How can Charis upgrade the status of women in its society?

Safehold has a male-dominated society that is not in keeping with the values and traditions of the Federation.

I know that Master Housmynn has been trying to integrate women into his industries as supervisors; and certainly the introduction of a female seijin will have an effect on popular opinion.

As time passes, and sheer muscular strength becomes less and less of a necessity for survival, society may recognize that keeping women as second class citizens is counterproductive. What can Merlin, et al., do to help this idea get accepted faster?

I would suggest one way would be to integrate women into the military, with small steps. The initial integration of women into earthly western militaries came by making them clerks and support staff, to "free a man to fight." As technology improves, and men are used to seeing women in uniform, women can get into more jobs. When repeating rifles and pistols are paramount in battle, you don't need great strength for sword fighting or using an obsolete pike to gut the enemy.

Hank,
Good stuff, but there are some issues. Until Safehold reaches the point of fully mechanized troops there will still be a basic need for strength. As a retired Army guy, I can tell you that even though it only takes a few pounds of pressure to pull the trigger, it can often take eighty or more pounds of gear to get that rifle into play. SAWs (M249) and LMG (M60/M240B) exacerbate the situation. When I was a line dog, I carried the M60, 1000 rounds of ammo, the spare barrel bag - totalling over 40 pounds.
Even Nimue, in a 'modern' space navy with very little grunt work, had to keep up physical standards.
The military is a good place to start, but it will have to be with the 'clerks, jerks, and REMFs'. Women - and I am being honest, having led mixed squads and platoons - have different and often urgent needs that men really don't. I'm not going into the weeds here, but simply stated a woman living in field conditions for over a month can DIE from the normal hygene conditions. And no, it isn't fun explaining the CO that she lied to her squad leader before going into the hospital for three weeks for toxic shock syndrome.
Houseman's industry, especially with the advent of the pneumatic assembly line, is going to be even better - Rosie the Riviter (?sp) was a far better case for equality over forty years before the Army could get close to matching proper utilization of women.
Going back to the point - pardon my rambling - just giving women a job other than 'Mother, Maid, Mistress' and a source of income not dependent on a husband/father is the first step. It'll come faster than it did here - at least the COGA doesn't have the Writ forbidding (or with passages that would forbid) women to work. The Eves' contribution also gives a great basis to start building onto. Give it forty or fifty years for Charis, perhaps another twenty or thirty for the 'enlightened' mainland realms and a hundred or more for places like Harchong.
Just my 2 bits,
Dave

Lazalarlives wrote:Hank,
Good stuff, but there are some issues. Until Safehold reaches the point of fully mechanized troops there will still be a basic need for strength. As a retired Army guy, I can tell you that even though it only takes a few pounds of pressure to pull the trigger, it can often take eighty or more pounds of gear to get that rifle into play. SAWs (M249) and LMG (M60/M240B) exacerbate the situation. When I was a line dog, I carried the M60, 1000 rounds of ammo, the spare barrel bag - totalling over 40 pounds.
Even Nimue, in a 'modern' space navy with very little grunt work, had to keep up physical standards.
The military is a good place to start, but it will have to be with the 'clerks, jerks, and REMFs'. Women - and I am being honest, having led mixed squads and platoons - have different and often urgent needs that men really don't. I'm not going into the weeds here, but simply stated a woman living in field conditions for over a month can DIE from the normal hygene conditions. And no, it isn't fun explaining the CO that she lied to her squad leader before going into the hospital for three weeks for toxic shock syndrome.
Houseman's industry, especially with the advent of the pneumatic assembly line, is going to be even better - Rosie the Riviter (?sp) was a far better case for equality over forty years before the Army could get close to matching proper utilization of women.
Going back to the point - pardon my rambling - just giving women a job other than 'Mother, Maid, Mistress' and a source of income not dependent on a husband/father is the first step. It'll come faster than it did here - at least the COGA doesn't have the Writ forbidding (or with passages that would forbid) women to work. The Eves' contribution also gives a great basis to start building onto. Give it forty or fifty years for Charis, perhaps another twenty or thirty for the 'enlightened' mainland realms and a hundred or more for places like Harchong.
Just my 2 bits,
Dave

