10 – Women Have Suffered Since the Very Beginning
Archaeological excavations around the world suggest that women have been on the wrong of marriages and relationships since the prehistoric era. If you’re a strong independent woman, it is the height of frustration to be told you have to ‘know your place’ but we have lived in a patriarchal society since the very beginning. It was even the case in the prehistoric era when women were remarkably strong. According to Cambridge scientists, the upper body strength of women back then was superior to that of the Cambridge rowing team today.
Their research discovered that the arm bones of Neolithic women were around 16% stronger than the rowers and up to 30% stronger than the average Cambridge student. Even when you fast forward to the Bronze Age, women had arm bones 13% stronger than the rowers. One of the reasons for their immense arm strength was the monotonous process of grain grinding which involved sitting down and grinding back and forth with their arms for hours on end. It was a similar exercise to modern day rowing but not as much fun one assumes.
Yet even these strong women were subject to the whims of men. For example, when archaeologists analyzed prehistoric remains in Africa, they discovered that the men had stayed in one place for their entire life. In contrast, every single female was born elsewhere. Did they happen to travel to the location or were they kidnapped and brought there? The latter scenario seems infinitely more likely as research suggests that they belonged to different tribes and were snatched away.
It would be wonderful if the practice of denigrating women and treating them as inferior beings and sex objects died out but in some communities around the world, things are little better for females now then they were 2,000 years ago. There is a tiny community in the north of Norway in the Arctic Circle called Tysfjord where sexual abuse is the norm. Police have documented over 150 cases of sexual abuse between the 1950s and today.
If you don’t think that’s a huge amount, you will be shocked to learn that only 2,000 people live in the community. It would be the equivalent of around 600,000 cases of sexual abuse in New York City since the 1950s, or almost 10,000 a year. The actual rate of rapes in New York City is a little over 10% of that figure.
Where Do We Get Our Stuff? Here is a List of Our Sources
“What Exactly Does ‘It’s a Man’s World’ Mean?” Soraya Chemaly in The Huffington Post. December 2017.
“The Practice of Sati (Widow Burning).” Linda Heaphy in Kashgar. May 2017.
“Infanticide Common in Roman Empire.” Jen Viegas in Seeker. May 2011.
“Vesta, The Goddess of Family, And the Scared Virgins of Rome.” Roma Experience. May 2015.
“The community of 2,000 people with 151 cases of sex crime.” Linda Pressly in BBC News. March 2018.