Why, when we are equal in number, worth and ability, are women discriminated against?

i don't understand where you are coming from - the biggest protector of women is stability in a society and wealth, and that has been largely created by men in the european/'western' model anyway I don't think that women in the 1800s had such a bad deal - for many it was a time of wealth, travel, privilidge and status, for others their lot was worse - as was the lot of many men at the time. I see your post as being a characature of hoards of men attacking weak timid vulnerable unintelligent creatures in mud huts waiting to be raped - that's just ridiculous - as for 'they hurt us' isn't protection from and shock at women being hurt part of the protection agenda? Men do die in their millions early because of work, conflict etc I think men are less cruel to women than they are to men - and that is protection isn't it?

I don't think that life under the taleban is the comparator for life in the 1800s in Britain.. that's idiotic.

Blimey heroine where to start. I disagree with more or less everything you say in your post.

"Actually I think the objectification of women comes from the early need to protect and nurture the baby-makers - all through time women have been kept at home, protected by warrior men from the risky stuff, and sort of worshipped - its that pedestalising that means that women were 'protected' from the evil men's world - men were encouraged not to talk about the horrors of politics, life at sea, economics etc, because they wanted women to focus on childcare - lets not also forget that although it is dressed up now as denying choice and exercising control, men used to see paying for women to live as their honorable duty - it was seen as humiliating to a man if his income couldn't completely keep a woman in the 'style to which she was accustomed'."

Do you think that women who live in taleban style regimes have a good deal then? How can anyone argue that it is a positive for women to be completely excluded from life outside the home, as they used to be? No rights to money, inheritance, voting, children, property, anything. It's only been changed here in the last couple of hundred years. i can't think of anything worse TBH.

"I do think men, when they look at a pretty woman do get feelings of protection, worship, awe etc - and I think a lot of the objection is that for most women, myself included, we started to believe that work was, for men, ajust a fun activity where everything went well and that men could postrure away, gain money and have a whale of a time - now I think we all know that having to work is a grind, tedious, full of bloody idiots, and tiring too. "

Women have always worked and bloody hard. As for the sort of work you are speaking of - modern office type work - personally speaking I love it, using my brain, earning money, going out to lunch and all the rest of it. It's great. Certainly for many men and women work is not like that, but for lots it is, and the bonus is you get paid for it. This constant painting of working outside the home being so much harder than being at home with children is just not true across the board. If it were, I suspect many more men would choose to stay at home with the children while their partners went out to work.

Look at what is happening to women around the world, read the history about women in the UK before we gained our rights, it was an appalling state of affairs here and it still is in lots of places. Defending that set-up is mind boggling to me.

The vast majority of women do not want to spend their lives locked in somewhere with no control over anything, no matter how much you dress it up as being protected and provided for.

my response there was to edam's post

I guess the men are dead?

But agree with the general point that the idea that women have always sat around having it cushy while the men do everything is not true - women have always worked extremely hard to provide for their families.

Actually I think the objectification of women comes from the early need to protect and nurture the baby-makers - all through time women have been kept at home, protected by warrior men from the risky stuff, and sort of worshipped - its that pedestalising that means that women were 'protected' from the evil men's world - men were encouraged not to talk about the horrors of politics, life at sea, economics etc, because they wanted women to focus on childcare - lets not also forget that although it is dressed up now as denying choice and exercising control, men used to see paying for women to live as their honorable duty - it was seen as humiliating to a man if his income couldn't completely keep a woman in the 'style to which she was accustomed'.

Its the feminist view that this was a control issue that has us all steamed up about the past.

I do think men, when they look at a pretty woman do get feelings of protection, worship, awe etc - and I think a lot of the objection is that for most women, myself included, we started to believe that work was, for men, ajust a fun activity where everything went well and that men could postrure away, gain money and have a whale of a time - now I think we all know that having to work is a grind, tedious, full of bloody idiots, and tiring too.

What is quite intereesting is that we are getting the stress and lifestyle illnesses thaat used to be very much male 'diseases' - heart disease, premature balding, higher cancer rates, etc now that more women are working.

I think its really unfair and disingenuous of us to say that women have always had a raw deal - that is one opinion from a very pure feminist control and domination perspective (Hegemeneous control) that is just one of many ways of looking at the situation.

I think, too, that many of you are missing the fact that DH points out a lot, that men are the foolish idiot in so much advertising now, that its sometimes humiliating for men to watch tv - and also the amount of 'cool' women getting things right in advertising is sky high - DHs current hate is the microsoft ad that shows the women in the photo being sensible and grown up and 'george being george' and daddy being the 'pain' in getting the photo right -he feels that the men ere portrayed as stupid, annoying people who just don't understand things all over the place these days and he's not alone, so I think we need to count our blessings and achievements before we whinge too much

Yeah, and in Darfur, poor sods. You always hear on the news that women are raped by the militia when they leave the refugee camps to gather firewood and water - I always wonder why the men don't go instead, then? Or whoever is running the camps?

here's a charity for building stoves in nigeria to help the women there if anyone's interested

Funny how the women there risk rape and death collecting firewood, when presumably there are lots of men around to provide for and protect them

There was something on the news recently about women cooking with open stove things in their dwellings and them and the children had dreadful lung and eye problems.

