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> "The idea that women were an oppressed minority under those conditions is insane." I'll grant him the fact that the conditions for workers in the 19th centur

> "The idea that women were an oppressed minority under those conditions is insane." I'll grant him the fact that the conditions for workers in the 19th century and earlier were generally terrible, but it's pretty galling to argue that "workers were treated badly, so gender discrimination is a lie" when the right to own property seperately from their husbands, enter into contracts, or even vote were all denied women before the 20th century. It really gives the impression that he is being intellectually dishonest with his arguments.

alexander- 10y ago
Women aren't a minority, so at least half of his statement checks out. If you want to get a good metric on historical oppression, look at the amount of blood shed it took to escape the yoke of it. Using a US perspective: compare the pain and suffering of the civil rights movement of the 60s to the suffragette's labor at the turn of the century.
- _petronius 10y ago
  I don't think that because one group has a higher status in a hierarchy, or is able to achieve equal status more easily, prohibits the notion that they aren't also opressed by that same hierarchy. In fact, I think one way a hierarchy perpetuates itself is by creating divisions that result in those trapped within the structure saying "well at least I'm not the worst off". (The segregation of unions in the United States was a way of weakening the power of the labor movement, by pitting white workers against black ones, and essentially giving them a better position in the hierarchy. To be black was to be the bottom of the ladder; to be white, even poor and without rights, was to be higher up. All of the major civil rights leaders of the 50s and 60 recognized this, and as a result fought for both legal and economic equality for both non-white and white workers.) But I also think you're artificially narrowing your analysis, even on that basis. Consider that until 1970, women in the United States were not protected from rape by their own husbands[1]. How many women must have suffered for lack of equal protection under the law? Now, women still disproportionately suffer from domestic violence even with those protections[2]. Furthermore, in states where access to women's health services is severely restricted as part of the abortion backlash (Planned Parenthood provides a number of different services to women's health, especially in poorer communities), how many suffer now because of the legal burden put on them, as compared to the legal restrictions on men for controlling their own health concerns and access to reproductive medicine? I don't necessarily accept your metric as "good" or useful, but even taking it as a rubric, the effort to help women achieve the same level of security, education, and economic compensation as men continues, and women continue to face threats of violence and intimidation in prusuit of that, in a way that men, simply put, do not, as a whole. Accepting your argument for the sake of looking at its logical conclusions -- statistically, women (like homosexuals), occupy a more diverse distribution of economic status, education, and social class than if you group just by race or ethnicity. Because of the history of political and economic inequality falling along the lines of ethnicity in America, efforts to end racial discrimination (both under the law and in economic terms[3][4]) have been starting from a more singularly disadvantaged position, and it has been correspondingly easier for the power structures to relatiate against them[5]. It might be argued that the struggle for equal rights of gays and lesbians was easier because not only were many people in that group wealthier and had more access to the power structure for economic reasons, but the rights they largely won (marriage and parental rights) fit within the structures of society already established. I think to a large extent the same goes for the rights of women: only once they could make the case that they weren't trying to totally upend social norms were they allowed to participate legally and democratically. (But again, how equally can you participate if your education and pay is worse than other groups?) This doesn't hold up with the blanket statement that they weren't opressed (the "minority" element is a bit of a straw man on the interviewee's part -- blacks in South Africa were far and away the majority, and they had to struggle for decades to be granted equal rights; you wouldn't argue that their opression was somehow "less real" on that basis, would you?) [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marital_rape_(United_States_law) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marital_rape_(United_States_la... [2]: http://ncadv.org/files/National%20Statistics%20Domestic%20Violence%20NCADV.pdf http://ncadv.org/files/National%20Statistics%20Domestic%20Vi... [3]: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/08/martin-luther-kings-economic-dream-a-guaranteed-income-for-all-americans/279147/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/08/martin-l... [4]: http://www.blackpast.org/1965-bayard-rustin-protest-politics-future-civil-rights-movement-0 http://www.blackpast.org/1965-bayard-rustin-protest-politics... [5]: http://mappingpoliceviolence.org/ http://mappingpoliceviolence.org/
tzs 10y ago
There's a big gap between being discriminated against and being oppressed.

alexander- 10y ago

Women aren't a minority, so at least half of his statement checks out. If you want to get a good metric on historical oppression, look at the amount of blood shed it took to escape the yoke of it. Using a US perspective: compare the pain and suffering of the civil rights movement of the 60s to the suffragette's labor at the turn of the century.

