Reply #62: What about America? There was a time in america when women (married [View All]

[HardRocker05]

women in particular) were virtual non-persons from a legal standpoint. Their property and their children were legally under the sole control of their husbands. They had extremely limited opportunities to earn an independent living. If a woman left an abusive marriage, the husband could physically compel her to return. And of course women had no political rights with which to bring about a change in their legal condition, but it is because of this as well as in spite of it, that a few brave women and men used whatever power was at their disposal to change the system.
And they were not all rich women, as you suggest; i recall seeing a letter (to Congress, i believe) from the wife of General Sherman, in which she implored Congress not grant women the right to vote (or "force it on them," as she put it). The rich and the poor were on either side of these moral issues, just as they are today. I also recall a speech given by Susan B. Anthony towards the end of her life, after 50+ non-stop years of fighting for women's equality, in which she bitterly denounced the young women of the day who ridiculed and trivialized the work done in the past on behalf of women's rights. There was a sizable group of what was called "remonstrants" at the time, who felt that women's rights had gone quite far enough (and this was around 1900!) and were opposed to it going any further.
Bottom line is, yes, there is a price to be paid when an oppressed class resists their oppressors, but if they do not resist, they will never overcome. There is no other way.