[Joona]

The topic title says it all, really.

Are there any historical societies/nations/lands - or particular historical periods within them - that stand out to you as being extremely oppressive towards women even beyond the usual? The situation has generally been quite bad for most of human history, but if you had to pick just one place or a period within such place for being extraordinarily terrible, which one would you choose?

Please note that oppressive conditions towards people in general shouldn't count here in themselves, as I'm seeking out a society where the rights of men and women were most disparate, and where the women were considered most non-human, hated, and disposable by males or the surrounding culture.

Wartime rape situations shouldn't count here either (in themselves at least), because women being tormented by invading armies isn't exactly something that the invaded country imposes upon itself, but rather something brought about by outside influence.

I realise this isn't quite straightforward to answer, but please try.

[Thunderhawk]

I'm seeking out a society where the rights of men and women were most disparate, and where the women were considered most non-human, hated, and disposable by males or the surrounding culture.

Women were often treated as property, but women/property wasn't something the average person/man in any society had so much of that he could be hateful towards them. Fathers with nothing but daughters needing dowries, rich/nobles having plenty of money/women, etc.. are individual situations. On the scale of society rather then individual levels, I don't see how a society where men hate women could propagate. Brutal oppression is viable, but hate seems.. non-productive.

"non-human" is an interesting characteristic. Do 'non-humans' rank higher, equal or lower then slaves? Do they have any rights? Are non-humans consider part of the in-group?
A farm's milk cow is non-human property. Is that what you mean?
If only men have rights and women are property of their husbands/fathers, is that non-human?

When you say disposable, do you mean that in a commercial kind of way (easily sold) or do you mean that as something having little/no value and easily thrown aside?
If the latter, I think that would be limited to societies with a huge gender imbalance, and that usually means a war centred society with many young males dead in battle.

[Ganeshas Rat]

Modern Saudi Arabia, of course, can be there any other options?

[Zionist Nationalist]

can be there any other options?

ISIS

[anasawad]

M not sure about most oppressed. But i would speculate the krimean tatars
When they were independed. Their entire economy was based on slave trade. Women were treated less than animals.
I would also say medival europe. I do recall reading somewhere that the church in europe declared that women dont have souls. But i am not sure about it.

For best place for women in history i would say ancient yemen ans zoroastrian societies.
Zoroastrian societies are based on matriarchy. And ancient yemen was the only place in its time forvwomen to reach full control over the nation.(it was more than one nation) . Only place to hold seats of power and her voice heard.

And i would add also for the worse place former najd and hijaz. The habbit pf burrying girls alive was spread there because it qas considered s disgrace for some to have a girl child. So they got rid of them right aftet birth.

[layman]

I heard ancient greece was pretty damn bad in the most part.

Islamic places can be bad and obviously any with FGM are especially disgusting.

Then there is India which has been in the news a lot. This ancient practice is charming

Sati (Sanskrit: satī, also spelled suttee) is an archaic Indian funeral custom where a widow immolated herself on her husband's pyre, or committed suicide in another fashion shortly after her husband's death

As is the practice as raping a fathers daughter for punishment against his wrong doings ...

Similar laws interestingly existed with the very first law codes 1776BC babylon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Hammurabi

[anasawad]

Those 2 practices are still in India ? i dont think they're still around.

[layman]

Sati was ended under british rule.

The 'raping someones relative as punishment to them' thing is cross culture but mostly dead. In India a case of this did make international news recently. It was obviously a local/village ruling and the central authorities put a stop to it when they heard about it.

[fuser]

For the nth time, its erroneous to say that British ended Sati, Sati was illegal before Brits came in, under Mughals, under Peshwas and almost every other Indian state. It was always present in fringe elements of society rather than a common norm (you can't even begin to think of the consequences for a society if widows started committing suicide en-masse). The fact that during colonial era, white uptight British man was always saving a sati from pyre in all the stories of that era is not exactly the real picture.

As per today, its largely non-existent but still I believe there have been few reports of sati since independence.

[JohnRawls]

Largely in Islamic societies if across all ages.(modern day examples) Before AD societies, i would say tribes in Africa had severe conditions in that regard and also, to an extent, India. Barbarian societies(Vikings more modern term and Barbarians in general (in context of Rome) were actually as progressive as the Romans were i would say, even more than the romans, since they allowed women in the military and chief positions but they were restrictions also. In modern times (industrial era) some places were more progressive than others,(China, Russia, France were generally more progressive than the rest of the world). UK usually lagged behind specially due to puritan values. I will may be write more later.

[fuser]

Labels like "progressive" are pretty much meaningless for ancient/medieval societies and Romans progressive?

