No but seriously. We spend all of our time as a society minimizing womanhood, pushing it into a box totally separate and distinct from manhood, and forcing little girls into this smaller box, teaching them to literally shrink themselves. Don't eat, you'll get too big ~fat~ and no one will like you and anyways "it's not healthy". Don't bothering trying to be stronger than the boys, you never will be (except for if you are, and then don't try to beat them anyway because then they'll be sad and making the boys feel inferior makes you an evil girl). Don't bother putting all those chairs away, we asked for strong boys and girls aren't as strong as boys (but don't worry, we'll expect you to clean them up after the party/potluck/function so you'll have to do it anyway, but this time you won't get the credit of doing it in front of other people). Don't run around with your male cousins in the creek and the forest, you'll ruin your pretty dress (but you'll outgrow it in a couple months anyway like your cousins did with their ripped shirts and muddied shoes). Don't try to compete, girls aren't naturally as competitive or violent as boys because you don't have testosterone (but everyone has testosterone, and estrogen, and oftentimes these ratios are regardless of chromosomes or genitals, but if we said that out loud you'd realize we were lying when we said you were physically destined to be inferior).
We've spent the so much of history telling women and girls that there is a biological imperative against their success, all the while starving them--starving them of food, of adventure, of running wild, of education, of credit, of financial freedom, of the freedom of irresponsibility. Women have been denied. How many women would have been star athletes if they had been encouraged to eat their fill at the table, to get dirty outside, to have their boo-boos kissed better instead of shamed? How many women could have been geniuses if they had not been denied entrance into universities, or been encouraged not to study harder because it would make them too smart a man would always do it better? How many women would be mechanics and computer engineers if the pervasive cultural stereotype hadn't been forced into the shape of men, erasing the women who were inventors and coders? How many women would have family as the kist important thing to them if they had even been allowed to think their worth might not be dependent on what they could make for someone else? How many women could have been successful in literally any field if they weren't expected to (for the majority of history) have babies and look after the house and husband and care for their aging relatives and do all the hard work around the house? ALL the work, all the hard work, all the drudgery, the cooking and cleaning and mending and child-rearing and resource-management and the farming your husband can't do alone--and none of the credit. None of the pay.
And that's the point. Your wife is working. She has spent her entire life WORKING to look like she's not working, like she didn't have to fit into a box half the size, like she doesn't mind never getting a vacation, like she doesn't wonder deep down if this is all she gets. It's free labor. It's a guaranteed societal backbone. Someone needs to raise the babies. But why wait for someone who actually wants that when you could tell every little girl for her whole life that she has to want that? You don't even have to try that hard: if you tell her early and often she'll internalize it. Then starve her of food so she never grows big, starve her of physical activity so she never knows she can be strong, starve her of knowledge so she never dreams of something better, starve her of praise so she is desperate to keep your attention. And all you have to do to do this is yell at her enough.
You can see this happening in real time. Little kids are not all equal, but it isn't divided into sexes. Girls and boys equally compete until puberty. Why? Surely it's because that's when the hormones kick in. Or is it perhaps because that's when the expectation of womanhood is thrust upon girls? Girls who spent their childhoods divided between climbing trees and playing dress were also being told that they would grow out of this. Puberty hits and suddenly she's not a "growing girl," she's a young woman who must begin to appeal to men by being skinny and graceful and non-threatening. Girls develop eating disorders. They develop body image issues. At rates so much higher than boys that almost every woman has been under the thrall of starvation. Sports for girls involve either running or short shorts--soccer and track and volleyball--if they're allowed to do sports at all. The archetypical "sport" for a teenage girl is cheerleading--which was invented by an athletics company to sell uniforms to girls and not just boys, and takes its name from what it entails: the girls in skirts and shiny pom-poms, standing on the sidelines, telling their boyfriends and brothers how great they are. And maybe sometimes we'll let you dance or do a flip. Girl's wrestling? Nope. Girl's football? Nope. (Not exactly a bad thing, given the stupidity and harm rate of it, but denying someone a choice you give to others is stupidly paternalistic). Girl's basketball? Barely. And that's still the issue: the category of girl. Girls have to compete separately. For protection, of course! These girls couldn't possibly fairly compete; they'd lose! And never mind that they are malnourished and underdeveloped and ashamed and coerced into making the men in their lives feel better. Never mind that Olympic shooting was only gender segregated after a woman won it. Never mind that the media calls every stick-thin woman "toned", every flat stomach "abs," every hint of flesh "muscle"--if it isn't "fat." I am so tired of every female celebrity who isn't either fat or skinnier than skinny being called toned. I'm so fucking furious of "muscular" female characters in animation being only vaguely toned and not even half the size of their "muscular" male counterparts. I'm so fucking angry that fatness is the cardinal sin, that it's preferable to be malnourished and passing out and self-hating than to even risk being anything larger than slightly curvy. I am so fucking sick of "2000s skinny." I am so fucking sick of "we just care about your health." I am so fucking furious that everyone and everything is "testosterone" this and "estrogen" that. I fucking hate girl dinner and girl math and the masculine urge and the roman empire and boys will be boys and "ugh men" and "bitches, right?" I am REAL fucking sick of "the divine feminine urge to be a tradwife." And what really gets me steamin' like the devil's asscrack is the persistence in forcing the human race into two little boxes that ne'er shall meet expect for sex.
