Help with sexist remarks

[malatesta1137]

I didn't know if I should have posted this on the Lounge forum. But here it goes. I am a male having a discussion with a sexist male friend of mine for the past 3 days, it's getting heated. He thinks women are inferior.

He says that 99% of all the art masterpieces were by men (Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Shakespeare, Beethoven, Hitchcock etc.), most important scientists and thinkers were men (Newton, Decartes, Einstein, Freud, Fleming, etc. etc.), most leaders and revolutionaries were men (FDR, Lincoln, Churchill, Napoleon, MLK, JFK etc. etc.), most builders and titans were men (Ford, Disney, Gates, Luciano etc. etc). You get the point.

I told him that men have also created war. And women have been manipulated and controlled into not excelling, not to go to college (for centuries), to stay home and breed families, etc., etc.

He tells me that if women allowed themselves be controlled and manipulated for so long, that this is another proof of their inferiority.

What should I reply? Arrrgh.

[Citizen Daryl]

1. Challenge Him To A Duel!

:evilgrin:

[DebJ]

16. Have a WOMAN challenge him to a duel....oh yeah, we don't

think chest-beating is necessary.

[LiberalVoice]

2. Tell him to blame Christianity for that.

Ask him what brand of pants he's wearing. HE sounds like the type who wears some expensive name brand shit. Ask him how he was manipulated into buying them.

[RivetJoint]

5. Seems like Chistianity is getting a big

challange from Islam. Also, how do you explain Japan, China, India etc?

[LiberalVoice]

9. IMHO

Islam is nothing more then an updated version of Christitanity. They just refurbished it a bit and added in a better social system. When implemented properly it would have worked out pretty nice. Excluding of course the subjugation of their women.

Christianity did a wonderful job of spreading its bias against women from the start. Cultures change over time, and so long as the mantra of, "Men are better then women" continues to thrive in the worlds most powerful religion you can expect to see similar changes in other cultures aswell.

[RivetJoint]

17. Really?

Added in a better social system? Tell that to the Suadi women who get beaten by the religous police for showing their ankles. Lots of women drivers there as well.

Islam is NOT an "updated" version of X-ianity.

[LiberalVoice]

21. "Excluding of course the subjugation of their women."

If you want me to get specific I was talking mostly about their ways of getting money and food and shelter to those that need it. DO NOT MISTAKE WHAT ANY ARAB COUNTRY DOES TO THEIR WOMEN AS IT BEING PART OF THE ISLAMIC SOCIAL SYSTEM. ToO many westerners are ignorant of the fact that in reality there is not a single country on the planet that can legitimatly call itself a muslim nation. Whether they do or not is irrelevant.

[RivetJoint]

25. So excluding how they treat 1/2 of their population

it's a pretty good deal, huh? Iran does the same, they are not an Arab country...neither is Pakistan...

[LiberalVoice]

28. What part of...

"there is not a single country on the planet that can legitimatly call itself a muslim nation" did you not get? None of those countries is following proper Islamic law.

The subjugation I was referring to specifically was their clothing. In Islam a man is not allowed to strike a woman. A woman is allowed to own her own business and make her own money.

I'm not saying that I agree with Islamic law in regards to how they treat there women but the countries that you stated are not following Islamic law. Again, there is not a single country in the world that can legitimatly claim they follow Islamic law.

[RivetJoint]

30. What part of

ISLAM is the predominant religion in those countries do you not get? They PRACTICE ISLAM; sure they may have bastardized it, but for every injustice they perpatrate on women, they can find a justification for it in the Koran.

So we'll ignore the fact that under Islam a woman's voice in court does not equal a man's. That under Islam a man can have multiple wives, but a wife one husband. That under Islam a man can easily divorce his wife, but not vice-versa. That under Islam, a woman needs her husband's permission to travel. That under Islam a woman can have her husband picked by her father before she is even a teenager.

Yeah, it's a great social structure. They are "allowed" to own their own business? Those lucky women!

[LiberalVoice]

31. I'm not trying to say it's a great religion.

All I'm saying is that no matter how you wanna slice it those countries do not use islamic law to rule.

[RivetJoint]

32. They sure think they do

[LiberalVoice]

33. And most americans call themselves Christian

but don't practice. MOST people of any religion don't practice it correctly.

[RivetJoint]

36. But yet you BLAME

X-ianity for the "subjugation" of women. Seems like you just proved yourself wrong...

[LiberalVoice]

37. Islam = 1400 years

Christianity = 2000 years. Please accept my apologies for picking the one thats been doing it longer.

[RivetJoint]

39. How about who does it worse TODAY

[yellowjacket]

90. Checkmate!

Nice exchange. What an absurd claim that somehow Christianity subjugates women more. Blame Christians for everything! Everything!!!!!!!

[Yupster]

75. And of course no nation could properly be

called a Christian nation either.

If we're talking utopias.

[DebJ]

18. Hey LiberalVoice thanks. If you are a guy, you're pretty

smart!:toast:

[LiberalVoice]

24. Sarcasm or no?

lol...I can never tell when people are serious. :) I'm not really but thank you.

[DebJ]

29. no sarcasm!

[ProdigalJunkMail]

22. your comments on religious comparison

between Islam and Christianity shows an extreme lack of understanding of either. I would REALLY like to know how you believe they are the same...with just a little better social system...

This should be interesting.
theProdigal

[LiberalVoice]

27. I was being pretty general.

Obviously their are some big differences but all in all if you look at the beginning, and end, they are quite similar.

When I made the comment earlier I was being very broad. It's a little too early for me to want to start typing out long ass paragraphs on what specifically I was talking about.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

40. I certainly understand the earliness of the hour

and can appreciate that Islam/Judaism/Christianity has a similar root structure, but they are VASTLY different in several key areas. And no, in the end, they are not similar.

theProdigal

[jdj]

72. same shit, different century, or

different shit simulateously in the same century.

The only reason I can think one would insist on pointing out the differences in these tiresomely similar old saws is if one has a vested interest in seeing one triumph over the other.

To the rest of us on the outside, it's just same shit, different scripture.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

80. the reason being

is that this sort of generalisation and perpetuation of common misconceptions is the same sort of 'shit' that is used to say that all Muslims are terrorist. You can't have it both ways...saying that two fundamentally different religions are the same...well, it's just plain dishonest.

