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

[Hullygully]

For R.S i have been asked to think, and collect, 10 key points WHY women have suffered from sexism in the past. I can think of HOW, but I am interested in WHY. I would be really interseted and grateful in any thoughts you may have! Thanks!

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.

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

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

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 ).

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!

*permanently - gracious!

Loving hullys DS! Shall we have a homework topic?

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.

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.

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)

aw thanks Trills. Only thing I think is listen to them if you want them to listen to you. Ask their opinions and respect them too from very smallness onwards blah blah.

So teacccch your children well lalalalalalalalalal

And thank you very much saf - great stuff!

I read an interesting pov once. It was along the lines of - it all boils down to genes.

control women and ensure that the babies are yours. Because a woman carries the babies, she knows they're hers but a man doesn't and can only ensure the babies are his by controlling the woman.

It's interesting, anyway.

oh, and once you have the why - to ensure that you are not raising other men's offspring - the how follow and multiply, as they have done

I put forward the evolutionary argument on the other thread.

If there is a gene that says "be jealous and possessive over women" then men who have that gene will only raise and invest in their own offspring, men who don't have that gene will invest in and raise other men's offspring. Therefore the gene that causes you to only feed/care for/train/protect your own offspring will spread, because people who have it will have more children and their children will be more successful.

In theory anyway.

Property ownership! Inheritance rights. See the change in succession to the monarchy that happened JUST LAST MONTH!!!

Here in Ireland in the earlier part of the 20th century, many women who were property owners were committed to mental institutions for life because their (male) relatives wanted their property.

Possibly because in the old days, when we lived a subsistence lifestyle, it made sense for the labour to be designated along gender lines - which it still often is in very physical communities, like the Amish. Childbearing and infant feeding (before formula was introduced) plus the fact that women can't have millions of children like femal rabbits do, made women and children too valuable to be out hunting, for e.g, and if you can only gather a limited supply of calories, it makes sense to leave the hard physical tasks to the sex which is in general stronger, while the sex that does the v valuable work of childrearing and feeding to do the equally valuable tasks in the home / cave.

Post the Insustrial Revolution, actually much earlier, maybe connected with the introduction of money and trade, mens' role was the one most easily translated into cash, wealth and then power.

And they then saw that thier access to wealth and power was all the easier if they had a woman to support them, and not compete, hence the implementation and maintenance of a power imbalance.

Just conjecture - I was thinking about this watching the Amish programme on TV, and the people who llive in the far Arctic on frozen planet.

property ownership and inheritance rights also require that the woman is controlled reproductively, don't they? To ensure that the child inheriting is indeed the offspring of the male currently owning the property.

obv. your ht hasn't read simone de beauvoir's 'the second sex'.
there's ONE reason why - because women give birth.

even right back when men didn't realise they had any involvement in the matter, women's 'weakness' during pregnancy, birth & soon after, meant that they were susceptible to subjugation. although the idea of 'mother nature' was reverred, it was much in the same way that people still see 'the virgin mother' as being holy/wonderful, but still weaker & there for the role they perform, rather than for themselves. so procreation was seen as a great thing, but women were seen as the instruments of it for the benefit of humanity, ie they were serving the species, rather than respected as individuals

So, Hullyboy, what have you learnt then? Apart from that if you ask your mum and dozens of women on mumsnet, they will do the hard bits of your homework for you

Make sure you tell the girls in your class where to come to find out more about how sexism works- especially as I bet you'll get a better mark than them

Hully ds tell your Mum to inbox xenia .

yes i do hope ds reveals his research method and shares this thread with those who want it. would be a tad selfish and entitled to take all our efforts and keep them to yourself.

almost like controlling and capitalising on women's labour rather than sharing it with other women - which would possibly be a touch too ironic?

Really, really laughed at 'Hi shirl, my mum has told me about you'