religions way of viweing people.

[123lol]

I'm a catholic, and i really don't know every single religion, but i got to ask something. Don't you think the reason men are to believed to be on top, to be the strongest, and the best is because of religion??? And I'm talking about a lot like catholics, cristian, etc. ( idk there names and i dnt want to, offend anyone)

[Peppermint Tea.♥]

In my opinion the reason men are believed to be 'the best' is because originally they were the strongest. The hunters and gatherers, the fighters, whereas the women cooked, cleaned, cared for children, stayed at home. Religious books were written directed at the people of their time, so they treated men as 'the best'. It is all cultural. So now, when women don't stay at home all day, and can go out and work and pretty much do most things men can do, the parts of religious books promoting inequality are out of date.

But no, I don't think this is because of religion. I think it is purely because of the difference in bodies.

[Sythan]

Not really. Pagan religions, especially those in what is now the United Kingdom, saw women as being more spiritual than men. Women were the Priestesses, the teachers, the healers, and the counselors. The men were the gaurdians and hunters, women had a higher social standing than men and some still do in modern day Pagan religions.

[Ambiance]

It's relative to physical attributes.

[Cosmo]

In the past, the only thing that really mattered was your physical ability, so naturally men came out on top. Now it's not needed so much, so there's more equality.

[Eldora]

Just saying, women are -- and always were -- perfectly capable of doing things. They were just raised to believe that doing the same things as men did was beyond their capabilities, or that it was vulgar to be doing those things alongside men. Which is completely unfair. Women were always able to do things, and they will always continue to be, just as long as men don't dry to shove them inside their houses and force them to cook and clean and raise children.

Personally, if I'd have lived in the times when most major religions were founded, I would have refused to get married. Shitty male hierarchy, anyway.

And I'm not saying that men in general, especially today, believe themselves to be above women. But there are some -- many that I know of in my state -- who still believe that a woman's place is in the home, wiping dust off of knick-nacks and wiping up their kids puke and crap, not to mention not having a say in anything. My grandma has tried to tell me from the time I hit puberty that I will get married and have kids and be cleaning houses and shitty diapers for the rest of my life. And it makes me f***ing mad, so I tend to get rather riled up on this subject.

Also, even if women were less capable physically than men, that still does not excuse the long-time belief that men were more intelligent than women, nor the fact that women used to have no say in who they married. They were simply traded off for the benefit of the family -- often to heighten the father's status among the other men. They were often considered burdens -- not because of their capabilities, but because of the fact that except in very special cases, they could not learn past basic reading and mathematics, and sometimes not even that. The parents considered them burdens because their daughters also had to have a dowry.

I personally would like to strangle whoever came up with this fucking stuff in the first place. There could have been many, many more great leaders in history, had they only just kept their mouths shut. I mean, look at Queen Elizabeth I! Queen Isabella of Spain! We are perfectly capable, it's just that men of past generations liked to assume that we were a lot of idiots with ability only as mothers and housecleaners.

And yes, I do realize that some women had it better than that. But I'm talking about the ones who didn't.

And, just to keep with the OP's post: YES. I do believe that religion had something to do with this. Something, not all. But some religions didn't help it at all, either.

[Cosmo]

Originally Posted by Eldora

Just saying, women are -- and always were -- perfectly capable of doing things. They were just raised to believe that doing the same things as men did was beyond their capabilities, or that it was vulgar to be doing those things alongside men. Which is completely unfair. Women were always able to do things, and they will always continue to be, just as long as men don't dry to shove them inside their houses and force them to cook and clean and raise children.

They can do 'things' they're just nowhere near as good as physical things.

Women have less total body mass on average, and, also on average, lower muscle mass in proportion to that total body mass. Male muscle has more fibres. There's about 40-50% upper body muscle mass difference between men and women, and about 20-30% lower. Females are about 52-66 percent as strong as males in the upper body (34-48% difference), and about 70-80 percent as strong in the lower body (20-30% difference). They also have a lot more pain receptors than men, which explains their lower pain tolerance + threshold.
So, while they can do a lot of the things, physically, that men can do, there's a lot they can't; such as, I'd suggest at the risk of controversy, the front lines of warfare, on-the-street policework and the fire service. There's very few services which require more physical strength than women can give, but in those that do, such as the ones I listed above, unfortunately we're seeing more affirmative action in place to drive women into jobs that they just can't do. I'd be terrified if I was in a burning building with my legs trapped under a wooden beam and a woman was sent up to to rescue me, or if I was being robbed by a gang and it was a lone female officer sent to rescue me, or if I was being held hostage by the Taliban and they sent in a squad of women to save me.