And by the way, the point of pointing this out is not to win, and I resent the implication. The point is to simply make the point, "They are not the same...fundamentally or in the details." I simply believe the poster of the original comparison will find that, if he attempts to prove similarity, will not be able to do so on the level that was suggested.

theProdigal

OnEdit: for clarity...not that it helped

[Yupster]

74. Yeah - women much more equal before Christianity

Soloman's 53rd wife told me that herself.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

92. Right, and all the women with bound feet in China and

the widows in traditional India who were burned on their husband's funeral pyre would agree as well. We might also mention the young Japanese girls who were sold into prostitution by their families so that their brothers would have enough to eat.

:eyes:

[Dorian Gray]

54. Huh?

I was thinking he bought his pants in Target, actually.

::shrug::

huh?

[southernleftylady]

3. tell him..

women were too busy back then, hell even now, doing the housework, taking care of the kids, take care of the men DOING IT ALL to have enough time to do those things ;)

[Pithlet]

53. Congratulations!

I didn't know you were expecting a little one. :bounce:

[southernleftylady]

57. hehehe :) I am! I'm just about to head out for my first appointment in 5..

minutes!! I'm so excited.. I'm feeling a girl this time around but we shall see :)

[Eloriel]

69. Sigh. Please don't forget that in addition to all that,

women were simply ignored in the history books; they couldn't get their books published or their music listened to, etc., and when they did, BECAUSE they were the work of "women artists" (and scientists, etc.), they were usually judged inferior.

That's why, in the mid-70s, when auditions for a major West Coast symphony were finally opened to women TOO, the auditions were conducted behind screens so the judges couldn't determine the sex of the applicant.

Women didn't have the manual dexterity to be surgeons, but they were well-suited to jobs as typists because of ... you guessed it, their manual dexterity. And so it went: Catch-22 after Catch-22 entrapped women, confined their opportunities to extraodrinarily narrow spheres, kept them overwhelmingly out of the history books and just about every other part of the public sphere.

And of course, in addition to the very real legal, societal and practical bars to our participation in the wider world, the language didn't help. It supported our invisibility in the public sphere, reinforced the notion of our inferiority. All mentions of the long march of mankind to the pinnacle of evolution, modern man, and all of mankind's interests, achievements, hopes and dreams, contributions, etc., carried the inherent message that women were mere passive consumers of all the benefits mankind had produced, recipients rather than benefactors or contributors, takers rather than doers, unimportant in the overall scheme of importnat things. The people who were important were male (e.g., chairmen, doctors and lawyers and businessmen-- professions open ONLY to men. Women, however, could be techers (lower grades only, not so much higher learning), nurses, secretaries, stewardesses, housekeepers, and the like -- IOW, the jobs closes to roles in the home -- but ONLY until they either married or in some cases got pregnant.

It's tough to be powerful and a high achiever in society when you have no access to any of the powerful positions, or even the education to access those powerful and higher-paying jobs, or if you're forced out of the workforce because of your marital status or your biology. And when you have no power, it's tough to be anything BUT inferior-seeming. It was the classic Catch-22: barred from the opportunities which was then used as proof that you were inferior and couldn't handle the opportunities anyway. (The same argument was used against African Americans, btw.)

We've come a very long way, just in my lifetime. At 56, I can vividly remember sex-segregated ads, social taboos against even THINKING of being in some professions. As a high school senior in 1965, I gave up even thinking about a music career because I wanted to be a professional musician and play in some wonderful symphony somewhere, but the unions didn't admit women, and teaching music sounded like torture rather than something I could do 8 hours a day. It never occurred to me to question that unions didn't admit and symphonies didn't hire women. Fortunately, it DID occur to some other women around just a few years later. We've come a long way, but we're far from done.

I will know that we've achieved equality when no male of any age is EVER ridiculed or shamed by being compared to females. IOW, when little boys aren't called "sissies," and adult men aren't called "girley men" or "pussies." I'll know we're more solidly on our way when words like "whore" and "bitch" and "pussy" aere no longer allowed at DU, and not even THOUGHT of for use by the vast majority of DUers. And the DUers who DO use those words are shamed out of it by the men, not the women here, and no DUer tries to defend harmful and offensive sexist terms like that.

[RivetJoint]

4. He's an idiot

I agree with your statement that women have historically NOT been affored the opportunites to showcase their talents as men have. That is the primary reason there are more men writers, artists, architects, etc. of note.

The sexes are pretty much equal in almost everything except one area that has served to keep men in positions of power: our physical strength and natural agression.

[DebJ]

19. and mostly, your lack of a need to be pregnant for many

years of your lives.

[Dem Agog]

48. Lack of a "need"?

Call me crazy, but as a woman I have ZERO need to be pregnant ever.

[Eloriel]

76. I think you misunderstood her point

Until the mid-sixties, when The Pill was introduced, women were often quite tied down by their "need" to give birth to and raise the children they conceived, whether the felt any "need" to get pregnant or have children or not.

It's really nice to be able to "just say no," to pregnancy, isn't it? As you know, women didn't always have that luxury. And we suffered mightily because of that. That's one reason the rightwing wants to take it all away from us: so they can subjugate us again.

[stanwyck]

6. I guess you'll have to remind

your "friend" (and why exactly is this guy your friend?) of the biological component at work here. Women for centuries have been preoccupied with having babies and caring for their children. He might want to try this activity sometime and find how totally consuming being a mother is.
Plus, he's not paying attention to life in this century. More women than men are now in medical school. More women are enrolled in college than men. As women have more control over their biology, they have the opportunity to put their energy into other pursuits.
This is liberating for both sexes. Men, the smart ones, are partners with women.
Your friend has some deep-seated resentments and fears about women. Here's a tip: keep him away from women you care about; your women friends are not going to enjoy having this guy around.

[malatesta1137]

45. I used the

the word 'friend' rather loosely. He's doing repair work in my building and claims to be anti-Bush. I think you are on the right track about his fear of women. I'll see what his reaction is to the charge.

[cally]

60. Why do more women than men go to college

in the US and get better grades? Now that women are beginning to have more equal opportunity in this country, they are excelling. How many books have been published about the plight of boys in this country because they are no longer doing better than women?

