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

[YunoYurbubson]

This is probably a bit of a silly thing to ask, but the question has been forming in my mind for the last couple of months.

What I want to know is this...

If it is understood that we start out with a level playing field; ie there are as many women as men in the world, men and women have equal worth, and men and women are equally capable of achieving, how have we ended up with one gender on top and the other underneath?

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.

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

"men didn't get together and plan to be in charge...but it came to be"

Yy.

Do you think that now women are getting together and planning to forge complete equality, that we will get there? Or is this something too big to be planned and executed? Is it simply inevitable that men will always win out overall?

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.

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

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?

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

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.

my response there was to edam's post

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.

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

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?

It's not idiotic at all - if you look at the rights that women had in early 1800s and what their lives were like, and then look for a modern day equivalent, then that's where you end up.

A society where women are literally owned by men, with no rights to their own children, property, inheritance, their own money. It was legal for women to be raped by their husbands. They had no rights to their children, if the husband wanted he could desert her or divorce her and take the children with him. However it was very difficult for women to obtain divorce and if they did the husband could keep the children and not let her see them.

Please can you explain to me why you think the comparison is idiotic.

(also wasn't this internet thingy largely instigated and produced by hoards of geeky men working for the good of society??!)

"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 "

Is that supposed to be some kind of joke? When I posted earlier about that charity in Nigeria it was a genuine post, I thought people would be interested. How can you say that about those women? I don't understand. You think the women in that situation are weak and unintelligent and that there shouldn't be charities to help them? What is your point I don't get it honestly can you explain?

No they haven't!!! Those shelters would be taking in 35million women if what you say is true get some perspective!!

I have converstations with my husband because weirdly although his is clearly a cybotic member of a darkly evil overlord race of opressors, he is also a person, and my husband and i love him. Perhaps you should try loving the men around you?

and to ISNT I didn't say that women are weak and helpless, I think you are saying that. I am guessing that the women you are talking about in your charity are probably uneducated and weak, yes - otherwise there would be no justification in 'helping' them.

Sometimes your logic goes out of the window doesn't it.

and for the record DV is not always helpless, blameless little flower getting attacked by evil ogre - a couple living next door to me where always getting reported for DV incidents - the women was drunk in the morning calling him all the names under the sun, ridiculing his 'manhood' and shouting about how he was shit in bed, was fucking other women etc etc, and then they would go drinking together, still arguing, then it ended up in her throwing things at him, sometimes in the street, then him trying to hold her arms down then her crying about him 'battering' her and then trying to get the neighbours to beat him up.

A nasty situation, but not big size tens trampling a delicate flower.

I think women should be accountable and seen as possibly abe to make situations worse, this 'blameless women' idea is the same as pacifying, disempowering and weakening in my view.

Heroine seriously have you looked at the link I posted earlier and come to that conclusion?

When you hear about what is happening in darfur do you think "well they're obviously uneducated and weak"?

I'm really genuinely shocked. Most people think that women who are raped in those circumstances have had something awful done to them, that it is not their fault. You have a different view, you think if the women were stronger in some way (what way?) they would escape these atrocities? That is some of the most extreme victim blaming that I have ever heard.

Do you think that women who are raped should be "held accountable". There is a theme in your posts but I'm finding it difficult to pin down.