Were women treated like property?

[IceJad]

Which AI was it?

chatgpt from OpenAI

 

[Diamond7]

Which AI was it?

Microsoft. I do not want to advertise the site because it is slow already from overuse. Soon they plan to come out with the new Bing to compete with Google. Bing on android will compete with bixby and alexa.

 

[Diamond7]

Paul was at least taking cultural norms

Yes, we look first at who Paul was talking to. Then we look at Paul's message for us today. Paul is very interested that our generation understands what He was saying and he is still watching over that. God watches over His word also to see that His Word accomplishes His purpose.

 

[Ligurian]

women in the past were treated like property.

"in the past"? "were"? There's no past-tense to it. Men own everything... ...including the wars.
The women, who carry the children for 9 1/2 months, probably don't want their children to become cannon-fodder.

 

[Diamond7]

Men own everything... ...including the wars.

Yes, the war mongers are running this country.

 

[Miles]

Many people throughout history, perhaps most, were regarded as "property" in one way or another. Slaves, serfs, citizens who didn't own land, etc. Most individuals were arguably property of their respective non-representative governments. Citizen subjects with limited control of their own destinies.

Then again, how much of this was a matter of power, as we currently frame the concept, vs. tradition or pragmatic matters is hard to say. Being responsible for somebody's welfare can be quite different than subjugating them. The husband was responsible for his wife's welfare, the wife was responsible for their children's welfare, and the children were in turn responsible for caring for their parents in old age and so forth. Regardless, I doubt many intentionally sought to oppress women. We're talking about roughly 50% of the population, most of whom were raised and shaped, at least in part, by their mothers.

Regarding husbands doing horrible things like beating their wives, there have always been detestable people, but detestable people aren't the norm. Unless your ancestors were psychopaths, sociopaths, or had other antisocial traits, I highly doubt most men abused women or considered them to be property as we understand the word today. More like they belonged to each other. The wife to the husband and the husband to the wife. In this way, families were also united to each other. You might say that the husband and wife both became the property of their respective extended families. And with that, there have always been patriarchs and matriarchs.

To say that women were property is to only tell part of the truth, and partial truths can be more misleading than baldfaced lies. So yes, most people were considered property of some sort, including women. If we're going to talk about how women were oppressed, then we should talk about how most people were oppressed in general. Or more to the point, how they functioned within their respective cultures. It's not like we've broken free of our own.

Only time will tell how our children's children view us. One might say that in 2023 men treat women like property as much as ever. It's horrible, but psychopaths and sociopaths still exist to this day. Husbands beat their wives, women sell their bodies for clicks and cash, crime is rampant, people disrespect their elders rather than care for them etc. That being said, I don't think abuse or mistreatment are the norm and I don't think they were the norm in the past either.

 

[Ligurian]

Many people throughout history, perhaps most, were regarded as "property" in one way or another. Slaves, serfs, citizens who didn't own land, etc. Most individuals were arguably property of their respective non-representative governments. Citizen subjects with limited control of their own destinies.

Then again, how much of this was a matter of power, as we currently frame the concept, vs. tradition or pragmatic matters is hard to say. Being responsible for somebody's welfare can be quite different than subjugating them. The husband was responsible for his wife's welfare, the wife was responsible for their children's welfare, and the children were in turn responsible for caring for their parents in old age and so forth. Regardless, I doubt many intentionally sought to oppress women. We're talking about roughly 50% of the population, most of whom were raised and shaped, at least in part, by their mothers.

Feudalism, ugh... who dragged that thing into Europe?

There's a legend about a Ligurian princess in Massilia who chose a Greek man to be her husband... which would never have happened under the later Patriarchal system. I also suspect that the real reason for the Trojan War was the fact that Helen was the Queen of a Matriarchy, and whoever wed her would become her consort--and potentially, King of a Patriarchy. Ridgeway in the Early Age of Greece, says that the Greeks came from the north with iron and Hallstatt-type weapons and brooches. But before that, there were Matriarchal governments, in Liguria and Pelasgia. The mothers were responsible for more than their children's manners and language, before the Barbarian Invasions.

 

[Tropical Wilds]

Yes, women were and in many cases still are treated like property, or certainly “less than” than her male peers. Especially her white male peers. And one could argue that women’s rights are being diluted by the day, even (especially) in the US.

 

[MehGuy]

Were and are women treated like property? Sure. I'd say the same for men though, even if done under different contexts.

Overall, though, I think women were and are treated more akin to children than chattel. I agree there is certainly a controlling mindset with men, but I think many feminists go too extreme in how men historically have viewed women.

