I realize that until fairly recently women were viewed more as possessions than as human beings. If men were able to create life themselves, I’m sure women would still be indentured servants at best, and possibly even go the way of the passenger pigeon.
This makes sex the most primary human activity, more important even than making money.
But now that women are no longer dying young in childbirth or being raped and pillaged during border disputes and range wars (this doesn’t apply to all parts of the world), men have been forced to pay attention to women for other than pleasure and procreation. Women have become an important economic and political force in the world, even though the angry old white men in the United States are dragging their feet to recognize this fact. Many men cannot wrap their feeble little minds around the concept that women should be treated as equals.
Why is that?
I found this quote from a speech made by Chairman Mao that was included in the Little Red Book:
In order to build a great socialist society it is of the utmost importance to arouse the broad masses of women to join in productive activity. Men and women must receive equal pay for equal work in production.
Aha! The typical conservative (Republican) equates the rights of women with the establishment of socialism, and the one thing a greedy capitalist will not allow is anything that even suggests socialism (government subsidies for big businesses don’t count, of course).
I guess what discourages me most in this modern world is that truth is a variable and malleable concept and that there are too many gullible and unthinking people with negative attitudes. I know that not all women are honest or capable but after looking around the disasters that men have gotten the world into, I think it’s time we give women the chance … they could do not worse than the men.
A Celebration of Reading 