I remember wondering why they didn't put a stove in a communal dwelling or something but they didn't go into the reasons that the women and children sat in all day with acrid smoke pouring over them.

ROFL @ women being keen for men to provide for them. Most women would be pretty keen to have society and the economy set up so that they could provide for themselves. As it is there is little choice for many women but to rely on men, once they have children. Often forcing them to stay in situations that they wouldn't stay in if they were economically independent. And women who use a different mechanism of support ie the state are royally slagged off by all and sundry, for not having a man to do it.

Les - seriously! Cooking on an open fire, wearing natural fibres, in the days before fire extinguishers (or ready meals and microwaves)...

Statistics may show the truth, dittany, but I think most woman do fee protected and provided for my men...so why is this...where does this come from? Why are woman so keen to rely on men to provide for them?

Men didn't get together and plan to be in charge...but it came to be. The only conclusion I can come to is that men are physically stronger than women, and we are only just beginning to outsmart them.

I'll buy the risk of death in childbirth, but not cooking accidents.

Staying at home was safer? Not if you think about the risks of death in childbirth. Or cooking accidents - fire is dangerous stuff. (According to QI, as recently as the 19th century injuries from fire as a result of cooking were the chief cause of female death - clothes made from natural fibres burn very readily.)

Anyway, wifie at home cooking and cleaning while hubbie goes to the office is a largely 1950s middle class thing. Women have always worked. Until the Industrial Revolution, almost everyone worked at or around the home anyway, and post industrial revolution loads of women worked in factories and even down the mines. Both genders were providers in traditional hunter gatherer societies.

Oh yes 1 more thing because men are unable to know that a woman is pregnant with their child which is why so many restrictions were placed on women as there is paranoia about being tricked into raising another man's child. And it is tradition which holds on us to this mindset although it has been gradually eroding helps that men can now also find out if a child is theirs as well.

One word Competition.

Humans (as Homo sapiens) have existed for around 200thousand years, life was hard (still is for many) for one thing people were not always the top dogs many things could and did kill us why are males bigger well quite frankly it is for the same reason that most other mammals (and birds) have bigger males, protection and competition for females.

Strangely enough pair bonding or marriage existed long before we were 'homo sapiens'. The main reason for the size difference between males and females is because males had to compete with other males for females the biggest strongest male got the females e.g. Chimpanzees or gorillas. What is interesting is that apes which bond in pairs the males and females are similar in size (as there is less need for dominant males to impress etc), whilst human males are bigger than females the difference is much smaller than that of the apes which revolve around competition for all females. It is believed that we began in a similar manner to chimpanzees/gorillas but later began bond pairing as tamarins do (which have little difference in male/female size).

It is only about 15,000 years that humans have had agriculture, before that we was a hunter gather society, in such societies everyone had to provide in some manner, everyone had a use woman (and children) would gather men would hunt and protect. What would men protect against? well the many dangers present, and other groups of people after all women do get pregnant and as women who live together often have their menstruation cycles in sync you can imagine that many would give birth at a similar time. They would need to protect against other human groups (and also Homo neanderthalensis) because of competition for food/space/water(depending on environment)and increase the success of their progeny.

Now to the crux why did men take power well because they are 'in general' bigger and stronger so better capable of exerting their will on others. Eventually it becomes tradition and people rarely question why it is they do things they just do it because that's what's done.

Look at marriage why does the father give away the bride if you asked many fathers if they think they own their daughters many would be horrified/angry at such a thought, then if you asked them why then do they 'give' away their daughters? because....tradition.

So sorry for waffling this topic has always interested me I am a bit tipsy and so Happy new year to you all hope you all make realistic new year resolutions

Good night

You may well be right dittany, but I'm basing that on my own life. It has been easier for me to find a man to go out and earn the cash to pay the mortgage while I stay at home and have babies, well provided for while he sticks around, than try and do it all myself, as many modern women are having to do, or as you pointed out did in the past.

Sorry, lots of commas there due to NewYear wine consumption.

vesuvia Fri 31-Dec-10 15:05:14

YunoYurbubson wrote - "Why did we let men do that? Why weren't we powerful enough to stop them?"

I think men took over not because women let them but because of women busy being pregnant and raising the children.

Well, yes, woman were busy cooking food for the men who were fighting our wars (don't try and tell me woman never agree with war - we just don't want to fight them) and having babies....we were actually being quite clever at the time...staying at home was in finitely safer and easier than going out hunting/gathering or fighting wars.

These days however, being a breadwinner is a lot safer, and so we want to join in with the men, and need to convince them that preparing a few stews and childcare is within their capabilities. I think we told them they couldn't do it before to make sure they kept on going out in to the big bad world and providing for us.

definitely dittany, the goal for me too is equality. I see it as such an inherently Good Thing, but yet still there is such resistance to it by men and women. It's sad