1.  EVOLUTION & the So-Called Patriarchal Oppression ⚡️ of American Women⚡️ 🕷 ⚡️

Politically Incorrect, Heretical Thoughts on the So-Called Oppression of American Women 

“The historical record and Victorian literature alike show women of ability with strong minds, not a few of whom wielded the power in the house. . . From the beginning, the settlement of the American continent had drawn heavily on women’s strength of body and mind, and their contributions gave them an authority in the home that was marveled at abroad and that they never lost.”  Jacques Barzun - From Dawn to Decadence

First:   Anne-Marie Slaughter – The Atlantic – July 2012  Excerpts from Why Women Still Can't Have It All  

"Although women as a group have made substantial gains in wages, educational attainment, and prestige over the past three decades, the economists Justin Wolfers and Betsey Stevenson have shown that women are less happy today than their predecessors were in 1972, both in absolute terms and relative to men.

                                                                This stamp issued in 1960

My Testament: 

To my observing eyes, the Texas women of my mid-20th century youth were not miserable – were not helpless victims – and were not lorded over by their “oppressive” husbands. 

So, brothers and sisters, friends and relatives, clueless cave-dwellers and big-city sophisticates -- I am here to tell you that the great, overarching post-60's feminist portrayal of pre-1960’s American women is profoundly distorted.  It is a false history having no interest in whole truth – but only in that part of the truth that advances an agenda –               

Which at its core has evolved from seeking parity with men

to the championing of women over men -- and the devaluation of masculinity. 

                               “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle”- Gloria Steinem

               "MEN AND RELIGION ARE WORTHLESS" - Bette Midler - June 2017

              Ben Shapiro - National Review

Speaking of men, did you know that in most human traits – intelligence, height,  etc. -- men have higher percentages at the extremes of a bell curve -- i.e. more geniuses, more morons; more peewees, more giants, etc.  As in a great many other mammalian species, evolution has selected for an “extreme” male. 

In order for him to (a) out-compete other males for females, (b) be able to protect his family from wolves, bears, marauding males, etc., and (c) go out into the wilderness and build shelter, fell trees, chop firewood, hunt down game, etc., etc., -- this creature was evolution-designed to be physically stronger, more aggressive, more willing to take risks

 and more capable of being violent -- than the female of the species. 

For females, because bearing, protecting, and providing for children was their prime directive, risk-taking was something evolution selected against.  A mama with vulnerable children is the most risk-averse creature on the planet – at least until she thinks her children are in immediate danger.

 Texas – circa 1945 - 1965

The primary inspiration for this essay is the great disconnect I more and more witness between how feminists portray “pre-women's-lib” females (i.e. pre-1965 -- henceforth referred to as “pre-libs”) -- versus what I eye-witnessed growing up in El Paso during the late 1940’s through the mid-60’s. 

I grew up in a very real world the Left now insists never existed (see "Unpleasantville - My Imaginary Childhood" elsewhere in this blog) -- an actual Norman Rockwell/Ozzie & Harriet-land.  It was a place where mothers in our upper-middle class circle did not pursue careers.  They pursued beautiful homes; they pursued great recipes; they pursued a great game of bridge; they pursued being great hostesses – but most of all -- they pursued families. 

A recent Niagara of longitudinal happiness studies all confirm that the most important element in a good life is close family and friendship ties — ties that bind.  Stephen Asma (NY Times, jan 2013)

                                                                         Dad brings home a new car

Most of these women in our circle were attractive and bright (my mother and many of her friends had graduated college – this in the late-1930’s and 40’s, no less) and had married professional men – lawyers, doctors, bankers, businessmen, army officers stationed at Fort Bliss, so they were -- one might say -- financially successful. 

The family was the center of their solar system, and for most women “careers” were only vague possibilities.  For pre-lib women the idea of being, say, a lawyer was much like how I feel about the idea of me becoming a movie director.  By that I mean that I suppose I might possibly be able to be a director, but I’m just not driven to pursue that objective -- at least not at the moment.