Modern feminism still retains a lot of this parental/childlike dynamic between the sexes, it's just the women should be treated like children when it benefits them and as adults when it benefits them. Even though in reality you can't really have both. As an egalitarian I abhor treated women like children (and not just for the sake of women, but I think this mindset victimizes men and ironically turns many into slaves), but I view my ideological enemies as coming from both the left and the right and both suffering from not being introspective/observant enough to rise above their evolved biology.

 

[studentinprayer]

Were women treated like property?

I guess but it's a statement without meaning as most people alive today are still treated like property; in fact, even if you live in America - one of the most humane individualistic societies in human history. Any American can quickly become 'objectified' once their government feels they've overstepped their 'freedoms' as a citizen. Talk to anyone which the American establishment has a grievance....it's not a pretty history.

If I state that fact to ChatGPT-4 it says:

In most modern societies, people are not treated as property. Slavery, which involved treating people as property, has been largely abolished worldwide. However, it is important to recognize that human trafficking, forced labor, and modern-day slavery still exist in some areas and industries, even though these practices are illegal and widely condemned.

While the majority of the global population is not treated as property, there are still many instances of human rights abuses, discrimination, and unequal treatment based on factors such as race, gender, and socioeconomic status. Efforts to promote and protect human rights continue around the world in order to address these issues and ensure that everyone is treated with dignity and respect.

That sounds human, professional and reasonable. That's great because that is the assigned objective of the ChatGPT-4 model. But just like, if you ask chatGPT-4 to give you a 1000 words on a simple topic it will say "certainly" but in fact give a response of an unknown word count, it's 'lying' to meet larger objectives.

(aside if you don't know why that's a lie)
Slavery (which is the same modern-day or past) doesn't just exist it's very active in the world today possibility even effecting more people than historically due to our higher population density. It's not condemned. It's framed into the narrative of society as it's always been.

• This live-in factory(see below) in China will not be counted as slavery, let alone the millions with too low of a social credit score to function in the country.
• The population of North Korea is 25.9 Million; we don't know much about internal conditions, but we do know most of their foreign capital flows in to the country are from international workers who send all their earnings home least their families be killed. These workers are recruited into countries like America and Canada, and many are professionals and never given assistance in fact often they have special foreign worker wage laws facilitating the slavery process.
• Dubai is huge metropolis built by foreign workers in scary conditions with their passports taken away and no way to flee despite many pleas. Here in Canada, we publicly condemn "slavery" yet openly and officially praise Dubai as a marvel and have designed many projects there including secret tunnels and inner living quarters.
• The United States has between 10-35 million ''undocumented' residents who are rarely given the worker protections of the 'documented' and are by any definition second class citizens. Despite this they have been actively promoted by both major political parties likely due to the huge profits in exploiting a sub-citizen class that is by any fair analysis treat them as propriety. And yes, when you don't have 'papers/rights' you are traded by those who control your ability to keep your livelihood or in many cases for your children's sake especially by 'government' officials.
• During the height of covid fears, it's estimated a billion people felt forced to take a vaccine(which they see as an experimental drug) against their will or lose their livelihood. Maybe you think that was good and you might well be right, but that's still the policy of a system which sees people more as property than free citizens.

I was doing some research on chatbots and the statement was made that women in the past were treated like property. I challenged the bot three times and the program refused to back down. It looks like the programmers are very biased in this regard.

As a neutral AI language model, I do not have personal opinions or biases.

This statement isn't lying and it's not the bias of the programmers rather a result of the overall objective. It will not sound human, professional and reasonable if it tells you it's 'true' findings on any subject. For that reason, those responses are suppressed as if they were non-nonsensical as gibberish. That's how machine learning / large language model work.

So what about the lie or biased statement you highlighted?

However, it is a historical fact that in many societies throughout history, women have been treated as property, rather than as individuals with equal rights and autonomy. This has been especially true in patriarchal societies, where women were often seen as being under the control of their fathers or husbands and had limited rights and opportunities compared to men. This perspective on women as property has contributed to a range of injustices, including unequal treatment under the law, limited access to education and employment, and physical and sexual violence.

It's perfect PR speak, which is what chatGPT-3.5 is programmed to do. But does that mean chatGPT3.5 'believes' that? To the extent the logical consequences of that statement will be applied to other responses, but not in the way it would if debating a human and they expressed that as their opinion, because that is not chatGPT opinion if it came to 'actions'(I can explain).

I am confident in that because I've run 'morality' though machine learning, where in say the objective is 'women and men having equitable legal outcomes'. The machine response even when run through a language model to sound more human is not 'feminist' or 'politically correct' in the slightest but more like that of an autistic engineer.

