I wonder, if the world had always treated women as equals,how much farther civilization would be today?

I can only imagine it would be better........ how much is impossible to say.

There are way to many flaws inherent in the question for it to be answered properly. First; society had no concept of humans as 'equals' in the sense we mean it today until the last couple of hundred years. Prior to that Lords and Ladies were certainly considered 'more' than peasants. Second; you paint a world in which 'equal' means only equal to the prestigious jobs, and not the worst ones. Why not soldiers, sailors, miners, laborers, etc? All of which had massively high death rates as standard. Men have never been universally 'equal' with each other - and nor have women. Third; right up until the second half of the 20th century almost all of the jobs that seem to be disdained today as 'housework' (cooking and cleaning for example), would take most - if not all - of the day. Those jobs used to have a lot more respect than people give them now. When diseases, lice, and rats, etc, were common - cleaning mattered. When cooking took whole day - cooking mattered. Technology has *always* preceded social change - not the other way round. When it no longer took 8 hours to prepare a meal, people stopped taking 8 hours to prepare meals, and wanted something else to do. Food did not always grow on supermarket shelves.

Your question also betrays little contextual understanding of the past. Most women wanted to be wives / mothers, because the alternative meant something much, much worse. The working classes had horrible lives. Do you think that women wanted to be sailors when that mean many months at sea to get almost anywhere, with scurvy, rats, weevils, storms and piracy? There was a *reason* men were press-ganged into service against their will (yes - gasp! Men had bad things happen to them in the past!) Most people have real trouble contextualizing the past and just think it would be like a 'ye olde' version of today. They cannot remove all the things they know, they take for granted they would always know it whenever they might've lived no matter how many people it took to understand these things throughout the centuries. They believe that life without medicine, electricity, motorised transport, telephones, indoor plumbing, workers rights, birth control, and most of the knowledge we have today, would just be somewhere they would 'fix' by their mere presence. In an age when the common cold would kill Kings, they think that women being expected to stay close to the home was simply 'oppression'. They stand on the shoulders of giants and boast how tall they are.

It's worth noting; one of the only 'women only' areas of life in the past was - for obvious reasons - childbirth, and right up until the mid-eighteenth century it was normal for men to be completely excluded from it. Unfortunately, many women and children would die in childbirth, so naturally the meddling Victorian male got involved, and when he did - the death rate plummeted. Funny that. A simple pair of tongs saved millions of lives.

"Basically its like turning down half your natural resources just because you don't want to believe they exist."

No, it's like putting half of your resources in 'safer bet' areas because you can't afford to lose them.

Two thirds of human DNA is female. A woman can only have a child or two per year, a man can impregnate many women. For this reason society has always allowed men to do the riskier jobs, because it can maintain population growth with fewer of them. So those answers which state with certainty how far ahead we would be had women been 'allowed' to endanger themselves (which is what you're saying) doing the same things men were doing, while not doing any of the other jobs, either don't understand the realities of historical life, or they don't understand human nature. Either way - we *might* be further ahead, or we *might* be further behind. Nobody can ever say with any degree of certainty.

@Lezi: "Take the ancient celts for example. Women were treated like equals and could hold pretty powerful positions in society."

They didn't have a 'society' as we know it. They had a clan / tribal way of life which was often violent, and involved severe physical retribution for 'crimes'. In that environment, a woman who cheated could be raped by the entire tribe. Not exactly civilised. Plus, none of the jobs listed in the question really existed in Celtic society.

Women have always been treated as equals with men in their responsibility to safeguarding their God given nature from corruption and the free expression of that God given nature.

The Devil is in the detail of this question:

If men had ALWAYS treated women as completely equal then their hunting and exploration would have been curtailed. Since advances are based on exposure to more resources and competition, we might actually be further back than we are.

Its worth noticing that equal societies tend to be stagnant societies, as no friction means no energy.

Ancient Greeks had time to philosophise as women and slaves did all the practical work. Sadly, some form of slavery or disadvantage appears necessary for the productive elements of society to flourish.

And before you rush to condemn, remember that American and Western living standards are basically so high due to essentially slave labour in developing countries. Yet the pace of technological advance has never been higher.

Sobering thought, really.

No they do no longer look to be falling returned. adult men are! They see a woman getting on extra desirable than they, they abuse, to end their very own insecurities. all of us understand women individuals are plenty extra able, yet as quickly as we practice it the undesirable guy, gets alarmed oh oh. Many thousands of years in the past, it replaced into women individuals who controled their family individuals, adult men have been basically worker and breeders. although they have been enjoyed, they weren't satisfied, they mentioned, we artwork, we are extra desirable than women individuals, why might desire to we do as we are advised. Supression began (Godess forgot to furnish women individuals equivalent stenght, therefoe suffered and became a god). women individuals who chosen to stay in an abusive courting, are to be blamed themselves, via fact they gets crushed up or kill via adult men in the event that they protest againt abuse. who is going to help them from getting crushed up standard, and if she run, who is going to feed and fabric her or provide activity to her or a place to stay! so as that they take it till they might, after which they the two die, waiting, or kill the abuser. adult men have as plenty an onus in making women individuals subservient, reason they're week, and could no longer face up to a great reliable guy, so as that they might desire to do what they're advised to do.else they are going to be crushed, raped, kicked out of the domicile, killed. women individuals get kill before they're even born, reason a son is extra considerable. it isn't the ladies individuals who're forgetting their historic past, they're basically constantly kicked down, on each occasion they attempt to climb up, basically via fact the guy is terrified of haveing some lady telling them what to do.

You're assuming that: women can handle equality; men & women are exactly the same with the exact same abilities, skills, and talents; and that men always have equal rights (which of course clearly isn't the case). Western society have been treating women as "equal" (or should I say superior) for quiet a while now, and ever since the day that it did we see a dramatic/huge increase in divorce, broken families, teenage pregnancy, crimes, abortions (50+ millions), rampant misandry etc..etc.. and tons of other social ills in the West. The West going down the drain pretty fast.. Not very progressive isn't it?

One could say that giving women equality actually harm society rather than help it. Equality doesn't automatically mean quality

BTW, despite already get treated as equal how come there still aren't any buildings, roads, or bridges that is built exclusively by women? What give?

Not all civilizations treated women like they were inferior. Take the ancient celts for example. Women were treated like equals and could hold pretty powerful positions in society. Also take the ancient Egyptians for example. Women were treated very well in Egyptian society. Egyptian women were admired by their female greek neighbors for the freedoms they enjoyed. Europe however was bad about letting women believe they were worthless.

@ The Man: Your argument is ridiculous. You didn't consider that the reason women didn't create works of art or contribute anything to society because men were good at making women think that god wanted them to be good wives and nothing else. When somebody tells you something so much, then you start to believe it. Why do you think victims of bullying often commit suicide? Because they start to believe that they are worthless. I've said it before and I'll say it again, you argument has no basis in logic.

Women are very stupid.

MUCH, MUCH farther. With the combined efforts of both men and women, there'd probably be twice as many inventions, businesses, diplomatic strategies, diplomats, and better world leaders (though today's ones aren't too bad either).

I suspect that it would be a better place in general for women and men.

Did Soze use the term hell in a handbasket? That makes him about in his sixties:)

Gun Fanatic: Did you build those buildings and roads personally? Thank you so much for all that work that you did. I think I'll claim credit for all the babies born in the year 1990.

Probably a lot further along than we are.

>Basically its like turning down half your natural resources just because you don't want to believe they exist.

Very well said!