The big lie that made feminism possible

One of the biggest lies of the 20th century was that women have been oppressed by men throughout the whole of human history. Even some red pill men buy into The Narrative’s assertion that once upon a time women were unfairly treated, but due to social progress this has now changed. These red pill men need some education on the true nature of gender equality in years past.

I can see why society buys the lie. It’s all about context. When you look at what women’s lives were like in the past and view it in the context of the modern western world, things do indeed look unfair. This is where the problem lies though. To truly determine if women had a bad deal in the past you have to examine what their lives were like in the context of the times they lived in. You also have to compare it to the lives of the men who lived side by side with them back then. This is rarely done. The lie is essentially a lie by omission.

In order to see the truth we need context and comparison. Let’s start by looking at the context of the current western world, as this is the context in which women’s treatment is judged.

The most important point regarding the modern western world is what drives our existence. These are the forces impacting the choices we make every single day. These are the motivations that get us out of bed every day. It is what forms the nature of our lifestyles, and as such is fundamental to understanding the modern world.

In the modern world this motivation is self actualization. The motivating factor right at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. I think self actualization is somewhat of a grandiose term to describe this motivation, as for many it is more a fun seeking attitude somewhat akin to hedonism. This motivation manifests itself in various ways in modern society. Here’s a list of some example motivations that are all just concrete examples of this abstract motivation:

• Wanting to go travelling
• Wanting to be rich far beyond your needs
• Wanting to sleep with lots of different women
• Wanting to own luxury goods
• Wanting a job that makes you happy, rather than one the pays the bills

This motivation is in stark contrast to the primary motivators in the past. If you were alive not much more than 100 years ago in the West, unless you were part of a small rich elite, your motivation came down to one thing and one thing only. Survival. Day to day life was purely focused on keeping you and your family alive. You would have no time to worry about things relating to self actualization, such as those in the list above. You may occasionally dream of such things, but they are too far from your grasp to actually motivate you. Take a coal miner living in 1800s Britain. How much time do you think he spent wondering if his job was really what he was “meant for”, or whether it fulfilled him? If he didn’t do that job his family would be starving on the street, with only charitable institutions like the church to aid them. It was down the mine or nothing, so there wasn’t much to think about.This was mainly because they didn’t have the economic conditions nor the technology that allowed their survival needs to be taken care of without any real thought on their part like we do today.

Part of the way people went about fulfilling the primary motivator of keeping themselves and their family alive and well was to adopt gender roles and divide the labour. Back then raising the kids and keeping the home was a full time job. Unless you were one of the elite who could afford to outsource domestic work, one parent simply had to be a full time homemaker. Think how long taking care of the kids and home took without the aid of:

• Motorized transport
• Fridge
• Freezer
• Advanced telecommunications
• Vacuum cleaner
• Microwave
• Supermarkets
• Ready meals
• Washing machine
• Cheap off the shelf clothing
• Outsourced childcare

As I’m sure you can imagine, in times past homemaker was a full time job. It had to be, the technology wasn’t there for it to be anything but that. But weren’t women oppressed by the patriarchy and that’s why they were the homemakers instead of the men? Well, no. Back then the vast majority of all jobs were manual labour. In this job market physical strength increased your earning potential. It therefore made sense for men to be the ones to look for paid employment. You also have to realise that in this survival, as opposed to self actualization based context, women wouldn’t even think to themselves, “I wish I had a career”. It wouldn’t make sense.

There we have it. Society tells us women were oppressed by men because the men had the jobs while the women were barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. The truth is that the world was this way out of necessity rather than oppression. I wonder why women first started complaining about wanting careers and being oppressed when white collar work in safe, clean, air conditioned environments as opposed to manual labour in dirty, dangerous environments became the norm?

In a nutshell women weren’t oppressed in the past. We just had sensible gender roles which were suitable for the context in which they existed. It was male innovation which made it possible and desirable for women to enter the workforce en masse. As soon as this happened they entered the workforce. There was a little resistance at first due to it being a change in long standing tradition, but the resistance was fairly trivial.

This misconception is what has made feminism possible. Today’s women are evaluating women’s roles in the past in the modern context, and as such coming to the wrong conclusion about them being historically oppressed. Feminism capitalizes on this feeling of victimhood and uses it to garner support for it’s cause.

Next up I’ll talk about the effect feminism has had on society, and why it’s a bad thing.