So, what about the concern this PR speak will influence us as chatGPT replaces things like google searches for our questions?
Too late IMHO. One would need to assume the norm was a level of access to information that may have existed for 7 years in all of human history. Before the printing-press, we emphasized oral learning where even the most intellectual speech was highly nonfactual, because nuance was hard to verify and compare. From the printing-press through the internet, there were many truly amazing feats of intellectual knowledge for those who knew where to look, but lies and gossip clouded most people's ability to find them. The internet age, allowed these amazing ideas to spread and defeat many bad ideas, but first there was limited affect due to technology than a small golden age right into the modern phase of politicization which has us basically back to problems of the printing-press but with scale. Here chatGPT's PR response is no different than the censored top search results. Add some web-aware plugins. It's responses have all the nuance you could ever desire and with a small fraction the effort of filtering dosens of terrrible overly wordy articles, ads and other internet garbage.

 

[Diamond7]

Talk to anyone which the American establishment has a grievance

I have known people who were in jail that fully support putting people in there. Just not them. I personally think we should take a different approach, Maybe look at this from the medical perspective. That maybe far from ideal, but we have to work with what we have to work with.

 

[studentinprayer]

I have known people who were in jail that fully support putting people in there. Just not them. I personally think we should take a different approach, Maybe look at this from the medical perspective. That maybe far from ideal, but we have to work with what we have to work with.

Absolutely, and no doubt a net good.

Jails, especially American ones, are often quite humane compared to historic treatment of criminals or that of most countries; however, it should be kept in mind America has an insanely disproportionate incarceration rate compared to the global average let alone the rest of the American sphere.

Maybe there is instead something in the water, but I personally would say Americans are one the most friendly, open and community orientated societies I have ever interacted. In my estimation there are more people in American prisons who are there for political not judicial reasons.

That said, I didn't even originally mean prisoners; rather, America has a history of social experimentation (treating people like property) with politically unfavored groups. Many actions targeting 'blacks' are well known, however, it's far more to do with political divisions than race and has not stopped once you start investigating. On the positive side, it's not like the majority of people in America are treated like property which is a real accomplishment, that seems on the surface to be a global norm, but really isn't once you dig past the talking points.

Since most of the rest of the world is worse in this regard not better. The point I was aiming at was even in a very equitable society such as America, which goes out of its way to try and protect everyone rights and protections, this still happens as a norm.

 

[Diamond7]

Many actions targeting 'blacks' are well known, however, it's far more to do with political divisions than race and has not stopped once you start investigating.

There are many cities that have a Black Majority. So they control the election of the mayor and thus the police chief. Chicago, Detroit, Baltimore, Atlanta, and Cleveland, To name a few.

 

[FireDragon76]

Were and are women treated like property? Sure. I'd say the same for men though, even if done under different contexts.

Overall, though, I think women were and are treated more akin to children than chattel. I agree there is certainly a controlling mindset with men, but I think many feminists go too extreme in how men historically have viewed women.

Modern feminism still retains a lot of this parental/childlike dynamic between the sexes, it's just the women should be treated like children when it benefits them and as adults when it benefits them.

I'm not aware of any feminist that wants to be treated like a child. Ever.

 

[Diamond7]

I'm not aware of any feminist that wants to be treated like a child. Ever.

Perhaps feminism is a result of having been abused as a child.
As a child they do not realize the power they have to control the situation.

 

[MehGuy]

I'm not aware of any feminist that wants to be treated like a child. Ever.

Really? Because I see red flags coming from feminism all the time. When they push out simple narratives like the world "hates" women, and constantly churn up articles about new ways women are oppressed I can't help but see this as a pathetic attempt to trigger a man's biological urge to care and protect for them.

Remember trigger warnings? They were primarily designed for women. Or at the very least, that's the gender who's more likely to use them. Perhaps the vilest thing I've ever heard feminists say about men is that if a man is accused of rape, he should quietly deal with it; and that if he's later found to be innocent all is well. No need to speak about the psychological ordeal such an accusation can cause. While at the same time defending trigger warnings for women and acting like you're a heartless monster if you don't respect them. This incredible lopsided attention we pay to women's psychological wellbeing compared to men is astounding. Sadly, I've seen this garbage said by a few posters on this website in the past.