[knitter4democracy]

89. Several

It often comes up in education circles: boys tend to get punished more than girls, drop out of high school earlier and more often (except for certain groups of young women), get lower grades on average, etc., etc., etc.

Frankly, I'm sick of that crap. I taught in a girls' high school and in coed schools, and boys still bully girls who open their mouths and express their own opinions. Boys still sexually harass girls in class and in the hallways (yes, some girls are now predatory, but it's mostly against other girls because of some guy they're fighting over). Boys still tend to try to dominate social situations--at least, the alpha boys do. Shoot, I had boys say to my face that I wasn't a good teacher because I was a woman. Grr. I don't feel sorry for very many boys at all (a few who were harassed by other boys I did work to help, but many were just jerks).

[demnan]

7. For most of our history

biology has controled women's lives. During the middle ages and before, while men were creating all these masterpieces, their women were constantly pregnant, giving birth, taking care of children. Exhausting and important work. Ask this guy if he thinks his mother is inferior to his father. Ask him if he thinks his mother's contribution to his family was any less than his father's.

If he hates his mother he'll say it was. Then we will have gotten to the heart of his problem.

[Mad_Dem_X]

35. I agree

Women were not allowed to have an education past a certain point, work outside the home after they were married, etc. That's one reason why all those inventions and discoveries were made by men. Who knows what women would have accomplished if they had been allowed the same freedoms as men.

Thank God we're starting to get past that mentality!

[xchrom]

8. actually just a little library type research will help

things like women master artists -- there are plenty however they don't get the media play that men did.
scientists -- how about madame curie?
as far as revolutionaries go -- they go as far back as you wanna -- but the abolutionists, and suffrage women were about as revolutionary as you can get.
there were women contemporaries of freud.
and names like virginia wolfe, gertrude stein, etc. also come to mind.
as far as modern thinking goes and this includes your freeper friend -- margaret mead has as much to do with how we think today as any man.
in mathematics -- you'll have to do some research -- but it's all there.
the weakness of his argument is in your last statement ''He tells me that if women allowed themselves be controlled and manipulated for so long, that this is another proof of their inferiority.'' he presents you with a dead-end.
of course it isn't -- we gave them the option of being killed if they didn't want to go along.

[malatesta1137]

62. I used your argument and others' here

He came back saying that women created great things, but they can't be compared to the masterworks from geniuses like Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Beethoven etc etc. He also said that pregnancy and biology are hardly excuses. Beethoven was deaf and in poverty, which are more taxing than pregnancy or any biology limitations, and managed to give the world supreme creations.

I then asked him if he thought his mother was inferior to his father and he said YES. But he loved her the same way.

I told him women could've been just as masterful if they hadn't been controlled and manipulated by man, he said I had just made his point for him, that if they let themselves be controlled is because they are inferior.

I pointed out that the US is controlling Iraq right now but that doesn't make Americans superior to Iraqis. He said that's besides the point, that comparing two countries is irrelevant to comparing men and women or something to that effect.

[smirkymonkey]

67. Only the weak need to prove their "superiority."

Your friend is a weak minded individual who does not realize, or doesn't want to admit, that there were oppressive societal structures in place that prevented women from acheiving full humanity during the time periods of the examples he mentioned.

Yet, despite those structures, which made it nearly IMPOSSIBLE for women to achieve ANYTHING in a worldly sense there were STILL women who did it anyway.

ART: Artemisia Gentilleschi (1st recognized female master painter - 16th C. Rennaisance painter during a time when female painters were only allowed to do portraiture and were NEVER commissioned for their art, despite their talent.) Also, Camille Claudel, Mary Cassat, Berthe Morisot, Frida Kahlo, Georgia O'Keefe and hundreds of others.

MUSIC: Frcasca Caccini (1587 – 1640), highest paid singer at Florentine Court; Barbara Strozzi (1619-1664), wrote over one hundred works; Isabella Leonarda (1620 – 1704), wrote mostly scared vocal music and became a Madre Vicaria; Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre (1664- 1729), composed works in the vocal and instrumental fields including ballet, opera, cantatas, harpsichord, and solo and trio sonatas. However, in a world run by men, their fame was not held up for posterity to see and admire.

MATH/SCIENCE: 1) Hypatia of Alexandria
(355 or 370 - 415) - Greek - philosopher, astronomer, mathematician - She was the salaried head of the Neoplatonic School in Alexandria, Egypt, from the year 400. Her students were pagan and Christian young men from around the empire. She was killed by a mob of Christians in 415, probably inflamed by the bishop of Alexandria, Cyril.

2) Elena Cornaro Piscopia
(1646-1684) - Italian (Venice) - mathematician, theologian - She was a child prodigy who studied many languages, composed music, sang and played many instruments, and learned philosophy, mathematics and theology. Her doctorate, a first, was from the University of Padua, where she studied theology. She became a lecturer there in mathematics.

3) Maria Agnesi
(1718-1799) - Italian (Milan) - mathematician - Oldest of 21 children and a child prodigy who studied languages and math, she wrote a textbook to explain math to her brothers which became a noted textbook on mathematics. She was the first woman appointed a university professor of mathematics, though there's doubt she took up the chair.

4) Sophie Germain
(1776-1830) - French - mathematician - She studied geometry to escape boredom during the French Revolution when she was confined to her family's home, and went on to do important work in mathematics, especially her work on Fermat's Last Theorem.

5) Mary Fairfax Somerville
(1780-1872) - Scottish and British - mathematician - known as the "Queen of Nineteenth Century Science" she fought family opposition to her study of math, and not only produced her own writings on theoretical and mathematical science, she produced the first geography text in England.

6) Ada Lovelace (Augusta Byron, Countess of Lovelace)
(1815-1852) - British - mathematician - The only legitimate daughter of Byron, the poet, her translation of an article on Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine includes notations (three-fourths of the translation!) that describe what later became known as a computer and as software. In 1980, the Ada computer language was named for her.

7) Charlotte Angas Scott
(1848-1931) - English, American - mathematician, educator - Raised in a supportive family that encouraged her education, Charlotte Angas Scott became the first head of the math department at Bryn Mawr College. Her work to standardize testing for college entrance resulted in the formation of the College Entrance Examination Board.

