on women being 'possessions' ...

Dear Mr Harry

I have had a good look throughout your site and can feel some connexion to your points of view but I must remind you that women were once the 'possessions' of men. They were just chattels to be treated as such.

Can you comment on this?

B

Dear B

This view that women were just the chattels of men is simply more feminist-inspired hokum

This view that women were just the chattels of men is simply more feminist-inspired hokum that is based on nothing but the usual discounting of the context in which such a notion was held.

Fifty years ago, for example, children were, more or less, seen as 'chattels' here in the west, in the sense that they were seen as 'belonging' to their parents; but it does not follow from this that their parents were prone to treat them like disposable objects. On the contrary, most parents adore their children and will do anything for them.

And the fact that the parents had 'command' over their children made a great deal of sense, given that, firstly, the parents knew better than the children what was best for them and, secondly, that the people most likely to best look after the children were the parents!

Well, from what I can see, the same kind of considerations applied when it came to men and women. The women were always more vulnerable - especially in those more dark and more dangerous days - and it was their men who were charged with looking after them.

Imagine a child walking down the street a thousand years ago. What is to stop some stranger from picking up the child and saying, "Hmm. I think I'll have this one."

After all, if the child does not 'belong' to anyone then why not scoop it up for your own purposes?

Well, I imagine that the same sort of thing applied to women. You couldn't just pick them up off the street and haul them off somewhere because they belonged to someone else!

Even nowadays unwed women will wear rings on their wedding fingers if they want to send out the message, "Leave me alone - I've got someone watching my back."

And so my own view is that the notion that women were the  possessions of their men was quite a good one given the circumstances in which most people had to live in those days.

Putting this another way: If you had lived 500 years ago, would you rather have been 'possessed' by the man to whom you were married, or would you rather have been at the mercy of all men - like the child walking down the road?

Furthermore, one must always remember that 'the law' was relatively crude and simple in the distant past, and it was also not very easy to enforce because there were not that many 'government workers' floating around the place. And, indeed, for various urgent reasons, it seems that there was much more law relating to property than there was to people.

Thus, the law relating to people was rather thin and it was difficult to enforce. And so, once again, the notion that the woman was the 'property of the man to whom she was married' does not seem quite so awful.

 this hysteria over women being 'chattels' is just another of the hateful ploys

Feminists always like to give the impression that women were treated particularly badly in the past by men, and this hysteria over women being 'chattels' is just another of the hateful ploys that they use to buttress this misandric point of view.

But I have never seen any evidence to support the view that in stable societies women have been treated particularly badly - especially when compared to how the men have been treated.

I keep my eyes open for such a situation, but I never seem to stumble across one.

Muslim women do not accept that they are being treated as second-class citizens

It is, however, true to say that I do not know much about Muslim countries, but, for example, I have seen various politically-corrected BBC reporters recently frequenting places like Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Morocco, and such places, and asking the women various leading questions such as, "What is it like to be treated as second-class citizens when compared to men?" - or words to that effect - and, guess what, nearly all of these Muslim women do not accept that they are being treated as second-class citizens at all - though, of course, I am sure that it will not be too long before the feminists manage to poison these Muslim women against their own men with their usual catalogue of ploys and lies.

Indeed, of one thing I am now certain; whatever their country, whatever their colour, whatever their religion, whatever their type of government - or lack thereof - people always treat men worse than they treat women and children.

And my guess is that it has always been this way.

And, of course, the same is true today here in the west.

As such, it is men who need more 'liberating from oppression' - not women.

Best wishes

Harry  

feminism is not all bad ...

Hello R

> In the end, I give feminism credit for giving women a
> way to collectively voice their opinions, ideas, and
> concerns at a time when their point of views weren't
> being considered or even valued.

Not really true.

1. The views of 'men' were no more important than those of women. i.e. nothing has really changed.

Historically, both men and women were subjected to huge forces of various kinds of oppression; e.g. religious. And men were always considered more expendable than women, and treated as such.

2. However, when it came to 'tackling the environment' (e.g. dealing with nature, technology, war, defence, building things etc etc) it was men, mostly, who did it. And so their views about such matters tended to be considered superior - and quite right too. Men were/are superior to women when it comes to such things.

women were not being discriminated against, they were being protected

Indeed, women were not being discriminated against, they were being protected.

3. Look at the **numerous** magazines for women over the past 100 years. There are loads of them - written and read mostly by women. They are full of advice and opinions about women's lives, their aspirations, their families, their love lives, and so on. My point being that women have been 'voicing their opinions' and ideas since time immemorial.

