The Myth of Women’s Oppression
Forty some odd years ago, feminists bellowed their way into mainstream attention, launching a major offensive on what they called a patriarchal system that had oppressed women for centuries.
Painting women as downtrodden and powerless, they railed against men with the missionary zeal of abolitionists and with largely the same message.
In short, women were slaves and men were their masters. They demanded liberation and have been making demands every since.
They did a magnificent job of pitching all this. That could be a testament to the inherent truth in their ideas. Or it might be something else, like the fact that they already had so much power that few were willing to question anything they said in the first place.
You can put your money on the latter, because even a remotely objective examination of the facts leads to a far more reasonable conclusion.
Women were never oppressed to begin with. Not even close.
I’m no historian, but I did attend some history classes before I finished middle school. So, by the time I was 13, I knew what oppression was. And lucky for me I was 13 in a time when people still knew what it wasn’t.
Oppression has some pretty obvious tell tale signs. Like torture and death; like bullwhips and chains; gas chambers and death camps. Oppression is a roadmap of scars on the back of a field hand that was purchased at an auction. It is the rope that gets strung over a tree branch in broad daylight and used to choke the life out of someone convicted of being the wrong color.
It is an indelible stain on humanity, void of compassion, dehumanizing both the oppressed and the oppressor. And the evidence of it is so offensive to modern sensibilities that we preserve proof of it as lessons for the coming generations.
Now, when we compare those things to the historical world of women, which was largely one of being protected and provided for, we get an entirely different picture. It is a portrait not of the oppressed, but of the privileged. And it begs a good many questions that need to be answered.
For instance, how many times in history did we have slaves with the first rights to a seat in the lifeboat? Which slave masters were compelled to go off to war to protect the lives of their slaves? How many oppressors tore their own bodies down with brutal labor so that they could provide food and shelter for those they oppressed?
Zero sounds like a good answer.
It also makes one wonder, or should, how many slave masters had to get on their knees before their prospective slaves, bearing gold and jewels to ask permission to be their master? How many slaves could say “no” and wait for a better deal?
How about another goose egg?
It’s not coincidental that feminists pointed to marriage as an oppressive institution. Pointing at nothing and making a lot of noise has worked pretty well for them. And so, in a collective fit of neurotic activism they attacked the one institution that had served as the source of more support and protection for women than any other in history. They became obsessed with depicting a walk down the wedding isle as the path to oppression; each woman’s personal Trail of Tears.
You couldn’t buy this kind of crazy if you were Bill Gates.
“Hey!” some feminists are shrieking by now, “What about voting rights? Women were not allowed to vote! That’s oppression!”
Well, no, it’s not. And all we need to do is look at the history of voting in America to prove it.
In the beginning, almost no one could vote. It was a right reserved for a few older white males who owned land, which left almost all men and a lot of other people out of the picture. This doesn’t say anything particularly special about women. So if this constituted oppression, then it meant that nearly everyone was oppressed. Maybe the early Americans didn’t catch on to that one because they were too busy…celebrating their new found freedom.
Anyway, as time passed, because men of good values wrote an amazing constitution, voting rights were expanded to other groups. First to the men who didn‘t own land, then later to other ethnic groups, then still later to women. Even further down the road the voting age was lowered bringing another large group of people into the fold. And today we are debating the voting rights of illegal aliens.
Formerly oppressed hamsters may be next.
And we should consider that there was something of a tradeoff for women regarding the vote. Like exclusion from combat and men compelled to turn over the fruit of their labors and to die for them at the drop of a hat. Perhaps it wasn’t a fair tradeoff, mainly to the men. But proof of women’s oppression? Comedians pay for material that isn’t nearly this funny.
The same was true for owning land. Plenty of women weren’t allowed to…for a while, anyway. It probably had something to do with the fact that it was men who had to have land on which to build women homes, or perhaps they figured that men who were expected to face bullets in order to protect that land might be better, more deserving keepers of it.
Who knows what insanities plagued us before feminism restored us to reason.
Whatever the reasons, those rules weren’t long lived. Besides, not being able to own land was pretty much softened by the fact that women could choose men to provide it for them through that oppressive institution of marriage, and the phallocentric, linear thinking alleged tyrants that they married.
I am old enough to remember well the older rules for men. Work hard and take care of your woman. Be prepared to lay down your life for her. Watch your mouth in the presence of a lady. Offer her your seat, even if she is a stranger. The same for opening doors and lighting smokes.
Disrespect her and risk a beating. Touch her in the wrong way and you’re a dead man.
