Hi, I am Hully's DS. Hully said I could ask you a question!

Hello other thread.

I posted on the Dadsnet thread - no idea why, it was in Active.

I love Hully, I want her to be my aunty and teach me things (like how to raise a teenager who asks for people's opinions and then listens)

one more:
13) because when rich/powerful men exploit the hell out of poorer less powerful men they have to throw them a bone - we're the bone.

not reading all this but off top of head:

1. because they bear children that are highly dependent on them for their survival
2. because traditionally they were unable to own property etc they suffered sexism due to being economically dependent
3. because religion actively encourages sexism in all religions bar some forms of buddhism
4. because we live in a world that has tended to go with 'might is right' and value violent capabilities over other qualities/strengths
5. because psychotherapy classed women as neurotic, sexually deviant and hysterical creatures
6. because women have tended to be involved more in the private sphere than the public and the public has been traditionally valued more than the private
7. because humans have a tendency to split into groups of insiders versus outsiders, us v them, etc and gender is hte most obvious and fundamental marker to split upon followed by race, nationality, class etc etc and the male group had brute force and the non encumbrance of pregnancy, birth and nurturing of young and in average terms more strength in terms of potential violence
8. because men tend to the big bosses they tend to make decisions that benefit them and their group e.g. men and particularly rich men
9. because men wanted to ensure paternity of their children they wanted to 'own' their women and place huge restrictions on their humanity and lives
10. because we live in an immoral and unethical world governed by who can get the most out of who and men have chosen to get as much out of women as they can including prostituting them, buying and selling them, using their labour more cheaply than men in the workplace etc
11. because we are unlikely to go out on a killing spree if we don't get our own way, we tend not to murder, rape, create wars and beat people up with the frequency that men do.
12. an example: if a man got in a mans face in a bar and started giving him abuse and refusing to get out of his face he would likely be headbutted or punched and he feels this danger, with a woman he's not scared.
13. because historically when women have tended to try and stand up for themselves and achieve more justice there have been very bad consequences and women still fear the consequences of saying no, enough is enough

you could go on and on and on really. will be a fun lesson! i used to be an rs and philosophy and ethics teacher. i miss it sometimes.

Loving hullys DS! Shall we have a homework topic?

*permanently - gracious!

Sportsfanatic good observations there. Another thing is the development of modern medicine, because if you look at third world maternity care, you find many women permenantly disabled from birth injuries, which are easily dealt with if only the technology and knowledge is available.

Hully's DS's RS teacher is going to wish he/she had never asked!

Fascinating thread. Thank you Hully junior!

What has struck me, as much as all the whys and hows of male domination is how suddenly it has changed in the last 50 years. Even getting the vote did not produce a sizeable change. Even as recently as post World War 11 strong, tough women who did all the jobs that men did in the war and kept the country running scampered back to the kitchen afterwards - if not willingly, then resignedly, submissively etc. because they felt obliged to.

As an older poster I well recall the sea change that happened from the 60s. Huge numbers of women, relatively suddenly, would not accept this treatment and would not put up with it any more. Does this hark back to the point posters were making about men controlling women because of reproduction perhaps? From the 60s on, women for the first time in history could pretty reliably control reproduction because of much more reliable (and hidden) methods of contraception e.g. the Pill. A new world opened up to them, choices that were inconceivable (excuse pun)before. I believe it triggered the end of the collective Stockholm syndrome that many women suffered from. By that I mean the sense that being the number 2 sex was just the way things were was challenged and ultimately discarded, backed up of course by the advances in science that proved that there was no logical, scientific intrinsic reason that justified female inferior status.

Even now, though, you can still find in the West Stockholm syndrome sufferers - women who are willing to lay aside personal responsibility in return for being provided for.

I always understood that the introduction of farming was a big player in the diminution of the importance of the female, but perhaps the real key player - the big Why? - really was the shackles provided by the woman being constantly hampered by pregnancy, birth and rearing.

There have always been powerful women of course in history and times when women were more powerful e.g. the late 18th century (pre Biblical etc) but powerful women and group female power was the exception and short-lived.

So will the tables turn again as in the past? I don't think so somehow. This time, I believe the change is likely to be permanent as independent mothers pass on the joy and power of independence to their daughters and (hopefully) educate their sons in the logic of justice and fairness as Hully is doing (Hostage to fortune statement ).

I actually agree Bonsoir, many a dw/dgf have rods made for their backs by their MIL's.

Well, when I see mothers I know (intelligent, well-meaning women) running around after their DSs, I understand that it is not entirely men's fault if they have lived their lives expecting women to do all the chores/errands/housework/catering/cleaning/laundry for them.

I haven't read all the posts but I am assuming that other posters have noted that how and why are interwined and that the specifics of how/why change depending on the predominant cultural/historical paradigm (religious, scientific etc.) at work.

Our (supposed) relative lack of intelligence has been used historically to oppress women. Scientific research in the 19th c focussed on measuring the differences in brain sizes of men and women (not to mention, whites versus other races).

These days, one explanation for the relatively poor performance of women in STEM fields is our poorer higher-level mathematics ability and there is a considerable amount of research devoted to discovering the innate reasons for this difference in performance.

gender.stanford.edu/news/2011/is-female-brain-innately-inferior

The main thing affecting women's physical strength and barrier to their development of skills or networks beyond the immediate community being the fact that with no contraception and no reason for their partners to abstain from impregnating them they were pregnant and/or nursing for practically their entire lives.

Not just christianity - almost all preceding religions/cults subjugated women. Mithraism, aztecs and so on.

I think it all comes down to physical strength as the root WHY of women's status. Religions/cults/laws and so on just rationalise it i think.

"Forgetting you're male and I'm female and the whole antagonistic yet unnecessary power dynamic for a moment..."

Do you actually say that to him.? how does he respond?

All these answers are excellent on here I think religion is a huge problem within patriachal societys even in countries like the uk where we see ourselves as pretty secular, the 'moral family' is basically a throwback from very religious times.

there are some dadsnet answers now, but Mum says they are mainly women! Thanks again. Hully DS.

I noticed that too,Hullyson. Another "Why" for you to contemplate on another day [gwink]

"Many cultures around the globe don't or haven't in the past had what we in the West would think of as sexism, or had some mechanism to control it."

Can you expand on that please? Apart from some very obscure tribal societies, I'm not aware of "many cultures" around the globe not having sexism, or if they do have, what their mechanisms to control it are/ were, I'd be interested to learn more.

You're welcome. I might chew my fingernails for a bit though in case anyone else isn't so generous!

This is all taking a very Western viewpoint. Many cultures around the globe don't or haven't in the past had what we in the West would think of as sexism, or had some mechanism to control it.
I suggest you ask your teacher to confirm which culture/s he or she is suggesting you explore.

Also, whilst it is true that women in the past in Western countries typically had little power, this was not always the case. Wealthy women owned land and often controlled much of their own future (and if they were widowed could choose to remain a widow and control their own life to a large degree - nuns also had some freedom).

You teacher should also note that patriarchal power structures adversely affected men as well as women, although not to the same extent and whilst this wasn't sexism, it was a form of power-over control. To explore just sexism tends to marginalise other issues, such as those relating to the poor, the disabled, the sick.

If your teacher is trying to get you to align sexism with just religion, this is not a fair picture, for when most religions were developing, an unsupported women was likely to die or was pretty much forced into prostitution. Religion often gave her a better life. Contextualising religions helps comprehend them.

But, and this is last rant, much modern sexism is political and economic - women took on many jobs during WW2, only to have them taken away after so that the returing men could be employed.