Feminism (long)

Alternate Title: Feminism? (long)

Let’s go back in history for a second. Waaaay back. Not quite to the primordial soup, but almost. People who subscribe to the theory of evolution – many Americans don’t but most of the civilized world does – believe that for much of human history, the vast majority of it, we lived in a world which was harsh and unforgiving, in which the strength of men was needed to protect women and children from the elements and from predators. Men slew beasts, built shelter, and mastered fire. (Actually it doesn’t necessarily have to have been men who mastered fire, it could have been women, but we usually lump the mastery of fire along with the slaying of beasts and building of shelter and whatnot.) Later on men also mastered the art and science of farming, to which women may very well have contributed but it took a lot of muscle power to make it happen, so it was still very much a male-dominated type of work.