8) Sofia Kovalevskaya
(1850-1891) - Russian - mathematician - She escaped her parents' opposition to her advanced study by a marriage of convenience, moving from Russia to Germany and, eventually, to Sweden, where her research in mathematics included the Koalevskaya Top and the Cauchy-Kovalevskaya Theorem.

9) Alicia Stott
(1860-1940) - English - mathematician - She translated Platonic and Archimedean solids into higher dimensions, taking years at a time away from her career to be a homemaker.

10) Amalie Emmy Noether
(1882-1935) - German, Jewish, American - mathematician - Called by Albert Einstein "the most significant creative mathematical genius thus far produced since the higher education of women began," Noether escaped Germany when the Nazis took over, and taught in America for several years before her unexpected death.

I could list pages and pages of remarkable, talented and exceptional women, but your friend probaby would find some excuse to diminish their achievments.

Keep in mind, that history is the propaganda of the victors (men, in this case) and in a society designed to keep women weak, powerless, impoverished and enslaved by their biology, the fact that these women and others shone through the opaque curtain of revisionist history is a testament to their strength, courage and humanity.

Individuals like your sexist friend needs to see the world in a hierarchical, black and white framework and cannot understand that differences don't have to be looked at in terms of inferiority/superiorty. If I were you, I would feel a bit sorry for him that he is unable to open up his mind to the full range of human experience. I just hope he never has a daughter.

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. Maybe point out that most crime is committed by men

in Western society, certainly, and I expect in all societies.

Men tend to be more aggressive, and physically stronger. This combines to make a society where they have been able to control things. Combine that with the interruptions caused by frequent pregnancies when contraception was unavailable, and the chances of any woman making career of high achievement was very low.

[murielm99]

11. It is not that women did not contribute, but that they were

relegated to the fringes of our society.

Few women were recognized publicly for their contributions.

If your friend would start studying women's history, he would see that many women have made contributions.

Most women did not think they were being manipulated. Most men did not question their roles, either, until education became more universal.

Women began to demand more rights in the early part of the twentieth century, with the suffragettes. They continued to do so after birth control became more available.

Are African-Americans inferior because they were and are kept down and manipulated? Are Native Americans inferior, too? Is he saying that oppressors are superior?

[DebJ]

12. History was written by men. HIS-story. Abigail Adams was

a full partner with Revolutionary John Adams, to the minute. And she
even advised him that the new laws for the new country had better include laws t reating women as equals, or women would have no reason to support tyranny against them as had been institutionalized for ages. She's just the first that comes to mind. There are only
multiple thousands of letters retained to prove that.

If you see how Hillary and Teresa are being treated, then you know what we're up against. Many men HATE intelligent women; they feel threatened by them, instead of stimulated. And poor Eleanor Roosevelt really bore the brunt.

For centuries, child-bearing did restrict the ability of women to excel in other areas. My great-grandmothers, in the early 1900's, each were pregnant more than 14 times, or 14 years of their lives pregnant, plus the diapers, the breast-feeding, and all else....while the men went off into fields and town and left the women alone to RUN ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING, while pregnant, with no
medical assistance during those pregnancies. Men were never encumbered by this.

If he thinks women allowed themselves to be controlled, what does he think of the victims of slavery? I have found that sexism is just another form of bigotry....someone who is one has always turned out to be both...because the pschology is the same: diminish people (in your own head), put them in little boxes, and then stand on that box to put them down. So many people find this easier than building themselves and the rest of the world up. Instead of spending life finding ways to help all people fulfill their potential, and the world realize the potential of their gifts, these bigots squash everyone, and in their own mind, this makes them superior. While they do nothing to actually improve themselves (spiritually, for sure.)

Jesus had women followers, and He showed them no lack of respect.
Little is said of them because history is written by sexists. But
enough is said to know they were there.

What is this friend's relationship with his own mother like?


Personally, I left an abusive marriage. I raised two children on my own, one severely handicapped with mental illness. I worked two jobs; I worked management jobs requiring 65 hours a week. While my ex-husband enjoyed his ever-climbing salary (over $150k, I understand), I gave up my house to foreclosure to put my daughter through college, while he refused to pay what he was legally bound to pay. Likewise, I was forced to pay the deductibles on my son's medical care, and psychiatric deductibles are up to 5 times the amount of 'regular' medical. My daughter graduated from college with two degrees, now works for FINCEN, has been promoted 5 times in two years, is applying for jobs as FBI special agent and DEA agent, and is making $45k a year just three years out of college. She is tall, healthy, sensible, beautiful, and has a constant stream of beaus that include pro basketball players and who have taken her on trips to London, Amsterdam, the Caribbean, Mexico, the West Coast, Las Vegas, and Flordia. People who see her never fail to comment on her beauty and intelligence. She has not spoken to her father, sadly, in over 5 years, because he abandoned her. I think I did okay. My son is also doing well, despite his handicap. He talks to his Dad, but my son always has to make the long distance call; his father won't spend the money. My son earns less than $7000 a year.
He often cries after talking to his father, who always puts him down.
But my son is doing well. I did all this a)without a partner to support me (no one will help out a woman with a mentally ill/often out of control son, you are avoided) b)in SPITE of being told, literally, on the job: What are you doing here? Women don't belong in this business? and facing sexual harrassment on numerous occasions. I succeeded IN SPITE of men, not WITH the buddy-buddy you help me I'll help you and who cares what REALLY gets accomplished politics. I made my own TRUE successes, for myself and my employers.

And now as of this year I have a really intelligent husband who doesn't feel threatened by me, but rather sees me as an invigorating partner.

[malatesta1137]

50. you're one fine example

of why men can't possibly be superior (or inferior) to women. Thanks for sharing.

[jdonaldball]

13. Ask him if he's gay

He seems to love men more than women. Sounds gay to me.

[DebJ]

20. ooooh,,,,,great one! I agree. A homophobe, too.

[malatesta1137]

47. lol

he might think I'm hitting on him. I'll keep ypu posted.

[Behind the Aegis]

86. in my opinion....