The liberation of womankind does indeed begin with giving them an income that is independent from their husbands, fathers or other male relatives that does not involve prostitution. And on Safehold, where the starting point of the Holy Wirt was one of equality and where the history in the Testimonies proves that it existed, it would be hard to argue that God did not intend for men and women to be equal. Obviously someone like Staynair is going to push that sort of interpretation within the church while Sharleyan, Olyvya and Irys would push it on a secular level. But defeating entrenched misogyny and sexism will take a while.

Still, war can help in the pushing since women can fill all the jobs that are now vacant due to their husbands and fathers going off to war. And with Housemyn being enlightened and all that he won't be firing all of these women once the war is over. Add to that the fact that quite a lot of men will not be returning home, especially on the church's side and you get a recipe for universal suffrage. After all, if the church sues for terms and tries to rebuild in places like Harchong after losing so many male serfs, where are they going to get the manpower. I know they have a supposedly bottomless supply of manpower but there are limits to everything.

IMO the Military is the last place Merlin should attempt to "upgrade the status of women".

The issue of "upper-body strength" is a real issue regarding female infantry troops.

Also, the jury is still out concerning women in the US military.

There is plenty of anecdotal evidence of problems with women in the military that appears to be ignored by the politicians and higher command.

Apparently, there are women who insist on be treated differently than the men they are serving with and are willing to claim "sexual harassment" to get away with it.

Are there women capable of serving in the front lines?

Very likely there are some but IMO Merlin should be willing to make sure that the women met the same standards that men have to met.

I just turned sixty but IMO when younger I would not have met the standards necessary to serve in the military.

Why should a woman be allowed to serve in the military if she could not met the standards that a man had to met?

thanatos wrote:*SNIP*
Still, war can help in the pushing since women can fill all the jobs that are now vacant due to their husbands and fathers going off to war. And with Housemyn being enlightened and all that he won't be firing all of these women once the war is over. Add to that the fact that quite a lot of men will not be returning home, especially on the church's side and you get a recipe for universal suffrage. After all, if the church sues for terms and tries to rebuild in places like Harchong after losing so many male serfs, where are they going to get the manpower. I know they have a supposedly bottomless supply of manpower but there are limits to everything.

I agree. Rosie the Riveter is going to do more to upgrade the status of women in Charis than GI Jane.

Henry Brown wrote:

thanatos wrote:*SNIP*
Still, war can help in the pushing since women can fill all the jobs that are now vacant due to their husbands and fathers going off to war. And with Housemyn being enlightened and all that he won't be firing all of these women once the war is over. Add to that the fact that quite a lot of men will not be returning home, especially on the church's side and you get a recipe for universal suffrage. After all, if the church sues for terms and tries to rebuild in places like Harchong after losing so many male serfs, where are they going to get the manpower. I know they have a supposedly bottomless supply of manpower but there are limits to everything.

I agree. Rosie the Riveter is going to do more to upgrade the status of women in Charis than GI Jane.

I believe Mrs C J Walker might do more yet to upgrade the status of women. Perhaps that would be C J Wahlkhyr.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madam_C._J._Walker

Henry Brown wrote:

thanatos wrote:*SNIP*
Still, war can help in the pushing since women can fill all the jobs that are now vacant due to their husbands and fathers going off to war. And with Housemyn being enlightened and all that he won't be firing all of these women once the war is over. Add to that the fact that quite a lot of men will not be returning home, especially on the church's side and you get a recipe for universal suffrage. After all, if the church sues for terms and tries to rebuild in places like Harchong after losing so many male serfs, where are they going to get the manpower. I know they have a supposedly bottomless supply of manpower but there are limits to everything.

