Hello,
I have been wondering for some time, why women have never organised rebellion against men?. until the 19th century, they were not interested in their rights.
It's strange because  every oppressed should finally rebel.During the French Revolution, they shouted the slogans of freedom and when the declaration was finally written
they forgot about their rights for themselves. Why they couldn't organise revolt?

I think that the lack of proper communication would have been one of the reasons.

In todays world the communication between people and the power of the mass media is such that if you say something now it will be known world wide within a few minutes.

Hi lennea, and welcome to the site.

Your question is a simple one, but has a very complicated answer, I think. For a start it is difficult to put yourself into the mind of someone who lived in a different time, with different experiences of life than what could be called "normal" today, different expectations from life itself, a very different education in both the narrow and broad sense of the term than is available today, and a very different way of processing their thoughts into actions - even when those thoughts may have been along exactly the lines you describe, identifying a disparity between their sex and the male sex when it came to basic human rights.

However having said that, you are basically correct to note that organised protest about this disparity took a long time to emerge in western society, and a clue as to why this was so could probably be found today in other societies in the world in which women, even now, struggle to find a voice and mount any meaningful challenge to secure the same rights as men enjoy.

The biggest enemy to any such struggle is rarely "official", though one only has to look at Saudi Arabia today to see how the male ruling class in that society does indeed use quite "official" and very real tools of legal oppression to counter any such vocal opposition to their regime even forming, let alone be heard or be strong enough to effect real change. However within that same example one could also point the finger at women themselves, who in fact in many cases - sufficiently many to make it a real force in preserving this unfair status quo - actively "police" themselves and make a huge contribution towards ensuring that they will continue to lack proper recognition in terms of basic rights. And this is where it gets complex - it is difficult to explain this phenomenon in simplistic terms of cause and effect, mainly because the causes are so many and the effect so all-pervasive and so multi-faceted that it is hard to know where to start, even if one wants to change things.

In western society suffrage became the focus for such expression, and rightly so. Western societies were in general at that time extending suffrage to elements within their ranks already who had traditionally been voiceless, so it was hard for even the most die-hard chauvinist not to admit that logic alone dictated this should extend to women also. It still took several generations before this logic prevailed, even after it had been established, so this in itself shows that identifying a single cause and effect is still hardly sufficient to change minds enough that society as a whole adopts change to remedy the ill. Women's continued disparity in terms of wages, even in these so-called civilised western societies, is further proof that almost two centuries of organised struggle to achieve parity with men still hasn't delivered the full deal.

And just to broaden the focus a little in case it sounds like organised women's protests have been purely a western phenomenon, it is worth noting that women throughout history have in fact organised themselves on occasion to effect radical social change in terms of their time and the society they lived in. The ancient Greek play "Lysistrata" recounts how women engaged in a sex strike to bring about the end of the Peloponnesian Wars, which may or may not have been historically accurate but at least was regarded as a credible plot by Greek audiences so may well be an indication of the fact that women exercising political clout through organised protest wasn't all that alien a notion at the time. A more definite historical instance of women using the same tactic also brought the Iriqouis internecine wars to an end in the 17th century, allowing the nations to unite and mount some proper opposition to the European invaders who the women had, quite correctly, identified as the real enemy to their society much more astutely than the men obviously had.

So I don't believe women in revolutionary France "forgot" about their own rights necessarily, but had simply struggled as women in many other societies and times also had in how best to express their grievances and go about addressing them. Society did not make this process easy for them, and though that period did in fact produce some radical women's political initiatives they fell short of being effective at the time in bringing about fundamental change to address traditional sexual disparity. In the meantime, as ever, the same women had a small matter of life to get on with, and fulfilling a role in society which by its very nature made organised opposition to disparity very difficult, if not actually impossible for the vast majority.

lennea425 wrote:

Hello,
I have been wondering for some time, why women have never organised rebellion against men?. until the 19th century, they were not interested in their rights.
It's strange because  every oppressed should finally rebel.During the French Revolution, they shouted the slogans of freedom and when the declaration was finally written
they forgot about their rights for themselves. Why they couldn't organise revolt?

Lennea,

first of all welcome to the boards. And your example about the French Revolution is right. The "égalité" for the women was soon forgotten and under Napoleon...And as I remember it well from the following documentary (that I saw yesterday from Arte in French but you can also have it in German, if you understand one of these languages) The French had only the women voting right in 1948 as I am sure it was also 1948 in Belgium. But voting right is one thing, if the in the society embedded customs aren't changed...
As I read it the emancipatiion movement started in France and was exported to the US and then came back to Britain. But there it gained real attention with Parkhurst and all...
The documentary:
https://www.arte.tv/fr/videos/073405-012-A/points-de-reperes/


In the hunter/gatherer culture there seemed to be more equality between men and women, it became only men dominated with the agricultural revolution and the start of the city states as Ur and others of the Sumerian civilisation.
During the Industrial Revolution there came perhaps more equality between men and women of the "slaves" in the industry as they were mostly alike in their misery. But in the liberal bourgeoisie it was all as before in the time of the nobilty...

Lennea, I will verify my statements and elaborate a more expanded answer independent from the documentary in French or in German, but for the moment involved in a thread on a French forum about the French Saxon shore and the Flemish plain from the Roman till the 12th century together with an equivalent on the American Historum. If you have patience...

Kind regards from Paul.

nordmann, said it as usual that much better in his elegant style and by reading it, it remembered me  at an item still present in my time in Belgium. And my mother, nearly a suffragette, was still angry about it, I think in the Fifties. About some prerogatives of the man in a inheritance...still not the same rights in the Fifties as the man. If I have time I elaborate further on this matter.

And, as I think nordmann said, it is not that easy to resist to customs embedded during centuries into the society...look at the Islam countries, and even India, not to speak about the so called secular Chinese society....

Kind regards, Paul.

Welcome Iennea.

nordmann, weren't women reasonably emancipated in Ireland when over in Blighty we were going through the Dark Ages?  Not that I'm an expert, I just seem to have a vague memory the back of my mind - but then history gets 'revised' so often these days ideas might have changed.

I am wondering if the lack of long history might be the reason why New Zealand/Aotearoa was so early getting women the vote (the first country in the world, though some people quibble over the word 'country' in that NZ was still a dominion. I think).  

People in the early colony were very proud to be setting up apart from Britain and determined to bring the good things of that country and lay aside the bad.  ie the inequalities, the class system, the poverty. etc.  To that end they succeeded quite well for a long time, though in recent decades we have increasing inequality and poverty, though still not the class system.

lennea425 wrote:

nordmann- It's pretty depressive because leads to conclusion that women have no ambitions. Today or these days. I think men would never let to somebody take their rights , women were too passive. Saudi arabia is best example that women are... weak or cant organise antything. Maybe its because islam religion i dont know

I think men allow people "take their rights" all the time, in many different ways and in many different political scenarios, including in Saudi Arabia (one might even say especially in that particular example). In fact if they didn't then it would be very difficult to identify "rights" at all.

You have to be careful not to present a false dichotomy when it comes to the sexes and rights. Both women and men have traditionally excelled in identifying their so-called differences while failing to agree what constitutes common rights, and this I believe is simply proof that biology trumps logic and intelligence. You can choose to interpret this as a weakness on women's part and no one can gainsay this based on historical evidence, but in fact it is not a claim that survives analysis, no more than an equal claim that men are "stupid" or "evil" would hold any water based on the same premise. Or put another way, one could equally argue that men's power as expressed traditionally through dictatorships etc (as you have done) pales into insignificance when compared to the power wielded by the hand that rocks the cradle - in which case one has to wonder why women still have a grievance in this respect at all. It's all simply bad analysis, starting from a bad assumption, I reckon.

If it's depressive, as you say, it's because you innately know that this power you ascribe to men to identify and claim their "rights" is not one that is actually evidenced by their behaviour historically, and in fact history is nothing less than the written record of their failure in this regard, a very depressing thing indeed if that's as far as you are prepared to go in your analysis of history. Women of course share in this failure, after all we are essentially discussing human behaviour here and not one that can so readily be ascribed a gender role or characteristic, so any general human failure is one equally shared by both sexes - it's an unavoidable conclusion, as Saudi Arabia exemplifies (a society working to the detriment of both sexes while it works to the good of a very particular and extremely small ruling elite in whose ranks one can readily see that the few beneficiaries are both men and women, even if the thing is steered primarily by the male contingent). In my opinion you are quite correct to deduce that women have traditionally held less political power in as much as power itself has been defined by men, but it doesn't take too much mental agility to reverse that definition and see that the opposite interpretation also holds true. That's the problem with false dichotomies.

LadyinRetirement wrote:

Welcome Iennea.

nordmann, weren't women reasonably emancipated in Ireland when over in Blighty we were going through the Dark Ages?  Not that I'm an expert, I just seem to have a vague memory the back of my mind - but then history gets 'revised' so often these days ideas might have changed.

Under ancient Breton Law women enjoyed more rights and guaranteed social status than later certainly prevailed under British rule. However it would be unfair to infer from this that it was the "British" who dismantled that system. They were certainly present and in total charge when it was finally replaced, and enacted the laws that finally ended any vestige of the old Breton statutes and courts, but the dismantling had already effectively been completed under the influence of the Christian church as it flexed its political muscles over several centuries prior to this. When it comes to women's status it is often the case that law simply confirms what religion has dictated over the years - lennea is quite correct to point the finger at Islam in relation to Saudi Arabia for example, a situation where religion there has become the "enabler" of quite disgusting legislation indeed.

However benignly one may choose personally to interpret any faith and afford it the benefit of the doubt with regard to ulterior motives it is undeniable that religion ultimately will always willingly provide highly dubious moral justification for even the most draconian and cruel political systems when such is deemed required, and historically has even been quite proactive in instigating such repression of civil liberties as it deemed offensive to its core principles. With men traditionally deciding also what constitutes compliance with a faith's behavioural demands it is unavoidable therefore that some of this repression is inevitably targeted specifically against women. In the case of Breton law the Christian church identified a major discrepancy between how it required women to function within society and what the law in fact allowed them to achieve with regard to status and power. From the moment when it insinuated itself ex-monastica into the body politic in Ireland it actively attacked those laws that it most abhorred, the right to initiate a divorce and the right to own substantial property being top of its agenda and the first to be removed.

There are probably many men who might disagree with you about them wishing to avoid "feminine" emotions, attitudes and roles - it has become rather common these days for many men to at least partly assume aspects of such behaviour in the full knowledge that it was previously regarded as effeminate and "unmanly" but who now in fact embrace this as a plus, not a minus. Your other point I agree with completely however - women's measure of "success" in terms of status and performance is still all too often in emulating traditional male values and behaviour, and though this may appear to be simply the same as that which the men mentioned above are doing, in fact it isn't. The crucial difference is that in emulating these "manly" attitudes and roles they are often actually contributing to preserving the very system that excludes so many of their sex from an equal chance of progressing in life according to their own wishes and skills and with proper equality of opportunity as males.

The general global trend would appear to be slowly veering towards a society in which the old distinctions just won't apply anymore. Economic conditions which are clearly observable as already in development may in fact, sooner than we might once have assumed or can ever be truly ready for, dictate an abandonment of many of the old role-based assumptions regarding work (this re-evaluation of role and gender is a process that seems to be well underway already in fact) and in the wake of this change will come several more, I reckon, which will also fundamentally change how we all perceive our status and role in life, sex-based or not.

History suggests that great change more often than not requires a combination of trauma and critical mass to eventually trigger it into effect. I see nothing in the news in recent years to dissuade me from the notion that we are all globally heading towards such a major sea change this time round too. And I imagine once this has been endured and survived many of the present sex-based assumptions and traditional roles (along with much that we take for granted as being innately "human nature" and hard-wired into our character but in fact are learned patterns of thought and behaviour) will simply appear in retrospect as quaintly ludicrous to those still left here to progress the race. Scary stuff, I know, but in evolutionary terms at least going in the right direction.

nordmann wrote:

There are probably many men who might disagree with you about them wishing to avoid "feminine" emotions, attitudes and roles - it has become rather common these days for many men to at least partly assume aspects of such behaviour in the full knowledge that it was previously regarded as effeminate and "unmanly" but who now in fact embrace this as a plus, not a minus. Your other point I agree with completely however - women's measure of "success" in terms of status and performance is still all too often in emulating traditional male values and behaviour, and though this may appear to be simply the same as that which the men mentioned above are doing, in fact it isn't. The crucial difference is that in emulating these "manly" attitudes and roles they are often actually contributing to preserving the very system that excludes so many of their sex from an equal chance of progressing in life according to their own wishes and skills and with proper equality of opportunity as males.

The general global trend would appear to be slowly veering towards a society in which the old distinctions just won't apply anymore. Economic conditions which are clearly observable as already in development may in fact, sooner than we might once have assumed or can ever be truly ready for, dictate an abandonment of many of the old role-based assumptions regarding work (this re-evaluation of role and gender is a process that seems to be well underway already in fact) and in the wake of this change will come several more, I reckon, which will also fundamentally change how we all perceive our status and role in life, sex-based or not.

History suggests that great change more often than not requires a combination of trauma and critical mass to eventually trigger it into effect. I see nothing in the news in recent years to dissuade me from the notion that we are all globally heading towards such a major sea change this time round too. And I imagine once this has been endured and survived many of the present sex-based assumptions and traditional roles (along with much that we take for granted as being innately "human nature" and hard-wired into our character but in fact are learned patterns of thought and behaviour) will simply appear in retrospect as quaintly ludicrous to those still left here to progress the race. Scary stuff, I know, but in evolutionary terms at least going in the right direction.

nordmann,

thanks for this great message and I fully agree with your two last paragraphs, especially the last one:
"History suggests that great change more often than not requires a combination of trauma and critical mass to eventually trigger it into effect. I see nothing in the news in recent years to dissuade me from the notion that we are all globally heading towards such a major sea change this time round too. And I imagine once this has been endured and survived many of the present sex-based assumptions and traditional roles (along with much that we take for granted as being innately "human nature" and hard-wired into our character but in fact are learned patterns of thought and behaviour) will simply appear in retrospect as quaintly ludicrous to those still left here to progress the race. Scary stuff, I know, but in evolutionary terms at least going in the right direction."

I myself this year 75 has seen in the last 50 years the start of this fundamental and nearly in an acceleration asymtotic evolution. Not that I am with my 75 afraid of it and I hope that the so-called third world don't stay behind as I am not only for all humans alike in sexual and behavioural status, but also this equality spread over the whole world likewise.

Kind regards from Paul.

lennea425 wrote:

Great summary. I also hope that someday we wont be slaves of tradition stereotypes and instincts. Women and Men are something more than animals which have to fight  for domination. Thanks for discussion.

Lennea,

I mentioned in one of my messages the status of women in India and the secular nowadays China as still not the same as in the "West".
Did some research this evening, but overhere nearing midnight I will comment tomorrow. But already the links to read:
https://qrius.com/social-feminist-movements/
https://qrius.com/about-us/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_India
http://vc.bridgew.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1522&context=jiws

Kind regards from Paul.

Addendum to the previous.

Lennea, and about the paper on China from the Bridgewater State University:
https://www.bridgew.edu/

Lennea,

about China my interest started some 50 years ago by reading the book "The crippled tree" from Han Suyin.
https://www.amazon.com/Crippled-Tree-China-Autobiography-History/dp/0586038361
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Suyin

This is the first of her autobiographical books and there she describes the struggle of her Belgian mother, Marguerite Denis (family from the Denis, who did, if I recall it well, documentaries about wildlife for the BBC) married in Belgium to a Chinese railway engineer. Struggle as a stepdaughter in a traditional bourgeoisie family of the start of the 20th century, still with all the patriarchal oddities of that time.
I only want to explain to you how difficult it was for women to go against traditional customs which were imbedded in that society, inlcuding the binding of the feet. Girls were from the early childhood indoctrinated in the customs of the society and were that accustomed to it that they had not the thoughts to react. And then came in Marguerite from the Antwerp-Brussels French speaking Liberal bourgeoisie, which was already free-fought and anticlerical.
No, customs not so easy to eradicate, especially when there is a religious background in it.
For instance the one child Communist policy...the still predominant patriarchal male tendencies to have a son and not a girl...the girls aborted...and now an inequilibrium between the sexes: more males and not enough females...
And before I end on this Chinese chapter an example from the Church-political connection in nowadays Croatia:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-43528212

Kind regards from Paul.

Lennea,

about India: an in my eyes, up to what I have read up to now, a fair review of the status of women in nowadays India. And if I understand it well from an Indian source...
https://www.mapsofindia.com/culture/indian-women.html
And the source:
https://www.mapsofindia.com/
And again it seems so difficult to change customs embedded in society...

Kind regards, Paul.

Lennea,

I said in my first reply that hunter-gatherers were more egalitarian in the sexes and that the male dominance only started in the agricultural societies.
It are all more recent studies, which confirm that statement, but here I found some, but the internet has many examples of the same theory:
http://www.paleoanthro.org/static/journal/content/PA20080091.pdf
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/may/14/early-men-women-equal-scientists


Kind regards from Paul.

And reading all my stuff that I "gathered" on internet till now (I had some ideas from former learning too however ) I am more and more persuaded that societal customs were very hard to get extinguished. It was only by shock waves and revolutions that real change came.
The several constituting branches of society were so blended in with their roles that nobody thought to change it.
It was only in times of upheaval and revolution that things could change and many times there was a counteraction from the establishement to return to the old order.
For example:
The three medieval orders:
http://www.unc.edu/courses/2007spring/hist/151/007/Outlines/13.MedievalSociety.htm
And everybody, as they were  used to it, didn't revolt except in some rare occasions as the agricultural revolt, the name escapes me...when Adam spaded? and Eva spun, where was then the rich Baron ...we learned it at school some 60 years ago: "toen Adam spitte and Eva spon, waar was dan de rijke Baron"...but today nothing found on the World Wide Web...nothing in Dutch, nothing in English...perhaps on the dark web...or the deep web...
But then came the tension about all this with the Enlightenment and the Liberal Bourgeois revolution...followed by the revolt of the Socialist ideas...

Kind regards from Paul.

Addendum to the previous.

You know me...had to seek it about that Adam and Eva and at the end found it...
http://spartacus-educational.com/Lollards.htm
http://spartacus-educational.com/Wat_Tyler.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ball_(priest)

From the wiki:
"When Adam dalf, and Eve span, who was thanne a gentilman? From the beginning all men were created equal by nature, and that servitude had been introduced by the unjust and evil oppression of men, against the will of God, who, if it had pleased Him to create serfs, surely in the beginning of the world would have appointed who should be a serf and who a lord" and Ball ended by recommending "uprooting the tares that are accustomed to destroy the grain; first killing the great lords of the realm, then slaying the lawyers, justices and jurors, and finally rooting out everyone whom they knew to be harmful to the community in future."

Kind regards, Paul.

I wonder if anyone has watched the 2017 Sofia Coppola version of "The Beguiled" (starring Nicole Kidman) - a remake of the 1971 Don Siegel film, which starred Clint Eastwood? The earlier film, according to its male director, deals with "the themes of sex, violence and vengeance" and was based around the Freudian concept of, as Siegel put it, "the basic desire of women to castrate men". The disturbing story is particularly relevant at the moment in the wake of all the angry and vengeful "MeToo" campaigns, just as the timing of Siegel's presentation was significant, coning as it did just as the Women's Movement was gaining power in the early 70s.