Perhaps you were being sarcastic, but gay men do not always love men more than women, we just love them in different ways. I know plenty of misogynists that are straight men. As a gay man, I often have to fight my own misanthropic (men only, not all people) ways. I appreciate and adore women, I am just not sexually attracted to them. Sometimes I think all men are good for is sex, and most of the time, they aren't even good for that! Then, I look at my partner and remember there are lots of men like him out there, straight and gay, who are good for other things.

Women, like other minorities (those disenfranchised, not numbers-wise), have lost the "war" of history. Therefore, unless you are a minority or strive for knowledge, you often don't know how many non-White, Christian, heterosexual, able-bodied persons have contributed to the world cultures.

Just my opinion.

Brightest Blessings!

[sendero]

14. I'd say...

... "well, most of the great achievements in history were accomplished by men, but there is a simple reason for that that I shouldn't even have to explain. With a mind as small and ignorant as yours you needn't worry about joining them in achieving anything great."

[NMDemDist2]

15. men may have made "art" masterpieces, but women made the

clothes, furniture, tapestries, linens, baskets, plates, bowls and shoes for the race for millennium

some (many in fact) are works of art and USEFUL too....

[DebJ]

23. Check business statistics on women entrepeneurs. The last

I heard in Maryland, a few years ago, new businesses run by women had an 85% chance of succeeding; male run businesses had less than a 50% chance of succeeding.

[Nobody]

26. If women truly were inferior, why would any man want to have sex with one?

Just kidding. Tell him about the various women who did excel and are still remembered. Tell him they did all of this in spite of major societal pressure to conform and stay in the background. They did all this despite not having someone else to shove all the shit work of society onto.

Here are a few names to get you going: Enheduanna (Sumerian, first poet), Aphra Behn (first writer to make a living at writing), Marie Curie (discovered radium, notice she gets top billing over her husband Pierre. She also died from radiation poisoning), Harriet Tubman (started life as a slave, escaped, and founded the Underground Railroad, she was known as the Black Moses) and Sojourner Truth (started life as slaves and fought for equal rights for blacks and for women, check out her "Ain't I a woman" speech), Anais Nin (diarist), Ayn Rand (can't stand her politics but she makes the list), Jeannette Rankin (Congresswoman, a Republican, who was elected to the House of Representatives before the 19th Amendment took effect), Margaret Sanger (led the birth control movement) and there were women who disguised themselves as men to fight in the Revolutionary War and the Civil War they're annonymous because they succeeded at this.

This list is right off the top of my head and I can still think of more examples like Virginia Woolf, Sappho, Sacajawea, all the suffragists we know so well like Carrie Chapman Catt, Susan the Pankhursts, Angelina and Sarah Grimke, and countless more.

A little research will uncover a lot more. And keep in mind many of these are before the 20th century.

Did you know that prior to the 20th century that the leading cause of death of women was childbirth? Did you also know that in the Middle Ages, doing anything to help mothers in labor was considered sinful? This attitude is why the mortality rate was so high for so long.

[KamaAina]

65. Elizabeth I, Catherine the Great, Queen Isabella

Rosalind Franklin (without whom Crick and Watson couldn't have discovered DNA)

Aspasia (said to have written the funeral oration commonly attributed to Pericles)

Queen Hatshepsut (Egypt), and of course Cleopatra

Then there's Eli Whitney's landlady, who is said to have been the one who actually invented the cotton gin -- but the Patent Office didn't issue patents to women in those days, so her boarder Eli applied for it!

[alphafemale]

34. Without woman, where is your Michaelangelo?

edit...sorry.

Keyboard stickage.

[Darth_Kitten]

38. Ask him about his issues with women....

;) Seriously, men who were raised by strong women learn to RESPECT them. Real men don't need to put down women in order to feel good about themselves. Ask him why he is so AFRAID of women :shrug:

There were always strong women, it's just that men in power set up economic/religious/political "structures" that benefitted them (and may I add, didn't benefit a lot of working class, etc, men. Were THEY weak and inferior?????)

[no_hypocrisy]

41. Women have been controlled & manipulated for centuries because men

have controlled & manipulated property and wealth, forcing women to depend upon them for survival. As a class, women were forbidden from purchasing and owning property in the U.S. until the 19th century, save for an occasional aberation where they inherited from their fathers.

Look at classic literature like Dickens to see how women were treated as economic deadweights, with fathers trying to marrying off their daughters ASAP in order to get them out of their houses and to decrease the household expenses. A lot of jobs were inaccessible to women until a couple of decades ago (newspapers still ran "Gal Friday" ads in the employment sections until about 20 years ago), so women could not be economically independent from their fathers, brothers, and/or husbands.

Educate your acquaintance with these facts. I'd be interested in his blithe retort.

[newportdadde]

42. I'd ask him

How he would feel saying that to his mother lol. Seriously though have the guy do some research for himself on the accomplishments of women in history. The History Channel often runs interesting shows on women's effect on history and discovery. I remember a show I caught awhile back which went over women pilots in the early 20s trying to cross the Atlantic before Lindberg even I believe, pretty cool stuff.

[private_ryan]

43. and you forgot that men

can get pregnanat too but force women to do so.

[Pithlet]

55. That

was a complete non sequitur.

[smirkymonkey]

68. You just proved that his friend is dead wrong.

:eyes:

[Misunderestimator]

44. What I most enjoy about this story...

Is that this guy is clearly a knucklehead who is trying to lift himself up on the shoulders of great men, because of his own inadequacies. He clearly isn't one himself. Ask him what HE has accomplished.

[Dem Agog]

46. Here's how you should reply...

Give me his address so I can prove a woman's equality by showing him how a WOMAN can kick his tiny balls up through his throat.

[Misunderestimator]

49. LOL... and Welcome to DU!

:hi:

[lastliberalintexas]

51. Your friend is ignorant of human history

The things he's mentioned are very recent developments of humankind, developments from the recent times in which males dominated the species. But from my very limited understanding of archaeology and anthropology, I've read that there is a great deal of evidence to indicate that the first systems for WRITING and the first AGRICULTURAL systems were developed in female dominated societies. Male dominated societies developed war and violent domination.

Find a good book on the subject and see if he'll read it. Maybe we have an expert on the subjects who could make a recommendation for us laypeople?

