My text last week, in which I denounced the lies peddled by neo-feminism, earned me some rabid spamming accusing me of ignoring the patriarchal oppression suffered by women. For “irrefutable proof”, I was treated to the great classic of feminist rhetoric, namely that it took until 1940 for women to obtain the right to vote in Quebec (1918 in Canada).
The information is factually accurate. But to imply that men have always been able to vote freely is misleading.
Restrictions
For a long time, the provinces imposed a plethora of restrictions on the right to vote based not only on age and gender, but also on religion, race and property criteria.
In Quebec, many men did not have the right to vote until 1936. To obtain this “privilege”, it was necessary not only to own a building, but also that said building had a minimum value. As for the tenants, they had to possess assets of an equivalent value. That’s not all, men also had to fulfill certain conditions in terms of education or schooling. Access to the electoral process was clearly minimal, if not exceptional. By obtaining the right to vote in 1940, women were barely four years behind the majority of men.
Legit
Have women ever been oppressed by men? Yes ! But the history of humanity being that of relations of domination, it turns out that the vast majority of men have also been oppressed by other men for thousands of years. It is, moreover, resistance to oppression that motivated Article 2 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man of 1791.
Feminism nevertheless remains legitimate. But he should denounce the appalling subjugation of Iranian or Afghan women rather than victimizing Western women by concocting an oppression based on a tendentious interpretation of the past!