An interesting insight from 1970

[AyeRobot]

In 40 years, this viewpoint hasn't changed amongst large sections of the population, has it?

From the Guardian archive

History was made at Luton's Vauxhall car plant the other day, when car workers staged Britain's first "Equality for Men" strike. The men downed tools because they suspected car women were being treated like ladies. A pretty face and a shapely leg, they said, guaranteed their female colleagues light and easy jobs. The strike ended only after they were promised the women would do a fair share of sweating at the giant presses and lifting heavy car doors off the assembly line.

We're going to get more of this, so it might be as well to come to terms with a few basic facts. Deep down, most men are really scared of women. They know, from experience, that they are no match for them. It's the reason why they insist, so firmly, that "Woman's place is in the home." At home, she can exercise her power without attracting too much public attention. Everyone knows she's the boss. But the world at large graciously allows the poor man to go on pretending that he's the master of the house.

At work, strenuous efforts have to be made to keep woman down. She's cunning and ruthless, and she knows how to exploit our weaknesses. There is nothing more dangerous than a clever female rival. Our only defence is to make jokes about her, ban her from our clubs, and try to get her into bed. And if that fails, we fall back on that rather old-fashioned device, the strike.

Woman lives on average 10 years longer than man, partly because she knows how to look after herself. Woman is perfectly capable of doing hard work. In Moscow she sweeps streets, drives buses and operates cranes. But why bother? One has men for that. A sweet smile, a clever show of martyrdom, and the poor sap will jump to it. Woman is not really interested in mere equality. She wants superiority. She ends up, invariably, as a rich and powerful widow ? and all without the tiresome business of sweating at the giant presses.

My Aunt Bertha sees the Vauxhall gesture as a belated and rather feeble attempt by a group of frightened men to check the inevitable march towards an openly matriarchal society: "Men are not ready for equality. They are naive and emotional. They hand their pay packets over to their wives each week, because they couldn't run a hoopla stall, let alone a home. Men never really grow up. Their place is on the football field : they are much too irresponsible to be granted equality."

[babylann]

I don't really get it. It seems quite reasonable for men to object to women with the same job title doing less work. And it seems like you understand this... Yet you are objecting about something. You are saying men don't want women to do hard work as they are frightened of them, and yet here are men protesting that women aren't expected to do hard work when they are more than capable?

And there's a lot of generalising, stereotyping and sexism there.

Unless you were being ironic in some way, and I missed it?

I just don't understand.

[babylann]

Oh sorry. I realise now that you have copy and pasted it!

Then, in response, I don't understand the person who wrote this article.