If he refuses to read it, then you have your answer. He's a coward repub who's afraid to have his belief system challenged. Like most of the right wing.

[skygazer]

52. What should you reply?

Tell him he's a fucking idiot and if he doesn't shut his trap, you'll clean his clock. There's no arguing with morons like this and you shouldn't waste your energy.

[Triana]

56. let me clarify..

...99% of all the RECOGNIZED art masterpieces were by men (Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Shakespeare, Beethoven, Hitchcock etc.), most important RECOGNIZED scientists and thinkers were men (Newton, Decartes, Einstein, Freud, Fleming, etc. etc.), most RECOGNIZED leaders and revolutionaries were men (FDR, Lincoln, Churchill, Napoleon, MLK, JFK etc. etc.), most RECOGNIZED builders and titans were men (Ford, Disney, Gates, Luciano etc. etc). You get the point.

I get the point that WOMEN ARE RARELY RECOGNIZED OR GIVEN CREDIT FOR THEIR ACHIEVEMENTS IN HISTORY. They're IGNORED or credit for their works are given to men (mostly, they're IGNORED)

That doesn't make women inferior. It makes the men who seek to ignore, discredit, and minimize women's contributions to all parts of society mysogenist, insecure, arrogant, pigs. (in other words, it makes MEN inferior)....

[malatesta1137]

59. I agree

but can you please give me some examples of these unrecognized women's contributions and how they COMPARE to Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Freud, Einstein, MLK, etc etc so I can shut him up?

[Eloriel]

77. It won't shut him up

He'll only say something like, "Well, how come I've never heard of them?" or "Yeah, but there are far more men of accomplishment."

[bleedingheart]

58. And to think a woman brought that into the world and raised it to

think that way...sometimes I want to scream at this nonsense...

[MsConduct]

61. Tell him

that he should be thankful that women were manipulated
and controlled for so long or they would have been kill-
ing men like him for thousands of years. LOL

Way back before "Christianity" the goddess was just as
important as the god. In some cultures, even more so.
(I knew this stuff way before the Di Vinci Code, btw) It
was with the concept of one God, and god being a male
term, that men got the idea that they were superior.
And being larger than a women, it wasn't too hard to
intimidate them in to doing things the man's way.

His example of men creating most of the art, etc. is a
poor one because women weren't allowed to think beyond
the needs of her husband and children for so long. Ergo,
we have a lot of catching up to do!

Thank you for sticking up for the "fairer sex"!

Peace

[smirkymonkey]

70. Welcome to DU!

Your 1st Paragraph is priceless!

Look forward to hearing more from you! :hi:

[MsConduct]

83. Thanks smirkymonkey

for the feedback and the welcome. I do appreciate it. Love your screen name btw, LOL.


Peace

[Yupster]

78. I saw some TV special

Discovery or one of those type channels.

Anyway, it was about nutrition of early humans.

The interesting finding was that in the same groups of skeletons, the females always showed far more signs of malnutrition than the males did. Always.

The supposition was that during acute situations, the males ate what they could and the females were left hungry.

I think that would tend to show that males were dominant long before monotheism took hold anywhere.

I think it has more to do with physical strength.

As an aside, the show talked some about the 6-8 New World sites associated with the culture similar to the controversial Kennewick Man. Though a small sample of skeletons, they said this same problem is seen horribly here too, so horribly that the oldest female skeleton found is less than 30 years old. There have been a series of male skeletons found older even with their extra broken bones. Yet the young females show horrible signs of chronic malnutrition, much worse than the males.

[MsConduct]

84. Hey yupster

I agree with you that early human males dominated and ruled over the females. An physical strength would have had to been the factor.

It was as humans were becoming 'civilized', started thinking and imagining beyond themselves, they started forming belief systems that maybe something beyond the earthly might be in charge here. They worshiped gods AND goddesses. Women were revered in those times. It was when we got to monotheism that all that
changed back to the pre-civilization male mind-set and women went back to second class citizen status.

Peace

[Kanary]

63. one example: Researchers have uncovered a number of brilliant

women composers, and some of those discoveries have now been recorded.

They simply never had the opportunity for their music to see the light of day, and I'm sure the same is true of the other arts.

It's circular to claim that women are inferior and should be held down, and use the proof that women haven't accomplished anything. That's the same argument for racial aparthied, etc.

I hope his bigotry comes back to bite him, sooner rather than later.

:hi:

Kanary

[Cleita]

64. I love the men did everything artistic, literary, blah, blah blah

argument. The fact is women did plenty and they didn't get credit for it because male historians chose to omit their contributions. Many women weren't allowed an education or allowed near materials to be able to create things, but in the field of textiles where they were allowed to work, I think you will find many masterpieces in tapestries now hanging in museums.

[alarimer]

66. Women were not often recognized for their achievements

In the last centruy look at Marie Curie and Rosalind Franklin. Curie won two Nobel prizes but she had to share the first one with here husband even though it was mostly her idea and her work. Franklin should have been awarded a Nobel Prize with Watson and Crick because it was her X-ray crystallography that brought out the true structure of the DNA molecule. Her work was STOLEN by a "colleague" and given to the others. She unfortunately died before the Nobel Prize was granted to Watson and Crick (and one other person but I forget who it was) and I don't think they give out posthumous prizes. Her name was never even mentioned by any of those guys. I read a biography on her and, while she had a somewhat prickly personality, she never receiverd her due while she was alive.

[UdoKier]

71. Could it be that women excel in some things, and men at others?

I don't think the superiority or inferiority of either gender could ever be proven, but who cares? We're all people. You might suggest to him that he become a homosexual so as to avoid intimate contact with such "inferior" beings, if he's so hung up on the notion.
;)

[Eloriel]

79. My suspicion is that it would be difficult

for him to have sex with anyone OTHER than an "inferior" woman.

Just a guess.

[newsguyatl]

73. why would you even want to reply to someone like that?

much less have them as your friend?

[Zen0]

81. the fact

that he is arguing to you about feminine inferiority is unproductive. If he truly believes this why should he waste time debating something of such little importance. (in his view)

If he truly believed this, he wouldn't feel the need to be competitive, because in his opinion what's there to compete against

[TexasSissy]

82. There's pre-birth control pill, and there's post-birth control pill.

When a woman has children, esp. the multiples she had back in the old days, it was impossible to do much of anything else. If you friend has children (which I suspect not), he will understand that statement. Imagine having 10 children and a house and husband, and then try to find time to, say, write a book. And yet....women still did it, somehow.