Unlike today, nowhere in mainstream America were there incessant drumbeats urging, luring, browbeating, insisting --

that happiness and fulfillment for women lay not with raising children, but with having a career. 

“No woman should be authorized to stay at home and raise her children. Women should not have that choice, precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one.”  Simone de Beauvoir

                                   "Ladies -- you should have a career!"

Families worked out their budgets on the basis of a single income and lived accordingly.  The homes in my neighborhood – built in the 1920’s and 30’s -- were far more modest than those that today’s equivalent doctors, lawyers, bankers, etc. typically own. 

(Many of the best movies of the 30’s through the 50’s had lead-actresses playing strong career women, and in those scripts I find neither stigmatization against -- nor cheerleading for -- working women.  There was, however, a nearly universal conviction underpinning the character of those fictional women: that if forced to choose, they would pick the family over the career. 

Also, nearly ALL movies of that period featured leading ladies who were every bit the match of the leading men. These thousands of strong and beautiful women give permanent testament against the malicious lies modern feminists tell about the "oppression" of pre-lib females.  There is no way millions of women would have weekly flocked to theaters had the male-female chemistry/dynamic not rung true.) 

It seemed to youthful me that these homemakers in our circle had a good thing going.  In fact, it seemed like they had it totally figured out.  They were fulfilling both their biological imperative and their ambitions – which were essentially one and the same.  Most had “help” – full or part-time maids -- which in El Paso was very affordable.   Their leisure time – when they had it – was spent planning or having or going to parties, luncheons, and charity events.  Regular church-going and church-related activities were also on the schedule. 

They belonged to the El Paso Garden Club, the El Paso Women’s Club (my grandmother was a president), the Junior League – and the El Paso Country Club, where they played golf and tennis and swam – and in particular, socialized.

Incidentally, what they were definitely not doing was endlessly driving their kids all over town to scheduled, structured activities.  After school and in summers, me and my pre-high school buds – we played!  Nothing much adult-organized except grade-school sports (football, basketball, baseball -- which only a few of us participated in), Little League and Scouting.

I remember once I went to see -- having no idea what the movie was about -- "The French Line" starring Jane Russell (I was eleven). Returning home, I recall my mother was somewhat shocked at me seeing such a racy flick.  In those days no one paid too much attention to when the start time of a movie was -- you just came in and stayed until "this is where I came in". 

And -- moms were often home and available when we needed them.

But -- were moms miserable?

So – back to oppressed women.

History Lesson:  Before the progressive Left could start plastering its “Howard Zinn-ish” carapace over genuine history, it first needed to establish what I call its two all-important “foundational rationales” – which basically went like this:  “Truth is subjective” and “History is written by the winners”.    

Once the Left gobble-swallowed down this self-crapped horse manure, it was ready to start -- with deepest sincerity and no guilt whatsoever -- semi-lying.  It could start writing half-truthed “attack-histories” on Western civilization, American history, and American life – not as things really were – but as they sort of were – as they would have had to be so as to justify and support -- yes – the agenda. 

So there you go – the post-modern emergence of supposedly "legitimate" history as bald-faced, unabashed propaganda.  Accordingly, feminist revisionist history rests largely on the bogus claim that women – prior to their fabulous “liberation” – were miserable -- miserable victims of the patriarchy.

                                                   Marriage License -- N. Rockwell 1955

Now, there have always been genuinely miserable women,

 "I'm miserable as hell and it's all because of men!"

but I shall argue here that they have always been a small minority – a wild guess might be 10 - 15% -- max.  (I’d guess the same percentage for miserable men.)  But when post-60’s feminism’s first wave of genuinely-miserable-women began writing books about their misery (or, as one writer put it, when Gloria Steinem invented oppression)

 they – and this is important – extrapolated their misery onto all women.  Then, gradually, other genuinely-miserable-women all over America sat up and said “Yes!  I’m miserable too!” And, they all agreed that surely this must be the norm.