I think we just need to accept that the genders absolutely are not the same, that we each have individual strengths and weaknesses and, rather than try to force our way into areas that we just don't belong and pretend that our weaknesses don't exist, we should recognise our strengths and use them to our advantage, honestly. And I don't feel that that's something our society, and particularly the feminist movement, seems to acknowledge

Originally Posted by Eldora

Personally, if I'd have lived in the times when most major religions were founded, I would have refused to get married. Shitty male hierarchy, anyway.

They were formed in varying ages. You probably wouldn't have had much choices unless you really wanted to die, honestly.

Originally Posted by Eldora

And I'm not saying that men in general, especially today, believe themselves to be above women. But there are some -- many that I know of in my state -- who still believe that a woman's place is in the home, wiping dust off of knick-nacks and wiping up their kids puke and crap, not to mention not having a say in anything. My grandma has tried to tell me from the time I hit puberty that I will get married and have kids and be cleaning houses and shitty diapers for the rest of my life. And it makes me f***ing mad, so I tend to get rather riled up on this subject.

I think the best family system is one where the father goes out to work, and the mother is the carer who maintains the household. I think that's the only way in which the family will function properly, and I think the change from that system is.. well, evident when you look at society today. I only have a problem with women being the carer/housekeeper if they are forced or pressured into that role - everyone should have the freedom to choose.

Originally Posted by Eldora

Also, even if women were less capable physically than men, that still does not excuse the long-time belief that men were more intelligent than women, nor the fact that women used to have no say in who they married. They were simply traded off for the benefit of the family -- often to heighten the father's status among the other men. They were often considered burdens -- not because of their capabilities, but because of the fact that except in very special cases, they could not learn past basic reading and mathematics, and sometimes not even that. The parents considered them burdens because their daughters also had to have a dowry.

The belief that men were more intelligent than women probably stemmed from the fact that women had very little education - that was reserved for the males. So while they were not less 'intelligent', they did know less - although that was not through any biological reason or fault of their own.
I think the rest can be explained very simply - the men were more powerful, far stronger and far more numerous - women just had to deal with it. It suited men just fine, and they essentially bent women to their will because there was nothing they could do about it. Think about it - the only reason women can vote today is because the men in 1928 decided that it was the right thing to do. Had they decided not to, there's pretty much nothing the women could have done about it - men had, and still have, the physical power to, should they want to, make women do what they want.

tl;dr:Men did it because women didn't have the power to stop them and it meant men had their own personal slaves.

Originally Posted by Eldora

I personally would like to strangle whoever came up with this fucking stuff in the first place. There could have been many, many more great leaders in history, had they only just kept their mouths shut. I mean, look at Queen Elizabeth I! Queen Isabella of Spain! We are perfectly capable, it's just that men of past generations liked to assume that we were a lot of idiots with ability only as mothers and housecleaners.

And yes, I do realize that some women had it better than that. But I'm talking about the ones who didn't.

Yes it'd be nice if we could point to one person and say "it was their fault" but the truth is it's a much bigger thing than that. It's not just one person that allowed it, it's society as a whole. Collectively, we as a whole, including many women, decided upon the system that we have lived through. But, I think it's important to add that the idea that pre-1928 all women were slaves chained to the kitchens is ridiculous. It's not as if everything before 1928 was a nazi slave camp, and everything afterwards was a spring meadow, because the world isn't black and white like that.

Originally Posted by Eldora

And, just to keep with the OP's post: YES. I do believe that religion had something to do with this. Something, not all. But some religions didn't help it at all, either.

Something I do totally agree on!

[dr2005]

Religion certainly didn't help with the whole male-female thing, that's for sure - in some quarters in particular it has a LOT to answer for - but primarily it was a societal trait based on physical, economic and political factors. For a large part of history (probably up to around 200 years ago), men were by and large viewed as providing economic support because the vast majority of people were employed in manual labour - farming, hunting, building etc. - which naturally favoured higher muscle mass as Matthew touched upon. Women, in contrast, were viewed as a means of forging alliances and familial ties via marriage and unfortunately little else. It beggars belief from modern perspectives, and there were of course a number of exceptions to this, but by and large this view persisted for a very long time, and much of the literature of the age (including, importantly, translations of religious texts) would reflect this.

[TheBabyEater]

It would always depend on the religion. I'm part Satanist, part Buddhist so in my eyes, if we're to talk about it from a religious view, both men and women are 100% equal. In older than time Pagan religions, women were always so much more spiritual and intelligent, and in many Christian, Jewish, Islamic religions men have always been dominant. Hell, even God is referred to as a man. I have no doubt that religion has played a part in the battle of the genders, but a lot of that also just comes from the cultures. Which, to be fair, is also strongly based upon religion...