Oppression of Women?

Oppression of Women?

Oppression of Women?

Oppression of Women?

Were Women Oppressed in the West?

The notion that women were oppressed throughout much of recent western history is, in my view, nothing more than the usual feminist-inspired hokum that is designed to stir up hatred towards men.

This is not to suggest that people have not been oppressed in the west. They surely have been - in one way or another. But the idea that women have been oppressed more than men is just not supported by the evidence.

And the ubiquitous propaganda suggesting that 'men oppress women' is ludicrous.

Men tend to oppress men, not women.

Indeed, many of the most fundamental and characteristic behaviours of males derive from a strong disposition - which is implanted in the brains of males both biologically and socially - that militates against them being hostile towards women and children.

For example, male primates do not, by and large, eat their offspring!

Why not?

Surely they would make very tasty and highly nutritious meals. And they would be relatively easy to capture.

However, there is clearly something inbuilt within male brains that prevents them from wanting to harm their own females and children. This inhibitory mechanism does not always work, but, by and large, it does.

Even in lions!

Lions

And, to a large extent, it seems that males also have some inbuilt mechanism that inhibits them from harming other males of the same species. This doesn't always work either, but, by and large, it does.

However - and here is the important bit - this mechanism appears to be much more effective when it comes to inhibiting male hostility toward females and children than it is when it comes to inhibiting hostility toward other males.

And, indeed, it seems actually to go much further than this, particularly with humans.

Not only do men seem predisposed not to harm their women and children, they seem mostly to be predisposed to protect them from any harm that might come their way.

men are far more likely to be a danger to other men than they are to women and children

The upshot is that men are far more likely to be a danger to other men than they are to women and children. 

And just about all the evidence that I have ever seen would confirm this. 

Further, it also seems that women, being generally weaker than men, and so vulnerable to them, especially when they have children, must have developed very effective manipulative techniques to ensure their own survival.

(This manipulation is not necessarily devious in any way - though, clearly, it can be - nor is it necessarily engaged in with conscious intent - though, clearly, it can be. For example, in the same way that a crying baby 'manipulates' its mother to dash into action, so a crying woman can do the same to a man.)

And so if it is the case that men are wired up to respond with less hostility toward women than toward other men (and just about ALL the evidence suggests that this is true) then, whatever levels of hostility emanate from men toward other human beings, they will surely end up being directed mostly toward other men!

Period. End of story.

The hostility of males is mostly directed toward other males.

The hostility of males is mostly directed toward other males.

Full stop.

And this greater hostility toward men rather than toward women will have tended to occur throughout the whole of human history. 

And this suggests to me that, overall, men were far more likely than women to have suffered the greater amount of oppression and violence throughout the past.

True, it is mostly powerful men who will have been responsible for most of the oppression and violence, but when it comes to talking about who ended up being mistreated the most, it seems to me that this must have been men rather than women.

The feminist trick, however, is to focus the public's attention only on aggressive males and their female victims, and to prevent male victims from entering into the picture. And this is why, for example, there is such resistance to providing services for male victims of domestic violence.

They don't exist! They are kept completely out of the picture.

Indeed, there is no general situation or circumstance that I have ever come across throughout my entire life wherein women are treated worse than men. And if you know your history you will surely discover that men have always been treated far worse than women.

Further, I find it very difficult to envisage how any successful society could have been created, long term, which treated its women in a manner that they would have found unacceptable, unless, in general, the men were treated worse, or threatened with this.

I can certainly see how isolated social groups could have formed wherein the men colluded with each other to oppress their womenfolk, but how would these have survived when in competition with those where this did not happen?

Here is a somewhat silly and oversimplified example.

Imagine two competing social groups, the Oppressors and the Equalitarians.

Imagine two competing social groups, the Oppressors and the Equalitarians. Each group consists of 100 people, 50 men and 50 women.

In the Equalitarian group, everyone feels that they are being treated well and they are happy. In the Oppressor group, the 50 men treat their 50 women in a manner which displeases them.

Surely it is the case that when these groups mingle, fight, or interact in any way (even if only through the exchange of ideas) the 50 men in the Oppressor group will be opposed by 150 others.

The odds are therefore continuously very heavily stacked against any male oppressors of women.

And the only way that the men of any Oppressor group could avoid being deposed is by isolating their group from any Equalitarian group.

The feminists of the late 60s arrived on the scene at a time when  western capitalist societies had reached a stage of relative calm. There was mostly peace among their nations, and the social structures of their societies had become sufficiently robust to allow people to express their individuality and to deviate from the expected norms without threatening them. 

And science, technology, medicine and, of course, the contraceptive pill were liberating both men and women in numerous exciting ways.

It was a world full of hope, opportunity, and good will. 

