Excuse my butting into this thread, but while no man makes my decisions for me on a day-to-day, personal basis (unless I'm, like, asking my dad what sort of wood is best for my garden's retaining walls :)), men do make decisions that affect my life in a very tangible way - such as, and this is only the first example that comes to mind, when my job had a salary review and the overwhelmingly male management at my company decided that although it requires a high level of skill, dedication and education, not to mention putting up with crap hours, the people who do it are only worth the company's second-lowest salary band. (And before you say I could choose to move into management, I shouldn't have to. I love my job, it's valuable to society, I'm good at it and it makes me happy. In an equitable world, it wouldn't be a dozen steps down the money and status ladder from the men doing the salary reviews, and it's not learned helplessness or a victim complex to acknowledge that.) There's also the issue of predominantly male parliaments deciding that parental leave and childcare aren't priorities. So, yes, as a group, men *do* make decisions for women as a group.
Of course, plenty of individual women *do* have decisions made for them by individual men too, even in affluent Western countries. If you haven't experienced that, you're lucky.
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Date: 2008-01-14 01:14 am (UTC)Of course, plenty of individual women *do* have decisions made for them by individual men too, even in affluent Western countries. If you haven't experienced that, you're lucky.