Will women always be more 'vulnerable'?

[rosabud]

The news yesterday that the woman who escaped Boko Haram reported that these groups are raping women as a matter of course is horrible and frightening but not unexpected. Also in the news yesterday the focus was on Saudi Arabia and its appalling human rights abuses but, most especially, how women are simply not allowed to do ordinary things like participate in sport or drive cars.

It seems that although governments like ours agree that this all "terrible" there is not much we seem to be able to do about it. There is an implication, therefore, that the rights women enjoy here are a "privilege" and a "lucky" result of living in a rich, Western country. A bit like having good drains. Or not dying from hunger.

This makes me wonder:

1. How much do the men around me believe that I should only be treated well in certain contexts? In other words, if Armageddon occurs tomorrow, will all the men in my lovely Western society start raping me etc?
2. Are women only ever going to achieve equal rights in certain contexts - so is the progress women's rights have made over the last century or so a very flimsy, easily withdrawn concept?

I am thinking aloud here. Does anyone else know what I mean??

These are totally valid concerns, and they come up again and again in feminism. When people point out all of the great equality we have in the west there is a sense that rights have been bestowed upon women out of the goodness of men's hearts, not because it is simply decent to treat fellow humans with respect but because they grudgingly had to when pushed. There is always the subtle threat that those rights can be withdrawn at any moment, and women are reminded of that when they get "above themselves" - look at the rape threats meted out to prominent feminists. We will treat you with respect within certain parameters but step outside those and all bets are off.

As for whether this will always be the case, I'm not sure. Women are currently physically weaker than men but a lot of that is down to the fact that women aren't encouraged to do sport or to build muscle. With the right training, many women can be as strong as the average man, if not stronger. The rest is mainly socialisation IMO - the way in which women are trained not to "cause a fuss," rape culture telling men that sex is their right and rape can be used to push down uppity women, etc. I think there will be a tipping point, where enough women are in power to cause rape culture to genuinely change. I am hoping threats of sexual violence will go the same way as pogroms and gulags - which were once widely used forms of violence aimed at keeping certain sectors of society down, but which are unheard of in western society and would not be tolerated, all things being equal.

That said, I do think that in post apocalyptic times, all bets are off. When people's survival is threatened, thin social veneer wears off very quickly. At the moment, sexual equality for women is barely a notion and would go out the window very fast given half a chance. I do think that will change in the future but for now, our security is extremely tenuous.

1. Maybe. For example the Nazis staffed their death camps with ordinary people.

1. The total overthrow of governments and replacement by warlord type rule is not a 'flimsy' occurrence by any stretch. But when it happens, all sorts of individual rights are lost. Look at areas controlled by LRA, and what children are forced to do there, and imagine the lifelong impact it has in those who survive.

1. No. Some men certainly will throw off that veneer - those inwhom it was never anything but a veneer. For some treating women as equals is not a veneer it is who they are. To say otherwise is to assume men are fundamentally nasty predator-types with a veneer and that is not true.

I'll think about 2, but in the context of 1, no that is not a given either. You'd be dealing with all manner of sociocultural trends. Things have not always been male-dominant and therefore it follows that they don't need to be that way in the future either.

But it is a flimsy construct yes. Along with every other social construct. Perhaps slightly more flimsy.

Lightninging - I reckon that while it's not the case that most men will become rapists, it is the case that they will revert to expecting women to take on their womanly role. I have yet to meet a man who doesn't have some sexist ideas and I wonder if the civilising force of society was taken away would those ideas come to the fore?

In other words, if Armageddon occurs tomorrow...

So all the way to the bottom of the barrel? Watch the movie The Road or read the book, if you can handle its writing style. The horror is something like that is undeniable.

the whole veneer of a civilised society is very fragile

I absolutely believe that if Armageddon ever came, we would have "The Road" type of scenario

Probably tbh. As you said in a real armageddon scenario and the chaos that ensues, bets are off, it'd be a matter of survival. Survival for humans is best in groups. Some groups would force women, well there would be some basic gang-rape groups, some would be more traditional... a few might not be. It's not impossible though that if the intelligentsia grouped up they might win out, if they could bring themselves to. Might see a return of the intelligent/ cultured warrior types!

Should have just stuck with bets are off!

