I've never had a baby; however, the women I've talked to who have were of the view that it's no picnic, and it's the hardest thing they've ever done, physically. Multiply that by however many kids they've had, and I don't blame the ones who get angry when the less-reasonable men dismiss it like it's not a big deal.
Okay, let's discuss some of the above.
1. Inheritance rights: Can you imagine what kind of world we would have now if Henry VIII hadn't been so determined to have a legitimate son be his heir instead of his eldest daughter, Mary? Sure, she did eventually become Queen... but not until her father had cast off her mother, married an upstart lady-in-waiting who supported an alternate kind of Christianity, had another daughter by that woman, executed her on a host of false charges so he could marry yet another lady-in-waiting who finally bore him the son he wanted... who only lived a few years after Henry's death and then it became a struggle between Henry's daughters.
The soap opera that was the Tudor family had a profound effect on how our present world and attitudes developed. And not that it matters much in a practical way since the current Royal Family has little real political power, but it's mindboggling to me that it was only after Kate became pregnant that somebody realized that the public would be displeased if the first child was a girl who would be passed over for a younger brother. So legislation was fast-tracked to make the eldest child the official heir, regardless of whether it was male or female. I'm sure some old-fashioned people heave a sigh of relief that the eldest child is a boy, since this means that there will be a King for the next half-century at least and probably longer. But at least now a girl has a better chance of being Queen in her own right... as long as she's the eldest child of the monarch or the monarch's heir.
2. Religious roles in society: What is it about women that makes them unfit to be Pope, or indeed anyone of significant authority in the Catholic church? I can't think of one reason why they should be prohibited from filling these positions.
3. Access to education: I don't know how much formal education my great-aunt received, but she had to grow up in a hell of a hurry when her mother died of Spanish flu in 1918. She was 13, and my grandmother - who raised me decades later - was only 8. Back then it was thought that girls only needed basic reading, writing, and arithmetic. That would be enough to write out a shopping list and do the shopping itself, and write letters on occasion. My grandmother and great-aunt rose above their restricted upbringing, though. If my great-aunt had been able to fulfill her aspirations, she'd have been a writer. My grandmother was a self-taught artist. But because they were born in the time and place they were, they got the standard education deemed suitable for girls, and then it was off to work on the farm until they married. And then they were off to work on their husbands' farms and have babies (they each had one son). I was the first person in my dad's family to complete high school and go on to college. I attribute this in no small part to the fact that even though my grandparents and parents - none of them - completed high school, they all liked to read. I was read to as a child, and started learning to read when I was 4. Fast-forward and now it takes dozens of boxes to move my books when I change apartments.
Universal education still isn't universal. There are still families where the parents don't think there's any point to having a daughter attend college/university, but they're willing to help a son attend. And in some parts of the world, it can be worth your life to get an education if you're female. Just this week, Malala Yousafzai addressed the Parliament of Canada and received honorary Canadian citizenship. She's an inspiration to girls all over the world, that education is a right worth fighting for.
4. Voting rights. As mentioned, women in my province have had the right to vote only for the past century or so. There are some demographics of women who have had that right for far less time. We have been considered legal persons for less than a century.
In my own family, my grandfather expected that my grandmother would vote the same way he did, and it was quite an argument the day when she told him, "No, I'm voting for somebody else." He promptly (and gleefully) told her that her vote would be canceled by his. Then he got mad when I told him that it was our two votes to his one... and I expected that my dad would vote with us, as well, since we three had no intention of voting for a Holocaust-denying white supremacist who was running for a right-wing party.
Is there something about being female that makes women unqualified to make decisions, earn money, and risk their lives? Women do that every day, and this is how it's been for millennia. Childbirth isn't risk-free, for one thing.@El_Machinae I'm happy to learn more
I think you misinterpret what I mean by "hard work". I'm talking about physically demanding, dangerous work. Of course, raising children and talking care of the home is very important work, and I'm not trying to discredit women for doing it. I'm just trying to point out that both genders were disadvantaged in some ways.
And I don't dispute that women lacked these rights.
I'm just saying we take a more wholesome look at the situation. You see oppression, I see division of labor. Men were delegated to do the decision making, breadwinning, and life risking. Women were delegated to raise children, and take care of things at home. Both are essential for the advancement of our species, and neither are particularly privileged, they are rather two parts of the whole family unit. A man could not escape his gender roles any more than a woman could.
