This post by Sissy Willis inspired me to set down my thoughts regarding societies and cultures that are hostile to women.
When we look around the world at who tries to impose strict sanctions on women, we think of Fundamentalist religious movements. But it is not restricted to this. However, in all cases, what is really being curtailed is sexuality.
And my belief is that this is due not to women themselves, but men's responses to women.
Where you have societies and cultures that, for whatever reason, wants to control sex either for political or religious reasons, you find that it is women they tend to try to control. You rarely see these societies trying to get men to control themselves. No, they attempt to control male sexual responses by controlling female behavior.
In cultures where men are weakest in this regard, you see the most control. Islamic societies come to mind where there are strict guidelines on sexual behavior. In these cases you see there is no attempt to segragate men from women; you see women segregated from men. You don't see control of men's apparel, you see control of women's apparel. If a woman is raped, it is her fault because men can't help themselves and the women encouraged the rape by being immodest.
In other words, the implicit assumption is that men are too weak to control themselves.
And when a society's subliminal meme is of male weakness, to what degree to you think men try to compensate by showing strength in combat, I wonder?
I think there is a correlation with supression of sexuality and violence; in other words the more sexually repressive the society, the more violent it is.
Lao Tzu once said that the strongest of men were those who could control themselves.
When men try to control women, they are demonstrating their own weakness in this regard
