Why are so many people saying that women have never been oppressed?

mikesteane · 2018-04-23T05:17:27+00:00

Almost without exception wherever there has been a disadvantage applied to women, there has been a more serious counterbalancing disadvantage to men e.g.

The vote, men were subject to conscription for military duty. In most countries, universal female suffrage was achieved just a few years after universal male suffrage.
Marriage laws. In most places at most times imposed the duty of support on men with them being liable for their wive's debts but the not applying the other way around. Similar bias also applied after divorce and this is also true of Arab countries. The laws often cited as being hugely unfair to women, merely exist to protect men from the worst excesses of female privilege.
Women's reduced educational opportunities. More than balanced by their reduced financial responsibility.
The pay gap. Actually fully explained by women working fewer hours and easier, lower paying jobs, a matter of choice. A choice men very rarely have.

You name it, there is another part of the story and this is no less true for the continual focus on the difficulties faced by women.

mwobuddy · 2018-04-23T03:47:35+00:00

If its oppression to not have to work and still be taken care of anyway, sign me up.

If its oppression to not have to be drafted into war and only to give up voting rights, sign me up.

Don't you notice that it was 100% men in power, and the suffragettes got voting rights for women without any civil war at all? For men, black, yellow, white, whatever, voting rights came at the cost of completely civil war or rebellion, lots of bloodshed, etc. But for women? They just complained and were terrorists, and the oh-so-oppressive 100% men who had complete power, GAVE women the right to vote. It wasn't gained by a brutal military conquest. It was given to them by the very men they claimed were oppressing them.

When do oppressors give things to people who ask for it?

foot_kisser · 2018-04-23T08:38:40+00:00

I’m trying so hard to understand.

Well, good. Here's a video of Karen Straughan talking about how domestic violence was perceived in the past which you might find useful, although it isn't directed at the specific points you brought up.

Why are so many people saying that women have never been oppressed?

I'd say that, in the periods of the past where you could legitimately say that women had a raw deal, men also had a raw deal, although it was a different raw deal. I don't think that there has ever been a situation where women were oppressed by men in the way black people were oppressed by white people in America during slavery or segregation.

Generally, I think that the sorts of things feminists identify as oppression of women in the past are limits set on women with the consent of women designed to protect them from something. And usually, if you compare the bad deal women of a particular time and place got, the lot of men in the same place and time was at least as bad.

-women got the right to vote AFTER blacks, one of the most historically disenfranchised groups in the U.S.

That women didn't get the vote was not oppression, but a part of a larger system which treated men and women differently, and involved men being obligated via the draft to fight in wars. Generally, the vote was tied to the draft, in a "you men are going to pay for this, and no, you can't opt out of the deal" sort of way. When women got the vote, they did not also get the draft.

When the majority of women decided that they wanted the vote, they got it, despite the fact that they didn't have the vote and couldn't directly influence the government's position. In other words, men listened to women and did what the women thought best. At the same time this was happening, several decades after black men were legally allowed the vote, the white men of America were not listening to what the black men thought best, and their will was not being done, despite technically having the vote.

Karen Straughan has a good video on why MRAs bring up the draft, that goes into the subject in more detail and with more research than I can. I don't remember if it touches on the difference between the timing for black men and for women specifically, but it does go into the draft and the vote in detail.

-virtually no women before 1900 held any position of political power in the United States

That's not oppression. Virtually no people, of any kind, hold positions of political power. I don't, haven't, and probably won't ever. I'm not oppressed because I'm not a politician.

You might be thinking, "but if women were in positions of political power earlier, they would have gotten the vote earlier". Nope. Before 1900, the majority of women opposed the vote for women. The majority of them would have been against it. Politicians listen to voters, and female politicians are no different. But the voters would have been against it as well, because the majority of women were against it.

-the educated world was slow to accept female scientists, mathematicians, etc.

