Is the concept of gender equality merely a byproduct of our modern technology, a result of culture, or an objective truth?

[Drvladivostok]

By gender equality I'm not just talking about social and economic liberty from the two sexes, but gender roles in general, particularly female ones.

Is it a contribution of technological advancement which revolutionized our economic system or merely a result of a more 'enlightened' and 'mature' culture which has the ability to see pass discriminatory patriarchal views which has plagued most of society? or is it innate?

I mean, if you look at 99,9% of human history females have had quite limited freedom in comparison with their counterpart in most aspects in life, females generally don't/can't participate in politics throughout history and quite few examples there have been have been the political byproducts of their birthright as opposed to their merit, Cleopatra was the member of a royal dynasty, same with Zenobia, Boudica's Husband was the chief. This restriction of freedom also reached sexual aspects with the roman hypocritical definition of adultery only applying to females. Roman females can't have a last name!! It's true that some pre-modern societies seem to have reached a certain degree of equality like the spartan but then again they seem to be the exception, and gender roles is still consistently applied, females in history the majority of the time seem to be stuck at home as a midwife trying to safe her child from dying from another plague.

Gender roles in society seem to have been more lenient in the modern era, the vanilla narrative goes that with the advent of more affordable industrialized contraception, decrease dependency on manual labor, invention of the firearm, increased in wealth per capita, now females can have more options in life, this is superseded by the reversal in gender roles since one have to fill the blank, however this might not just affect females, for the majority of time humans have lived on earth poverty seem to be the default state of people, prior to the 19th century 81 percent of the world population lived in poverty (less than 1,90$/day), when john only works as a farmer jane can't be a lawyer.

But then again modern economic system hasn't abolished sexist cultures, maybe technological revolution is merely an enabler to break these conception that has squander a society for the majority of humanity's lives, so are people in pre-modern times sexists or are they just acting upon the most viable gender role system?

Regardless of the reason, is our idea of gender equality the most optimal one or is it just byproduct of our time?

Suppose that every complex technology disappears, after we have exhausted the little recourse we have left society is catapulted to medieval level lifestyle, would our idea of gender equality still be compatible, by the mere help of culture or do we have to reduce ourselves to degenerate sexism.

 

[Black Rose]

The primary means of getting what you want has been through force. Men can project force. As Civilization spread this continued until no wild tribes existed to resist and after WW2 we have been in stalemate proxy wars. It seems that technology cannot go away as long as we have cities. Men primarily have been restrained from force and so equality has happened.

 

[Cognisant]

Security is a factor but not a major one, anywhere that’s dangerous for women is generally dangerous for everyone and where it’s dangerous for women in particular (countries practicing sharia law or where there's a significant disparity of genders) that’s more a symptom of inequality than a cause.

I think the primary reason for increasing equality is the acceptance of women in the workforce, specifically as paid employees and employers as opposed to unpaid “women’s work” like domestic duties. This is in part due to technology, modern conveniences have trivialized many domestic duties and modern occupations are a lot less physically demanding, anything that once required a dozen or so able bodied men is now done by a machine. Consequently women now earn wages roughly equivalent to their male peers, indeed they quite often earn more as having good multitasking and communication lends itself to middle management roles.

Although the upper management positions still tend to be filled by men, I suspect there’s some degree of prevailing “boys club” mentality, even there’s only a baseless perception that women can’t be effective leaders that perception existing at all will make it much harder for women to obtain those rare and highly sought after upper management roles.

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

As far as I know, the two genders are equal in worth, but that doesn't mean they're the same or gender roles shouldn't be.

Males being in positions of power is not necessarily sexism either. It's just that males tend to try to make a name for themselves whereas females are more humble and supportive.

Neither the male nor the female approach is 'better' than the other, rather they're different and complimentary.


Having said that, I don't believe in equality in general. Some individuals are clearly better than others. But I do think that gender doesn't change a person's worth, only how it is expressed.

The genders could be conceivably NOT equal, but I do believe they are.

Edit: in particular I see the two soulmates, male and female, as being equal at the time of creation.

The only way one gender would be superior is if that gender had collectively risen, or the other gender had collectively fallen, much as humanity overall has fallen.

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

What's the difference between medieval times and now?
A: A higher percentage of the population is engaged in unskilled labor and physical labor.

Can women perform physical or unskilled labor as well as men?
A: Yes they can and the same goes for other types of labor. *

Are women in medieval times denied opportunities to become skilled workers or perform certain types of labor?
A: Yes they are, even now and even in the most developed societies.

Nothing biological is preventing women from having comparable earnings and power to men, it's a social structure that is imposed on them or their personal choice to give up the struggle for power in favor of their other roles that results in measurable inequality.

Medieval states that would have adopted gender equality would benefit from a higher productivity and higher potential amount of soldiers that they could field, but they would also become cultural enemies with all other states that opposed the idea.

In medieval times it was more important to share your neighbors ideology than it was to be right about anything, it almost ensured peace.

*Now before you argue that it would take two women to do one man's menial job. Completely untrue, especially if women are conditioned for physical work from early age like men are. But even assuming this idiotic argument is true, then a woman still can get at least 50% as much power as a man or more which means that she would be able to live freely, own a property and decide what to do with her life. But women were not rewarded equally. For the same amount of work done a man would get more money, respect and power.

 

[BurnedOut]

The constant state of conflict, vulnerability and deep entrenchment in one's occupation for survival were the driving factors of closed-mindedness towards women. This is just my take on it. I am reading history of India from the ancient times to the modern times and it looks like sexism was also a function of want for efficiency in those times. Everything was pretty much hands on for everybody. Although, we do have splotches in time having more liberty, eg. Mughal princesses were sometimes given the reign and were considered just as competent as men. Gender equality was more among the poor and the ones who were not willing or did not have the desire to emulate the upper classes who were more in contact with the priestly class.

It has also to do with science and its advancement. The monopoly of godmen started reducing over time. Eventually science led to automation and subjugation of human labour which reigned supreme before. Humans now have more free mental time than ever and that gives us the time to think of issues such as sexism, casteism, etc.

Of course, this is what we want to hear right? A coherent explanation?

I think that this is a random occurrence. Some think that technology has something to do with reducing sexism but we have instances of tribals being more liberal about sexism than developed countries like USA.