I meant to point out that men are also subject to censorship if they choose to step outside of the line that upholds status quo. They just often have different rewards and punishments for it.

If a father in foot-binding China were to rebel and demand that his daughter not be crippled, he would also have consequences. His daughter would have more, perhaps, but imagine the social fallout he would have. Could he rebel? If he couldn’t, could the mother or the daughter rebel? What would be the consequences for them?

If a person is going to truly stand up for someone who is being abused, that person will often receive similar abuse. People don’t like to do that. A white person who married a black person in certain places and times was treated by society like a black person.
Often men who treated women as equals did recieve fallout. Look at how our society treats stay-at-home dads.
In my church, a man who believed women shouldn’t be submissive was never allowed into a leadership position and often looked at with suspicion as ‘effeminate’. That is a consequence.

Read _Woman’s Inhumanity to Woman_ by Phyllis Chesler.

Have you ever noticed how often that “cultural/training/brainwashing” argument is trotted out in reference to women, but hardly ever when it comes to men? [...] I say we either give this line of argument a rest or apply it equally to men and women.

The reason that explanation isn’t applied to men is because the same disadvantages (relative lack of pay, reduced access to business and academic positions) don’t apply to men. An explanation applying to men would have to show why men seem to be more successful, not less.

Men, on the other hand, don’t seem to be so constricted by their upbringing or training or culture. They are more free to act for themselves even if they go along with the crowd–nobody is saying that they are doing so because they have been conditioned to do so.

I say we either give this line of argument a rest or apply it equally to men and women. Everyone is different, everyone makes his or her choices. Some are influenced by the crowd, some are not. And there are people of both sexes who choose to oppress because that is what they want to do.

I am a little tired of hearing about big bad patriarchy holding women back yet not one word about what we do to ourselves. Right now my community theater is doing “The Crucible”. I might write a blog on that as that is a whole subject of its own. But it is very interesting that while the power structures in Salem were male, it was young girls and women who started the whole witch hysteria by pointing out various townspeople who they claimed bewitched them. The men themselves did not go out looking for witches. Left to themselves, probably nothing would have happened. So in the end, it was really this gang of teenage and preteenage girls who had the real power in Salem.

I am an intelligent woman- top of the class throughout highschool and in university.
I was raised in a church were women wear headcoverings to show subservience.
I still struggle to believe women have equal worth, talent and intelligence.

I supported the patriarchal teachings of our church because I didn’t have the emotional security to challenge those in highest authority in my life. My social survival depended on me upholding their values for them.
Those men who weren’t preaching it were still upholding it by their silence. If they had revolted and said ‘We refuse to believe women’s main purpose is to serve men”, things may have changed. They did nothing and so helped maintain it. Those men who watched their daughters be cut, placed in purdah or have their feet by bound and said nothing are also guilty.

It is true that this paradox of self-subjugation is a human trait, not just a female one. There are accounts of many slaves returning to their previous masters once freed. That struggle for equality is still going on and its been many many years after emancipation!

Hinting that women aren’t as smart as men or they wouldn’t treat themselves so poorly is close to victim blaming. By a woman identifying herself with a male intelligence, she can safely call other females not as intelligent with no personal repercussions.
It seems similar to those women jurors who blame rape victims instead of rapists. That way they maintain an illusion of security. It was that stupid slutty woman’s fault- I’m not like her. I’m safe. It was that stupid unintelligent woman’s fault. I’m not like her. I’m safe.

I find that men tend to have deeper conversations with a woman than with a man. I think this isn’t because one gender is deeper and the other more shallow, but because we can often be more vulnerable with someone of a different gender as we don’t have to compete with them on the same level.

Those women who are subjugating themselves and other women aren’t doing it because they are choosing between treating humans decently or being mean. They feel they are choosing survival for themselves.

Not everyone is strong enough to think for themselves and face the consequences that come with it. Not everyone will face the same consequences.

I don’t quite buy that argument because it implies that women are not capable of making their own decisions or thinking for themselves. We go along with stuff because we’ve been “trained” or “brainwashed” and don’t know any different? Please! Then those who say that women are inferior and need to be controlled like little children are right, because we ourselves admit that when we make that argument.

Falling for BS cultural messages is something that can easily happen to anybody regardless of gender. People do think for themselves… but they don’t do it in a vacuum.

We all absorb the memes we grow up with, and we can do our best to figure out which ones don’t make sense and fight them, but that process isn’t easy or automatic.

The late Ayn Rand said once that she felt that women as a whole were not as intelligent as men. While I do not agree with Rand’s philiosophy, I can definitely see where she is coming from. There are times when I do believe that she is right. I also believe that Rand was more intelligent than a lot of men for that matter.

I have often been told (mostly by men) that I do not think “like a woman” but rather think more like a man. I have also been taken for one on-line in other forums where my gender remained unknown. I have done some reading and studying about the brain and there does seem to be some real biological differences between the male and female brain so it is not just a matter of perception. This doesn’t make one sex superior and the other inferior. It is just that everyone thinks and looks at life differently. I do find that my conversations with men tend to be deeper and richer than my conversations with women. And I don’t think it is simply a matter of training.

If anything, I suspect that it is a matter of evolution at work. If you look at history, women who were “too brainy” were considered “bluestockings” and very often ended up not married and not having children. Intelligence appears to be inherited, so if there were selection pressures on women to be less intelligent this might mean why we see the behaviors we do. It seems I read somewhere that the more educated a woman is the harder it is for her to find a husband. Again, this is the marketplace choosing. It’s not conspiracy, men aren’t getting together and saying “let’s not marry intelligent women”, it is just the way things work.

There is a scene in “Gone With the Wind” where Scarlett is getting ready to go to a barbecue and Mammy comes in with a tray of food because back then white women of Scarlett’s class weren’t supposed to eat much in public. Scarlett says that one time she went to a barbecue and ate as much as she wanted and Ashley Wilkes said it was refreshing to see a girl with an appetite. Mammy replies, “Yes, but Mr. Wilkes ain’t fixing to marry you.” Which was true. Ashley may say he admires Scarlett’s independence, but in the end he marries a woman who is more in line with society’s expectations.

Nevertheless, I think it does boil down to choices. It does take an enormous amount of courage to swim against the stream and from an evolutionary perspective, the very real risk of not passing on your genes, but there are women who actively choose to be part of theirs and other women’s subjugation, because that is what they WANT to do Look at the “Mean Girl” phenomenon in high school. These girls are choosing this for themselves. No one is making them do this.