I can recall two women off the top of my head from approximately the time period you're talking about. Emmy Noether died in 1935, and according to wikipedia "She was described by Pavel Alexandrov, Albert Einstein, Jean Dieudonné, Hermann Weyl, and Norbert Wiener as the most important woman in the history of mathematics." Madam Curie died in 1934, and according to wikipedia "She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person and only woman to win twice, the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two different sciences, and was part of the Curie family legacy of five Nobel Prizes."

From a time period significantly before that, I can think of Ada Lovelace, who got the praise she deserved both at the time and now.

So I'm not sure that statement is actually correct. If it were correct, I'm not sure it would constitute oppression. The dictionary says that oppression is "unjust or cruel exercise of authority or power". I don't see how a slowness to perceive something could count.

PlastIconoclastic · 2018-04-23T04:45:51+00:00

Because women have always had equal or less responsibility for their rights. A womans life has always been easier than a man's life. Giving women the entitlement to vote was the dumbest thing us men have done. Welfare, taxes, low wages, illegal immigration, title 9, no fault divorce, children out of wedlock.

fengpi · 2018-04-23T03:43:44+00:00

Oy gevalt, this again.

The objection chiefly stems from the fact that a unnuanced statement like "women were oppressed" not only pretends that nobody else was being oppressed (you will probably dispute this point) but it also requires that somebody had to have been doing the oppressing. So really, whether it is intended or not, you are signalling an unstated "men are the oppressor class." That idea is something which is not only boneheadedly moronic but is also a hateful blood libel directed at men (what's the next step after that? Presumed guilt, collective guilt and collective punishment, all of which are wildly illiberal ideas). You're also applying a Marxist framework to analyzing relations between the sexes, which is wholly inappropriate to do.

You could have phrased it a lot differently. I don't see the need for further explanation.

ckershaw6 · 2018-04-23T04:10:37+00:00

I agree, some of the comments in this thread get it right, like fengpi, but the fact is that the logic used by fengpi is lost on some commenters, who state ignorant comments like the one's you've seen.

We need to take efforts to not succumb to the same flaws that plague feminism, and shun the hateful ignorant people that occupy every movement.

Rubychan11 · 2018-04-23T05:09:15+00:00

/u/w1g2 had a really in depth comment on this topic.

Cuckelimuck · 2018-04-23T07:58:20+00:00

I don’t think anyone is saying they’ve never been opressed, but rather that they are no longer being opressed and that men face mor discrimination and hardships in modern day. Anyone denying the historical oppression of women even in developed societies is just plain wrong.

Ted8367 · 2018-04-23T09:40:21+00:00

Why are so many people saying that women have never been oppressed?

You are looking at only half of the picture. What we are saying is that, at any one time and place, women's "oppression" and men's "oppression" balance out, if you take into account the whole picture. The various "oppressions" are made up from individual advantages and disadvantages, and will be different over different historical and geographical areas; but they will always balance out, otherwise society will not work properly.

The illusion comes from looking only at the disadvantages when considering women, and calling it "oppression", while ignoring the advantages. And conversely for men: seeing only the advantages, and calling it "privilege", while ignoring the disadvantages. A common feminist rhetorical device.

whatafoolishsquid · 2018-04-23T10:57:49+00:00

In the past I find it hard to say women were "oppressed" as a general group. Men and women had different roles and corresponding advantages and disadvantages. These days women want the same advantages men have had, but they don't want to accept the disadvantages.

Feminists want to vote and participate equally in government but they don't want to get drafted. Feminisits don't want to have be the primary caretaker of children but they want default custody of them. Feminists want control of their sexuality but criticize men for their sexual choices.