Sounds to be they are SUPerior, not INFerior.

Tell your friend to imagine living in a country that will employ only women. Then to imagine going to college (if he can find one that will accept men). He gets an education after finally finding a college, and begging his father to pay for it (he has no money of his own, since money is inherited from father to son....women do not inherit money).

Then tell him to go and try to find a job, proudly carrying his diploma from his male-only college, or his law degree. He goes from business to business, firm to firm. But no one will hire him. He is male, and they only employ females. He can't vote in politicians who will support the cause of hiring males, since males cannot vote.

Okay, so he's going to find a creative endeavor to make his mark. But first, he must get married, so that there is someone to support him (he cannot support himself, remember?). So he does. But unfortunately, he gets pregnant. He is then sick for three months, taking care of a house, and then caring for a baby. The child gets older. He is starting to find time to scratch out a book. But oops...he is pregnant again. There is no birth control, except for abstinence or withdrawal, remember? So he goes through the same routine. And again. And again. The years go by. He is middle aged. The children are older. The most creative years are behind him, as well as his energy and drive. He's forgotten a lot of his education. He cannot leave his wife, since he is prohibited by law from divorcing her. Besides, he has no money or property. Married men are not allowed to own such things. Only single men are.

Gradually, laws changed. Things got better. But as is so often the case, society comes around to fit the laws years after the laws actually pass. Women did not really have more or less equal educational and employment opportunities until about 30 years ago (when I was in high school, girls' sports weren't funded, only boys' sports were....and that was legal! So if you would've been a great girl basketball player, too bad.)

Still, even under such conditions in America (and those are the higher class conditions), note what the followig women managed to accomplish. I suspect your friend is just ignorant of the accomplishments of women (they used to not be mentioned in history books at all, although I hear that has changed).

Faye Glenn Abdellah (b 1916), pioneer nursing researcher, helped transform nursing theory, nursing care and nursing education.

Bella Abzug (b1920) - attorney & US House rep - introduced legislation calling for an end to the Vietnam War, banning discrimination against women seeking credit, gay rights, reproductive freedom, and more.

Madeleine Albright (b 1937) - first female Sec of State.

Louisa May Alcott (b1832) - prolific author ("Little Women" has been continuously in print since 1868).

Dorothy H. Andersen (b 1901) - pediatrician and pathologist, was the first scientist to identify the disease, cystic fibrosis.

Clara Barton (b 1821) - found of The American Red Cross.

Nellie Bly (b1864) - researcher, reporter, industrialist and reformer. NYJournal called her "best reporter in America." She took over her husband's failing industries after he died, and she turned them into multi-million dollar businesses.

Mary Cassatt (b1844) - famous impressionist artist whose works hang in the Metropolitan. (She never married & came from wealthy family.)

Lucille Ball - we all know what she did.

Pearl Buck (b1892) - famous author. Pulitzer and Nobel Prizes.

Emily Dickinson (b1830) - famous poetress.

Amelia Earhart (b1897) - pilot.

Crystal Eastman (b1881) - co-founder of the ACLU.

Mary Eddy (b1881) - founder of Christian Science.

Chien-Shiung Wu (b1912) - a pioneering physicist, radically altered modern physical theory and changed our accepted view of the structure of the universe.

Rosalyn Yalow (b1921) - one of the nation's premier medical physicists, the first American women to win the Nobel Prize for Medicine (1977) and the first woman to win the Lasker Prize (1976).

Mildred "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias (b1914) - female athletic phenomenon of the century.

Oprah Winfrey (b1954) - we all know her. TV's highest paid entertainer (more than any man). 1st black woman to own her own production co.

Eudora Welty (b1909) - recipient of the Pulitzer Prize in fiction in 1973, is widely recognized as a preeminent novelist and short-story writer. Other awards: French Legion of Honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the American Book Award, the National Book Critics Award, the O. Henry Award, the Commonwealth Award for Distinguished Service in Literature from the Modern Language Association of America, along with honorary degrees from many leading universities.

Edith Wharton (b1862) - major American novelist. ("Ethan Fromme"; "The Age of Innocence"). Pulitzer Prize.

Mercy Warren (b1728) - poet, dramatist, satirist, and historian. Her voice was one of the early calls in America for revolt against the British.

Georgia O'Keefe (b1887) - artist.

Mary Jacobi (b1842) - founded the Association for the Advancement of Medical Education of Women in 1872.

Jane Addams (b1860) - Nobel Peace Prize 1931.

Phillis Wheatley (175?-1784) - First noted African-American woman poet.

Victoria Woodhull (1838-1927) - First woman to run for President, center of a scandal that rocked the nation.

[malatesta1137]

94. he admits

there WERE great women in every field of human activity but not to the level of men. When they were NOT stopped by pregnancy, sexism and were able to write, compose, sculpt, invent and be entrepreneurs, they were STILL never close to the level of anything men has created. He asked me to name one single female scientist who raised to the level of Da Vinci, Einstein, Decartes, Edison or Newton; to name one single female who composed music as magnificent as Beethoven, Mozart or Bach; to name one female writer who raised to the level of Shakespeare, Joyce, Hemingway, etc etc.

I said that this is all irrelevant, we're all humans and all these geniuses CAME from women.

[Only Me]

85. I think it has to do with the "Value" he places of superiority.

What he considers inferior may not be inferior at all. He is arguing a mute point. His kind of thinking is too a kin to racism aswell as sexism. The dominated are inferior and the superior are the dominators. Well...how about culturalism or is that still racism?! Not sure about that term! Anyway, where were the majority of the figures from...He is using men from all around the world to support his point of the superior being...There are many woman all through out history, in many nations that can equal the men he mentioned.

Our nature, which he misconstrues for weakness, is not weakness at all. We don't typically have to claim fame to know were special.

