One of my odder dreams did not just display a core insight but did so in a sloganeering form (slogans, of course, being a core issue of Feminism and, often, Leftism more generally):
A portion of the dream dealt with the not-quite-exorcism of a ghost of a malignant Feminist nature—so malignant that even some living Feminists of the dream wanted to get rid of it. Eventually, the ghost was restored to a more original state, as it had been hundreds of years earlier, upon which it lost most of its malignancy. (Ghosts growing evil over time is a recurring idea in ghost fiction.) At around this point, the claim fell that “if you are subservient, you will be made to serve”, which is the starting point for this text.
While this claim was (likely—my memory is fading) made by me-in-the-dream as a final push to restore the ghost to its less malignant earlier form, I have no hope that the current text will have a similar effect on Feminism or Feminists—dreams are dreams. Also, cf. below, I do not repeat the statement without qualifications in real life.
Except for one thing, I would likely have left the dream portion out—that growing malignancy of the ghost over time matches the actual history of Feminism and pre-Feminist movements to some degree, and the common perception of that history among non- and anti-Feminists to a high degree. Go back in time (even within the Western world) and, at a minimum, complaints were often justified. (While the modern women of, say, Sweden is one of the most privileged, coddled, whatnot groups in the history of the world, much more so than Swedish men, which has not stopped Swedish Feminists from being one of the most loudly complaining groups in the world.) That the attitudes and methods of even pre-Feminists were always acceptable does not follow, but if Mary Wollstonecraft was as toxic a figure as Judith Butler, I have yet to see it mentioned. (With similar applying to many other pairings of “ghosts of (pre-)Feminists past” and “ghosts of Feminists present”.)
Well, maybe two things: Without the background of the dream, the exact phrasing might have been too odd to use without change. (As is, I just copy the words of the dream.)
This, of course, is an over-generalization—but one that often holds true. (Too boot, while it might involve maliciousness among those served, it need not do so. Indeed, even an awareness among those served is not necessarily present.) More generally, those who prefer to be told what to do over taking own initiative will often end up being told what to do, those who often volunteer will often be expected to volunteer again, those who are push-overs in arguments will win few arguments, etc.
In a next step, without necessarily casting blame, it follows that groups that show such behaviors and attitudes more often are more likely to end up in a serving, subservient, whatnot position—and women are more likely to do so than men.
But I stress that it is the behaviors and attitudes that matter. I have, myself, as a man, repeatedly had the problem that what I considered mere politeness or courtesy was taken as weakness, e.g. in that I gave way in a meeting when I and someone else began to speak at the same time—with the result that I was expected to give way, even when I did not, because some issue was sufficiently important or urgent that I did not wish to risk that it fell under the table.
In a bigger picture, we land at one of the most common Feminist (maybe, Leftist) fallacies—that how others treat us rests solely with them, while our own behaviors are irrelevant. (This, again, without necessarily casting blame: If perfectly acceptable behaviors are misconstrued or otherwise lead to negative reactions in others, this is very unfortunate. It is also, however, the way that humans are. As a counterpoint, some behaviors are not acceptable and should lead to negative reactions.)
Indeed, a similar idea of “if you are X, you will Y” holds quite often (even if the exact template might need some rephrasing to avoid unnatural formulations). If one employee wants a raise and asks for it and another wants it but fails to ask, who is more likely to get it? The same with two boys who each want the same girl, one of whom asks for a date and one who does not? If one employee heats stinky food in the office microwave and the other does not, who is more likely to become unpopular? If the one driver runs a red light and the other does not, who is the more likely to get a ticket? (In all cases, all other factors sufficiently equal. In “unequal” situations, other factors might be more important.)
The two boys and the one girl is illustrative in another direction: Because (whether rooted in culture or biology) there is a default expectation of the boy asking out the girl, the same example is weaker with the sexes reversed. Firstly, a boy who fails to ask cuts into his chances much more strongly than a girl does. Secondly, while a girl who asks is likely to improve her chances considerably, the effect will be smaller than for a boy, because (a) her chances of, herself, being asked were greater to begin with, (b) she has much better options to increase the likelihood of being asked than does a boy. Here we see that male and female situations are not necessarily symmetric—yet another thing that Feminists tend to ignore.
We also see that our actions might need adjustment to take the surrounding circumstances into consideration, including what we want to achieve with whom, when, and where. For instance, a boy of 10 who successfully burps the alphabet might find his male age peers impressed, while the boy of 15 might see that girl disgusted, and while a few lines from a poem might have the opposite respective effect. (And now, in a disturbing overlap of the two scenarios, I cannot shake the thought of a poem being burped...)
This is not even limited to the reactions of others (which, however, are the main point behind the idea of the dream) but covers a very wide range. Consider e.g. connections between eating and health, training habits and health, spending habits and size of bank account, driving habits and accident risks, and so on over endless combinations. More unfortunately, it also applies to many things that we cannot control, as with say connections between “genetic predispositions” to certain medical problems and health. While the last is broadly off topic, there is some relevance to the main theme e.g. in that a naturally beautiful woman might have a career advantage over a man or a less beautiful woman or in that tallness (according to repeated reports) can affect career success, which, then, could affect career results of the two sexes, even absent any type of sexual discrimination and even absent different mentalities around careers in men and women. Such connections could also play in through a meta-issue, namely, that many women seem to have a very poor attitude towards own accountability and responsibility, where anything that goes wrong is someone else’s fault (even when it really is not), any unexpected cost or problem that happens to them should be handled by someone else (be it the nearest man or the government), etc. (And if someone has a history of refusing own accountability and responsibility, is that someone whom we actually want to be in charge of anything?)