2018Now2018New · 2018-04-23T11:03:25+00:00

Women did not receive voting rights after blacks, white women received voting rights 40 years before black men and women, which basically proves the whole point of women not being specifically opressed. Even when (white) women gained the right to vote, what people do miss the fact of, is that not all men could vote (blacks) and even before that, it was only rich white men who could vote, the poor white man could not vote. So once again, men and women were opressed, the thing is theh we're opressed by men and women, at times when not all men had the right to vote we had female dictators giving orders to these men who couldn't vote, ordering executions and sending them off to war. Yeah women were oppressed, but if you judge by the individual, they were no more opressed than anyone else, they were also capable of being just as powerful as men in a historical sense, we had all powerful female dictators as I said, women have always existed in every society who are more powerful than some men. Even in some instances in Islamic country, when a woman throws a stone at a man during a public execution, who is more oppressed? When a woman isn't forced to go to war by Muhammed who is more oppressed? Muhammed allows the women to handle much of the husbands money. When it comes to oppression the truth is that women seem to have escaped the dark ages but left men there, female and male circumcision was legal, now just male, female and male murderers were treated equally (in Islam anyway, both get death penalty if they murder their own children, an equal punishment) in some areas such as Argentina I belive, women were punished less for murdering their own children (infanticide) a law that still exists today in Argentina Australia and Canada. Plus how many counties had / have male military draft but not female compared to having both? Women have faced problems, women have caused problems. Same with men.

On an individual basis, men and women are very opressed. In an Islamic country, when a group of female terrorist kill a gay male and are praised for it, this is even an example of women oppressing men in Islam. Of course, men opressed women too, but women opressed women to, when they murder their own infant (son or daughter), men opressed men and women have also opressed men, all the way through history when you look at things on an individual basis.

You can go on about the pay gap all you want, there has always been women who are wealthier than your average man, even Muhammed gained most of his power by marrying a rich widow almost twice his age. The real truth isnt so much a trend in women opressed by men, it's more a trend of the lower class opressed by the upper.

aussietoads · 2018-04-23T05:21:24+00:00

Yeh, women were so oppressed. Especially when getting married. A woman's oppressor would have to ask her to marry him. Usually on one bent knee, while offering a bribe in the form of a gift that would have cost him a month or more in wages.

Now I ask, what other oppressors have to ask their 'slave' to do something, and offer them a gift to seal the deal?

Lipshitz2 · 2018-04-23T14:26:45+00:00

Here’s a post I found in a thread similar to this, maybe it’ll help, posted by /u/w1g2 in response to a question about how women are not oppressed if they don’t have the right to vote/work/set educated etc....

“Because as far as "not being considered your own person", you're probably referring to the law of coverture, which only applied to married women and incorporated her legal existence into that of her husband's, following the idea of two becoming one. The meaning behind coverture is that the wife is covered/protected by the husband, he stands as her representative in all matters and he is also responsible for her. This included financial matters as well as even when she committed a crime- he had to pay the punishment whereas the courts could do nothing to her. Wouldn't you know quite a few feminists, including Hillary Clinton, believe similar things about men and women in general, specifically that all female prisons should be closed because when a woman commits a crime, she only did so as an accomplice to a man or was previously victimized by a man. Isn't it interesting that she believes men are always responsible for women's actions. Maybe the law of coverture contained things women actively wanted and the provisions contained in it outweighed the drawbacks.

Most guild type work was always open to women. The papers even had a blank spot for the master to insert the gender pronoun for their apprentice. But it's understandable that most women weren't interested in becoming a blacksmith or what have you on their own because it took many many years of learning. Not only would they be able to assist their husband in whatever trade he was in, but as the article states, they could achieve their own status within the guild just by being his widow.

The stories of women who became say the first lawyer in America do not make it sound as if they faced much oppression in their attempt to join the field. Most often, they let the people in charge know that they want to join them and those people oblige with hardly any tut-tutting.

Not only was voting considered- and explicitly stated by a SCOTUS ruling in 1914- to be a right of a full citizen of the country only because they also had a "reciprocal obligation . . . to render military service in the case of need." There was also the fact that many women were against receiving the vote so perhaps many politicians felt as if their hands were tied: why make a law when so many women do not want it?

