I have a continuous nagging suspicion that the "men as oppressors throughout history" narrative is only taking hold because our society has grown to value masculine traits more than feminine, and thus see history through a male-advantaged lens.
Not sure though.
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as in; men generally have had the advantage of agency and disadvantage of disposability, while women generally had the advantage of safety and disadvantage of no autonomy.
I wonder how our narratives would change if our culture provided high autonomy but no safety.
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Like, maybe culture granted two 'gifts' - safety to women, and agency to men.
Now we're in a culture where safety is granted to everyone, and so the obvious discrepancy is in agency. We forgot what it was like to be unsafe, and so we judge the two gifts as inequal.
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And to be clear, I'm not totally sure yet. I haven't tried putting this idea on and fighting other ideas in it yet so I'm not sure how battle-worthy it is.
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In at least some senses it's the opposite. Physical strength no longer valued in labour market. Masculinity regarded as toxic. Traits like empathy coded 'feminine' more valued in public life today.
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Women have been routinely oppressed by men in basically all societies, with on a few exceptions. What do you call not being able to vote, not being allowed to own property, requiring make permission to find a partner and marry, if it wasn't arranged, not allowed to go to school
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Yet anytime you bring up that addressing Aziz Ansari and Harvey Weinstein in the same conversation loses the plot, you are dismissed as victim blaming.
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Just look at female average age throughout the years. A handful of women were "safe" but even then they have just been baby mulch.