Now the way things worked, the non-miserable women were too busy getting on with and even enjoying their lives and their families, etc.,

to want to write books about their lot in life – and the men were too busy struggling to support their families.    So the genuinely-miserable-women had the microphone all to themselves. 

And they began --  

"drowning our speaking

with shrieking and squeaking

in fifty different sharps and flats”.  (thanks Robert Browning)

"Lesbians participated in the women’s movement in greater numbers than their percentage in the general population." Feminists Who Changed America -- Barbara Love

But, I digress. 

The Miserables  simply could not tolerate the idea that there were some women who were not miserable, and so the Miserables set out to make non-miserable women grasp that -- in fact -- they were miserable – but just didn’t realize it.  Their consciousness had to be raised to the point where they could recognize how downtrodden and oppressed they really were.

This "logic", if followed, would lead to the conclusion that blacks should likewise be blind to white "domination".

This “logic” is reminiscent of the Catch-22 trap in the disastrous therapeutic “recovered memory abuse” craze that swept through American psychology in the 1980's – that if you were depressed and you couldn't remember being sexually abused, then that probably meant you actually had been sexually abused. 

“Please” said the therapist – “keep trying to remember how your father molested you!”  With radical feminists the logic was like -- “keep trying to grasp how much better men have it and -- how miserable you are.”

This feminist narrative – in a nut shell –

was/is that men, simply out of brute strength and selfishness, had treated women like dogs since Day 1.  Men had forever kept women out of elections, lawmaking, property-owning, bridge-building, bricklaying, etc., etc., etc!  Ergo -- the feminist’s bottom line: 

“Men have forced women into a miserable existence since the dawn of womankind."   (My suggested motto for NOW)

Now, this fem-narrative is all tunnel-vision true – like when you’re looking at someone’s face through a soda straw, that face can be accurately described as a nose. 

But, reader, before we can lay down our straws and see the “whole face” we must first come to grips with the most primal of truths – that like all animals, human beings evolved behaviors that were optimal for insuring the survival of the most offspring -- behaviors intended to insure the healthiest, strongest children; children who were likely to survive long enough to reproduce themselves. 

The age-old basic division of labor --

men doing the fighting, the heavy lifting, the hunting, etc. – and women tied to the home raising children – appears in virtually all cultures.  Evolution declared, eons ago: “that’s the way it’s s'posed to be”.  Actually, that’s the way it had to be until effective birth control arrived.

History Lesson:  In 15th century Europe records show that the average woman was

 pregnant 18 times.   Yes -- eighteen! 

(My mother's family tree lists her ancestor Edward Hale, who landed in the colonies in 1680, as having had 15 children.  Next in her line was Benjamin Hale, who had 11.)

In other words, like other mammals, the great majority of pre-lib women past puberty were saddled with continually birthing and raising children.  Only with the arrival of effective birth-control did humans separate from other mammals in this respect.

I would bet that you've watched many nature documentaries about mammals -- lions, deer, chimps, baboons, etc – and you've seen that all these species have their pecking orders – and those pecking orders are determined primarily by who can kick whose butt -- i.e. who can dominate who.  Early humans were no different – except that we eventually -- in the West -- got wise enough to recognize that there were other traits – thinking-related traits -- that were even more valuable than physical prowess. 

Nevertheless, the basic psychological “dance” between the male and the female is rooted in the recognition of both the imbalance of physical strength -- and the child-bearing female's need for protection.

Re Women & Happiness

Does anyone care to claim that Shakespeare’s bygone fictional world (or Tolstoy’s or Dickens’ or Austen’s or Steinbeck's)

was inhabited by loads of contented men and oppressed, miserable women?  Is that what can be read between the lines?  You’ll have to show me which lines. 

What I see in those marvelous literary worlds are all kinds of interesting men and women living the everyday lives of human beings; kind men and kind women, cruel men and cruel women – both sexes equally “human” --  both sexes experiencing lives filled with hard labor, holidays, sorrow, joy, war, weddings, births, deaths, celebrations – you name it. 

