Why Did Almost All Societies Believe that Women Were Inferior to Men?

http://www.slate.com/blogs/quora/2013/08/23/why_did_almost_all_societies_believe_that_women_were_inferior_to_men.html

by Jagat • 13 years ago

19 3 13 years ago

He makes some good points, but he waters himself down by leaping to touchy-feely conclusions that his thesis doesn't support. For instance:

"...if we do not demand that everybody contribute to their full potential, then we notice a massive creative lag in that society."

Is this axiomatically true? On what criteria do we draw those comparisons? Where are the data?

I'm not arguing against gender equality, but rather, I am skeptical of socially forced gender equivalence. Those two notions are often conflated, and up until the end of his piece, the author did a pretty good job exploring the distinction. It is one thing to say that men and women can contribute equally, and that they deserve the opportunity to do so equally. It is quite another to say that men and women must be fully interchangeable, and that society is better off when they are.

I have no doubt women and men are equally capable, equally creative, and deserve equal freedom to contribute to society in any ways they see fit. But key to that premise is the role of choice, and how we define "contribution."

When we speak about "demanding" that men and women "contribute to their full potential," we are actually committing an act of inadvertent sexism. We are stigmatizing women who choose to fulfill what we'd now call 'traditional' gender roles. Our society needs moms (it also needs dads!). The decision to raise a great family is every bit as noble, and should be every bit as respected, as the decision to become a CEO. It's equally hard work, too.

A tale from personal experience:

My parents are basically Marge and Homer Simpson. My mom, a gifted polymath with a Masters degree from Berkeley, was pursuing a noteworthy career in journalism before she met my dad. My dad was a lovable goofball whose primary interests included watching sports, TV, and movies, and whose near-complete lack of common sense was equal parts endearing and unfathomable.

My dad was the sort of person who'd drive me the school in the morning, then suddenly veer off-course and take me to a Dodgers game. My mom was the sort of person who'd pick me up from school, and when I got home, would introduce me to Tolkien, Dahl, Hawking, and Shakespeare.

In theory, my mom could have "contributed more creatively" to society by pursuing her career full-bore. But she decided -- and it was fully her decision -- to make me and my siblings her primary contributions. And because of her, we ended up more like Lisa than like Bart.

To be fair, my dad had stumbled into a considerably more remunerative line of work than my mom -- but I emphasize stumbled. My mom could have run circles around him in the corporate world, had she wanted to. Instead, she chose me. I could live a hundred more years and still not accomplish enough to repay her.

jinushaun• 13 years ago

Thank you. These kinds of articles down play the importance of mothers, and are ironically anti-women because they perpetuate the belief that stay-at-home moms/dads are inferior to working moms/dads.

lotsofcows• 13 years ago

You mention the infant mortality rate but not the maternal mortality rate.

If most women die in childbirth than wisdom resides in men.

By the time breeding women could expect to live as long as men, the status quo was established.

Why Did Almost All Societies Believe that Women Were Inferior to Men?

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