Furthermore there is no such thing as uniform Islam or uniform India covering entire time span (without going in detail women were more worse off in Gupta period in north India while women relatively speaking were in much better position compared to most of places and time during Sangam era in South India).

Anyway there cannot be any answer to this question, its so subjective that its ridiculous and assumes that everyone has comprehensive knowledge about every society which is quite clearly not the case. But as a rule of thumb life mostly sucked for women pre 20th century everywhere and as per comparing different societies in different time-place, well it depends. Sometimes x sometimes y with no definite answer at all.

[SD92]

I don't think there's ever been any societies that treated the average woman worse than the average man. You can say ISIS, but men are being behaded there and tortured, it's not great for anyone. Men have always had to fight while the women could sit at home in safety. An enourmous amount of men have been killed in or survived and came back with PTSD.

For the most part, women have had it easy throughout history compared to men, yes they've been discrimated against and been unable to hold positions of power, but I'd take that any day over being forced to sit in a trench to eventually be gunned down by a machine gun, like the men in WW1.

[Thunderhawk]

I don't think there's ever been any societies that treated the average woman worse than the average man. You can say ISIS, but men are being behaded there and tortured, it's not great for anyone. Men have always had to fight while the women could sit at home in safety. An enourmous amount of men have been killed in or survived and came back with PTSD.

For the most part, women have had it easy throughout history compared to men, yes they've been discrimated against and been unable to hold positions of power, but I'd take that any day over being forced to sit in a trench to eventually be gunned down by a machine gun, like the men in WW1.

Milk cows werent on the front lines of WW1 either. Like women, milk cows were often loot that were used/taken by an invading army.

"MOOooo"

[Potemkin]

I don't think there's ever been any societies that treated the average slave worse than the average free man. You can say ISIS, but free men are being behaded there and tortured, it's not great for anyone. Free men have always had to fight while the slaves could sit at home in safety. An enourmous amount of free men have been killed in or survived and came back with PTSD.

For the most part, slaves have had it easy throughout history compared to free men, yes they've been discrimated against and been unable to hold positions of power, but I'd take that any day over being forced to sit in a trench to eventually be gunned down by a machine gun, like the free men in WW1.

You see how that works, SD92?

[layman]

Labels like "progressive" are pretty much meaningless for ancient/medieval societies and Romans progressive?

Actually, the monty python "what did the romans ever do for us" mentality is quite enshrined in the UK. Their bloody conquest of us is seen as kinda progressive.

Perhaps this also makes us feel better about our "own progressive imperialism" ?

[SD92]

Milk cows werent on the front lines of WW1 either. Like women, milk cows were often loot that were used/taken by an invading army.

"MOOooo"

I'd rather be a milk cow than a man fighting in the trenches of World War I. If there's ever been a hell on earth that was it.

You see how that works, SD92?

The brutality of the Slave Trade can't be compared to how women were treated in 1914. Women had no rights, yes terrible, we all know that and people have repeated it ten million times, but they weren't being forced to work in the hot sun for hours on end. They weren't beaten with a stick or murdered without the murderer being brought to justice or at least an effort to bring them to justice. They weren't forced to move 1000's of miles. You just can't compare the slave trade to how women were treated in 1914. Shit times were shit for everyone, apart from the wealthy elite, who were both male and female. Men worked ridiculous hours with no workers rights and were forced to fight and kill themselves whenever there was a war. Women had to stay at home to do housework and didn't have any rights. Shit for everyone. Even the fecking head of state for most of the 19th century was a women. And the head of state for most of he 20th century was a women.

[Ummon]

Ancient Greece was pretty gigh up there. Probably much moreso than ancient Egypt for example

[Dagoth Ur]

Yeah women were pretty maligned by the ancient greeks. I think this had something to do with being in a closer historical proximity to the ancient pre-historical matriarchies and their deities. I may be wrong but they seemed pretty obsessed with evil female rulers.

Pagan Arabia wouldn't have been a picnic for women either. Slavery was pretty much par for the course.

[Igor Antunov]

I don't think there is a single society that deemed women 'disposable', that would have been a very stupid/short-lived society indeed. Women were often kept under lock and key, and kept from harms way in some kind of shielded property so that they could produce children unhindered, and raise those children for 10-15 years without distraction until the children could work or in the case of girls be sold off and produce children of their own. As a consequence women, because they're always there, would handle the affairs of the property, the accounts and resourcing, effectively running things at home.

I can't think of any society that actively treated women like animals for the slaughter. Dying horribly in the many thousands is the domain of young men still wet behind the ears. That is disposable fodder, from forced labour to forced conscription into battle, sons of the lower classes are the chief sacrificial lambs.

[Dagoth Ur]

Girls were just chillaxing at home being totally in charge and men had it worst because they were sacrificed to War <- Igor's serious view of the past.