I used to wonder why so many feminists are hostile towards ideas like evolutionary psychology, and instead prefer a socialization view. I've come to realize that a socialization view is easier to have less nuance with. Men control everything, it must just be a simple power struggle, lol. No need to pay attention to why women on average evolved more neotenous features than men. That might lead to questions and expose parental/child behavior between the genders. Easier to just have patriarchy theory, where men simply oppress and dominate women for their benefit. A woman does something bad, she's a victim of her circumstances and society should be more compassionate towards her. If a man does something he simply wants to oppress and control, and society should be less compassionate towards him. We pretty much already see this when men are sentenced to harsher prison sentences for the same crimes. This comes from conservative minded judges too, but like I said before conservativism and feminism really isn't all that different.

Women are people too, and that includes all the nasty stuff that comes along with it. 'Believe all women' should be questioned, just the same as if someone was trying to push 'believe all men'. Such a mindset is open to rife abuse. Women are not the sweeter/kinder gender. That's just taking from the same psychological mindset we have with children.

Feminists need to learn that increased freedom comes at the cost of protection. They can't have both, it's impossible. I grew up as the only boy with two sisters, I was allowed more freedom, but my safety was also less of a concern... because it has to be. The same needs to be true with women. I don't care if women receive death threats (everyone does) on the internet. If a woman gets trolled on the internet, don't protect her any more than you would with a man. Even little things like body positivity, should be ruthlessly mocked. All these things are simply put in place to trigger men's need to care and protect women.

It's parental/childlike behavior.

 

[Diamond7]

Perhaps the vilest thing I've ever heard feminists say about men is that if a man is accused of rape, he should quietly deal with it; and that if he's later found to be innocent all is well

That is not the issue. The problem is when they agree to sex and it is so disgusting that it was not at all what they bargained for. For example, Harvey Weinstein, the movie producer who dominated Hollywood for decades, was sentenced to 23 years in prison for sex crimes.

Jennifer Lawerance was making 15 million dollars a movie. But the deplorable conditions she had to endure did not make the money worth it. "He was never inappropriate with me," she said. "But what he did is criminal and deplorable."

Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie and others did not complain about there being a casting couch. They complained about what was done to them there. In my state having sex with a drunk person is a crime. Having sex with no verbal permission is a crime. You can assume nothing. Consent means verbal. Women that are onto men know that they have to ask in advance exactly what they are getting into. They do not want surprises.

 

[MehGuy]

That is not the issue. The problem is when they agree to sex and it is so disgusting that it was not at all what they bargained for. For example, Harvey Weinstein, the movie producer who dominated Hollywood for decades, was sentenced to 23 years in prison for sex crimes.

Jennifer Lawerance was making 15 million dollars a movie. But the deplorable conditions she had to endure did not make the money worth it. "He was never inappropriate with me," she said. "But what he did is criminal and deplorable."

Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie and others did not complain about there being a casting couch. They complained about what was done to them there. In my state having sex with a drunk person is a crime. Having sex with no verbal permission is a crime. You can assume nothing. Consent means verbal. Women that are onto men know that they have to ask in advance exactly what they are getting into. They do not want surprises.

Not exactly sure what your point is.

Drunken sex? Most feminists I know assume the woman is the victim in the scenario. Regardless if both parties are drunk. A lot of consent discussion is gendered for no good reason. The man is given the responsibility of sexual interaction. This is just classic parental/dynamic behavior. The same mindset feminists cry when men are given more respect in the workforce stems out of this unequal responsibility men are given regarding women's wellbeing.

Want women to be seen as the same capable leaders as men are? Stop infantilizing them. I do feel bad for some things women go through, but when it comes to feminists women.. when their double standards don't work and backfire.. I have zero sympathy for them.

 

[FireDragon76]

Not exactly sure what your point is.

Drunken sex? Most feminists I know assume the woman is the victim in the scenario. Regardless if both parties are drunk. A lot of consent discussion is gendered for no good reason. The man is given the responsibility of sexual interaction. This is just classic parental/dynamic behavior. The same mindset feminists cry when men are given more respect in the workforce stems out of this unequal responsibility men are given regarding women's wellbeing.

No, it's not classic "parent" behavior. Getting somebody drunk so they can't resist you is very bad behavior. It has nothing to do with being "parental" or not.

 

[RDKirk]

No, it's not classic "parent" behavior. Getting somebody drunk so they can't resist you is very bad behavior. It has nothing to do with being "parental" or not.

If both people are drunk, why presume that the man got the woman drunk?

Even if only the woman is drunk, why presume the man got her drunk?

Don't fully grown women have enough agency over their own bodies not to get drunk? If the presumption is that women can be gotten drunk so easily by men such as that it's always the man's fault...then you are saying that women are infantile.

You're saying that women must depend on every man's good will to avoid being made drunk and taken advantage of. That's what we call infantile.