This isn’t the way oppressed people are treated. But we do have another word for those fortunate enough to benefit from these kinds of standards.
Royalty.
We didn’t coin the term “princess” for women without a good reason.
With a few trivial exceptions, this has always been the gold standard for the treatment of women. The fact that this is beginning to change, that men are starting to put the brakes on doing a lot of things out of chivalry, is just another example of feminism shooting women in the foot. Accidents happen, especially self inflicted wounds, to people that play with guns when they don’t know what they’re doing.
Still, I have to hand it to feminists in their capacity to spin a wild yarn. Taking a privileged class of people and convincing the world that they were picked on was a masterful piece of skullduggery. But it was only successful because the mandate for men in western culture has always been to give women whatever they want without much question. Otherwise, the plethora of feminist ideas would have buckled under the really oppressive weight of unchecked dishonesty.
Nonetheless, our unhealthy enabling of them set the stage for women to pass up men in every aspect of life. Women are now getting more educated than men and they also have most of the jobs. Nothing suggests this is going to do anything but favor women even more in the future.
All that from an ideology that resides a house of cards that only remains standing because the wind itself has been scared out of blowing it down.
I would offer the feminists my kudos for shrewd work and a job well done, but winning a race is easy when you start with one foot already across the finish line, and everyone else pretends not to notice.
Paul Elam is Editor-in-Chief for Men’s News Daily and the publisher of A Voice for Men.
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Of course that is notwithstanding the fact that we need to assume that women of that time were as much or nearly as violent and abusive as they are today.
Proverbs 21:9, 21:19 and 25:24 all talk about violent women and that it is better for a man to live in a closet or the wilderness than to live with a violent woman. I do not remember Proverbs saying anything about women living with violent men.
In fact from much of what I have seen, almost every society has protected their women, often at the cost of men’s lives.
The Larry Carter Center? I challege him/her to expose some of the “lies” posted on this site so they can be debated. And lets keep it relevent to 2010, OK?
I wish it was a woman who made that post, but I know better. His reference to the “Bush Crime Family,” global warming, and “war profiteering” exposes him for the snivelling self-castrating leftist that he is, a knees-together sissy who got beat up a lot as a kid.
Maize A. would like you to believe that women could not own property: ” their inability to seek employment or own their own property”
In 1749, Martha Dandridge married Daniel Custis, a wealthy land owner. “Daniel Custis’ death in 1757 left Martha a rich widow, with independent control over a dower inheritance for her lifetime and trustee control over the inheritance of her minor children.” In 1759, Martha Dandridge Custis married George Washington. (Basic 5th grade American history).
So in order to believe Maize A., we must come to the unfortunate conclusion that our grade school history teacher lied to us when she told us Martha Dandridge Custis owned Mt. Vernon before she married Geo. Washington, and that Geo. Washington married into money (just like Martha did when she married Daniel Custis). I’m speechless. What’s next? Are you going to tell me there’s no Easter Bunny?
BTW, Maize A., if a woman couldn’t own property, as you say, what happened to maritial property when her husband died? Did it revert back to her father in law? Did it become the property of the eldest son? What happened to the title of the real estate, since women couldn’t own property? I’m sure this issue was addressed in women’s studies classes. Thanking you in advance . . .
@ Maize A.
You’re right, the reference to grade school history was satirical.
But I would offer up that this level of educations provides no less understanding of history, and probably more, than your women’s studies department.
When your indoctrination forces you to see all history in a model of corrupt and oppressive patriarchy, then it forces you to ignore more history than you learn, and to create more history than actually happened.
To the latter, this is where we get nonsense like the “rule of thumb” being a wife beaters weapon measurement. And to the former, we get references, like yours, that claim wife beating was legal, when in fact there is a long and documented history of it being illegal, with severe penalties, including imprisonment and flogging for men who violated those laws. Of course that is notwithstanding the fact that we need to assume that women of that time were as much or nearly as violent and abusive as they are today.
Just another tidbit that probably won’t be making the rounds in your local “women’s studies” department.
And last, amid all your objections you really didn’t make your case that women were ever oppressed. You just demonstrated that regardless of what real history bears out, there is only one way you are going to see it and it has little to do with being scholarly.
Grade-school history classes don’t really qualify you as an expert on the history of women’s treatment in society, I’m afraid… At first I thought this article was satirical, based on the gross misrepresentation of women’s position in pre-modern Europe… For starters, you’re backwards-projecting assumptions about choice in marriage (many women had significantly less choice in husbands than you’re suggesting, since their inability to seek employment or own their own property meant that they could not defy their father’s wishes in a marriage without risking total impoverishment–and once married, they could not seek a divorce–even in times when women were legally allowed to initiate a divorce–without similar risks, especially in eras where re-marriage was difficult), physical safety in marriages (in many eras it was not illegal to beat one’s wife, and in many cultures it was even expected), and access to custody after marriage (it was only very recently that women were given preferential custody to their children).