I can't honestly recall any time when my grandfather did the family grocery shopping. Not once. As far as he was concerned, that was women's work, and his responsibility consisted of driving my grandmother (and me, on the occasions that I went along) to the grocery store and while she and I did the shopping, he would either go get a haircut or sit around and talk about politics with the other men who were also sitting around waiting for their wives to finish the shopping.
Ditto clothing. My grandmother made a lot of her own clothes, and some of mine. My grandfather's clothes were all store-bought, and she was the one who would buy him the things he needed. My dad was also content to leave the grocery shopping and clothes-buying to my mother (or my grandmother) and the only article of clothing he ever got for himself were his hats. He realized that a good way to get a new hat was to wear a competitor's hat to a particular store, the store employees would promptly offer him one of their hats, and he'd accept. So he ended up with a collection of hats from various hardware stores, automotive centers, ad so on.
Unfortunately, that doesn't work for other items...
Now as far as other spending goes, are you going to claim that you never indulged in anything for yourself, like a vehicle or computer or gaming gadgets? Sporting events or equipment? If you did, did you discuss the purchase with your wife, or did you just make the decision without her input? (questions, not accusations, for the purpose of prompting some reflection on how things were/are in reality)
Have you heard the term "sex object"? It means that women don't want to be considered only in terms of how sexually appealing they are to men; they want to be considered for their whole selves - what they think, feel, want, are able to accomplish, and so on.
It's unfortunate that you're in this situation. I've known other men who were treated badly by their wives and girlfriends, and in the cases involving children, the women didn't hesitate to use the kids to get back at the men. My own parents' marriage lasted 11 years, and at the end of it, I remember hiding under the furniture in my bedroom while my mother screamed at my dad and threw dishes around the kitchen. There were other things going on; my dad wasn't blameless in the whole messy thing. But he wasn't the physically abusive one in the marriage. He wasn't the psychologically abusive one. And after the divorce, he never remarried and never spoke disrespectfully to, or about, my mother - at least in my presence. I have no idea what he might have said to or about her elsewhere, but he never did what so many divorced couples do... which is basically to do a smear job of the other person and try to turn the kids against the other parent.
My mother never missed an opportunity to do that about my dad, and when she went on a rant one year because I gave him a Father's Day card and didn't give her a Mother's Day card, she really didn't get it when I told her that the reason was because he appreciated it and she didn't. Nothing was ever good enough for her, and nobody ever lived up to her standards, except for her precious second mother-in-law... who looked the other way when my mother's second husband cheated on her.
So yeah, I've witnessed first hand how the wife can be the miserable one in the marriage and want everything her own way, with an attitude of "I don't necessarily want the kid, but you can't have her either, or at least not her love or respect because I'm going to tell her how awful you are every chance I get."
All that said, you're projecting this situation of yours on to women in general, tarring everyone with the same brush. You're ignoring history, and dismissing the fact that some of us on this forum are from a generation or two before you. I'm old enough to be your mother, and there are people here old enough to be your grandfather. Have some courtesy in that we do know what we're talking about, having lived several decades more than you.
I wish you luck in dealing with your personal situation. It sounds nightmarish.
In turn, how about stopping with the overgeneralizations and mansplaining? I (and the other women on this site) are not your wife. We're not your mother. I know I'm not like you describe, and I would hope nobody else here is, either. Some of what you've been saying is frankly insulting to some of us on this forum, and we're not dismissing your opinions because you're a man. It's not as much what you say as how you say it, and how you're not listening when others give you information or explain things. We'll get along a lot better if you can stop putting the blame where it doesn't belong.
I've never been married (got as far as seriously considering it, but in the end both of us concluded that it would be the wrong thing to do). So my experience in dealing with married/other committed couples going wrong is based on what I've observed in my own family and among friends and acquaintances. I try to look at each situation as an individual situation, and keep in mind that in every situation there may be secrets that don't surface until many years later.I think his points was less about how the women he knew were jerks but more about how he felt that society's viewpoint about women made him the guilty party regardless.
TBH, I find this story too manicheist to be an exact description (even if somewhat touching), but I'm still pretty curious to see how differently it'll be treated compared as to if Valka was describing her own experiences in the same way