_petronius 10y ago
I don't think that because one group has a higher status in a hierarchy, or is able to achieve equal status more easily, prohibits the notion that they aren't also opressed by that same hierarchy. In fact, I think one way a hierarchy perpetuates itself is by creating divisions that result in those trapped within the structure saying "well at least I'm not the worst off". (The segregation of unions in the United States was a way of weakening the power of the labor movement, by pitting white workers against black ones, and essentially giving them a better position in the hierarchy. To be black was to be the bottom of the ladder; to be white, even poor and without rights, was to be higher up. All of the major civil rights leaders of the 50s and 60 recognized this, and as a result fought for both legal and economic equality for both non-white and white workers.) But I also think you're artificially narrowing your analysis, even on that basis. Consider that until 1970, women in the United States were not protected from rape by their own husbands[1]. How many women must have suffered for lack of equal protection under the law? Now, women still disproportionately suffer from domestic violence even with those protections[2]. Furthermore, in states where access to women's health services is severely restricted as part of the abortion backlash (Planned Parenthood provides a number of different services to women's health, especially in poorer communities), how many suffer now because of the legal burden put on them, as compared to the legal restrictions on men for controlling their own health concerns and access to reproductive medicine? I don't necessarily accept your metric as "good" or useful, but even taking it as a rubric, the effort to help women achieve the same level of security, education, and economic compensation as men continues, and women continue to face threats of violence and intimidation in prusuit of that, in a way that men, simply put, do not, as a whole. Accepting your argument for the sake of looking at its logical conclusions -- statistically, women (like homosexuals), occupy a more diverse distribution of economic status, education, and social class than if you group just by race or ethnicity. Because of the history of political and economic inequality falling along the lines of ethnicity in America, efforts to end racial discrimination (both under the law and in economic terms[3][4]) have been starting from a more singularly disadvantaged position, and it has been correspondingly easier for the power structures to relatiate against them[5]. It might be argued that the struggle for equal rights of gays and lesbians was easier because not only were many people in that group wealthier and had more access to the power structure for economic reasons, but the rights they largely won (marriage and parental rights) fit within the structures of society already established. I think to a large extent the same goes for the rights of women: only once they could make the case that they weren't trying to totally upend social norms were they allowed to participate legally and democratically. (But again, how equally can you participate if your education and pay is worse than other groups?) This doesn't hold up with the blanket statement that they weren't opressed (the "minority" element is a bit of a straw man on the interviewee's part -- blacks in South Africa were far and away the majority, and they had to struggle for decades to be granted equal rights; you wouldn't argue that their opression was somehow "less real" on that basis, would you?) [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marital_rape_(United_States_law) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marital_rape_(United_States_la... [2]: http://ncadv.org/files/National%20Statistics%20Domestic%20Violence%20NCADV.pdf http://ncadv.org/files/National%20Statistics%20Domestic%20Vi... [3]: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/08/martin-luther-kings-economic-dream-a-guaranteed-income-for-all-americans/279147/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/08/martin-l... [4]: http://www.blackpast.org/1965-bayard-rustin-protest-politics-future-civil-rights-movement-0 http://www.blackpast.org/1965-bayard-rustin-protest-politics... [5]: http://mappingpoliceviolence.org/ http://mappingpoliceviolence.org/

tzs 10y ago

There's a big gap between being discriminated against and being oppressed.