i do agree about the people being mysoginistic towards mares thing 100%. its so awful and stupid and like god the impact it has is so frustrating like these horses genuinely cannot find homes because of this. and there absolutely are mares that are much harder to manage when they are in heat but there are also geldings that still think they can fuck and are absolute dicks about it and thanks to mysoginy only mares get a bad rep >:(
i did have a more abstract idea when writing the original post though. i think the material conditions of horses in their relationships with humans overall are very similar to mysoginy. I touched on it in the tags in a reblog somewhere else but, i think i can do better maybe?
Horses are not livestock. We do not keep them in fields to produce a resource, they are not part of agriculture. The horse-human partnership, in theory, is that of a companion animal. Like a dog. They had jobs to do, the jobs provided value and in return they were given food and shelter and healthcare.
However, in practice, it is generally a much more coercive affair. The labour horses are asked to do is not species appropriate, it is not safe, and it is not fair. And asking the horse to charge a line of pikes or hold it's neck in the way the cameras think is prettiest is done (and has been done for centuries) using coersion.
Pressure is piled on top of this animal over and over and over. Discomfort is ignored, corrected, tightened, until the horse learns the safest response is to just shut down. It is standard practice to train your horse with avoidance. The default way of getting them to do something is by convincing them that every other option is more unpleasant than just falling in line.
And although horses are not livestock, they have an industry. They are seen as tools and assets and are bought and sold based on their utility and potential. No other companion animal is treated like that. And if they are, its seen as cruel. When this kind of thing happens to a dog, there is a the Dodo video with sad piano music and a donation link about it.
So when i made the original post saying horses are mysoginised i meant in a comparative sense. Because i see an animal that was meant to be a companion, that is still called a companion, pushed into this role of asset by immense pressure, without being allowed to express discomfort without being labelled "mad".