I'm old enough to remember that the married career woman was not a very common thing. She stayed at home with the kids regardless of her ambitions.
And in case the husband decides to ride off into the sunset with his slut secretary or the slut baby-sitter who are then going to benefit from his income, leaving the careerless wife behind with the screaming brats, then it makes sense to me that the wife says "now wait just a minute!"
And that was just the 20th century.
How did it work in the 1400s? I could imagine that the man had the right to kick his disobedient wife to the curb, which was basically a death sentence.
And you're assuming he had a secretary.
In earlier eras, women were kept in the home to protect her (and the progeny) not to "oppress" her -- even though many of them probably
felt oppressed because life sucked for everybody who wasn't rich, male or female.
Many of the 19th century feminist authors who were so prominent were actually well-to-do women, often supported by their fathers and husbands, writing from their perfumed parlors about the lives of drudgery of working class woman about whom they knew little -- with no discussion of love, the welfare of children, nor the lives of
even greater drudgery their husband faced as he went off to often horrible jobs in order to bring home the meager cash to support that family.
The way the feminists wrote about it, then and now, you'd think these working-class men all had Fortune 500 CEO jobs where they were bending those secretaries over their desks, drinking their lunches, carousing openly, and then came home -- if he came home at all -- to beat and rape his enslaved wife at his leisure.
Again, this wife-in-the-house dynamic was to protect not oppress her, even though some women wanted no part of that set-up -- and more power to her. But the men were not exactly living the Life of Reilly, misrepresentations notwithstanding.
The feminists still spin the story that women in the States couldn't possess a credit card until the early-'70s which hadn't been co-signed by her father (if she was single) or her husband (if she was married). This is one of many examples of how the system was suppressing her, engaging in and encouraging her "economic abuse." What they don't tell you is that the husband and father was financially responsible for her purchases and debts, and she could easily put him in the poor house (which sometimes happened). The laws were changed -- with the encouragement from the credit card companies -- so that women could finally have their own cards (with Dad and Hubby finally off the hook) which was the beginning of the surge in credit card debt (where the banks really make their money) because someone figured out that 85% of the consumer dollars are spent by women (and they weren't just buying groceries and diapers). It would be a windfall profit to the bankers. And was.
The 77% wage gap is a myth, and completely debunked by reputable economists. If women make less, it's due to her choice of work hours and choice of careers. But if you take the hourly salary at the same job, there is
zero wage gap. In fact, there's some evidence that she might make slightly more, at the same job and the same hours, because of -- you know -- politics.
The feminist narrative isn't sacrosanct. In fact, they lie about the history, and the details of that history, all the time.
Many people are unaware that many women across America had the right to vote, at least locally, before many men did. As men's right to vote for decades was held hostage due to wage and property issues (how much money he had). But the layers of those stories are selectively un-interesting to the feminists.
In fact, a popular slogan in the late-19th century was "votes for women, chastity for men."
As an aside, even the temperance movement (which ushered in prohibition) was headed up by women, teaming up with the religious figures and politicians of the era, the real reason for which was to close the pubs and bars so the menfolk would have no place to go to unwind after work and before going home to the fam. If he wasn't dominated by his boss, he had to go right back to her. Pronto.
Who's really exploiting whom? Arguments could be made for different culprits.
If I was a woman,
I'd certainly want financial independence, especially if the marriage goes south. But by rigging the system to push more and more money in to her hands, by women in the work force in greater numbers than ever, with divorce courts (the only courts in the land which are profit-driven) deciding in her favor almost 90% of the time, with two-thirds of college students now girls who are saddled with a lifetime of student debt just to obtain her gender studies degree, and women receiving the majority of the government entitlements (as compared to men), women's tendencies to spend 85% of those consumer dollars just has the effect of re-routing the working class resources up to the
real patriarchy who own the top corporations (and whose privilege doesn't flow down to the men at the bottom).
Not to get all conspiratorial or whatever.
And Gloria Steinem was, once self-admitted, a CIA asset.
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