Both men and women found that they were able gradually to extricate themselves from many of the traditional shackles that bound them, and the relationships between men and women, both inside and outside the family, were becoming less rigid, less formalised, more open, and more dependent on individual choice rather than on anything else.

The traditional sources of authority (e.g. the state and the churches) were also being challenged successfully, and people gradually began discarding those aspects of authority that had simply become unnecessary or less relevant to their lives.

And the fact that this was possible without causing any catastrophic societal collapse is surely a testament to the institutions and the collective efforts of those who had gone before. 

our western forefathers deserve to be applauded for what turned out to be a truly magnificent achievement

It therefore seems to me that our western forefathers deserve to be applauded for what turned out to be a truly magnificent achievement. Stable societies and individual choice!

Feminists and the politically correct, however, do not seem to see things this way. According to them, the societies and cultures of others were, and are, superior to those in the west - even though these other societies and cultures have failed miserably in comparison to those of the west by almost any criterion that one chooses with which to evaluate them. 

And the feminists and the politically correct also portray the history of the west as one wherein the male oppression of women seems to be one of its defining features.

But I have never seen any real evidence for this. If anything, it seems to me that the men were the ones being oppressed rather than the women - e.g. see Did Women Really Want To Go Out To Work?

And my distinct impression is that the extra freedoms and independence that western men and women began to enjoy in the 70s were occurring despite feminism not because of it.

For example, in my piece, The Sexual Liberation of Women I point out that ...

The [contraceptive] pill was an absolute godsend to the actively sexual male.

And to say that women quickly saw the pill as some sort of 'liberating' medical technology is to distort the truth completely. If anything, they saw the pill as giving their male partners license to fool around with other females without having to risk any consequences - particularly the one of being found out!

Ask any man who was sexually active at the time which gender was more keen to use the pill, and you will soon discover that it was men, rather than women, who were MUCH more enthusiastic for the pill to be used.

In most cases, women had to be pressurised by their men into going on the pill at all. It was not something that women were eager to do. Indeed, for many of the earlier years, finding a young woman who was actually on the pill was tantamount to winning the lottery.

 it was men who 'liberated' women sexually, not feminists.

In other words, it was men who 'liberated' women sexually, not feminists.

Indeed, one of the reasons that ordinary women remained reluctant to use the pill was because it was, in fact, being so heavily advocated by feminists. The last thing that most women in the early 70s wanted to do was to associate themselves in any way with groups of hostile unfeminine unattractive women who squawked and shrieked and poured nothing but venom upon their menfolk.

And the same sort of effect was true regarding women who wanted to enter the workplace in areas that were male dominated. The barriers were coming down well before the arrival of the feminists and, if anything, the activities of the feminists seemed likely to put them back up again.

My view is that the feminists of the 70s retarded the 'progress of women' rather than anything else, and they have certainly been a major cause of many serious problems that western societies - and women - now face.

 the feminist lobby and the women's groups might well end up setting western women back more than a thousand years

And, further, as I say in my piece, Men have bred dogs and cattle. Why not women?, the persistent and pervasive gender-divisive machinations of the feminist lobby and the women's groups might well end up setting western women back more than a thousand years if western men decide that they have had enough of being demonised and discriminated against.

In the past, western men needed their women to support them if they were going to succeed in creating safe, stable and successful societies. And the way in which they operated ensured that groups that displeased their women could not really survive for very long.

Indeed, there was no hope that any groups of men who oppressed women could survive.

The Equalitarian groups always won - in the end.

The odds were always very heavily stacked in their favour.

In the not too distant future, however, this might well not be the case.

More and more are the peoples on the planet becoming one society, and, eventually, there will be no competition from any others. And with no competition from other societies, an Oppressor group could easily materialise, grow and survive. As such, western women should surely try to ensure that this global society will not be one that develops during a time wherein the men see their women as fundamentally destructive to them.

western women are provoking men into seeing them as their enemy.

However, by supporting feminists and the politically correct - who do little but undermine their own societies and, especially, their own men - western women are provoking men into seeing them as their enemy.

And the choice for western men as the planet effectively shrinks into one society is going to be as follows.

They can either choose to live in a global society wherein constant disharmony and social problems are caused by having continually to pander to the selfishness of many women, or they can choose a global society wherein the women are effectively disempowered and order is eventually maintained by pandering mostly to the desires of men.

And with the latter kind of society becoming more attractive to western men by the day - thanks, in part, to the hatred that keeps being heaped upon them by those who, allegedly, represent women - together with the realisation that if there is only one society in the near future then there will be none to compete with it, or to oppose it, I'd say that the future is looking decidedly shaky from a woman's point of view.

In other words, an Oppressor group (one that oppresses women) might well end up being the only one that there is.