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In the early days of humanity, men hunted while women took care of children and foraged. Men didn’t need to speak, as hunting was a silent activity, but women did; they needed to communicate about which plants were edible and to care for children. It was women who created language and laid the foundations of civilization, living collectively.
Women were venerated as life-givers, embodying the Great Goddess, traces of whom can be found in numerous civilizations. It was women who worshiped the Great Goddess in temples dedicated to her, women who owned these temples, and women who kept their children close, as fathers were often unknown.
When women developed agriculture through their knowledge of plants and domesticated animals, men began to experience boredom.
Women are not inferior to men.
With metallurgy, men began producing more than necessary to accumulate wealth. They also married priestesses to acquire their wealth and imposed their ownership over women, ensuring they could pass their property to their own lineage.
Women are not inferior to men. This idea was fabricated to subjugate and possess them.
Even today, men assert ownership over women through marriage. Patriarchy remains deeply entrenched, more so than in many periods of our history.
I start from the assumption that women inherently have the right to live free from oppression, a fundamental right that should be granted to every human being without others enjoying privileges that automatically create imbalance. A society cannot live in peace if it is imbalanced.
Women remain victims of male oppression: physical and sexual violence, economic disparities, limited healthcare research, infringement on their rights, lack of representation, and behavioral control, among other issues—without even considering the situation in other countries. Women suffer this oppression because men need to control them to secure their lineage. Without controlling women, men cannot be certain of their descendants.
Thus, biological sex is the foundation of this oppression: it is those with female reproductive systems who can bear offspring and bring new life into the world.
To free a social group from oppression, we must focus on the unique traits that are the basis of that oppression, as they are not inherently included in the default framework of “humanity.” During the Enlightenment, women were burned as witches. The humanists of that time did not defend women, or if they did, it was in a very peculiar way.
Women face specific issues that are not part of the "default human" category. There is no female crash-test dummy in car safety tests, medications aren’t tested on women, and symptoms particular to women aren’t widely studied. Men have historically ignored women, and it is unrealistic to expect them to “think of everyone” when addressing women’s specific needs. When men demanded the right to vote in France, they opposed extending it to women; clearly, men aren’t to be relied upon to correct this injustice.