You are trying to finesse this issue. You are trying to make it seem that women should and can have a different existence than they have had for most of human recorded history simply because they want to and it is easier and better for them as individuals, and that this new role will not cost either men or society. Furthermore, you are trying to spin their past role by putting the pejorative of "regressive" on it thereby implying or imparting a negative to it.
Like it or not that is the role women had. Before you blithely attempt to toss it into the dustbin of history for the benefit of your personhood, I think it has to be asked why societies organized themselves that way. The different role of women from their traditional role is a very very recent phenomenon and it has not been existence long enough to establish that it will work for society.
The larger question(s)is (are),IMHO, what are the implications for society of women's parity, and also, why should men accept it?
Do not tell me that women's parity will not come at the expense of men. It already has and will continue to do so (Talk to all the male wrestlers on the college level who lost their scholarships as women's sports teams achieved parity.) Why should men put up with this simply become women want it? We don't have to put up with it if we don't want to. Unless women can convince men it is their best interests also that women achieve parity, I don't think this experiment will be a success.
Aside from men's own selfish reasons for questioning whether parity will work for them, it has to be asked if it will work for the whole. Modern women assert that it can and will and there will be no going back. The truth of the matter is that this is an experiment in uncharted, and I think, dangerous waters. We have broken a mold and not replaced it. The longterm results of this are unknown.
Lastly, I disagree with your characterization that women weren't protected by men. For most of human history women literally couldn't live without the protection of men---from the assault of other men or the forces of nature. The roles of the sexes, are deeply embedded in the archetypical human psyche, and it is not lightly that we should cast them aside without wondering what this rendering will achieve.
This, I grant you, flies in the face of modern feminism, but history of the human race will not be ignored. |
