Gender Roles, Gender Identity Quotes
Although this was written in a 1920 letter, the letter was not publicly published until 1970.
Islam forbids homosexuality and Sharia (Islamic religious law) prescribes death as the penalty for homosexuality. At that time Iran was a Muslim theocracy and if there were overt homosexuality that was officially discovered, the heretics would be killed. The logic of the government was that since they had killed the homosexuals, there were none left. At the same time all the research showed that while Muslim homosexuality was slightly less than Christian, it was still quite significant in all Muslim cultures that had been studied. If the President was to be believed, Iran was the only exception.
Puglia was an anti-feminist.
Shulamith Bath Shmuel Ben Ari Feuerstein. Feminist opinion is divided among those, like Firestone who want to eliminate all cultural gender distinctions and those who advocate a cultural gender distinction, but one that is equal and respectful.
Marcus Porcius Cato. This quotation has had two different interpretations over time. One was that women if they received equality of treatment and voting would have an advantage for they also had their traditional “feminine wiles” and their sexuality, hence would dominate men. The second was a also a warning but based on the fact that women were superior in many ways, and given an equal chance, would excel men. The later interpretation is argued by some who point to the 2011 American data that shows more females than males graduating from high school and college, and females outnumber males in medical, law and several other professional schools. With the exception of a few Roman men, most heeded Cato’s warning and never took a chance on female equality.
An “asp” was the term Greeks and Romans used for a poisonous snake. Menander was a very popular playwright 300 years before the birth of Christ. His phrase was not a new idea at the time but, common wisdom” among Greeks—including many women who were controlled by the social values of the day that were very sexist. However, when Menander wrote it, it received mass distribution in that plays were the major form of mass media and entertainment at the time. So this conventional wisdom was common as Rome became the superpower and whose culture dominated including the Greek plays. Note that this attitude did not reflect the point of view that women were not important enough to educate to write. To the contrary, the implication is that women were too potentially dangerous to allow them to learn to write. Upper class women however were expected to read, but men were not only taught to write but to do so persuasively.
