Roots of Female Oppression?

You may be wondering how sexist laws, like the ones I mentioned in my last post could have have ever been adopted. For me, the problem arises from what society regards as the social norm. In any country, it is their culture which primarily sets the social norms. I.e. If men oppressing women is deemed acceptable in a certain culture then it is bound to become the social norm, since men will not be perturbed from doing it meaning that it will happen very often.

Once something becomes socially normal, it will logically be transmuted into law since it is evidently supported by the people.

I want to know how the oppression of women became socially acceptable in the first place?

The basic, most well known theory is that it first became socially acceptable simply because of women's physical inferiority. This would have been reinforced by the fact that women would not have been able to work effectively in some of the more physically demanding jobs. It would have also been reinforced by pregnancy. This true physical weakness then evolved into men unjustly seeing women as wholly inferior. With the absence of laws, when women first began to be oppressed they would have been unable to physically fight back and demand equal treatment.

This theory is supported by the fact that in Western countries, women's status has risen exponentially. It is largely believed that this is because of Western world's mechanisation, which has replaced the need for brawn in jobs. This combined with the introduction of a child care system has allowed women access to the job market like never before.

However women's rise in the Western world could also be explained by Western world's part secularisation. Countries like America and France have completely secular state systems. In America for example, it is unconstitutional for a state school to highlight any particular religion. Even with Western Countries that aren't secular, it can be argued that many of them are not as focused on religion as countries outside the Western world.

So the question becomes, have certain religions supported/continue to support gender inequality?

In several of the women's literature books that I have read, including Jasmine and A Handmaid's Tale, religion seems to be a significant cause of women's oppression. I hope to continue this topic in one of my following posts.