Posted on 03/03/2012 7:05:40 PM PST by Borges
All of us have been taught how women have supposedly been oppressed throughout human existence, and that this was pervasive, systematic, and endorsed by ordinary men who presumably had it much better than women. In reality, this narrative is entirely fabricated. The average man was forced to risk death on the battlefield, at sea, or in mines, while most women stayed indoors tending to children and household duties. Male life expectancy was always significantly lower than that of females, and still is.
Warfare has been a near constant feature of human society before the modern era, and whenever two tribes or kingdoms went to war with each other, the losing side saw many of its fighting-age men exterminated, while the women were assimilated into the invading society. Now, becoming a concubine or a housekeeper is an unfortunate fate, but not nearly as bad as being slaughtered in battle as the men were. To anyone who disagrees, would you like for the men and women to trade outcomes?
Most of this narrative stems from 'feminists' comparing the plight of average women to the topmost men (the monarch and other aristocrats), rather than to the average man. This practice is known as apex fallacy, and whether accidental or deliberate, entirely misrepresents reality. To approximate the conditions of the average woman to the average man (the key word being 'average') in the Western world of a century ago, simply observe the lives of the poorest peasants in poor countries today. Both men and women have to perform tedious work, have insufficient food and clothing, and limited opportunities for upliftment.
As far as selective anecdotes like voting rights go, in the vast majority of cases, men could not vote either. In fact, if one compares every nation state from every century, virtually all of them extended exactly the same voting rights (or lack thereof) to men and women. Even today, out of 200 sovereign states, there are exactly zero that have a different class of voting rights to men and women. Any claim that women were being denied rights than men were given in even 0.1% of historical instances, falls flat.
This is not to deny that genuine atrocities like genital mutilation have been perpetrated against women; they have and still are. But men also experienced atrocities of comparable horror at the same time, which is simply not mentioned. In fact, when a man is genitally mutilated by a woman, other women actually find this humorous, and are proud to say so publicly.
It is already wrong when a contemporary group seeks reparations from an injustice that occurred over a century ago to people who are no longer alive. It is even worse when this oppression itself is a fabrication. The narrative of female oppression by men should be rejected and refuted as the highly selective and historically false narrative that it is. In fact, this myth is evidence not of historical oppression, but of the vastly different propensity to complain between the two genders.
Refuting a false argument isn’t “bitching and moaning”.
Ridicule is a great tool against liars, but it usually isn’t the best way to convince people sitting on the fence that you are correct and the liars are wrong. To do that, you usually have to address the false arguments being made.
I am so SICK of the ‘woe is me’ single working mom crap. White males have been getting beat, kicked, robbed, laid-off, fired, sued, denied, rejected, and spit on since passage of the Civil Rights Act and everyone knows it.
“Women didn’t have the right to vote in the US until a century and a half after men did”
Well, you’re focusing on the US, which had some of the most progressive voting rights in the world. Still, even here not ALL men had the right to vote that early. In the beginning most men did not have the right to vote, only white male property owners, who were a minority. Also, in most cases non-Christians could not vote either, and there were also requirements to pay poll taxes, or literacy tests. It wasn’t until 1870 that all men in the US achieved legal voting rights.
Still, for non-whites just having the “right” didn’t translate to actually being able to vote everywhere, until 1965 with the Voting Rights Act. White women, on the other hand, had freer voting rights starting in 1920. So, even in the US, some women were voting decades before some men were. It’s not as cut-and-dry a scenario as some like to paint.
Voting does not give one power-—look at Russia and Chicago.
Oppression of women is relative-—Western Civilization has given women—esp. in colonial America a tremendous amount of power and rights. Look at the lives of Abigail Adams and most women of their time who selected their own husbands and had much power over men’s votes and thoughts and property. Total control of the education of the children, etc. The power of that is control of the future. Look at what Tocqueville said about the women in America.
To compare American women to men is stupid-—they are not the same and not equal in many ways. The Egalitarianism which tries to take away the humanity of both men and women and say they are interchangeable and should have the exact same ROLES in life and the family are extremely destructive—especially to the emotional development of children.
It is human NATURE that woman IS THE WEAKER SEX—that is why they have been “oppressed” by every single culture that ever existed. The weak always were oppressed whether women or MEN.
BTW, it is Christianity which gave dignity and worth to women-—IDEOLOGY-—which determines if a person has dignity and worth and “oppressed” women in the US were given much more respect in the early 20th century than after the 60’s-—where now women are routinely portrayed as meat and sluts and no one even bats an eye. They aren’t even able to care for their babies at home now with taxes and divorce rates and single parenting becoming the norm.