What I do not see is a preponderance of female “victims” in those pages.  Both sexes appear  to be at the mercy of their own biology, judgement, and luck.  Both sexes suffer, both sexes triumph.  But, to throw out a grenade, let me say this:

 I believe it likely that the women in those pre-liberation times were not only reasonably happy, but were quite possibly more content with their lives than are women today.  The reasons have to do with the acceptance of evolution's prescribed “roles” -- versus the pursuit of "having it all". 

 Female "Roles"

The Texas women I grew up with gave very little thought to their “roles” and whether or not they were fair or unfair.  Those homemaking roles had been clearly defined and accepted for hundreds and hundreds of years.

                                                                                              this stamp issued in October of 1964

Likewise, men did not question their ancient "breadwinner/warrior" roles:  their lot in life was to work very, very hard to protect and support their families. 

(And of course, among pre-lib women there were always mavericks who wanted to have a career and did not let societal norms hold them back.  The mother of one of my good friends graduated from Boston U. Med School in the late 1920s.) 

Significant discontent about roles typically arises when (a) environmental changes cause the roles to cease providing optimal or desired outcomes for a significant portion of the culture,  or (b) when the roles are forced into negative contrast with conflicting foreign cultural norms via, say, travel or television, or (c) when activists are successful in breeding dissatisfaction with those roles.

Two secretaries work in an office and both are equally happy with their jobs until one day one secretary learns that the other makes more money doing the same job.  Nothing physically has changed, yet now, burdened with this new information, one secretary is unhappy and resentful.  (I am not suggesting that such unequal pay is fair.)

It is the job of the "victimized group " activist to find – or manufacture – such discontent-breeding “information” and spread it; to walk about the countryside like Johnny Apple-screed, industriously and virtuously spreading disgruntlement.

“Did you know your brother got a much bigger and more delicious apple?”

For example, feminists never cease rolling out the “income disparity” between men and women, even though there have been for two decades very simple, powerful arguments as to why this shrinking discrepancy has little to do with employers cheating women, and much to do with women’s life-style choices – particularly choices having to do with career callings and with having children.  But such nuanced facts are irrelevant to the feminist activist.  Her job depends on creating and stoking female anger.

"The problem with the 77 percent statistic, calculated by the U.S. Census Bureau, is that it doesn’t compare the salaries of women and men in the same profession. Instead, it lumps all professions together. So, if high school teachers make less than congressmen (talk about something that ought to be fixed!), and there are more women who are teachers and more men in the U.S. Congress, then yes, the numbers will show that men make more than women. But if you compare the salary of a congresswoman to a congressman, guess what? They make the same."  Heritage Foundation – April 2014

The Law of Activist Avoidance of Victory:  Activists heavily invested in a cause will tend to minimize or deny progress in the achievement of their goals, despite any and all evidence to the contrary.      (See Prestwood's Laws elsewhere in the blog.)

Regarding Happiness In General

So, reader -- having nothing to do with whether you’re female or male, how happy are you? 

In the last two decades several acclaimed studies on the subject of “happiness” have given much insight into the nature of that emotion.  One such insight is that most individuals have a basic happiness quotient – call it “h” -- meaning they tend to be h-happy – or h-unhappy – regardless of the positive or negative changes in their environment. 

After a year, most lottery winners report themselves to be no happier than before they won.  If you are a generally happy person or a generally depressed person, you will tend to remain that way regardless of the normal day-to-day circumstances in your life.  (I emphasize “normal” versus times of war, plague, famine, and lawlessness.)

So . . .  The Law of Happiness Within Cultural Norms:  In any society -- as long as people's roles are clearly defined and coincide with that society’s approved cultural norms, the majority of people will be content with those roles.  They will tend to accept and enjoy day-to-day life – even though that life may be very hard -- and not necessarily fair.

