A historical pattern of misogyny

[Treaclewell]

A number of things demanded my attention this week, and my brain connects them. Not to suppose minds behind them, too conspiracy theory, and the time span and people involved rules that out, but there is a pattern.
In Peter Tremayne's book "Revenge of the Stormbringer", in an author's note, he reveals how the Roman church (I know he is biassed against it and their attitude to women) systematically used councils in Ireland to remove one by one the rights of women to be warriors, lawyers. doctors, scholars, anything which they had under secular or Celtic church laws.
William the Bastard in England removed women's rights that they had under English and Danish kings, not all returned until the end of the 20th century.
The Roman Church removed women's status held in the Early Church. And lied about it. And circumscribed what nuns could do in the Middle Ages.
All churches ignore the Bible teaching that God created women in his image and that in Christ there is no male nor female, in favour of the Eve fairy story ond the writer of Timothy who said he was Paul but wasn't.
A YouTuber takes offence against a Bible translation that removes the "masculine" in favour of inclusive language. For example in the Lord's Prayer addresses God as Abba. Which is the word Jesus used and is the equivalent of Daddy. And he also ignores that the King James version deliberately used lots of references to kings because James wanted to emphase the divine right of himself. Because he, the YouTuber wants to emphasise the not including women-ness of the Bible.
The CofE is heading for schism because women can't be in charge. No. you can't have the historic churches when you go, you have to find new places, as they did in Canada.
Modi in India banned temples and mosques from excluding women, which they had done, because eew.
The Taliban banned women journalists from their embassy, despite India's objections. (I think it was established by custom in WW2 that you can't import your segregation rules into other sovereign states.)
And a bunch of (what would a male word be for hysterics) smashed widows in Brighton. No action by the police.
And four anonymous supposed men brought an investigation down on four nurses.

So most of the action against women has been from the church. There was secular stuff, which Harry Enfield joked about. That he could showed at that stage it wasn't taken seriously.
But now the secular stuff has gained status, and power.
How?
And how do we stop it?
Do we end up like the Afghans?
It isn't just toilets.
We are fully human, as men are.
Though I do wonder about the activists.

I think sexism and misogyny are so ingrained into our experiences that many people pay lip service to them being a bad thing without even seeing them in action.

Both men and women.

It always was and always will be. And the internet has made those forces even more powerful. Women can never truly relax.

And I know people say toilets think are such a small matter. Well, it isn't. Toilets are a big deal for women - and has always been. Look at India.

I think the almost-inexplicable success of the clearly unfounded and mistaken doctrine of transgenderism can only be explained by the fact that it is anti-women, hence it flourished in so many areas of society because it is just one more way of putting women back in their box, and a very clever way because instead of denying women's demands for rights, it infiltrates and appropriates even the most basic elements of women's identity.

Man made/male dominated systems of power and control oppress women. Well, yes.

Why (some) men think they can and should do this though…
One part of it is around controlling women’s fertility, parentage etc but that doesn’t explain it all.

Misogyny is the oldest hatred. Celtic Christian Ireland had more rights for women than Catholic Ireland. However, Medieval women had more rights than women between the 16th and 20th centuries (and some of the rights they had, for instance to inherit peerages, are still in abbeyance), the Renaissance being no rebirth for women since Roman law began to be incorporated into 16th century law books, and Roman law does not give women many rights at all, so remaining rights were removed. The fight back began in the eighteenth century but being an Enlightenment fight saw matters in terms of 'rights', leading to our present problem of treating women as if they are men for all intents and purposes, so that our bodies and that we make each new generation within them are sidelined, and the work we do unpaid to make society work is called valueless or marketised.

I think the church is a red herring. It's male power structures. The various christian churches and other religions are some of those structures, but there's also plenty of secular blame to go around.

It's harder to oppose the religions. Trans have managed to find a new way to bypass that and set up a new holy thing which catches atheists.
I've been reading a site taking on the church's misogyny and learned that a Roman objection to early Christianity was that it was too feminine! Sorted that with a vengeance, didn't they?

Don't be so starry-eyed about Irish secular Brehon Law.

The basic unit of wealth was a female slave.

