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Politics : Polite Political Discussion- is it Possible? An Experiment. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bread Upon The Water who wrote (1243)	9/1/2006 7:44:02 AM
From: thames_sider	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1695

All of those changes resulted and will continue to result in changes to human behaviour. We have not been limited to evolutionary change since we started controlling fire. Ever since then, the pacesetter has been the brain and invention, not evolutionary biology. In particular, I'd contend that mass education and contraception have changed the roles of the sexes - allowing women much more chance to contend with men with equal starting information, and not being continually pregnant (and also, not dying so much younger having been exhausted by childbirth and rearing). Also, electricity and mechanisation remove many of the 'brute force' superiorities men had had over women. A woman with a gun is as effective with a man, and I'd suspect in defence of her children could be more likely to use it... It's not a pick and choose of modernity. I don't believe you think every change is OK as long as it leaves women inferior and subservient? If you want to live in the modern world, you accept that brain is increasingly valued over brawn, as the former works around the latter. And that makes men and women by and large equal, as we move past the limitations of nature.

To: Bread Upon The Water who wrote (1243)	9/1/2006 8:54:45 AM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1695

Biology is important, but it isn't determinative in all things. It is true that controlling reproduction is crucial to controlling destiny, if you are a woman, however, imo, it is the industrial revolution which began over 200 years ago that set this ball in motion. Once machines began to supplant "manpower" women were more able to compete with men. Before the industrial revolution women were severely limited by body strength, but with the advent of the machine, this is no longer the case in most occupations (though some are still difficult for women). As the industrial revolution progressed, and the farm began to be more and more rare as a collective family enterprise, and the cities became more and more populated, it became necessary to educate citizens to make them better workers. On a farm ignorance can work, in a city not so much. When you educate people, even women, they begin to expect to be equal to other educated people- like men. It's one of those outgrowths of education- and it's why for very long periods of time women weren't educated. If you recall there were arguments that it made women "unfeminine" (for that read less docile), and some people argued that it literally made them hysterical and had an adverse effect on the reproductive organs. For women's "health", it was argued, they should not be educated, or even read. Novels might make them "ill". At any rate, biology, whatever it's effects might be, doesn't seem to trump the educated woman's desire to be free of man's autocracy. Now, it helps, in our modern society, to understand what biological facts we are fighting. Women are limited by their upper body strength, but we tend to have great endurance, and high pain tolerance. Women are limited by the number of children they can bear- and we are programmed to secure males using our sexual wiles, to secure male resources, and try to keep males from giving their resources to other women- hence the institution of marriage. Males on the other hand are programmed to screw anything between 15 and 75- just in case it might get pregnant. Does that mean males have to do this? No, but it's good to know that it's happening at an animal level. Males are no more the captives of their biology than women are. We can, especially if we understand where we've come from, control and shape our destiny. What Rambi is saying is that it's time to shape our destiny in a new way. I agree with her that the "traditional" models are to laden with oppression for many people (not just women), and that it is time for a new, more androgenous, view to the future. The Machine age will only make the sexes more able to compete, not less. Unless civilization goes backward, and strength becomes important again, women are going to be, and should be, a major factor going forward, and they will expect equality of dignity, work, wages and all the other benefits of life. I don't see traditional society as being so important it's worth the grief it would take to force women to accommodate male notions of traditionalism. It's time, imo, for a new vision that accommodates both men and women. Most people accept that, I think.