwanted Alpha male by luring him into a succession of title-defenses against lesser males, until-- exhausted from too many challenges-- the strongman is beaten.
I would argue that fundamentalist Islam or Judaism (or the Bad Old Days-in general) was--historically-- sexist against everyone rather than "sexist against women"... as-opposed to how US plantation slavery was "racist against blacks", not against "everyone".
To argue that women were/are uniquely oppressed is to argue-- as feminism does-- that only women need be liberated, because men are sitting-pretty.
That isn't true-- and it has led to feminism being the wrong answer to real problems.
When women were "property of their husband or father", men weren't free... men were property of overlords and oppressive social orders. In some ways, this is more true than ever today... right here in the USA.