John Berry <berry.joh...@gmail.com> wrote: The point that I believe Harry and I am making is not that women have > always had safer jobs than men. > > But rather that in modern western feminist society this is the case. >
In Europe and the U.S. women have always had safer jobs than men. This has nothing to do with feminism. It has been the tradition for all of recorded European history. It makes good sense too, because women took care of children. Small children were usually breastfed and would not survive without their mothers, whereas they could survive without a father if some other man supported the family (such as a grandfather or uncle). Men also outnumbered women soldiers, warriors, pirates, violent criminals and so on, in all recorded wars and battles, in every culture and era on record. Of course there have been famous women warriors, but not many. > There are just as many men battered by women apparently. > Probably not, given the fact that men on average are significantly larger and stronger than women, and much more naturally inclined to violence. In the U.S., men 88.3 kg (194.7 lb) versus women 74.7 kg (164.7 lb). That is another obvious reason men traditionally did dangerous or heavy labor more often than women. Generally speaking, all else being equal, large people are more likely to batter smaller people. Most primate males are larger. Chimpanzees: female (26 - 50 kg), male (35 - 70 kg). Male chimpanzees are also more violent, engaging in warfare (organized killing in groups of other tribes) and individual homicide. (Or panicide I guess it should be.) http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/apes/chimp/ > A woman can slap a man and it is seen as ok, can a man slap a woman? > Who on earth says that is okay?!? I have never heard of such a thing. However, in England, it was legal for husbands to beat their wives and children until modern times. Morality and laws have changed, fortunately. Regarding industrial safety, the U.S. fatality rate was 61 deaths per 100,000 workers in 1915, and it is 3.3 deaths per 100,000 workers today. That is a tremendous improvement. http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2016/article/pdf/the-life-of-american-workers-in-1915.pdf Look at the death rate in mining in Fig. 4 here. It is asymptotically approaching zero. Why? Because of safety improvements, strip mining (instead pit mining) and because the number of miners is approaching zero. Mining is now done with machines. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4822a1.htm >From 1911 through 1997, approximately 103,000 miners died at work (Figure 4). During 1911-1915, an average of 3329 mining-related deaths occurred per year among approximately 1 million miners employed annually, with an average annual fatality rate of 329 per 100,000 miners. During the century, the average annual number of workers (operators and contractors combined) in the mining industry has declined to approximately 356,000, and deaths have dropped approximately 37-fold, from 3329 to 89; injury fatality rates have decreased approximately 13-fold, to 25 per 100,000 during 1996-1997. - Jed
