Kathleen O'Connell <[log in to unmask]> replies to me, and I
will try to reconnect this thread to art and CM downunder:

>Women were often denied the same property rights as men, and until
>relatively recently, were denied the same citizenship rights (e.g., the
>right to vote), and the same privileges within religious faiths (e.g.,
>barred from the priesthood).  Read Milton's "Paradise Lost" ...

Women didn't have the same property rights as men until with or after the
Industrial Revolution (it occured at different times in different regions),
but you assume that this has to do with that men thought women to be
inferior to men, and that is the opinion I am questioning.

Women didn't have the same property rights as men for long, but that this
can be seen in Shakespeare or Mozarts or whom you want, may be regarded
that the artwork is a postcard from its time, and not that discrinmination
is supported by the author of the artwork.

If we take opera: plots and storys are images of the juristic frame of
the societies, purely.  Women didn't have the same property rights as men,
but this hasn't to do with neglecting opinions on women, but with the
economical/organizing structure of the society these people lived in.

You tell me there are plenty of evidence for discriminative opinions
on women.  Let me ask: How could Margareta be allowed to be Queen of
Scandinavia in the 14th century if men didn't think women to be able to
have such poitions? Or Elizabeth I of England, how could she be Queen if
men didn't accept women? Or Zenobia? Or Cleopatra?

The women were not completely locked out from higher positions in society
- the Queens above is one example - but we must look at the economic
structure of the societies.  In an economy with out massproduction, it
isn't possible to have the full population to be working to full extent.
That is in short the reason.  But when the economical factors allowed it,
women could hold higher positions also before Industrial Revolution:
If the buissnessman husband died, the widow could run his industry, or
bussiness with the same rights as he had had, for example.  Women also
had full rights in fields that were not dependent of economic structurally
factors.  For example: if a woman had married a man that after the marrige
showed up to be impotent, she could divorce from him etc.

But the inner reason to womens position in society doesn't let it answer
so easy.  But we can aquire insight in studying diverging societies.
In Scandinavia, during the wiking aera, women had a strong position in
society.  The reason was that the society needed other people to run
itself, when a part of the men were sailing their traderoutes.  An other
entlighting example is ancient Greeces Sparti.  The men were bound to
military service, and women were the poeple needed to run the duties whith
the men could not take when they were in the army, hence women had more
rights.

This topic easy turn off topic, but still I though a comment on this could
be necesary, with what artworks tell us about past times.

>And let's not even talk about Wagner. [...]

I am surprised that such a burning defendor of women and their rights as
you, bark on Wagner.  Borodin and Wagner were the two great fighters for
women and their rights in history of music.  The women in Wagners operas
are indeed no whimps, and Wagner was much propagating, both in speech and
writings for womens rights.  For example, when he died, he was writing on
a pamphlett demanding womens emancipation.

Mats Norrman
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