Below I said that sexism, racism, etc are the framing on which out society is built. I thought I should clear that up for you peeps cause it is a REALLY important point.

There are basic things societies need to do in order to ensure survival. Get nourishment, provide shelter, reproduce, care for children to adulthood, and secure the members of society from violence.

Let’s see how many of those are “women’s work”. Women do the majority of food gathering and cooking. While much is made about men’s contribution via hunting (and it ha never been proven that just men hunted) a majority of early societies depended on the skills of women for most of their sustenance. Miss a hunt or two and you could survive, but miss the gathering and storing of foodstuffs and you will perish.

Shelter- we are not sure how labor division worked for a lot of early societies when it comes to shelter. But we do know that women are responsible for most of the shelter upkeep now. Men may be the majority of home builders (for profit) but the majority of homes are cared for by women. The difference is a few weeks or months of hard labor vs a lifetime of daily labor. Even if you want to throw in “typical” men’s labor via the home it is still a difference of daily labor for women vs weekly labor for men.

Reproduction: It does take two to tango, but after about 15 minutes, a man’s job is done. The woman still has 40 weeks of pregnancy to go. Pregnancy means a need for larger amounts of nourishment plus making accommodations for post natal care where a woman is temporarilly unable to provide for herself or her family (see Grandmother hypothesis)

Care of children to adulthood: