( for   or for   )

Women say the darndest things:

The One Flaw In Women

Women have been denied dignity and equality
for most of human history :

1. 1776-1807 : New Jersey (right temporarily given to propertied women)
2. 1839 : Wyoming Territory
3. 1893 : Colorado
4. 1896 : Idaho, Utah
5. 1906 : Women granted the right to vote in Finland.
6. 1913 : Equal voting rights achieved by women in Norway.
7. 1917 : Women obtained the vote in the Netherlands and Russia.
8. 1918 : Women over 30 get to vote and sit in Parliament in the United Kingdom.
9. 1919 : Germany, Sweden, and Czechoslovakia gave women the vote.
10. 1920 : USA - almost a century of protest culminated in women's suffrage,
            passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
11. 1931 : Women get the vote in Spain.
12. 1932 : Brazil granted suffrage to women.
13. 1934 : Turkish women may vote in national elections.
14. 1941 : Suffrage in Indonesia.
15. 1945 : France,Italy, Japan, Vietnam extended the vote to women.
16. 1948 : Women received full suffrage in Israel, with the formation of the country.
17. late 1950s : The transfer from colonial to national rule created new constitutions that give women the right to vote in many countries.
18. 1953 : Mexican women won the right to vote.
19. 1961 : Paraguay granted voting rights to women. Women can now vote throughout Latin America.
20. 1963 : Women's suffrage granted in Iran.
21. 1966 : Jordan adds women's vote to its constitution.
22. 1971 : Switzerland finally gives in.
23. 2006 : Women in Kuwait allowed to vote .
24. In the 21st century, women in most of the other Arab gulf states are still being denied the right to vote.

Women who dared :

The women were innocent and defenseless.  And by the end of the night, they were barely alive.  Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 helpless women wrongly convicted of "obstructing sidewalk traffic."
        They beat Lucy Burn, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air.  They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold.  Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack.
        Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.  Thus unfolded the "Night of Terror" on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote.
        For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail.  Their food — all of it colorless slops — was infested with worms.
        HBO will be running a new movie, Iron Jawed Angel, periodically before releasing it on video and DVD. It is jarring to watch President Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized.  And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse.  Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave.  That didn't make her crazy.  The doctor admonished the men: "Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity."
        rockrivertimes.com/index.pl?cmd=viewstory&cat=4&id=7596

On Male Privilege

In 1990, Wellesley College professor Peggy McIntosh wrote an essay called "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack."  McIntosh observes that whites in the U.S.  are "taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group."  To illustrate these invisible systems, McIntosh wrote a list of 26 invisible privileges whites benefit from.
        As McIntosh points out, men also tend to be unaware of their own privileges as men.  In the spirit of McIntosh's essay, I thought I'd compile a list similar to McIntosh's, focusing on the invisible privileges benefiting men.
        Since I first compiled it, the list has been posted several times on internet discussion groups.  Very helpfully, many people have suggested additions to the checklist.  More commonly, of course, critics (usually, but not always, male) have pointed out men have disadvantages too – being drafted into the army, being expected to suppress emotions, and so on.  These are indeed bad things – but I never claimed that life for men is all ice cream sundaes.  Pointing out that men are privileged in no way denies that sometimes bad things happen to men.
        In the end, however, it is men and not women who make the most money; men and not women who dominate the government and the corporate boards; men and not women who dominate virtually all of the most powerful positions of society.  And it is women and not men who suffer the most from intimate violence and rape; who are the most likely to be poor; who are, on the whole, given the short end of patriarchy's stick.  As Marilyn Frye has argued, while men are harmed by patriarchy, women are oppressed by it.
        Several critics have also argued that the list somehow victimizes women.  I disagree; pointing out problems is not the same as perpetuating them.  It is not a "victimizing" position to fight against injustice; you can't fight injustice if we refuse to acknowledge it exists.

        An internet acquaintance of mine once wrote, "The first big privilege which whites, males, people in upper economic classes, the able bodied, the straight (I think one or two of those will cover most of us) can work to alleviate is the privilege to be oblivious to privilege." This checklist is, I hope, a step towards helping men to give up the "first big privilege."

The Male Privilege Checklist

1. My odds of being hired for a job, when competing against female applicants, are probably skewed in my favor.  The more prestigious the job, the larger the odds are skewed.
2. I can be confident that my co–workers won't think I got my job because of my sex – even though that might be true.
3. If I am never promoted, it's not because of my sex.
4. If I fail in my job or career, I can feel sure this won't be seen as a black mark against my entire sex's capabilities.
5. The odds of my encountering sexual harassment on the job are so low as to be negligible.
6. If I do the same task as a woman, and if the measurement is at all subjective, chances are people will think I did a better job.
7. If I'm a teen or adult, and if I can stay out of prison, my odds of being raped are so low as to be negligible.
8. I am not taught to fear walking alone after dark in average public spaces.
9. If I choose not to have children, my masculinity will not be called into question.
10. If I have children but do not provide primary care for them, my masculinity will not be called into question.
11. If I have children and provide primary care for them, I'll be praised for extraordinary parenting if I'm even marginally competent.
12. If I have children and pursue a career, no one will think I'm selfish for not staying at home.
13. If I seek political office, my relationship with my children, or who I hire to take care of them, will probably not be scrutinized by the press.
14. Chances are my elected representatives are mostly people of my own sex.  The more prestigious and powerful the elected position, the more likely this is to be true.
15. I can be somewhat sure that if I ask to see "the person in charge," I will face a person of my own sex.  The higher –up in the organization the person is, the surer I can be.
16. As a child, chances are I was encouraged to be more active and outgoing than my sisters.
17. As a child, I could choose from an almost infinite variety of children's media featuring positive, active, non –stereotyped heroes of my own sex.  I never had to look for it; male heroes were the default.
18. As a child, chances are I got more teacher attention than girls who raised their hands just as often.
19. If my day, week or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether or not it has sexist overtones.
20. I can turn on the television or glance at the front page of the newspaper and see people of my own sex widely represented, every day, without exception.
21. If I'm careless with my financial affairs it won't be attributed to my sex.
22. If I'm careless with my driving it won't be attributed to my sex.
23. I can speak in public to a large group without putting my sex on trial.
24. If I have sex with a lot of people, it won't make me an object of contempt or derision.
25. There are value –neutral clothing choices available to me; it is possible for me to choose clothing that doesn't send any particular message to the world.
26. My wardrobe and grooming are relatively cheap and consume little time.
27. If I buy a new car, chances are I'll be offered a better price than a woman buying the same car.
28. If I'm not conventionally attractive, the disadvantages are relatively small and easy to ignore.
29. I can be loud with no fear of being called a shrew.  I can be aggressive with no fear of being called a bitch.
30. I can ask for legal protection from violence that happens mostly to men without being seen as a selfish special interest, since that kind of violence is called "crime" and is a general social concern.  (Violence that happens mostly to women is usually called "domestic violence" or "acquaintance rape," and is seen as a special interest issue.)
31. I can be confident that the ordinary language of day –to –day existence will always include my sex.  "All men are created equal…," mailman, chairman, freshman, he.
32. My ability to make important decisions and my capability in general will never be questioned depending on what time of the month it is.
33. I will never be expected to change my name upon marriage or questioned if i don't change my name.
34. The decision to hire me will never be based on assumptions about whether or not I might choose to have a family sometime soon.
35. Every major religion in the world is led primarily by people of my own sex.  Even God, in most major religions, is usually pictured as being male.
36. Most major religions argue that I should be the head of my household, while my wife and children should be subservient to me.
37. If I have a wife or girlfriend, chances are we'll divide up household chores so that she does most of the labor, and in particular the most repetitive and unrewarding tasks.
38. If I have children with a wife or girlfriend, chances are she'll do most of the childrearing, and in particular the most dirty, repetitive and unrewarding parts of childrearing.
39. If I have children with a wife or girlfriend, and it turns out that one of us needs to make career sacrifices to raise the kids, chances are we'll both assume the career sacrificed should be hers. 
40. Magazines, billboards, television, movies, pornography, and virtually all of media is filled with images of scantily –clad women intended to appeal to me sexually.  Such images of men exist, but are much rarer.
41. I am not expected to spend my entire life 20 – 40 pounds underweight.
42. If I am heterosexual, it's incredibly unlikely that I'll ever be beaten up by a spouse or lover.
43. I have the privilege of being unaware of my male privilege.

Although he was a relatively liberal Democrat for his time (the 1890's), President Grover Cleveland had this conservative view of our subject:
        "Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote.  The relative positions to be assumed by man and woman in the working out of our civilization were assigned long ago by a higher intelligence than ours."

There are still many parts of the world where women are stripped of their basic human rights. For example, in Nepal, women are considered "unclean" during childbirth and consigned to the cowshed - often cutting their own umbilical cords with a sickle still dirty from farm work. The result is one of the highest rates of maternal mortality on earth.

• Women constitute 75% of the poorest people in the world today.
• Women produce half the world's food, but own only 1% of its farmland.
• Two-thirds of illiterate adults are women.

Here's a valuable site that is recommended by one of my many online friends:

See the impact that the teaching of Jesus himself
have had on the treatment of women

See the remarkably liberal views of Jesus of Nazareth, in contrast to the conservative views of the "saint" whom I call "Bad-news Paul". His Epistles, not the Gospels, is where "conservative Christians" have gotten support for their backward views on so many things over the centuries, including women.

Take it from Stephen;
there is much more where
this came from, at my
website

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If ever you are moved to critique,
support, or enlighten me,
here's the way to do it :

Rayosun@IToldYouSo.info