Oppression of women has frequently been physical as well as economic, despite your claim to the contrary, not only because violence against women has not always been illegal within the family domain, but also because many cultures have had laws that provided physical penalties (up to and including death) for women who violated gender and sexual norms.
Believe what you want, but if you’re going to talk about history you should make sure you have better sources than the notes you took in grade-school.
From 2006 here on MND (by Denis):
http://mensnewsdaily.com/wp-admin/edit-comments.php?s=Denis&mode=detail&comment_status=all&pagegen_timestamp=2010-01-12+04%3A47%3A56&action=-1&comment_type=all&apage=137
Some excerpts:
Voting was handled at the community level, and after 1789
(I belive that was the year the U.S. Constitution was signed), localities handled the processing of voting. Voting rights were not given even to ALL white men. Only to those men (white or any other race, color, except of course slaves) who were property owners.
These were decisions made at the local level. Women were not excluded by the Constitution.
(In other words, the old “white male privilege” charge often used by feminists and black leaders is a cannard.) This was done because in the late 1700’s and in the 1800s many men made a living as tradesmen moving from town to town. They stayed around until there wasn’t anymore work, and they moved from town to town until they found work that paid. As they were rootless men, the towns would not let them vote as they had no vested interests personally in the larger communities interests.
Women who were married to property owners voted if their husband was sick or away on business, or away during wartime (e.g., War of 1812, Civil War). The wife would vote on candidates and referendum in the same way as her husband-that is, what was seen as best for the communities and for FAMILIES.
Voting never was a white male privilege but rather a “property owner privilege”. Granted the vast majority of property owners were white males, but not all white males were property owners. Far from it.
And were similar things not always avaliable? I’ve seen some early porn films and let me tell you, Girls Gone Wild has nothing on it.
And society does demand those things; women fighting outrageously for the love of a man who is average at best? That’s high class entertainment. I was scolded recently for letting a fellow I was seeing go when it became obvious that he was persuing someone else. Apparently I was supposed to go to the other ‘bitch’ and claw her eyes out. That’s what society wants from a girl these days, catfights and fighting for a man.
And the Bible wasn’t faxed direct from God, so don’t act as though it was. It’s the combined work of many writers in three languages mostly writing older folk tales. And the New Testement? The oldest documents we can find were written 100+ years after he died and are based on what the Church voted acceptable. The original Word has been garbled and lost, though this is perhaps a discussion for another time and place.
Who here gets to say God is a man though? Did women get a vote way back at the Council of Nicaea when men held a vote to determine which passages would go into the ‘official’ Bible and to vote on Jesus’s divinity? Who’s to say that books stating that God is a woman weren’t lost through that male dominated vote way back when, six hundred years after Jesus’s death?
Certain new translations of the Bible have been re-written to be “gender-inclusive.” Never mind the integrity of the original text, now the Bible– God’s eternal holy word has to be politically correct and culturally sensitive! Where is the oppression of women today?! Note: Biblical authenticity has been compromised to appease a previously underrepresented group!
Bad Girls Club, Girls Gone Wild, Bridezillas, to name a few shows– women acting out in as morally outlandish a way as they please (and without societal demand that these shows be banished). What oppression of women? Note: Women are free to be as foolish on TV as men!
Divorce and family laws that favor the wife/mother in custody battles. What oppression of women? Note: Female is given preference in domestic situation.
It seems that modern society is not oppressing women any more.
“Woman have had no say in this male story from day one
No gods -just the ones man generated”
Google: female gods of war
(Partial list)
Babd – Irish
Skatha – Welsh
Athena – Greek
Minerva – Roman
Freya – Norse
Inanna – Sumer
And a Yahoo answer to “Why are there so many female goddesses of War?” You can read the answers for yourself.
Nevermind Hecate, Persephone, Demeter, Hera, Pandora, Aphrodite, Clotho-Lachesis-Atropos and a bunch more from our Greek cultural foundations you can read about here: http://www.paleothea.com/Goddesses.html
Yup, women are totally absent and no doubt played absolutely zero part in the development of these traditions, based on your naked assertion. Very informative, indeed. I haven’t seen any women in any Christmas Nativity scenes lately, either. Have you? Didn’t think so!