Where were the magazines for men?

They hardly existed - except for the softcore variety.

You are just plain wrong to believe that feminism gave women a voice.

Women have always had a voice.

(Who brings up the children and, hence, indoctrinates them?)

And notice that most of those oldie magazines for women did not approve of feminist ideas about women.

In other words, *****WOMEN****** were saying, "No, thank you," to those feminist ideas.

Here is an example of women promoting their own idea of womanhood in the very popular Woman's Weekly magazine of 1969 ...

Quite clearly, in the eyes of the women who produced this magazine - and of those who bought it by the million - girls cooked.

Feminists would like you to think that men were 'oppressing' women for all that time, but if you look at those magazines you will see that it was women, themselves, who were deciding what was right or wrong for them.

Furthermore, if you look at feminists' writings in the mid 19th century, you will not find them talking about 'oppression', domestic violence or rape. Their main complaint was that women seemed to have nothing to do once the children were grown.

 most women in the 70s had, rightly or wrongly, a very low opinion indeed of 'feminists'.

Furthermore, I can assure you that most women in the 70s had, rightly or wrongly, a very low opinion indeed of 'feminists'.

Yes, the men did not like them either. But my point is that WOMEN were choosing what they wanted and also choosing how they felt about feminists.

Then, as time marched onwards, and the hateful, man-hating media feminists took over the mainstream, and lied and lied and lied, in order to pursue their hateful agenda, WOMEN were gradually persuaded to follow them.

But, once again, it was the WOMEN who chose to do this.

4. Your view that women's points of view were not valued prior to feminism made me laugh. If anything, women's points of view are far less valued now as a result of feminism - certainly in my case.

True; their views about what was going on outside of the domestic situation and the neighbourhood were not as valued as the views of men - because it was men, mostly, who tended to venture into the horrible world outside; but this was hardly the 'fault' of men, was it?

who do you think dominated the localities where the women and children lived?

Furthermore, who do you think dominated the localities where the women and children lived?

Feminists like to pretend that they are the reason for all sorts of goodies that western women now enjoy, but the truth is that they achieved virtually nothing - apart from causing a great deal of unhappiness and huge expense.

And the precious little that they have 'achieved' has been completely swamped by the negative consequences arising out of their malevolence e.g. see The Benefits of Feminism.

Feminists, together with those working in the abuse industry, and with those grubby, self-serving shysters in government circles who want to keep disrupting our societies, have been a mighty curse on us all - and continue to be so.

And the wonderful freedoms that western women and men now enjoy arise mostly out of the developments in science, medicine, and technology - driven mostly by men.

For example, the two men who invented Google will do far more to benefit women than all the feminists in the world have ever done.

5. Even in places like Saudi Arabia, if one excludes the huge domination of religion (which impacts men just as much as women) it is women, themselves, who decide what they wish to do. And so, for example, the fact that women are not permitted to drive cars in Saudi - a hallmark of male oppression according to western feminists - turns out to be something that women, themselves, are demanding. And one Saudi minister who was recently asked about this alleged oppression, shrugged his shoulders and stated that it was very difficult to change the driving laws because both men and women - in roughly equal numbers - throughout the land were against such a change and were vociferously campaigning against it.

> That women had to
> conform to these ridged ideas and expectations.  That
> they couldn't be anything other than wives and
> mothers.  I have no problem with a woman being a wife
> and mother if it was her CHOICE.

Mostly, IT WAS THEIR CHOICE!!!! Please stop believing this nonsense about women being dragooned into marriage. If anything, it was MEN who were pressured into marriage.

Think about what young men (more so than young women) really like to get up to when it comes to the opposite sex.

Marriage is not on their minds!

Far from it.

Indeed, the whole notion that men had far more CHOICE than women is just hokum - unless, of course, you reckon that being able to choose whether to join the army or work 16 hours/day in a factory, or down a mine, or in a solicitor's office or on a farm is CHOICE.

Let me put it this way: When the world out there is pretty dire, most young women would CHOOSE the option of being a mother at home while someone else ventured out to earn some money.

Think about it.

What would life have really been like for women with children in those far off days without the 'deal' that marriage gave them?

There were no welfare benefits, no police officers, no social services, and not much hope of being able to make a living without being worked to the bone.

As such, I can assure you that women mostly CHOSE to get married.

And the same is pretty much true today despite all the feminism that we have had to endure.

Ask your girlfriends what they would like to do.

Ask your girlfriends what they would like to do.