OK, I don't think I should have used the word Armageddon. I think I was more trying to get at the idea that women's rights are a privilege that can and will be withdrawn if circumstances changed. I think callindana has put it better than I have. I feel reassured by the notion of a "tipping point" that we may reach one day and that women do not necessarily have to be physically weaker than men. I wonder if the "tipping point" will ever be reached where it will become unacceptable for our government to deal with other governments who don't promote women's rights. I'm thinking of the sport and entertainment boycott of South Africa in the 70s and 80s - if you can't treat ethnic minorities as equals then you can't come to the Olympics. Imagine how powerful that would be to say to countries who don't allow women to drive - it's unacceptable, we won't deal with you.

Also, Lightning, what do you mean when you say that "things have not always been male-dominant"? Are you thinking of our society?? Or other civilisations that have existed in the world?

I feel it's ironic too, that groups like IS, who would deny me all the privileges that I now enjoy, are held back from invading where I live by the fact that my country has superior military might to theirs. So, my privileges are defended by physical force, of a "male" army. That's a bit scary.

This reminds me about what I heard about the 'estonia' ferry sinking a few years ago. There was no 'women and children first', the men used their strength to get themselves to safety and left the women and kids to die.

Both, because the exact power balance in gender relations has shifted around in our culture in the past. There are also suggestions that other civilizations have been more matriarchal. It's difficult to say exactly because we're not there (!) but nothing stays the same, to coin a phrase.

ps The british army is not entirely male and would struggle if you took the women out of it. Nor are the bombs male.

Aren't the UK army changing their rules so that women can be front-line infantry? So now you too can shoot the shit out of IS! I think the Kurds and Israelis already have front-line female troops, so it isn't unheard of.

So when in the past has our society not been male-dominant, then?

I was thinking along similar lines earlier today.

Firstly, I have been so fucking angry about our country's acceptance of Saudi Arabia.

Secondly, I was wondering if the human species is entering a new phase. Without the restraints of constant childbirth and a greater reliance on knowledge, the role of women will change.

Rosa, your post made me think of a recent discussion I've been having with an anthropologist friend. Her take is that societies' internal level of gender equality/inequality is closely tied to the level of external threat that they face. There is (in her opinion) more equality in hunter-gatherer societies facing no threat of terratorial incursion from surrounding tribes than other set-ups. Agrarian societies tend to show more gender inequality (because property creates worries about inheritance leads to women being treated as commodities/brood mares - okay, this is my massive oversimplification). But hunter-gatherer communities facing threat from outside also tend to be less equal, because they need a warrior class, and once you've created a warrior class, as she put it, it's like a loaded gun - you don't know what direction it's going to go off in. We were talking about male on female violence, and she said that in a lot of societies threatened from outside, the risk of a "little" bit of violence is preferrable to a "lot" of violence from the invading society if your warriors turn out not to be good enough (she mentioned one set of rival tribes where when a village was taken over, the inevitable next step for the conquered women was to be subjected to gang-rape - after which the men would decide whether individual women were to be taken back and kept as slaves or simply killed). Was very depressing. The only encouraging thing was that she reckoned levels of sexual equality in modern western societies tended to be comparable to those in unthreatened hunter-gatherer societies. But the tenuousness of it is terrifying.

Seems to me that between The Road and a mythical nirvana where all are equal as doughnuts rain from the sky and cholesterol does not exist its just a simple reality that the weak are always liable to suffer at the whims of the strong. The weak being women, the elderly, children, the infirm and weaker men. The best you could ever hope for is a better social framework that can address what is an underlying principle of evolution masked by human society.

I disagree WasHere. Advising us that the best we can hope for is to wait for (young, healthy) men to bestow equality on us is a myth that just perpetuates the current status quo of inequality and persecution.

Oh, and grouping Equality with all of that nonsense to do with doughnuts and cholesterol was a nice touch.

If you can point out where I advised that I would be grateful. All I think I said is that the weaker will always be at risk, not that they should be or that they should not try to do something about it.

You may not have meant it to sound like that DWH, but that's how I read it too.

You could rephrase 'weak' as 'those at competitive disadvantage to others' if you like, its more how I thought of it in context, rather than only physical strength. Its why, as I wrote, children, the elderly and the infirm are also in there suffering as civilisation circles the drain, not only women. I cant imagine the bucket falling out of things without also thinking women, collectively, would suffer markedly more than men.

As to doughnuts raining from the sky it was flippant to write and I apologise, I think a lot of what passes for morality and social justice is a position made possible only by abundance- of resources, food, entertainment, etc. In other words we are nicer people when we live in a nicer environment because we can afford to be, and that tends to hold up as long as co-operation outweighs competition for survival. But past that its just a jungle.