I found this to be particularly amusing: “No say in language”
Is this supposed to be satirical? Ha ha. Very funny (and a very clever play on Spanglish). Bravo.
As someone noted on another thread, the days when a feminist could spew absurd drivel unopposed are pretty much over.
Woman have had no say in this male story from day one
No gods -just the ones man generated
No say on how the mapping of world developed to date
No say in language, architecture and on and on
Half our species has been bullied and mistreated by male and the dizzy woman doesn’t even know it happened
The male made the soup and then accuse woman for it’s bad taste
There are no female gods that came to earth to guide humans just the ones man made up and i defy anyone to name one that wasn’t from a male waring mind and then half our species follow something they had no say in–now that’s brainwashing
lilly123-saying for the shake of saying as a formed mind is for life
what up the larry carter center? You are a wacky mug! I appreciate that you left a short stupid post instead of all the other long ones on this article. I actually read yours. I especially like this sentence:
“I had previously assumed the only nutcase males that existed were on anti-abortion websites, Turner Diaries obsessives, Helter SKelter Charles Manson wannabees?”
That’s good stuff right there. You’re just a silly goose with nothing to offer but entertainment. You are entertaining, though, and that’s way better than nothing.
The Myth of Males showing intelligence is evident here. Perhaps a dozen or so countries from Iceland to Denmark have been abating patriarchy and oppression of women while the Bush Crime Family, I presume represents model heroics of this insane website? I had previously assumed the only nutcase males that existed were on anti-abortion websites, Turner Diaries obsessives, Helter SKelter Charles Manson wannabees? Males are oppressed by their own idiot attitudes, willingly avoiding worker solidarity and collective bargaining. A man who does not act like a god’s gift to lovers, instead being supportive, affirming and truth telling is easily loved and wanted by either another intelligent male or woman highly attracted to the voice of liberty. Victim blaming is the true name of this website. I am ashamed of males here with a vocabulary spinning such half truths and total bald faced lies. Elam does not deserve the title Mister. Feminism, like evolution is a fact. Patriarchy is an evil theocratic cultural diversion away from our nuturant species. Elam is an apologist for violence, extortion and dishonesty towards women. His vain false praise of some women belies the need of more men necessary to complete the restoration of a caring human race. We’ll have global warming and continued war profiteering, if both decent women and men do not love side by side working for the eradication of all forms of oppression.
I’m adding to my comment 51.
I’ve been thinking about the basic differences between men and women and one of the big ones is that men are a much more diverse group. The differences in intelligence and personality are much bigger in men than in women. This makes men far more difficult to discuss as a whole than women. Men are far more likely to be independent thinkers than women because we are generally less dependent on being accepted by a group and more inclined to rational thought in general. Diversity of ability, thought, and action is far greater in men.
Our species is naturally male dominated. (The generally bigger and stronger sex is the dominant one.) Males also naturally form hierarchies and some form organizations and do big things. This creates hierarchies of power. I think “the patriarchy” or whatever you want to call it is a fundamental characteristic of our species. It can get really messed up, like now, but I don’t think it will ever go away. That’s sort of a random unsupported thought but it’s about the 500th paragraph in this comments section so what the heck.
[...] an article published on Men’s News Daily a couple days ago called The Myth of Women’s Oppression. The basic information isn’t new and it’s what you’d expect of a men’s [...]
Cw # 48, (last one)
*** However this is just the other side of the same coin as men getting away with sexually abusing “loose” seeming women, …..***
I didn’t copy the rest of this. I do agree that we are quite happy to leave a drunk man lying in the street alone so we should leave a woman to the same. My point being that we don’t rape men because they are drunk so we shouldn’t rape women when they are drunk. What we really need to do is have advertisements explaining to men that sex with women when drinking is considered rape. Since most rape accusations is from someone who the woman knows husbands and boyfriends need to be warned. If you do that women won’t have sex when drinking. Problem solved; no oppression.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-425123/Men-face-jail-rape-women-drunk-consent-bed-boost-convictions.html
***No, but when it does happen to men, it is mostly in prison.***
Can you show where this information comes from please. I have left out much of this comment but will share some articles to help you see how bad false rape accusations are for men.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/truth-test-to-uncover-false-rape-allegations-634512.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/false-accusations-made-the-case-for-anonymity-699258.html
***What it comes down to is that rigid gender-roles hurt men and women, as does the patriarchy.***
The problem with a statement like this is that is doesn’t explain why gays and lesbians have a top and bottom. Relationships seem to work well when they are in some type of Patriarchy relationship. And most women enjoy being submissive in some way to men. This is a major problem because it is women who are holding men back from what feminists want them to be. No matter how many times women are challenged on radio stations and in normal friendly discussions that they are expecting a double standard, they just shrug it off and say that is the way it is and they don’t care to change it. Feminists need to change women IMHO rather than focus on men as being responsible so they can get on with their own study of history.