Put another way, the genuinely-miserable "Betty Friedans" would likely be

 as miserable today   

 as they were as 1950’s housewives.  (In fact, today's feminist leaders seem to grow more and more incensed about women's lot in life.) 

The human personality is remarkably adaptable to environmental/cultural shifts once the shift is normalized and accepted as being “the-way-things-are”.  (This is why it is so exceedingly difficult to bring about change in dysfunctional cultures, even when such cultures are clearly in need of change.)

PART TWO:

Regarding the Battle of the Sexes -- The Evolution of “Femininity”

We are a species in which the males and females are of equal intelligence, but males have significantly greater physical strength and a significantly higher potential for aggression and violence.  That’s the “strategy” evolution selected for the human race.  Accordingly, women evolved behaviors to deal with a physically stronger and potentially more violent male – behaviors intended to level the playing field.   These behaviors evolved over tens of thousands of years, and were/are evolution’s preferred method of avoiding/adjudicating the so-called war between the sexes.

Female Strategy #1:  Never take the bull by the horns 

Trying to physically settle a dispute with a male was a losing and dangerous ploy.  So females became “toreros” – and good female toreros excel at manipulating males as gracefully as real toreros manipulate bulls.  Unfortunately, with the rise of militant post-60’s feminism, the Left has endeavored mightily – via movies and television – to portray women as being capable of successfully combating males in physical encounters (and to validate this behavior). 

(I recently saw this gawdawful Pink video “Raise Your Glass”.  What the hell is she thinking??  She struts around like some light-weight professional wrestler, sneering, grimacing and doing her best to portray what is possibly the ugliest manifestation of a female in the history of show biz.) 

Pink is obviously an advocate of masculinized women, and she clearly believes the primo way for females to gain “power” is to adopt the behavior of unsocialized macho male assholes.

Jeeesussss!  What a purely grotesque and destructive “role-model” to champion for young females.  Any girls following Pink’s example of how to deal with men are – I predict -- destined for a brutish, low-class, single-parent life -- if not the slammer.  This is progress?  This is what feminism has turned into??  Well, Pink thinks so. 

Unfortunately, Pink is not alone in this absurdity.  Many other pop divas and actresses also champion women adopting this physical macho behavior.  What makes this syndrome ultra-ironic is that these crusading fem-Pinks typically go home to their private lives and behave in a relatively normal fashion entirely divorced from the behavior they have just media-exhibited/sold to their fans. 

And -- they are in complete denial that their fake role-modeling, rather than actually empowering women, leads impressionable girls down a dead-end road to a brutish thugtopia --  a place the fem-Pinks would surely want their own children to avoid.  

Thus -- the great feminist thrust is just the opposite of "evolutionary-devised strategy #1".  The new credo is:   “Take the fucking bull by the horns and kick him in the balls and have him fired/arrested." 

Women are to behave as men would behave in confrontations.  Using feminine “wiles” is considered old-fashioned, even cowardly.  As mentioned above, in our movies and television dramas it has now become commonplace to see women in violent confrontations with men – and – wouldn’t you know it -- the women always win these bullshit battles.  

I have long noticed that in real-life serious confrontations there is a distinct line most men have regarding the type and amount of verbal abuse they will suffer before becoming violent.  I believe this Pink-style sneering, spit-in-your-face behavior is a guaranteed marvelous recipe for domestic violence – which I predict will increase directly proportional to how many women adopt such masculine stances in conflicts with men.  

This female "macho-power” campaign is a foolish mistake, and one that I believe society will come to deeply regret.  Normalizing, validating, and encouraging female physical violence is a horrible step backwards for civilization. 

Hollywood films of the 30’s through the 50’s offer a marvelous contradiction to the feminists’ oppressed-women narrative.  Serious aficionados of those movies cannot escape noticing how powerful -- yet feminine -- the leading ladies are.  Inevitably, they are the match of their leading men -- and their most violent act is an incensed slap. 

That scene is framed as though Oh’s brutal violence is an entirely acceptable response.  The screenwriter could have opted for a slap -- but that would not have fit the agenda:  women are encouraged to be as combative and ready to resort to  physical violence as men.  (The taboo against men hitting women, however, is supposed to remain in place.)

