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Notes -
"Notice that these discussions were not serious intellectual inquiries about the past, they were more of light topics when you shot out random questions."
This is the basic issue - for women and frankly, many minorities, the past before, let's say, 1980 is not a light topic. Like, yes, even as a left-wing dude, I have thoughts about going back to random time x, because there's entertaining possibilities or thoughts about changing the past, even though, rationally, I know I'd be dead of a disease or whatever fairly soon. But, it's still a nice fantasy.
OTOH, for 99% of women, even well-off educated women, what's the thing they can fantasize about doing in 1740's France, Sweden during the Viking Era, or the height of the Roman Empire?
Women couldn't get credit without their husband or father co-signing until the 70's. It's not shocking that they have no great fantasies, outside of a bodice ripper or two, about going back to the time x.
Yeah, it's a real shame there's exactly zero noteworthy women who affected any political or social change before the 19th century or so. I can't think of a single one.
Yes I am being sarcastic. There are obviously plenty of women throughout history have 'done stuff', which can and does serve has historical fantasy fodder for women (assuming they want to identify with women who take on a masculine role, which liberal feminist society does want them to).
To go on a slight tangent, it's both endlessly frustrating and amusing how feminists on one hand will decry the past as an oppressive patriarchy where women were treated little more than slaves, and on the other hand constantly laud historical female figures (Joan of Arc, Elizabeth I, Catherine the Great random Viking "Valkyries" buried with their weapons etc etc) for being powerful and influential, and seeing no contradiction there.
The feminist try to patch this over this inconsistence with some post-hoc justifications, usually some just-so justification that these were exceptional women that somehow managed to break the chains of patriarchy (despite it literally being a universal phenomenon), though it's remarkable how common these 'exceptions' are. The craziest feminist explanation of this was that men occasionally allowed a very small handful of women to rise to the top as a conspiracy to better help them subjugate women... as for why women just didn't subjugate all women to begin was unclear.
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That's just false isn't it? There wasn't a legal right for women to get credit cards without their father's or husband's permission, but nothing prevented any bank from offering such a service. Googling it quickly doesn't bring up anything about how widespread this practice was.
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I think people look back and romanticize about kings and the like, but reality for most people, male or female, was pretty rough. Hell, even when people look back to the 1950's, they think they'll be in Madmen and not someone working in an asbestos factory. Yep, that factory worker was able to buy a house and have a family... He also died slowly and painfully.
Yes, many injustices were done. That's human history, it's weird to act like one group of people has a monopoly on it.
Here's the difference - yes, life was rough for men as well, but there were actually "mad men"-style accountants, there were brave slaves who became powerful in the Roman Empire, there was even the occasional peasant who became a knight, and leaders of worker's revolutions, and such. Sure, it was not incredibly likely, but it was still a much greater chance than anything happening for women.
Meanwhile, with women, unless you were born into power until basically last week historically, you weren't going to be much of anything, no matter how much some people try to push, no actually, women had secret power in the past within families - ignore the part where they had basically zero legal rights.
This right here, regardless of gender. Please tell me about the privilege of being conscripted to die in a battlefield or a mine.
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Does it just not occur to people anymore that maybe women don't want the exact same things out of life as men?
I find it interesting that the historical female figure that is perhaps best known and fantasised about by women is Cleopatra. A figure who has entered the public conciousness as a master seductress and manipulator of men (albeit one that met a tragic end).
Why is it so many women today adore and imagine themselves as Marilyn Monroe, and very few as Madeleine Albright?
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