Discussion: Post-1000 AD, how rapidly could gender equality be achieved in Western Europe?

Now that I think of it, would it help if more misogynistic European states, like France
I think summarizing the situation as for having "states" (I'm assuming you meant cultures rather than states in the strictest sense) being more misogynistic and some other as less misogynistic is a bit flawed.
European society as a whole was growing more misogynistic, andwhile it appears that german (possibly mostly rhineish, to be checked) women had more legal and social acknowledgment of their participation to the work process in general, it doesn't remove the fact that part of the counter-effect of reintroduction of Roman Law comes from HRE.
It's eventually less a question of degree than case-by-case.
 
LCS, I've reading what you say with interest and I love to learn about the medieval period. So, on that note, is there any reading you could recommend to me?
 
It didn't help that the Pope and all priests blamed all woman as the source of the fall from grace. This devaluation of women spread as Christianity did (I'm sorry to say).
 
LCS, I've reading what you say with interest and I love to learn about the medieval period. So, on that note, is there any reading you could recommend to me?
Depends. Can you read french? If not, I don't have most clues to give to you.

It didn't help that the Pope and all priests blamed all woman as the source of the fall from grace. This devaluation of women spread as Christianity did (I'm sorry to say).

That's one of the big misconceptions about medieval society that can't be really supported. Christianity, not alone on this admittedly, represented a huge progress into institutional acknowledgment of women : while the traditional roman woman (to not say greek) was considered an eternal minor and really managed only in the Late Antiquity to have their own names.
Roman relatively widespread infanticide, on this regard, may have targeted girls in a similar manner than what caused the birth unbalance between men and women in some modern countries.

On the other side, while women were still under a lower consideration overall, well...they did were considered as spiritual equals of men, at least theologically and institutionally : it's not that rare to see abbesses having a religious power over monks or lay brothers (not rare, which isn't the same than common, it remained particular to coupled houses).
Not that Church didn't played a role into maintaing women in relative lower consideration : it "theologized" the lower station.
That said, a lot of Eve-related interpretations purposely devaluated women in order to get a better comparison with marial themes, especially in the XIIth century.

Spiritual individuality, and not only based on familial spirituality, is probably one of the biggest changes from classical Antiquity that was maintained up to the end of MA, without this individuality being systematically tied to purity and virginity (not that it was a clear politic from the Church, but rather the middle-way they attempted to maintain between irreligion and heterodoxial puritanism)
Mariage becoming a sacrament in the Middle-Ages is as well a novelty on this regard, as it made union no longer a simple contractual agreement dominated by men (repudiation of spouses and/or polygamy de facto wasn't rare up to the classical medieval era), but a spiritual matter on which the women were technically equal to men and able to push for their interests (and while never really fully applied by lack of possibility, consent in mariage and sexuality really made its spiritual apparance).

TLDR
While the theologisation of the lower station of medieval women certainly did its part into maintaining the said lower station, you had as well the appearance of a first accounted spiritual independence and individuality that answered to the known social independence and individuality : as I tried to point in my first post, neither gender harmony, but neither gender "minorisation".
 
On the theme of the authority by abbesses having authority over males the case of the abbess of Conversano in Apulia, who from 1267 to 1810 had feudal jurisdiction over the village of Castellana and, by having the privilege of directly depending from the Holy See and not from the local bishop. Hence the abbess was able to bear episcopal insignia (mithra and pastoral) and had authority over the local clergy, with male clergymen sometimes having to kiss the female abbess' hands. That was the so-called "Monstrum Apuliae" and it is probably no coincidence that it was none else than a product of the French Revolution like Joachim Murat who put an end to it.

Now this is anecdotical evidence, but it shows the potential to empower women in the clerical structure if they had not been excluded from the priesthood. Maybe a Christianity which keeps some of its original radicalism in social matters? How could that become an established, hegemonic religion in the late antiquity?

Post-1000 ad it seems very difficult to keep bureaucratisation and the advent of modern states without the rollback of traditional women's rights (I'd also add traditional peasants' rights over common lands etc.), I don't have any serious ideas on how to reverse that trend...
 

missouribob

Banned
Quickest thing I can think of is a more radical French revolution that uses it's drafted armies to steamroll Europe and imparts on continental Empire forced egalitarianism including women's rights.
 
I think summarizing the situation as for having "states"... being more misogynistic and some other as less misogynistic is a bit flawed.

European society as a whole was growing more misogynistic, and while it appears that german (possibly mostly rhineish...) women had more legal and social acknowledgment of their participation to the work process in general, it doesn't remove the fact that part of the counter-effect of reintroduction of Roman Law comes from HRE.

It's eventually less a question of degree than case-by-case.
Put this way then -- if Europe (and the HRE in particular) avoids the absolutely devastation that was the Thirty Years War, does that likely help the OP?
 
Put this way then -- if Europe (and the HRE in particular) avoids the absolutely devastation that was the Thirty Years War, does that likely help the OP?
I've no definitive idea whatsoever. But with a comparison with places that not only didn't were touched by this (apart from HRE, Europe wasn't that touched by the TYW or at least no more than the usual fiscal pressure), or even were prosperous at this time, I'd go with "not that significantly".

That said, you'd have grounds to prevent, without too much of the IOTL "Holier-than-thou" narrative already mentioned in the earlier posts, the degradation of perception of women.
On another hand, without the demographic fall resulting of the war, maybe there could be a lesser need for a feminie workforce in towns...

There's food for tought, that's sure.
 
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