*** Men, as a gender, don’t have it easy; but men, as a gender, aren’t oppressed. But women are. To say that is absurd would be absurd***
Under International Human Rights men only have the right to take responsibility of women. There is not one right men are being given that is for men. They are solely meant to serve women. Women are oppressing men like no other group has ever been oppressed.
(Please take the time to visit the links. I really didn’t have the time to write this much but you deserved a better response that I gave #50)
Cw # 48,
***“Sexual assault of boys by girls or women doesn’t count and ya’ll pretend it doesn’t happen or doesn’t matter.”
What the hell are you talking about?***
Since child rights have been in the spotlight, female sex abuse is starting to be reported. The numbers of reports are raising fast and although men still account for the majority of cases it is expected women will show up as equal amount since female sex abuse has been under reported for a long, long time.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8347589.stm
http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=413523
http://www.lawfirms.com/female-teacher-sex-crime-offenders-and-scandals.html
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/18595822/detail.html#-
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1901762,00.html
***There have just been studies seeking alternative theories to account for the pay gap aside from bosses paying men and women different amounts at every turn, which was never all the pay gap was about anyway but what Warren Farrell-types would like it to be. Some legit, some questionable, some bunk, but none of them account of it entirely. But since you opened that window, yes, there have been studies that show discrimination takes place affecting wages (including the same work being evaluated differently if the name was distinctively male).***
The pay gap has a lot of agendas behind it. It ranges from increased tax collection to minimum wages being increased to women getting paid to stay at home and take care of children to affirmative action in politics and business and more. There needs to be new studies because the previous ones have all been shown to be false. It is not a reality but just a tactic for unions and feminists to gain more power. I know because I interviewed leaders of this work and researched news from countries that adopted this. The present NZ government is getting non feminist and non unionist research done because we are not a big country.
***Sexual abuse of males isn’t looked for or it’s joked about.”
To a degree, it is. You’re correct and this is tragic and something feminists address all the time.***
No they don’t. There is not one men’s group for male victims of sexual assault on any rape boards. Feminists may say they talk but that talk means nothing.
continue next comment….
Cw # 48,
I jumped the gun with my comment #50 thinking you were attacking rather than discussing. My apologies. To make up for it I will comment to your comment properly.
***If you want to get down on a knee and ask somebody to marry you, go for it. It’s a silly social norm which, like the rest of your examples, exists only to reward well-behaved women and put them on a pedestal but otherwise mean nothing.***
Men aren’t getting on one knee or buying expensive rings for engagement and marriage because they are rewarding well behaved women. Women expect this. Have you ever watched Bridezilla? Have you even noticed the first thing girlfriends want to know is the details on how he proposed and how expensive the ring is and other gifts? Women judge a men’s worth on how much he is willing to give to her. And as women compete with other women gestures and money spent on them will determine how much they will respect men.
***Anyway, yes, it’s pretty clear certain social traditions put pressure on men to validate women (who otherwise wouldn’t be validated) and impress their friends.***
I see you already knew what I was saying.
***Kind of like women ……being punished for liking sex, speaking their minds, working or not working, etc., except with women the outcome is generally more negative and long-lasting (part of that whole negative playing-field thing). ***
Oh, there you are. I almost thought we might get away without the competition on who is worse off. Yes, you are a feminist.
***It also sucks idiot male presidents sent guys to war, but we’ve been over this. I’m just not seeing how this changes the fact that women have been oppressed because of their gender and men haven’t.***
It also sucks when women send men to war as leaders of countries but I guess since America hasn’t had a woman president yet, feminists still get to say this. It even sucks that feminists want men to wear white ribbons to show they will fight another man to death even to protect women. I suppose that is the same as the white feather women gave prior to WWI to shame men for not wanting to die on the battle field while women stayed far away from harm.
continue next comment….
I don’t have the patience for all these long comments but there’s another thing that bugs me. The claim that men oppress men really isn’t meaningful. Powerful people sometimes use their power to oppress people they have power over. Powerful people are almost all men. The reason for this is that men do things. Pretty much every significant organization, idea, and invention in the history of the world comes from men. This creates positions of power that are naturally filled mostly by the kind of people that created them. I think most discussions of men vs. women are basically comparing apples to oranges. The fundamental differences between the sexes are too big for these discussions to be anything but nonsense.