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?

Do you really yearn for the life women had in the 1800s, and think that women in Darfur are being raped because they are uneducated and weak? Rather than because they are in a dire situation where they are being attacked and their levels of education and personal strength have nothing to do with it?

Why do you think that?

I don't think reality is a sock puppet

Heroine wrote - "its that pedestalising that means that women were 'protected' from the evil men's world"

"A pedestal is as much a prison as any other small space." - Gloria Steinem

Heroine wrote - "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"

Microsoft is run by men. Perhaps you should ask those men why they chose to make the advert.

Men often talk about protecting their 'women'. But who or what are they protecting them from?

The irony is that it's other men, of course.

As someone pointed out much earlier in the thread, ideas are absorbed into traditions and then people don't even think to question them anymore. My whole family, consisting of 3 men and 2 women (mother, father, and 2 brothers) are pretty sexist and I'd say the worst person for being sexist is my mum. She is far too afraid to question the status quo. Any perceived feminist argument is quashed immediately.

I think that the answer to the OP's question is the fact that women bear babies. Many women I know are doing well career wise until they have a family and then they put it all to one side and let a husband/partner care for them and the children. By the time they are ready to go back to work, their male peers at work will be much further ahead of them.

I had this discussion with my SIL last week. She argued that a child needs its mother and criticised any couple she knew where the mother was in the position of having to work because she is the main breadwinner. From her perspective, the family should be making sacrifices so that the mother can work part-time/stay at home and look after the child.

I found this point of view quite frustrating. Whilst I accept that a child needs its mother, I would argue that a child needs its parents. The world has changed now and men need to start taking their part more in parenting otherwise women will never achieve economic equality. And tied to that is the freedom to provide for themselves if they need to. I have read many threads on the relationships section about women who want to live their partner but are unable to because they are concerned about surviving financially.

I really like the Swedish model of parenting which I read about in the New York Times a few months ago. Much more egalitarian!

www.nytimes.com/2010/06/10/world/europe/10iht-sweden.html

The question, and some of the answers here seem to be based on the assumption that there was at some time a starting point of equality, and then men 'took over', 'invented rape' etc... The explanations tend to favour socially embedded differences - tradition, power structures, rather than biological instincts and characteristics. Apologies if I am misrepresenting, but looking only at it this way is only half the story and ends up with something like a global conspiracy theory between men of all cultures around the world to subjugate women.

OP - I would recommend Reading Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate (at least the gender chapter, but the whole book is good).

Biology isn't destiny, but it is a good starting point for understanding society.

Himalaya wrote - "something like a global conspiracy theory between men of all cultures around the world to subjugate women."

Rather than a global conspiracy theory, I'd say that it might have been more like this:

After one or two very dominant societies got their anti-woman views enshrined in laws and institutions, other societies came along and saw that domination and success correlate with misogyny. They confused correlation with causation. They drew the conclusion that being anti-woman causes success. e.g. the Romans took a lot of their anti-women views from the Greeks. That worked well for Greek men and Roman men for one thousand years.

Himalaya wrote - The explanations tend to favour socially embedded differences - tradition, power structures, rather than biological instincts and characteristics. ... Biology isn't destiny, but it is a good starting point for understanding society.

I think the consensus on the thread about the root cause has been overwhelmingly biological - having children.

The environmental and social factors are brought in when thinking about what men were doing with all their free time, while the women were occupied with the biology of pregnancy and breastfeeding.

Society would have been built slowly you really have to go back to the origins of humanity to find the basic structure that exists to this day. Such a stucture would not have simply appeared overnight afterall humans did not spring from dust one day.

A lot of our behaviour would have followed us as we evolved to what we are today. The more complex ideals will have been built up on those foundations and based also on the logic of the time I.e women give birth with a high fatality rate involved with childbirth it is important that they are not risked men in genral are stronger and faster and less are required to maintain a population so it is logical the more dangerous jobs would be assigned to males. Eventually societies embellish these and differences are made depending on culture etc.

As to men making the rules that is true in a way originally it would have begun as what is best for our survival but not all men or even most are in power it is actually a small number that hold true power.

"The irony is that it's other men, of course."

Yes. Of course. They are protecting their genetic investment. This is MY WOMAN!! Uggg uggg!

Find a man that is 'protective of his 'woman' and you find something rather ugly IMO. Find a man that empowers a woman to respect and protect herself and you find a feminist with a penis.

Why do we have to put up with idiocy like this in the feminist section of all places? It makes me sick.

Dittany,

Otherwise you would be talking to yourself, which is a bit pointless.And if you don't talk to people who disagree with you, how are you ever going to find out when you're wrong and develop your thought?

Is this the feminist section? Seriously, I thought it was just a thread asking a question likely to lead to a discussion on issues affecting women. Is there a feminist section on Mumsnet? I'm relatively new and might have missed it.

Why do you have conversations with him about how badly portrayed men supposedly are in adverts. Now that's idiotic.

Why is that idiotic? Are you saying that men are not being objectified and belittled in adverts? Or that it doesn't matter because it's worse for women? IMO the fact that women are objectified to an appalling degree in our culture does not mean that the same is not happening to men now to some degree. It is happening, they are noticing it and they don't like it. The advertisers are doing it because they are selling to women who they believe will enjoy seeing the man belittled. Presumably the individuals involved think that it's all light-hearted, so no harm done in much the same way as men put down women who complain about their sexist jokes. I would see this as an opportunity to convert more men to feminism that a reason to tell people not to talk to their spouses about it.

Heroine,

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

Surely you mean that not many had wealth, travel, privilege and status and for most others [including men] their lot was worse? Otherwise, have you ready any history?

The OP's question was, I think, answered a long time ago: because they are the ones who have the babies. Clearly that is not going to change, unless we opt for test tubes and synthetic wombs in future. (Since we're in the realms of science fiction, maybe some woman scientist will develop a male pregnancy option, but I can't imagine many men would take it up.)Setting that aside as science fiction for now, surely the question is how we enable women to achieve their full potential despite the drawback that childbearing represents in the workplace, but perhaps that's another thread?