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From: chelsea@dartvax.UUCP (Karen Christenson)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: male dominance/equality
Message-ID: <4287@dartvax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 11-Mar-86 12:01:08 EST
Article-I.D.: dartvax.4287
Posted: Tue Mar 11 12:01:08 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 15-Mar-86 20:20:22 EST
Reply-To: chelsea@dartvax.UUCP (Karen Christenson)
Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
Lines: 28
Keywords: equal equivalent pet peeve


     Someone somewhere in the slew of articles said (roughly) "men
and women are equals".  I'm afraid I must reply, "Piffle."  Why, you
ask?  
     1)  I have a strong dislike of sweeping generalities.
     2)  The rephrasing of that statement is "men = women", which
         is a little hard for me to accept.  Men and women are no
         more equal than all men are equal to each other.  

     Despite my dislike of sweeping generalities, I would say that
men and women are EQUIVALENT.  That is to say, they are not the same,
but neither is inherently greater or less than the other.  This is
kind of a pet peeve with me.

     As far as origins/biological basis of "male dominance" goes,
I would like to point out that until very recent years, childbearing
was EXTREMELY hazardous to one's health, so there is some basis for
the idea of women as the "weaker sex" (they got sick more often).

     An interesting book for those interested in how women were viewed
over time is "The Weaker Vessel" by Antonia Fraser.  It discusses the 
role of women (of all classes) in England 1600 - 1700.  It's somewhat 
disjointed, but the subject is interesting.  During this period, the
perception of women changed from "evil temptress, can't resist tempta-
tion, daughter of Eve" to "pure, sweet, and innocent", or was it the
other direction?  Anyway, quite an about-face.

                                   Karen Christenson