(FYI -- It seems to me that any female confronting a male with male-style behavior is opening the door to the distinct possibility of violence -- and any female initiating male-level physical violence upon a male  should expect retaliation in kind, and certainly not expect the protection of our ancient taboo against male-to-female violence.  Oh's character should have been immediately flattened.)

Female Strategy #2 – Accent your relative lack of strength -- and use the waterworks.  

Again, what was to be avoided was male physical violence.  The second major female strategy was to make it crystal clear that any physical fight between sexes would be grossly unfair.  To emphasize this, and to reinforce the taboo, women evolved behavioral strategies which emphasized their comparative physical weakness – such as crying, fainting, apparent frailty, and a willingness to openly express timidity and fear.  So – as much as feminists would prefer to believe otherwise, rather than men grooming women to be “fragile”, women engineered this diminution because it was a valuable ploy for manipulating/disarming males. 

However, now this “strategy” has also been abandoned.  The great feminist thrust is now just the opposite – to accent and glorify female physical strength.

 (Pink-ugly, again)

Thus their goal was to replace

Fairest elegance and grace

With "attitude" and "in your face".

Female Strategy # 3 -- Make the male feel that you need him;

that you can’t live without his protection

Men have been genetically programmed to respond deeply to being depended upon by their families.  And knowing he was successfully taking care of his dependent family  was often a man’s primary source of self-respect and satisfaction.  Men evolved that way because those men who cared deeply for, and were protective of, their families produced more surviving offspring.  Evolution selected for that trait, just as it selected for females who cared crazy-deeply about their children. 

And the truth is -- child-bearing women do need men.  I believe the greatest societal fraud of our era is the notion that children don’t need fathers.  It is THE big feminist lie, and one which – despite all evidence to the contrary -- they never tire of telling.

Again, however, adios to this old "need-you" strategy.  The thrust in feminism today is just the opposite – that women don't need men -- and neither do children.

Finally, Female Strategy #4 -- The Ace – Use your charm, softness, and grace -- i.e. your sex appeal -- to manipulate -- and civilize men  

                                                                                        "Would you lend a hand?"

And the number one weapon/manipulator was – you guessed it -- sex.  The females had it and the males would kill for it.  The proper use of this major ace was the great leveler of the playing field.  As with so many species, the males compete – and the females select.  Alas, many post-lib women have largely abandoned mastering the use of this ace -- a use largely connected to the selective withholding of sex until long-term, culturally enforced, commitments are made. 

History Lesson:  Because pregnancy was always a distinct possibility – pre-lib cultures had in place strong taboos against sex uncoupled from some form of marriage.  Having a child out of wedlock was considered a           shameful disgrace –

and a disaster -- for good reason.  The last thing a family needed was a daughter adding to its burdens by coming home impregnated by a male who would assume no responsibility for the nearly 2-decades-long trouble and expense of raising the child.  This out-of-wedlock child also greatly diminished the mother's chances of finding a suitable husband. 

The “pill” changed all that, opening up the door to casual sex having nothing whatsoever to do with marriage or children, and Western women began trickling, then streaming through that door.  Thus, it has come to pass that this “golden ace” has been devalued to the point of being irrelevant.  Both men and women now expect to have sex with whomever they’re seeing.  That’s the new-age norm.   Many women don't choose to commitment-manipulate men with sex because (a) they are able to avoid pregnancy and thus commitment has been devalued; (b) they've been taught that children don't need fathers and thus commitment has again been devalued, and (c) they believe they can get what they want -- material-wise -- without a male's help.

 So – it really is a Brave New World.  Women have fundamentally changed, and discarded the old strategies in this new paradigm. 

Regrettably, in this new-world-order, feminists expect men to be something entirely different as well -- different from their natural – evolutionary-selected-for selves -- to behave, as it were, unnaturally; to curtail their natural proclivity to be sexually aggressive -- unless given permission by the female.  Thus, the burgeoning Sexual Harassment industry has arisen to force males to "behave".

