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>As a normative principle, there is something not quite right about the idea that the women's rights movement had to wait for technology to reduce the burden of
by Lawtonfogle 11y ago
>As a normative principle, there is something not quite right about the idea that the women's rights movement had to wait for technology to reduce the burden of the role they were unfairly relegated to in the first place.
There is a major difference between explaining what happened and saying that is what should have happened.
Slavery should not have ever happened, but any discussion of why slavery has become far less popular among people should not be shot down by someone yelling "But slavery shouldn't have happened to begin with!"
- rayiner 11y agoSure, but your explanation for what happened might be predicated on an assumption about "how things should be." To make a more extreme version of OP's point: "the women's rights movement couldn't happen until household technology evolved to reduce the burden of housework." That's only true if you assume that women can't reduce the burden of housework simply by refusing to do it.
- Lawtonfogle 11y agoYou also can't say it had to wait for technology because it is possible that aliens could've come along in the early 1800s and enlightened us all. Granted, that seems unreasonable, but is it that much more unreasonable that a nation (if not world) wide same time rejection of a common social norm back when most people were not interconnected?