rationalskepticism.org

Beatsong wrote:

Doubtdispelled wrote:

Steve wrote:
Because having babies is really scary. How does it work? Even today knowledge of womens health lags behind that of mens. My wife has been dealing with menopause for over a decade with hot flashes and she takes oestrogen and that whole reproductive biology is still not well understood. And women are vulnerable in that process and it hurts when babies are born and there is bodily fluids on a regular basis and a fair number of women would die in the childbirth process due to poor hygiene as much as anything and finally it means folks have to grow up and care for someone besides themselves.

It is sooo much simpler for guys.

And people always scapegoat what they don't understand.

I understand what you are saying, Steve, especially the scapegoat bit, but to me it still doesn't explain why women - and here I'm talking historically, because as Paul points out, it's all changing now thankfully - became negatively labelled, described, and villified. After all, they would not have understood men's biology either.

I'm glad you qualified your original post with the fact that you are speaking historically. I think there is a common problem in discussions of issues like this that some people cite events and issues from thousands of years ago as "evidence" for a particular state of affairs now. Most men I know my age or younger would be baffled by your OP.

Anyways, historically:

Sex is an incredibly powerful force affecting the deepest aspects of what it means to be alive and human. In conjunction with death, probably the most powerful force there is. It is after all our only comeback against death, being the means by which our genes survive our death. As such, it's been extremely important to people to control it. Men have attempted to control it largely by controlling women, and projecting everything that is dangerous about it onto women.

[One could also point out that women have, both historically and currently, developed extremely sophisticated ways of controlling men. But that's probably a topic for another thread.]

Furthermore, in order for sex to function for the perpetuation of a man's genes, he needs a woman to be faithful, so that he knows that the children he is putting resources into rearing are his own and not somebody else's. Thus the whole cult of virginity / woman as chattle passed from father to husband / control of woman's actions and sociability / distrust of woman's individuality and self-expression / hatred of woman when the whole business doesn't turn out as intended - which informs so much western history and culture, and can still be seen overtly in many non-western countries.