The original idea behind the claim in the dream was that if women in the past had been in subservient positions, this was largely rooted in their own behaviors, attitudes, choices, whatnots. This the more so when we look at aggregates (also note excursion).
I would tread more carefully in real life (dreams are dreams), but there is more than a grain of truth in this too, and such ideas must be kept in mind before someone starts to shriek about “oppression” and “Patriarchy”.
To give a fuller analysis of what a past situation was or was not is quite tricky—the more so, as different times, different places, different societal groups, whatnot, might have seen different situations. A few remarks, however:
When and whether women actually have had a more formally subservient role, as opposed to a formally different role or a more individual case of subservience, can be disputed and is also likely to vary over different times and whatnot.
A particular point is that many allegedly Patriarchal modern cultures often seem to have a division into what happens within the family (wife in charge) and what happens in/relative the rest of the world (husband in charge). Also note the more Western joke (husband speaking): In my family, I make all the important big-picture decisions, like for what candidate we should vote. My wife handles all the unimportant every-day decisions, like what car we should buy.
At many times, who has what say likely depended on who brought what value. There might e.g. have been long stretches of time when a single woman would have had a much harder time keeping herself fed than a single man, notably, through worse physical capabilities to perform whatever paid work was available, to hunt, or similar. In such cases, it would be more urgent for the woman to have a husband than for the man to have a wife, which would affect who can get away with what in a relationship, and other factors that influence the “power dynamic” of a marriage.
The apparently common idea that the man would rule the family by dint of being physically stronger, and able to deal out more violence than he takes, has some plausibility, but only within limits. It also faces complications like modern cases of domestic violence being perpetrated by women more often than by men, and makes presumptions about male nature that are very dubious (but also very convenient to a Feminist worldview).
Possibly most importantly: A man who takes matters too far risks retaliation in other areas, from (on one extreme) poor cooking or poor sex to (on the other) poisoned cooking or a cut throat while he sleeps. Indeed, even the risk of more immediate retaliation must be noted—a wife with a frying pan might well do more damage with her strikes than a husband with a fist.
Many modern allegations of e.g. oppression go back to something that women do to themselves but which Feminists blame on men or on society (with the presumable silent implication of men)—I have even heard extremist claims that women would wear high heels because men and/or society, somehow, would force them to do so, while they actually freely make the choice. Strongly “moralistic” takes on female behavior (sexual or otherwise) more often seem to come from other women, including elder female relatives towards younger ones, “slut shaming” as a phenomenon mostly among women, and the imposition of peer norms. Likewise, “societal norms” quite often go back to women, themselves.
This sometimes comes with the Feminist excuse that men and/or society, somehow, would have brainwashed the elder female relatives and other women into doing their bidding.
By no means do I rule out that “nurture” plays an important role in this or that regard. (My own aforementioned tendency to give way when speaking simultaneously as someone else might well be a matter of “nurture” with regard to what is good manners—the more so, as I was raised in a predominantly female environment.) However, such claims go far beyond the plausible, beyond what even a “nurture only” proponent could realistically believe without entering nutcase territory. Unless the pusher is a nutcase or, on the outside, someone deeply stupid, this is either propaganda or excuse-making, intended to get rid of facts that do not fit the theory, in the typical anti-scientific Feminist manner.
As so often in similar discussions, it is important to understand (a) that aggregate/average/whatnot characteristics/outcomes/whatnot for a group and for any random individual within that group can be very different, (b) that small group differences in e.g. ability and attitude can lead to large differences in group outcomes, especially, when we look at sufficiently small subgroups, (c) that group differences are not restricted to e.g. abilities and attitudes but also include e.g. priorities in life. For instance, a constant of human behavior seems to be that women (as a group) are more likely than men to prefer taking care of children (be it their own or those of others) over becoming engineers. This alone will shift the, in some sense, natural proportions of male and female engineers considerably. Even a small further difference in average and/or top ability to handle engineering can make this difference grow larger—and the larger, the closer to the top of the field someone is. (By “top ability” I intend ability over a range limited to the top performers/whatnot, by some standard for top performer. Note repeated observations that men tend to dominate in the extreme regions, high and low, of ability, even when averages over the overall population are approximately the same.)
A particular point around (a) is that we cannot look at differences in group outcomes and conclude that there is a difference in opportunities between two groups, that some discrimination based on group belonging would take place, or similar. For instance, presence/absence of equal opportunity must be measured by what applies in a comparison between individuals, e.g. whether a man and a woman who both want to become engineers, who both have the same talent, who both make the same life choices, whatnot, can be expected to have the same career outcomes—not on whether men and women as groups have the same outcomes. (To life choices, note that these involve more than just whether to enter engineering, e.g. willingness/unwillingness to go the extra mile in the office and the choice to have or not have children in parallel with a career.)
Of course, much of the above will be rejected in a blanket manner by Feminists, because many of them have a quasi-religious adherence to “nurture only”. Whether “nurture only” has ever been a realistic proposition can be disputed, but it has certainly not been so since the 1970s. It is thoroughly debunked and anyone who bases arguments on it lacks any serious credibility. (And, no, the opposing viewpoint is not “nature only” but a sane balance of “nature” and “nurture”—much contrary to a Feminist straw-man.)
The following is an automatically generated list of other pages linking to this one. These may or may not contain further content relevant to this topic.