I would bet that most of them would still like to find a nice young man (preferably a rich one) and get married to him - and have children.

Indeed, even the French feminist Simone de Beauvoir stated in a 1976 interview with Betty Friedan, that “no woman should be authorized to stay at home to raise her children…because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one.”

Indeed, as a further example of this, it was only a few weeks ago that I saw some farmers complaining about the fact that when women started to become vets in greater numbers, farmers could not get any veterinary help outside office hours.

And so, for example, if one of their animals required urgent treatment in the middle of the night, it was just tough, because no female vet would turn up.

How many women wanted to become vets 50 years ago

So, tell me. How many women wanted to become vets 50 years ago when vets were expected to work all hours?

And who, in their right minds, would have wanted women to become vets given that women were likely to provide them with a very poor service?

Recall also that most motor vehicles in those days were fairly unreliable - making it very difficult and dangerous for women to travel alone at night.

In other words, the increasing reliability of motor vehicles, far more so than feminism, both allowed and encouraged more women to become vets.

Let me put it this way.

If motor vehicles suddenly became as cranky, as dirty, and as unreliable as they were 50 years ago, very few women indeed would choose to become vets.

i.e. NOTHING TO DO WITH FEMINISM!

And 50 years before that, the vets came out to emergencies riding on a horse!

Yep. I can just imagine women wanting to do that in the dead of night.

In other words, you can forget all this man-hating nonsense about 'men holding women back in the workplace'.

The women, THEMSELVES, did not even want to be in the workplace.

> I feel that for all the positives
> of that time, there were negatives.  That women had to
> conform to these ridged ideas and expectations.

But the men didn't, eh?

Come on, wake up.

For every aspect of life wherein women were handed what would now appear to be a raw deal, men would mostly have had it worse; and they would also have had it worse in other areas too - areas that do not seem to count when it comes to talking about how people were being treated in those days.

The suffering of men is hidden. The suffering of women is highlighted and exaggerated..

> Feminism showed women that it
> was alright for them to strive for the things that
> socially, they weren't supposed to.

Nope, it didn't. Certainly no more than many other concepts that were spinning around at the time - liberty, freedom, birth control.

Indeed, in some countries of the east (cannot remember which ones) there is no 'feminism' at all, and yet women reach the highest offices.

Of course, there is a general psychological inertia when women first start to do men's jobs, and vice versa, and there is also some opposition to such new things, but you would be wrong to believe that feminism was the major player in overcoming this inertia.

On the contrary, my view is that the feminists made both men and women resist the changes far more strongly than they would otherwise have done.

if anything changed the cultural climate for both men and women in the 60s in 70s it was music

Furthermore, if anything changed the cultural climate for both men and women in the 60s in 70s it was music.

It was the pop music being created by young people (e.g. the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Doors, etc etc etc) together with the increasing desire of youngsters to resist the traditional authorities, that gradually blew apart traditional expectations - with hardcore hippies, I suppose, being an extreme example of the result.

Nothing to do with feminists.

Look also, for example, at the poorer countries and at how hard women work in all sorts of areas together with their men without any need for feminism.

And in the USA, for example again, women were getting 33% of all degrees in the 1930s, well before feminism had gotten its ugly grip.

I could go on, but as far as I am concerned, feminism is an ideology of hatred, and we would have *all* been far better off by now without it.

Furthermore, feminism does not represent the interests of women - certainly not women like you - and if you read my website more fully you will surely see that feminism will destroy any society that takes it up.

It simply cannot survive.

And a great deal of unhappiness is going to be generated throughout our own society as its malign influences gradually poison us all and we are slowly washed away into cultural oblivion by those societies wherein women CHOOSE to have lots of children.

The Maths alone tells you why feminism is a recipe for degradation and extinction.

Furthermore, youngsters like you do not know what it is like to live in a society free from all the hatred towards men being engendered by feminists - and all the consequences.

I do.

both men and women would be far better off without feminists

And I can assure you that both men and women would be far better off without feminists. Furthermore, they would get along far better with each other

And the only reason that feminism survives is because it is ***continually*** being propped up and promoted by very powerful groups (such as governments) which profit hugely by the disharmony that feminism causes to people.

Finally, the idea that women in the west have been more 'oppressed' than men since time immemorial is utter nonsense.

On the contrary ...

Apologies for sounding so aggressive in response to your email.

This really wasn't warranted; and your email was, indeed, very much appreciated.

So, thank you.

Best wishes,

Harry

Also see, ...

Prostitute As Present

and, ...

Did Women Really Want To Go Out To Work?