The ongoing demonisation of women

Why are men, and their patriarchal system, so hellbent on reducing females?

POWERHOUSE: A woman going through labour. The act of giving birth and continuing the survival of the humankind is undervalued as far as societal achievements go. Picture: RealCreation

DESPITE it being pretty bloody obvious the human race would cease to exist without women, they certainly aren't treated with the respect that kind of feat would conjure say, if men could give birth.

No no no. It's all about the sperm and the few minutes of hard but rewarding work the blokes put in to keep the world's population turning over.

In fact pregnant women have been known to cause such scene-stealing jealousy in men, they are killed for it.

The fact there is so much frozen sperm sitting in banks around the world it could power humanity for eternity without the assistance of a living male is lost in the grand scheme of their vital contribution.

Or that the blueprint for all human life starts as female and after a chromosome mutates, half of those females become male. Imagine if it was the flipside, like the Bible purports, and that women came from man. We'd never hear the end of it.

Yet, complete silence about a scientific fact that could lend itself to ridicule and demonisation of males, if we wanted to.

Yep the potential for a nasty dystopia is right there but because men are the self-appointed overarching world captains in the power structure they created and maintain to suit themselves, you never hear stuff like this on a daily basis.

The fact men rely 100 percent on women to survive is inconsequential, something that will never be admitted in the course of any of life's general conversations. That would be too scary or powerful to contemplate.

So instead it's demonisation of women 101. So they don't get too big for their uteruses.

So what you will hear is how s---house women are. How they all want to abort their babies. How disgusting periods are. The undervaluing of mothers. How women are homewreckers, temptresses, rapeable, sluts just asking for it because they look nice when they go out. How they are dumb and useless. How they are vessels. How their very existence is only so men can function at their maximum capacity and fulfilment.

Subservient beings who are only good for one thing. Two if you count delivering heirs but let's not make a big song and dance about that latter skill.

The fact the processes the female body performs to get to the point of expelling another living breathing human life from inside their bodies is so underrated in the grand scheme of public trumpet blowing you could be forgiven for thinking the whole process is purposely treated with contempt.

That doesn't mean by the man standing in the room freaking out and thinking how amazing she is pushing out their mini me, it means by wider society.

A male colleague recalled a Leonardo da Vinci painting (or one of those types) illustrating man coming out of the head of God.

It's refreshing to know there was a Renaissance man who could see the brethren were so full of themselves they were incapable of including women in the picture even when it came to their birth.

It was a mindset worthy of ridicule by the artist who demonstrated the lengths men would go to believe their existence came from some higher realm than to stoop and acknowledge their true means of delivery, the vagina.

Yep something as miraculous as a new life can't possibly be the domain of a woman.

It's also why you hear stories about the medical fraternity, historically a male-dominated organisation (who could forget the stirrups they insisted upon), treating pregnant women and their pain with contempt.

How common women can be made to feel during childbirth, and how their bodies and the pain and changes that occur throughout their lifetimes can be questioned and dismissed by the fraternity because their contribution to keeping humanity going deserves to be treated with disdain and flippancy.

Women are extraordinary humans that can perform the amazing feat of growing a human life inside them.

Then they go through a world of pain no man will ever understand, to bring that new life into the world.

They are powerful and resilient beings in a society that refuses to acknowledge that and offers no favours compared to their male counterparts.

They, and their 'dirty' periods, are the reason we are all here. It's time men got off their cases, and took their demonising patriarchal attitudes with them.

Originally published as The ongoing demonisation of women