As far as learning, male and female college graduation rates were nearly the same until the 1920s. We have record of women attending and graduating universities for the last several hundred years as well as female only colleges and schools, and of course, if a family could afford one, a female could be tutored at home to receive her education.

I have to wonder at the idea of being "actively discouraged" considering all of the evidence I have provided. Was it a social norm that most women did not seek out careers as they do now? Sure, I don't doubt it. But women did not have access to reliable birth control (because it hadn't been invented) so unless they wanted to spend the entirety of their life chaste, would have to plan for many of their years being filled with pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, etc. Not to mention, quite a lot of the jobs available weren't in nice air- conditioned offices but involved hard labor or danger like becoming a doctor (working with the near dead, sometimes even people with a plague) or a lawyer (working with criminals, especially when prisons did not have as nice standards for living). Maybe it's the case that in different environments, people, including women, will have to react accordingly to different things and maybe it's understandable that in an environment that used to have far more risk and danger and death and with little knowledge or control over fertility, women wanted different things than they do now. Although, as I pointed out with Hillary Clinton, sometimes they still want the same things...”

nfolsen · 2018-05-16T03:01:32+00:00

Hahaha wtf is wrong with this sub

bufedad · 2018-04-23T09:20:44+00:00

Women were apparently oppressed by being supported by men who were forced to do this

That's not oppression. What these men are forced to do to support their wives is oppression.

mikesteane · 2018-04-23T03:34:36+00:00

The "women were never oppressed" seems to be a new thing around here. I'm not sure I get it either; it's objectively true that women were oppressed. That does not mean that men weren't oppressed, and it does not mean that men were always the ones oppressing women. It certainly doesn't mean women are oppressed today, whereas men still are in many ways, so I fail to the see the relevance.

This seems too nuanced a position for adherents of the "women were never oppressed" crowd though.

2018-04-23T19:49:57+00:00

1776 to 1779 White men had the right to vote and take part in government, but usually had to meet certain qualifications, like owning property. Six state governments eliminated all property requirements and gave the right to vote to all white males over twenty-one years of age, rich or poor. At the same time, three other state governments increased the property requirements, limiting the right to vote. In some states, the right to vote included the requirement that a person belong to a particular religious group.

1812 to 1821 Six western states became part of the nation and gave the vote to all white males. During the same period, four of the older states that had property requirements abolished them.

1840 to 1847 Almost every state government had given all white males the right to vote. Only two states still had any significant property qualifications. Restrictions on voting by Catholics and non-Christians were eliminated. In a few states, even immigrants not yet naturalized were given the right to vote. The last state to change, North Carolina, abandoned the property test in 1856.

1848 The First Women's Suffrage Convention was held. Out of it came the statement "It is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves the sacred right to the elective franchise."

http://www.laits.utexas.edu/lawdem/unit01/reading1/history_to_vote.html

So most men cold vote 7 years earlier than women and you think that's oppression? Most men couldn't vote either. When women voted they have actually made production and transport of alcohol illegal. The caused increase in crime since selling alcohol was in the black market. The feminists also caused the sexual revolution. Before the alcohol prohibition only men drank at bar but now it was in secret so young women showed up at these secret bars or clubs. They would get drunk and have sex with men and hence sexual revolution is born. The government lost income since alcohol was taxed. Men were spending less money on other goods because they want to still drink alcohol. One thing I am wonder is why men were drinking so much. Maybe it's due to women who were so combative with men. Feminism convinced some men that they were oppressed and that women need to be in controlled.

Title	Why are so many people saying that women have never been oppressed?
Author	ckershaw6
Upvotes	3
Comments	102
Date	April 23, 2018 3:29 AM UTC (8 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/8e8jeg/why_are_so_many_people_saying_that_women_have/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/why-are-so-many-people-saying-that-women-have.902412 https://theredarchive.com/post/902412

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