Conversation

If women weren't oppressed, what drove feminism in the first place? Why did we have to rally for the right to vote if our lives were fine without it? Or do you think women have been oppressed in recent history, but not through most of history?

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Aella

@Aella_Girl

Sep 7, 2020

probably we ended up viewing history oppressive to women because western society has eliminated a lot of war and physical labor, but not pregnancy or childcare, so we experience gender roles today as severely asymmetrical.

Aella

@Aella_Girl

Replying to

@limitoftruth

What drove feminism might have been a realization that gender roles were now asymmetrical. If for thousands of years your job has been to do the dishes, and mine to take out the trash, and suddenly the dishes do themselves, and also we have a really short memory...

6:32 PM · Sep 9, 2020

Replying to

and

I think this was basically it. Technological innovation from the industrial revolution through the turn of the century made a lot of "woman's work" obsolete, or at least much, much more efficient. And suddenly laws built around the assumption of this work seemed oppressive.

Replying to

and

In 1987, my mom was in school to be a millwright. She was going through a custody battle over myself and my sister. Knowing that my father was an alcoholic, had a history of violence and drug addictions...