| HN Mirror

Economically - being the only economy left standing post world war definitely had its advantages! Especially after the major ramp up and mechanization for WW2. The US went from a mostly agrarian economy to the world manufacturing power in short order, and those economic benefits lasted a long time.

That had mostly faded by the 70’s though.

Openly misogynistic society wise - It’s probably worth calling out the invention of effective birth control here.

Pre birth-control, men and women mixing in all but the most controlled circumstances would result in women getting pregnant, and that had consequences. Emotionally, financially, and biologically. Often life altering, even if the pregnancy was aborted.

That cost often ended up being borne by the women who got pregnant and their support structure, and there are biological reasons why that happens. Society can try to spread the load out, but the Don Juan’s of the world can be adept at trying to work around that.

This leads to that misogynistic society, both directly and indirectly. Looking at global trends, with the only exceptions being out of the way more nomadic societies, the more materially poor a society is, the more rigidly structured the gender divides are, and the more controlling they are of female sexuality in general.

This of course, gets taken advantage by some folks (shitheads) to further gain control in other areas.

On the male side, it’s relatively much easier for men to avoid the biological cost of their natural sexual behavior.

Effective birth control turns this on its head of course. Society is still grappling with what that means, and its implications, and likely will for a very, very long time.

The 50’s and early 60’s were pre (available) decent birth control.

[https://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/health-info/a-brief-histo...]

Mid 60’s to 70’s it started to roll out (and kicked off the ‘free love’ movement).

Women’s liberation became a much more common theme then as well. It was of course a topic before then, but practically was extremely difficult.

Practically, to be independent pre birth control, a woman would need to be either 1) long term celibate/abstinent from normal sex (not easy for most!), or 2) go through a lot of abortion (really not easy for most, medically or emotionally), or 3) be infertile, or 4) independently wealthy.

Otherwise, they would get sucked into the biologically and financially expensive process of having a baby, over and over again, for decades, while having no extra time or bandwidth to earn income. While men don’t have that problem (or at least, biologically, can skip out on it easier).

And due to all the biological processes involved (and legitimate needs), it’s very difficult for most moms to ignore the kids that result, and those kids are very needy for quite awhile - much longer than it takes to get pregnant again, for sure.

Being anti misogynist or not, or hiring protections or not, barring effective birth control, that is going to put a lot of women in difficult situations where they have no reasonable option but taking care of kids and dealing with biological ‘taxes’ that are very high, regardless of what they want. In any zero sum game, that puts them at a disadvantage to folks who don’t have that weight they are carrying.

Just like men being drafted into a war they didn’t start, or working themselves to death in a coal mine because it’s that or their family starves, that means alcoholism, anger/resentment, violence, etc.

Wealth can help - these issues were much worse pre WW2, for instance. But it’s a theme for most of recorded human history.