Women have stated in all women magazines how miserable they are-—and this is AFTER they got the vote. They write about how to be a sex slave in bed-——they are slaves to the lust of men (and women) and NOT oppressed anymore, huh-—when STD’s and abortions are the norm and they mutilate their bodies to get men’s attention for more than 10 minutes and fill their bodies with birth control pills-—toxins causing cancers, etc.
What is important in life was God—and with Him there was great happiness and fulfillment and love of children and family which gave women great happiness-—always did—even without the now worthless vote.
Giving the vote to women was stupid-—it got us Zero. I know way too many stupid women who never read anything but romance novels and would vote for Zero any time. They are useful idiots when it comes to voting for whatever the headlines in the newspapers want them to do. Men have always been much more responsible voters—especially if they were land owners. People should have to take a test to have the right to vote.
No, really? Is war not due in part to higher levels of aggression in men?
If woman were the equal of man, then how could man ever oppress woman?
Stop being so defensive, I didn’t say it was men’s fault, but this author presents male life expectancy as SO much lower than womens when it’s due to many factors besides war. Such as; males propensity to be more violent/aggressive, to take risks, and to work at dangerous jobs.
Susie, government gives it’s citizens nothing that they can’t nullify, so you may as well argue that giving voting rights to men was just as fruitless.
I didn't read anything "defensive" into that reply.
Maybe your'e just being passive-aggressive, lol.
Just walk into a department store and look around. Tell me who controls the money.
Well, the vote did work for many years in America-—it is since media and the schools were taken over by Marxists and the Truth is constantly hidden or twisted. We have to have Freedom of Press for the vote to matter—otherwise, we are like a Banana Republic. Too many “voices” get killed suddenly. We have no Freedom of the Press-—as Rush even has to apologize for saying more polite statements than Maher who never is required to apologize or loses advertisers. Rush apologizes for stating the Truth.
We are also no longer a Nation of Laws-—we are post Constitutional—which is what Mark Levin stated. Voting is rigged. We have judges who decide the “vote” or to nullify the vote of the people or they make up arbitrary laws or let arbitrary laws stand as Constitutional.....a complete JOKE.
War is due to property and envy—but, men ALWAYS had to protect their women and raise their children or they would die. Without fighting, there would never have been the property rights that were enshrined in American Law by brilliant white men.
All people will fight for life-—it is just women were weak and having babies so they were useless in war. Without men, the women and children were dead—they wouldn’t have survived. It was stressful for men to have to make sure their family had food and shelter and were protected since caveman days. Women oppression is just different difficulties than man’s difficulties-—life is hardship—life oppresses all—even kings. This idea that women are the only group oppressed is silly (and Marxist—divide and conquer).
I see why you chose your screen name.
I agree that we all face difficult problems, Susie. There is an old saying that “without one’s women (and offspring), you are no longer a people”.
You’re being ridiculous. Only men had the right to vote in the US for 150 years, and blacks had the right to vote three generations before women did.
No, suffrage wasn’t absolutely universal for men immediately and yes, there was some practical denial of blacks’ right to vote in the South up until the ‘60s, but that doesn’t obscure the basic facts.
Rush’s stupid comment has sent misogynist FReepers into a tizzy of idiocy.
True enough.
For one thing, civilians have also borne the brunt of wars effects. While being in combat is terrible, civilians face the depredations of enemy troops, rape, pillaging, starvation, expulsion and exposure. Militaries long ago figured out that they needed to provide good conditions for their troops in order to be effective. The military will provide food, medical care, transportation, etc., that civilians may not receive at all, or only after the fighting man’s needs are seen to.
I'm not sure it's accurate to say no other culture in the history of the world allowed this, but it is certainly very rare historically.
On a recent FR discussion, someone claimed that various male traits had evolved as part of the evolutionary process as men competed for female sexual attention. I tried to point out that until quite recently even in our society the choice of which men a woman had sex with was not up to her. Just could not get through to the other posters that our present freedom for women to decide who with and whether they will have sex is extremely unusual.
Righto.
In most wars thru history the civilian deaths vastly exceeded the military dead.
In fact, one could develop a quantitative analysis of various wars by determining the ratio of military vs. civilian deaths. The US has been quite lucky in this regard. All three of the wars fought on US soil would come in extraordinarily low on this scale.
Bill Shakespeare said it better. As usual.
“Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,
And for thy maintenance commits his body
To painful labour both by sea and land,
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;
And craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks and true obedience;
Too little payment for so great a debt.”
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