The pre-lib world was one in which women did their best to “civilize” men.  Using their manners, their grace, their softness, their sweetness, their wiles and guiles and sexuality – many a soft woman saved many a hard man.

Post-lib women have junked all that bullshit.  They now depend on the legal system to keep men in line.  Alas, our legal system is entirely incapable of civilizing anybody, and young males – or so it seems to me – are more and more jumping on board the jack-ass-hole train.

Some Final Observations

Women & “The Vote”

Brace yourself, unwitting lapdogs of feminist orthodoxy.  I am going to tell you why it was entirely reasonable that for eons women should have been excluded from all decision making having to do matters outside the home, including choosing tribal leaders -- i.e. voting. 

History Lesson:  For eons societies picked their leaders based on battle prowess and battle leadership – some still do.  The warrior/leader was the root of all monarchies, dynasties, dictatorships, and most other forms of government.

The Lakota Sioux, when urged by our government in the 19th century to make peace with other tribes, replied with the question:  Without war, how do we pick our leaders?  

It is essential to remember that men ventured “beyond the home” for their labor and their wars, while women were compelled stay very close to home, tied down by childbearing.  The modern idea that men should be obligated to consult their home-bound women as to who should be the next chief to lead them into battle (or for that matter, to consult them on, say, where and how to build a bridge) would have struck pre-20th century men as nonsensical, if not foolish to the point of being dangerous. 

In short, women were rarely acquainted with these and a myriad of other, non-domestic ways-of-the world -- not, I stress -- because men had determined to keep them ignorant, but because nature had, with few exceptions, locked women’s destinies into an embrace around their children.  Today, at least in the West, with effective birth control, biologically-driven sexism is in full retreat.  Although battles remain, they are of the “mopping up” variety.

The Bio-Logic Behind Unequal pay

Likewise, the old-fashioned reasons for paying a man more than a woman for the same job are rooted in factors having little to do with men simply wanting to “screw over” women.  This pay disparity was also directly tied to women’s eons-old “evolution-selected-for” family-bound roles.  

We must first remember that very few pre-20th Century marriageable women were able to opt out of having children – lots of children, and that the great majority of child-bearing women were supported by their husbands.  So . . . the thinking went more or less like this (and this was true during my childhood): 

Mister Smith will be paid $4,000/year to teach 4th grade, and Miss (or Mrs.) Jones will be paid $3,000/year for teaching 4th grade. 

The “Misters” will be paid more because generally they are supporting a family – while the women are not. 

As unfair as this discrepancy seems today, once upon a time -- when most males were supporting families, and the great majority of females were not -- this double standard was deemed reasonable by society.  (It was also assumed that a female employee had a high probability of becoming pregnant, and subsequently quitting.)  As women began to free themselves from their ancient child-bearing biological imperative, this pay disparity began to be – rightly – perceived as unfair – and since the 1970s had been outlawed.

To conclude this long and tedious essay, the point of all my blathering is simply to claim that women’s roles were not determined by male oppression so much as by the realities of pre-birth-control biology.  To restate my thesis: 

The roles of pre-1960’s males and females were dictated – not by male oppression, but by thousands of years of natural selection – selection intended to insure the survival of the most offspring.  Truly effective birth-control has now permanently altered those roles. 

Women may rejoice in their new freedoms and opportunities – but are wrong to malign males as historically malicious oppressors.  Pre-lib males were following their own ancient biological imperatives – imperatives just as natural to them, and in the right circumstances just as beneficial to the "tribe" -- as were the imperatives of motherhood for women.

No society can be ultimately be fruitful and reasonably content if activists are successful in pitting groups against each other -- particularly females against  males. 

 My wife and I -- 1984 -- three years before we were married

She's fixed in his mind like the picture he's kept in his wallet for years

And the image has never been tarnished by the blood, sweat, and tears