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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   32956 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 1, 2023

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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?

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.

unless you were born into power

This right here, regardless of gender. Please tell me about the privilege of being conscripted to die in a battlefield or a mine.

Sure, it was not incredibly likely, but it was still a much greater chance than anything happening for women.

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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