I'm reading the novel on which both films were based - "The Beguiled" by Thomas Cullinan. Deeply disturbing stuff - but worth reading, just as both films are worth watching - and relevant to this thread, I think. No review I have read has considered the title of the novel: surely Cullinan (an American of Irish descent and a lapsed Catholic) was thinking of the KJV wording of Eve's great excuse: "The serpent me beguiled, and I did eat"? But quite who is beguiling whom is not always clear; and man's fear of the female is, of course, an ancient story - as is women's fear of men.

It's worth having a look at what some of the great women thinkers of the 18th/19th centuries have to say on this subject. If I have time tomorrow, I'll dig out some George Eliot comments - always a cool and rational commentator. But Mary Wollstonecraft is the female writer to start with, of course. Any woman who dared take on the mighty Edmund Burke - she challenged him, "Quitting now the flowers of rhetoric, let us, Sir, reason together" - deserves respect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Vindication_of_the_Rights_of_Woman

Temperance wrote:

I wonder if anyone has watched the 2017 Sofia Coppola version of "The Beguiled" (starring Nicole Kidman) - a remake of the 1971 Don Siegel film, which starred Clint Eastwood? The earlier film, according to its male director, deals with "the themes of sex, violence and vengeance" and was based around the Freudian concept of, as Siegel put it, "the basic desire of women to castrate men". The disturbing story is particularly relevant at the moment in the wake of all the angry and vengeful "MeToo" campaigns, just as the timing of Siegel's presentation was significant, coning as it did just as the Women's Movement was gaining power in the early 70s.

I'm reading the novel on which both films were based - "The Beguiled" by Thomas Cullinan. Deeply disturbing stuff - but worth reading, just as both films are worth watching - and relevant to this thread, I think. No review I have read has considered the title of the novel: surely Cullinan (an American of Irish descent and a lapsed Catholic) was thinking of the KJV wording of Eve's great excuse: "The serpent me beguiled, and I did eat"? But quite who is beguiling whom is not always clear; and man's fear of the female is, of course, an ancient story - as is women's fear of men.

It's worth having a look at what some of the great women thinkers of the 18th/19th centuries have to say on this subject. If I have time tomorrow, I'll dig out some George Eliot comments - always a cool and rational commentator. But Mary Wollstonecraft is the female writer to start with, of course. Any woman who dared take on the mighty Edmund Burke - she challenged him, "Quitting now the flowers of rhetoric, let us, Sir, reason together" - deserves respect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Vindication_of_the_Rights_of_Woman

Temperance,


concerning your two first paragraphs...

I haven't seen both films. From Clint Eastwood I saw mostly the cowboy films...from the late sixties due to intensive work both during work and after work, I didn't look that much to films in the cinema or it has to be on rare occasions in the TV.
I wanted to let you watch again the Eastwood film for free, but it is all nowadays paying and if yu have a free one it is removed by the internet police...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beguiled_(1971_film)


My critique is that this is not a unique female situation, you can as good make a film turning around a group of men with the same scenario: Seven men turning around one woman and having the same interactions among themselves. In that I suppose men and women are alike. And I don't believe in the men's cameraderie, when it comes to the point of individual desires.
And it is only 38 in the ranking of the Clint Eastwood films... . But you haven't to believe always the general public...
About the remake of Sofia Coppola:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/beguiled-review-nicole-kidman-camp-delight-sofia-coppolas-lascivious/


Your last paragraph about Mary Wollstonecraft is much more interesting.
Although I have never heard about her, I read your wiki with great interest.
Yes, I was aware that the turmoil in France had a strong impact in Britain too. I read about the fear of the authorities that these ideas; which nearly in real time came over to England, would cause a revolution in Britain too. I did some research in the time for the same subject of the shadow of the French thoughts in England, for another forum, but don't recall it that well. If someone from Britain can enlighten me? Meles meles?

And yes, Mary could be called the forebearer of the things to come.
But there were already precendents in France too, as the intellectual women of the French "salons".

Kind regards from Paul.