First of all, feminism wasn't just started as an organized system overnight. Small groups protesting for women's rights popped up all over the US, even as early as in Colonial America. The word 'feminism' wasn't even coined until the 1830's.I'm not sure you need feminism for this.
In the past, women did work heavy labor jobs if their husbands needed it to survive. They worked these horrible cotton mills during the Industrial Revolution, for example. Small children did too.
But the fact that men did not see this as ideal was not them feeling smug and superior towards women What man feels great about their wife having to work in a coal mine out of necessity? Coal mines and work are a hardship for survival. I don't fault the patriarchal men for seeing the home as a better place to be for their wives and daughters than a coal mine.
Yes, there was a minority of married women who worked in those 'horrible cotton mills' during the Industrial Revolution. But about 90% of the women who worked there were unmarried, childless, single women.
Feminism covers a number of issues. Equal pay for equal work and equal opportunities for women aren't the only ones.
I agree. Abuse of power can occur in any dynamic. Between husband and wife, boss and employee, parent and child, social system and other social system, etc., and even between individuals of the same nature (woman vs. woman, child vs. child)Patriarchy can be abused just like any other powrr structure. Ive seen women abuse their family matriarch status as well.
But where does all of this abuse come from? I know you've mentioned several times in this thread alone that you didn't think that EGO had much to do with it. And yet, it does.
In what way does keeping a woman 'down' have anything to do with 'survival'?But most people throughout history were not invested in keeping women down to laugh at them. They were simply trying to survive.
Wives were not the only women who worked out in the fields and coal mines. And those working wives who DID work in those industries because the family was facing financial hardships were discriminated against just as much as single women. What feminism (in part) was striving to do was to change the attitudes of people, so that women were treated respectfully. If a married woman needed to work (because her husband was laid-off, disabled, sick or just plain lazy), she shouldn't be discriminated against. And if a single woman wanted to work, she also shouldn't be discriminated against.A wife working out in the fields or a coal mine was a sign of hardship for a family, not a symbolic victory for women.
There shouldn't be ANY price to pay for respectThere is a price to pay for women desiring the same respect men get.
Women were already expendable and expected to sacrifice even more than what 'he' did. Again, I point to the Rosie the Riveters of WW2. Millions of married women sacrificed their homes and time away from their children so they could take over for their husband's who were away at war. Once the war was over, the women either quit to resume their homemaking, were laid-off (expendable) or fired (expendable). Heck, my late husband told me that one should only make a sacrifice once in a great while. He was clueless as to how much I would sacrifice for HIM.Are we willing to become expendable and expected to sacrifice as readily as they are?
Men and women share more similarities than differences.A woman can pay the price for that and truly work hard. But it's a higher price than a man would pay because *women are fundamentally built different than men* It will never be the same price.
Being a homemaker and raising kids is viewed in a negative light by SOME people, just likeShould they be allowed to? They have done in the past and continue to. The only difference now is that were living in a time where being at home and raising kids is considered less important than things men have traditionally done in the grand scheme of things. This is absolutely horrible for society, for humanity.
I agree that children need homes to thrive, but I don't agree that WOMEN MUST be the ones to accomplish this. Some fathers are just as capable--if not MORE so in some cases--of providing the same nurturing environment for a child that mother's can.Children need homes to thrive. We can arguably live without coal miners before we can live without mothers.
I don't think this is a good comparison, Wynona. After all, Bill Gates gets paid for the work he does, whereas a married woman with children does not get paid for her work. If Bill Gates doesn't wish to do a certain task he can delegate that task to someone else. Can a homemaker practically do this? Most homemakers I know can't afford to delegate to anyone outside of the home to take care of some tasks inside the home.Saying women should not just be raising babies and managing homes is like saying Bill Gates should not just settle for being a millionaire CEO.
Whether a woman "should" be just raising babies and managing homes, or "should" be out in the working world, should be left up to the individual woman AND/OR, the individual couple; and not anyone else's idea of what she "should" or "shouldn't" be doing.
Some people devalue this. Others don't.We are so obsessed with power and being seen with status that we devalue a cornerstone of society---the home. Mainly because most people will never see the work there. But the results of this unseen work are so incredibly needed today.