| | I sanctioned the work.
Almost 40 years ago, I heard Isaac Asimov speak on "The Coming Disappearance of Women." His topic was really the coming disappearance of social gender roles. He also quipped that he could have titled it, "The Coming Disappearance of Men" but no one would have showed up to hear about that. Asimov said that the greatest tool of women's liberation was the typewriter. For that, he was hissed and booed by some feminists in the audience. He continued, pointing out that the typewriter does not require physical strength, so it robs men of that advantage over women. The typewriter got women out of the home and liberated them from their traditional roles. Furthermore, a society based on technology rewards brains rather than muscles.
The intersection of socialism and women's liberation is interesting. Historically, liberationists tend to perceive from a wider perspective. Abolitionists, women's suffragists, and temperance activists mixed with socialists and libertarians. Obviously, these people held contradictory premises and conclusions. Not surprisingly, there were glaring inconsistencies. When Emma Goldman confronted Lenin on the issue of women's rights, he made his point by pouring a glass of water out the window. Several million murders later equal opportunity had more meaning within a soviet society that was desperate for food, as well as for industrial production.
Farming has always been an equal opportunity career. The 1950s television image of the housewife running a vacuum cleaner while wearing nice clothes (and decorated with a string of pearls) has no place on a farm. So, historically, before the industrial revolution, the question could never have come up, at least not widely. Every society allows some leisure and it is true that everyone decorates their artifacts. Even so, it is also true that academic presentations have been focused on male philosophers and artists (and of course generals and politicians). That may originate in the fact that universities were a function of the church before they were seized by secular philosophers of dubious merit. It is also true that anyone who cares to do more than sit in class and take notes has no problem discovering Aspasia, Hypatia, Hildegard von Bingen, or Clara Schumann. Only after the advent of capitalism, of course, do we actually get everyone off the farm, into the shops, factories, and laboratories -- and allow us all to do something different than countless generations did before us.
(On a different, but related topic, a capitalist cares more about the color of your money than the color of your skin.)
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