Women and Their Equal Rights
Women are certainly a distinctive human group. Blacks are obviously a distinctive human group. So are American Indians, Chinese, the handicapped, gays, and so on. A human right is something which seems inherent to all humans. We live in an age where unrestricted activities of the human species is now threatening the survival of more species in this 6th evolutionary period of massive species extinction, which, left unattended, will kill a huge portion of our own species— but human rights have steadily been elevated to include more and more human sub groups. One huge human problem is ignored, but the other one marches forward.
From the beginning of human history on this planet, males have retained for themselves more human rights than females. There is no scientific evidence that males are smarter than females—in fact females have always had a longer life span than males since these figures have been recorded. Perhaps the fact that most males are physically stronger than females, in terms of muscle strength than females on the average, generated from the start the reality that males have more human rights than females. Of course we are not talking about physiological strength since women have always had longer average lifespans. So while men, on the average, can beat up physically on women—women, on the average, live longer than men. Some sort of tit for tat I guess. Did you know that Trump will give a tat for a tit? Well, that’s just rumor.
Most human subgroups tend to rally strongly as a group for more equal human rights. Early in history slaves were a a large human sub group. Slavery was a hard nut to crack since slave owners benefitted strongly from slave labor as well as receiving the psychological benefits of self importance achieved by slave owning. It was less than 200 hundred years ago when the U.S. Supreme Court declared that slaves were property and not entitled to any protection of their ‘human’ rights. What seems startling, at least to my insight, is that black men were given the right to vote about 75 years before women were given the right to vote. Women still do not have the ‘right’ to be priests in the Catholic Church, or the right to choose whom they marry in some countries, or the right to determine whether they will proceed with an abortion—if they feel incapable of being a good parent for varied reasons, or to be paid the same salary for the same job as men, or yet to be elected President in the U.S. It seems certain societies, including our own, have yet to feel women really have the right to be President. There is not any existing rule against a women being President, but no matter, it so far never happens. Why is this?
Most human sub groups stick together strongly when it comes to that particular human sub group gaining the same rights that other humans already have. But not the human sub group of females. This is a huge subgroup and if they collectively demanded all the rights that men have, they would certainly have all these rights. But they are never solidly in support of their own rights. A certain percentage of women always seem content to leave things as they are, admitting I guess, that they are not really the equal of men in certain respects. Not all women were behind the extended long term drive to achieve the right to vote. Most all other human subgroups are solidly behind their right to have the same human rights as others already have.
For example, more women vote than men in Presidential elections. Certainly this would enable a female to become President once in a while. Well, we have been through a lot of elections and there has yet to be a female President. Individually, through their own efforts, women have achieved a lot. There are now more females in college than males, more female doctors graduating from Medical School, and we even now have some female Corporate Presidents. But these are all things which individual females can achieve on their own. No female can achieve, through their own efforts, the right to become a priest. This, even though one of the arguments for not letting women have the right to vote was that women were better left to handle the things they were better equipped to handle, like raising kids, upholding moral values in a family, domestic housework, and so on. Wouldn’t that make them better candidates to be priests? Wouldn’t that make them ideal candidates to decide whether a pregnancy goes to termination? The poor human embryo—it has, in the eyes of many, a right to be born but after that, if it is born into a ghetto with only one parent, a crack head unemployed mother, well—tough, that is just the roll of the dice. This child is not by law, required to have good schools, good health care benefits, a safe environment in their formative years, good nutrition, employment opportunities in their community, and so on. I have often wondered, what would have been my destiny had I been born in a similar environment? I had, as a child, almost all the childhood diseases but I had good medical care. I was psychologically rather delicate and withdrawn, but there were always others to nurture me along to overcome such natural limitations. Yep, I inherited a lot of rights which other children just never had. When I taught there was a sign over my office desk that read “People build people”. Perhaps too many people spend too much time praying (often selfishly) instead of building others, especially the less fortunate.
Think about this: In the first Republican debate among 16 candidates seeking to become nominated for President there was only one female candidate on the stage and one candidate boldly admonished her by stating “No one is going to be elected President with a face like yours”. He is now the President, even though more women vote than men. Hard to figure. Imagine if the majority of voters were black, or hispanic, or gay, or handicapped, etc, whether we would still be waiting or have waited so long for one of them to become President? Of course not. Any subgroup who is a majority of the population is going to have all the rights anyone in that society has EXCEPT WOMEN. It seems like all women want equal rights but are really particular about which female is first to get such rights.
A lot of women seem to be satisfied with a more submissive role in life. They like the role of motherhood as a profession, letting men fight political battles, while they in more crude terms, enjoy being essentially restricted between the kitchen and the bedroom and minding the kids. That certainly is not against the law and shouldn’t be, so this is not unreasonable for them to personally prefer this. With rights become responsibilities. Our own society insists that prostitution should remain illegal, unless of course it is protected by a marriage license so that ‘gold diggers can practice their profession and become quite wealthy, even first lady. It gets a bit tricky, if someone can become extremely wealthy by being an actor/actress or professional athlete, why can’t someone who is especially attractive become wealthy via marriage and the sexual favors that come with it, even if it is just for a limited time, in which case they get awarded millions in a divorce. It certainly beats serving four years in Iraq or Afghanistan in the military. For that matter why can’t a female, or any one else, make a living via their sexual attractiveness? If I laugh here, it is because they already do this. The laws against prostitution are mostly enforced upon the less attractive in society who attempt to earn money or sex the hard way via the sexual needs of those who need to pay to satisfy such needs. Which is more difficult, spending several years in some God forsaken environment avoiding land mines, snipers, sudden unexpected assaults with modern day weapons of destruction, or routinely, for a few minutes, spreading your legs and “thinking of England”. One is a lot less likely to get post traumatic stress syndrome providing voluntary sexual or social favors than being a mercenary in modern day military adventures. In some respects, men have all the rights, but women are free to play the game on their own terms to become wealthy and contented on their own terms. Maybe it is just the less attractive women who need equal rights, like equal pay for equal work.
Some people feel women are more ‘mysterious’ than males, better adapted to making men play the role of fools so the female can achieve their end game. It is hard to generalize with women. We now know that when a female campaigns to be President, on the basis of it is time for us to have a female President, a good percentage of females will be the first to declare, “Yeah? Well it ain’t gonna be you?” Maybe females tend to personalize things more.
No one is less qualified than I to form conclusions about the nature of females. My specialty is to observe, see little tidbits here and there, ask unanswerable questions, see inequities, and ruffle mental feathers. It won’t be the first time someone says to me ‘What did you just say’? The nice thing about musings is that it is so unlike teaching a science class in which “These are the facts, learn them”, than a musing which can only hope to generate some ideas to ponder on the part of the reader and author. Of course not everyone cares to ponder/cogitate certain issues which are already comfortably assimilated into their often inherited cultural values. Someone once said to me, “You know what? You are a mental troublemaker.” Not always, especially these days. Sometimes I sits and thinks. Other times I just sits. Either way, on this last phase of life, I hope I can go gently down the stream, grateful for the good things that came my way along the path of life, and very forgetful of the bad things. So far, so good.