I agree. Rosie the Riveter is going to do more to upgrade the status of women in Charis than GI Jane.

Certainly good points. I guess that it will depend on how the war turns out. If Charis and Siddarmark are able to push the Temple out of Siddarmarkian territory, and they end up with some kind of truce or cold war, Charis will have to keep some men under arms, but probably not as many as they have now.

It is, I believe, possible to have a situation like after WWII in the US, where the returning veterans came back and to a large extent pushed the women out of the Rosie the Riveter jobs they had. Now, this may not be true for Safehold, but in the societal context they are in, I believe a good portion of the women workers might be glad to give up their jobs and search for husbands among the returning victorious veterans.

Hank Plantagenet wrote:Certainly good points. I guess that it will depend on how the war turns out. If Charis and Siddarmark are able to push the Temple out of Siddarmarkian territory, and they end up with some kind of truce or cold war, Charis will have to keep some men under arms, but probably not as many as they have now.

It is, I believe, possible to have a situation like after WWII in the US, where the returning veterans came back and to a large extent pushed the women out of the Rosie the Riveter jobs they had. Now, this may not be true for Safehold, but in the societal context they are in, I believe a good portion of the women workers might be glad to give up their jobs and search for husbands among the returning victorious veterans.

I don't think this is going to happen for three reasons. First during WWII the US mobilized a massive number of men and suffered a fairly low rate of casualties. I don't remember the exact figures, but other nations such as Germany or the Soviet Union lost far more men, both in absolute terms and as a percentage of the total mobilized. Charis has not suffered extremely casualties yet, but we have no guarantee that this is going to continue.

Second, I doubt Charis is going to be able to demobilize to the extent the US was after WWII. If the current war stops short of absolute victory and they reach some kind of treaty or armistice with the CoG then Charis is certainly going to have to maintain an extremely large navy and army for self-defense. If Charis does achieve total victory, then they will be able to partially demobilize. But they are still going to have to keep enough of an Imperial military to keep the conquered territories from rebelling. And we have also seen examples of nobles at home (particularly in Old Chisholm) plotting against the Imperial family. They are going to need a strong Imperial army to keep that kind of thing in check.

The third reason is that after WWII, the US political and industrial leaders wanted to return to the pre-war status quo. There was not real effort made to retain the wartime female workforce. In fact, from what I remember, US political and economic postwar policy favored returning GIs and helped push women out of their wartime jobs. I doubt Cayleb, Sharleyan, and Howsmyn are going to duplicate these policies. Therefore, I would expect it will be easier for Safehold women who want to stay in the workforce to keep their wartime jobs than it was for women in post-WWII US.

Henry's point goes in the right direction but not far enough. After WWII much of the world had already industrialized but had their industry destroyed. Safehold is 100-150 years behind Terra of that period. That tells me that Charis simply cannot produce enough goods and services to satisfy Safehold's demand by itself even if every able bodied adult in the Empire worked in factories.

So if every Charisian with savings invests in a manufactory and those manufactories produce goods, all those goods will find buyers somewhere on Safehold for quite a few years to come. Since women are not prohibited from owning property in the EoC, Charisian women will be starting businesses that will be overwhelmingly successful. Any prejudice against men working for women will simply mean those female business owners will hire more women.

Bottom line is that Sharley and Cayleb don't have to do much to drive women's status higher. Economics will create conditions that would improve their lot. This of course assumes some trade with the jihadi nations on the mainland.

One other factor to consider besides the returning veterans is the displacement of agricultural workers in an age of increased mechanization. Steam tractors, steam plows, and improved mechanical threshers and harvesters will reduce the numbers of peasants needed to work the land. This is good, in that farmlands will be able to support larger populations with less farm workers. It is bad, in that jobs must be found for these displaced workers somewhere else.

Otherwise, Cayleb and Sharleyan will have to deal with unemployed peasants, resentful of the "city-slickers and womenfolk" that they might blame for their situation.