Christianity was popular with women partly because it gave women choices, including the choice not to marry, that were not available in societies run by other religions.

Have a look at dominance hierarchies imposed by other primates and then remember that before the cognitive revolution that was basically what we were. Religion just offers stories/myths explaining why this should be so.

As an aside I've just turned BBC R2 off as they were interviewing a Margaret Thatcher drag artist about the late prime ministers' legacy.

Didn’t women who spoke out of turn get a scolds bridle? Now you get your windows smashed and death threats.

Having been reading the Act for the Better Prevention and Punishment of aggravated assaults upon women and children
from 1853, where they list treatment of women which does not seem to have changed much in nigh on 200 years, the main difference seems to be that in 1853 there were constables patrolling to hear the women screaming. The aim of the bill was to bring the penalty for beating your wife in line with the penalty for animal cruelty.
Shocking reading, I think the cultural background of being a woman is not just going shopping, it’s also knowing you would have been less valuable than a poodle 200 years ago.

api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1853/mar/10/aggravated-assaults-bill

I think that's really all rather reductive and simplistic, OP. You can pick out all kinds of facts and incidents from all kinds of societies, and judge them based on what you think is right now. But that will give you no real insight into how people thought at the time they held various beliefs and did various things, why they did them, and how they fit into the whole structure of society.

And very rarely it seems do these kinds of analysis remember that materially, the largest reality for women before the 20th century was that their lives would be in many ways dominated by the fact that if they had sex they would have pregnancies and infants which create significant personal, social, and bodily demands. And the only way to avoid that reality was sexual abstinence, in a society where family was the primary unit of social security.

Without an attempt to immerse in a particular culture, legal system, and time, and topical analysis is going to reveal more about the beliefs and assumptions of the person doing it than the people they are attempting to talk about.

Although the word for a unit of wealth was a 'cumhal', originally meaning a female servant, in practice wealth was measured in heads of cattle, or silver, or land.

There was 'slavery' under Brehon Law, but not slavery as it is understood today, i.e. it was not chattel slavery. People were not 'owned', and social mobility existed, so people and families were not tied to their status.

The status of women under Brehon Law was inevitably a mixed bag, but on the plus side, women had rights under Brehon Law - e.g. property rights, the right to choose whether and who to marry, access to education and the professions - that it took Irish women centuries and centuries to regain.

A 21st century Irishwoman transported back to Brehon days would find a lot to complain about; but I imagine a 17th century Irishwoman would think it was a big improvement.

And the right to divorce and keep their assets.

The status of women under Brehon Law was inevitably a mixed bag, but on the plus side, women had rights under Brehon Law - e.g. property rights, the right to choose whether and who to marry, access to education and the professions - that it took Irish women centuries and centuries to regain.

That was very dependent on social status. The Christian theory of all humans being equal in the sight of God and before the law was not part of the early Irish mindset where the whole 'Kings Lords and Commons' idea informed how everything was viewed and what their value was.

There are several good episodes on women and on law on the Medieval Irish History podcast.

open.spotify.com/show/1Gq9yIxfko3Jj3HzVIlF6M

Not really; the Anglican communion has a female head and no-one kicked up a fuss when the film 'Conclave' suggested the election of a female pope.

The former may well break up the Anglican communion and the latter was fiction.
of course some smaller Christian denominations have been more egalitarian for longer, the Congregationalists managed women ministers at a similar time to womens franchise starting in the U.K. - but other (bigger) denominations are still out and out rank misogynists

I was brought up Congregationalist and knew the name of Elsie Chamberlain very early. I didn't realise how much she overlapped with my life, but thought she was much earlier in the century. I was told she felt she had a calling but could not fulfill it in the Anglicans.
I still cannot understand why women are seen as unfit religiously, while men. a class which includes rapists, child abusers, murderers etc are fit to stand for Christ before the altar. Congregationalists do not have that idea of priesthood as a doctrine, which makes the matter easier.
I watched a Youtube about obselete British swearing today. Balderdash and poppycock come to mind.

You may be right about the Anglican communion. The fix looks likely to be that York will do the diaspora and Canterbury will do the UK (what one does about the churches who think a woman celebrant pullutes I do not know - but I know this: who makes the bread is worthy to serve it).