How feminism has affected many women related to myself personally:
Given one a means to nurture and protect hundreds through a social work career, rather than being left with no substantial way to protect even herself and her own daughters, if she had remained a powerless domestic worker/homemaker/agricultural laborer.
Protect them from what?
Given one the opportunity to become deeply read and trained in several disciplines and physically fit, rather than a barely-literate, insecure prostitute, beggar or at best live-in, underpaid, hungry domestic.
Why do you think she would have ended up this way? That seems a classic either/or fallacy, to say that if she wasn’t this, she must have ended up this way. In fact, women were very well cared for in many historical patriarchal civilizations, though they received less rights than men. In the Puritan communities in America, for instance, or in Ching China before the Communist feminist movement, local village councils or community leaders would assemble to protect women who were severely abused.
Also, lack of rights has not always made women unhappy. Some men would feel happier if they were living under a monarchy (me, for instance), which would cut off a lot of my rights right now. My mother submits to her husband’s leadership in the household, though she has a great deal of influence too, and the pair of them work as a team. My Mom serves as a support for him, though. They love each other dearly and my mother is extremely happy with the situation.
Given two the opportunity to see the world, rather than being stuck where they were born, perhaps in an orphanage, perhaps in a reformatory as “in need of supervision” for coming into the world at a difficult time etc.
Many women were enabled to see the world during the Enlightenment, when their husbands would sail with them overseas. Missionaries often took their wives with them. The British army often even brought along their women and children
. If men were in the navy or were sailors, it’s true that their women couldn’t usually come with them on voyages. Kind of logical, really, if you ask me, considering the conditions of those trips. But feminism has not created the ability of women to travel.
Given one the opportunity to learn about and enjoy music.
Women have been involved in music since ancient days. You can see it in the ancient Israel, in Biblical accounts, and it has existed throughout history among women in many cultures. Including patriarchal ones. This is not a new thing feminism created.
Enabled several to escape dangerous men, possibly saving their lives.
That is good . . . but I know that in many historical patriarchal societies, there were safeguards. Perhaps not as good of safeguards as there are in modern societies, though considering the rate of rapes in the US, I have doubts about this
. The number of women being raped in the US is stunningly high. It’s shockingly horrible.
Allowed most to deal with men as human beings with minds, and be related to the same way, rather than women as conquests for the men, men as starvation-deflection shields for the women.
It is true that historical views of women in patriarchal societies could often be very condescending. That is a stereotype of those eras, though.
Enabled them to treat other women as allies and interesting people rather than as rivals for said starvation-deflectors.
This is not historical. Women in historical patriarchal eras had very good relationships with one another, most of the time. This isn’t true at all of the wife/mother-in-law relationships in historical patriarchal societies in China, though. Those relationships were awful and very abusive, almost all the time. In Europe, though, during the Medieval Ages, women and men often had very good relationships in villages and small communities. And women were generally contented with their lot, I think, because they believed that their condition was God’s will and thus were satisfied. My grandmother doesn’t think women should be in the work place. She is very happy with that view- in fact, she is a woman that is full of joy all the time. I wish you could know her, so you could have a firsthand knowledge of the truth of what I’m saying. But to me, this proves that women who grow up believing that their condition is right and ordered in the way it is according to God’s will, they can be very, very happy with it. Expectations and beliefs about right and wrong make a big difference. When women believe they should have the same place as men, they become unhappy and angry when they lack it, often. If they believe that they shouldn’t have the same place as men, then they’re happy without it.
Just like I might be happy without premarital sex because I don’t believe I should have it, but if I believed I was being restricted from having it by other people when I should be allowed it, I would become angry and dissatisfied. It makes a big difference what our expectations and beliefs are.
). Political strength for women has greatly increased as a direct result of feminism though, I agree.