Countless women of History...(not to mention fabulous women of today too many to mention)
Queen Elizabeth, Mary Magdiliene(sp),
Sappho- poet of ancient Greece
Cleopatra - queen of ancient Egypt
Hypatia - philosopher of Alexandria
Theodora - empress of Constantinople
Catherine de Medicis - queen of France
Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz - nun and writer of Mexico
Queen Victoria - queen of England
Harriet Tubman
Amelia Earhart -
Brave Bessie
Marian Anderson
Abigail Adams
Betsy Ross
Dolly Madison
Eleanor Roosevelt
Elizabeth Blackwell
Florence Nightingale
Anne Franks
Mu Lan: A Heroine of Ancient China
In ancient, war-torn China Mu Lan takes her father's place in the army and bravely defends her country with superior martial arts.
Empress of China Wu Ze Tian
The true story of a palace attendant who becomes the only female emperor in more than 5,000 years of Chinese history.
Lynda M. Fox, J.D., Attorney
Clinical Laboratory Specialist in Cytogenetics with the
Eleanor Roosevelt Institute for Cancer Research
University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Denver, Colorado
Sandra Day O'Conner - Supreme Court Judge
And on and on............You get the picture :)

And if he is a biblical person. God didn't ever say he regretted making woman...but he did say he regretted making man, they were far meanier than he expected.

[malatesta1137]

93. ok

this morning I printed this thread up to your post and gave it to him where he is working in my building. I also asked him if he would be offended that some here suggested that he might be gay, he said that his sexuality is not important to the discussion and that he would not be offended.

Now his reply from 5 minutes ago: he said he thinks there WERE great women in every field of human activity but not to the level of men. When they were not stopped my pregnancy, sexism and were able to write, compose, sculpt, invent and be entrepreneurs, they were STILL never close to the level of anything men has created. He asked me to name one single female scientist who raised to the level of Da Vinci, Einstein, Decartes, Edison or Newton; to name one single female who composed music as magnificent as Beethoven, Mozart or Bach; to name one female writer to raised to the level of Shakespeare, Joyce, Hemingway, etc etc.

I said that this is all irrelevant, we're all humans and all these geniuses CAME from women.

[Only Me]

95. Well again, it goes back to the value he places on the works of

Dav Vinci, Einstein, Edison,.,. Personally, I think Shakespeare is highly overrated. I do agree with the master painters...However, I personally think that we have had many master painters. The value
I place on a well known name may not be the same value as another.
Picasso, IMHO, mastered the use of colors but personally some of his works, I also think is highly overrated. But thats just me, his paintings commissioned millions of dollars.
But in his time...he was not valued like he is today. Not unlike many of the masters painters. Women were not highly prize either in some of our cultures either. But in some cultures even ancient cultures, woman were highly prized for be the nurturers of the world and were respected for being wise. But in our more recent history, so many of womens works would have gone unnoticed and unappreciated for fear that this would take away from the leadership of the males.
So.. he will say... see they let themselves be in bondage. But..thats not true, example...just because the Black man didn't get the right to vote till what...1860's. That didn't make him any less of a man. The Jews in Nazi Germany held as captives in concentration camps were no less human because of their bondage. Veterans held hostage in foreign wars...are no less weak because they are held as captives. He relates the bondage of the female over the years to being weak. He is weak minded for not digging deeper. His answer is one with out true thought. I wouldn't waste my time on this person if I were you.

[crickets]

87. Adding a couple of favorites to myday's list

Hatshepsut
http://campus.northpark.edu/history/WebChron/Africa/Hatshepsut.CP.html

Boadicea
http://travesti.geophys.mcgill.ca/~olivia/BOUDICA/

[Only Me]

96. Great links... very interesting. n/t

[cap]

88. women are inferior, huh???

just let him use that line the next time he wants to get laid.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

91. I remember the days before the women's movement

Here's how it was:

1. When little girls were asked what they wanted to be when they grew up, the only socially acceptable answers were nurse, teacher, secretary, sales clerk, and "mommy."

2. There used to be a TV show called What's My Line, in which panelists tried to guess what the guests' "unusual" occupations were, such as sheep shearer or amusement park ride designer. One young woman stumped the panel because she was (gasp!) a lawyer!

3. Women couldn't get credit in their own name. They had to have a male cosigner.

4. In my younger days, women couldn't be corporate executives, construction workers, clergy, or countless other occupations. The help wanted ads in the paper were divided into "help wanted women" (nurses, secretaries, retail sales clerks) and "help wanted men" (everything else). The "help wanted men and women" was made up entirely of ads for caretaker couples for apartment bulidings.

5. In college (early 1970s), I worked summers for Sears. Only men could have commissioned sales jobs, and if a woman happened to sell an item, such as paint, which "belonged" to one of the male sales personnel, she had to write it up in his name so that he would get the commission.

In general, throughout history:

1. Women have less upper body strength than men, which makes them easier to dominate, and before birth control, they were either pregnant or nursing or caring for their dozen children most of their lives, not to mention having to do all the household chores by hand.

2. Most cultures throughout history have seen women as useful only for taking care of men and producing sons. In many of these cultures, wives went to live with their husbands' extended families, and so were considered to be of no benefit to their birth families, especially in cultures with the dowry custom. Even in cultures like China, where education afforded upward mobility, only sons were sent to school.

Since patriarchal families were obsessed with bloodlines, they insisted on female chastity. This meant no going out without a chaperone, no apprenticeships of the kind that trained the great artists and musicians of the past, and certainly, no going to the same schools as boys. If girls went to school, it was to learn a little reading and writing, enough math to do the household accounts, and lots of embroidery.

Oh, by the way, Shakespeare? Women received very little education in his day, and they were even forbidden by law to belong to the theatrical troupes that generated plays at that time. Women's roles were played by boys in drag.

4. No college in the U.S. admitted women before 1830, and higher education was all-male until the end of the nineteenth, beginning of the twentieth century in Europe.

5. Traditionally, women have been discouraged from participating in athletics. However, now that the barriers are gone, today's women Olympians are faster and stronger than the men of fifty or sixty years ago.

6. There have always been wonderful women writers. In Japan, the best writers during the medieval period were women, and even the sexist Japanese have always admitted that. In Europe and America, it was hard for women to get published, which is why Mary Anne Evans wrote as George Eliot, Charlotte and Emily Bronte first wrote as Currer and Ellis Bell, and Jane Austen was first published anonymously.