What is going on?

[Sofasurfingsally]

It is a shit time to be a woman. That is all.

@Gone2far Feminists refer to the industrial revolution in the UK as the industrial genocide and I think things have gotten progressively worse for women. I'm so grateful to the women who fought for the vote and some strides have been made but overall we are up shit creek without a paddle

Yes, witches were the older women who were experienced and knew things.

That is why some men wanted then hanged or burned.

Purely for knowing how society works.

In Caliban and the witch I learned about how the commons were seized by the Gentry so that common people could no longer rely on them for food: foraging and hunting for small animals, which women would have done. What happened was, where previously women could obtain food through their wisdom and knowledge of the flora and fauna in the local area, a system was created where they had to depend on a wage ( and therefore on men) to gain access to food. What we see today is that food is entirely in the hands of men. My master's degree was in international Horticulture, where I learned about who controls food today. The only way women can get food in 2019 is through having money. It never used to be like this

The saddest thing about the witchcraze is that the women were tortured until they repented, but you can only repent if you've done something wrong. "Repent!" the men would shout. And they'd rather die than repent. A bit like those of us on here who will never repent by "admitting" men can change sex and become women

Excuse my ignorance, but what is Caliban and the Witch?
Secondly, witchunting was not a major thing. Compared to the number of unfortunate men and women killed as heretics, its minuscule and confined to a small period.
If you could give me hard evidence that they were respected it would be useful. Because I don't think it's true . These women were denounced by those they lived amongst -men and women - and as a result of personal dislike imo. The people judging them were men, but they were denounced and witnessed against by their neighbours.
The enclosures impacted men and women alike and it's incredibly sollipsistic to see them as an attack on women

I learned that my dd and her friends were interested online is someone called Milly Smith - I naturally assumed this was some Towie type person and yet more unrealistic shit for teenagers that they would need to talk to her about. Turns out , not so . Have body hair if you want, don't use aluminium packed antiperspirant, deodorant only is fine, be healthy but don't obsess about weight or shape, talking about mental health is important. I'm sure more knowledgeable women on here will tell me something about this young woman that I should be wary of but those sound like positives.

Don't agree with OP. It's feeling like a tough time & there are still many equality battles to be won & plenty of mindless fools out there yrying to turn back clocks but we as women can
Vote
Pursue a career
Own/rent property in our own name
Have a bank account in our name
Access free contraception
Have the same minimum age to leave education
etc
Don't undervalue these rights. There is lots to strive for but there have been far worse times to be a woman.

Yes .. I agree with all this and n a general pushback against women's rights but re the particularly example of Antionette Sandbach, whilst it's abhorrent that she is getting abusive texts of course, it may also be testimony to her current clout across a few different areas too.

She is awesome, does some brilliant campaigning and does not let up. She's presumably very inconvenient for some with vested interests.

Also, it's positive that she is speaking out about the abuse (she had deleted the texts when I heard about it - does anyone know what they said?)

libcom.org/files/Caliban%20and%20the%20Witch.pdf

Caliban and the Witch.

Pursuit and eradication of so-called witches wasn't just about specific heretical witch-hunting. It was also about the masculinisation of the medical profession, cutting out much of the folk wisdom that was vitally important at the time for women's health, particularly during pregnancy and birth.

Women were brewers. Weavers. Sold cloth. Traded. Bought and sold livestock. Women were independent in the early and late middle ages. Some women did particularly well after the GREAT plague.
In Celtic society women had access to everything. The law. Leadership. Medicine. Study.
The view if women as dependent is something that emerges after the reformation and into the industrial revolution.
The catholic church certainly didnt help matters. Actively oppressed women.

Look at drama on TV. Most of it is based on male violence to children and women. Watched and enjoyed by the oppressed! Including me! It's like being turned on by your own abuse! I've noticed a significant increase in women getting slapped and punched across the face in drama, as if it's now acceptable to show it, not just suggest it.

The Bishop of Winchester ran prostitution on the Southbank. The women were known as 'Winchester Geese'. Two thousands of them and their children are buried in Crossbones Cemetery, Southwark.

www.historic-uk.com/HistoryMagazine/DestinationsUK/Cross-Bones-Graveyard/

Totally agree too much violence against women on screens. Vote with your money on netflix/prime. lwlies.com/articles/new-films-by-female-directors-2018/

@lolaflores
Women were brewers. Weavers. Sold cloth. Traded. Bought and sold livestock. Women were independent in the early and late middle ages.

Yes, women invented beer! Also their knowledge of healing and herbs ( many herbs that no longer exist) died with their bodies

Also, let's imagine a world where pornography didn't exist because that's the type of world women and children used to live in. Feminists know there is a link between pornography viewing and sex crimes against women and children. Countries like Russia where Porn proliferates have higher incidents of rape.

When they tortured the witches the torture was sexualized. Men drew pictures of the torture they inflicted on the witches and this became the first pornography

Germany and France were the worst hit during the witchcraze. When Germany medicalizes birth they opened birth houses that women were supposed to go to to have their babies. The maternal death rate in these houses were abysmal. Women would commit suicide before having to birth their babies in there

@FreeFreesia So We're all equal now, nothing to see here, nothing left to fight for.

What if this is a patriarchal reversal and the truth is they've taken everything away from us: our land, our skills, our professions ( no - the oldest profession isn't prostitution, it's midwifery), birth and health.

Today, porn and prostitution is "work". Men control and dominate the food industry. They dominate medicine. It never used to be like this. The witchcraze was a watershed

I recently read about some tribe or society where women are revered.

At puberty boys are taught how to serve (in a mutually beneficial way) and pleasure women and crimes of sexual assault and rape are near as dammit zero.

Imagine that.

More of it this morning I see. To me anyway, there is a stream of stories in which women are being managed, controlled, abused and worse. I'm not sure whether they are just more public, or whether it's become more respectable. Very senior people behaving openly badly, or known to be behaving badly, to women is a real issue. It legitimises it.

I agree that this is not a good time to be a woman op, and a lot of it is related to massive over-sexualisation in our culture. For all that we're supposed to be living in a more feminist age it seems that in actual practice no one is allowed to deny any male sexual whim. Much of modern male sexuality is linked directly into violence and domination too. Both are obviously directly in conflict with women's rights. I don't like this confusion between what happens in practice and the lies we are supposed to tell either. Everything seems to be co-opted: you are not allowed to tell the truth about men committing most violence without being accused of sexism. Employment rights and regulation are being taken away.

Well certainly if my DDs are anything to go by, workplaces are still rife with sexual harassment and routes to and from work are still the equivalent of running the gauntlet. Men also still idealise women, and hate it when women don't act like they are 'supposed' to.

When it's normal for young women to have to shave off all their pubic hair and take it up the bum, it does make you wonder doesn't it.

Porn is not modern. The Greeks and Roman's were big fans.

Romans and Greeks produced a lot of porn. I'd rather be a woman ow than 1700 or 1800...but every revolution has promised women greater freedoms in work, marriage and contraception only to renege onbit all. French. Russian. The 60s. The 1916 rising also made noises about womens equality and we all know where that went thanks to the church getting its claws in. The state sanctioned murder of women and children still goes unpunished.

Sorry. Posted twice. Interestingly, Greek and Roman society were male dominated too