I disagree completely and can say with a good deal of confidence that the today's standards are superior to past ones. The reason for this is that today's standards are based in information that was not known or available than earlier standards.
I consider it abhorrent for one human to own another human. I think that some standards are absolute even if they are in opposition to what was occuring in the past. We seem to disagree about that and I know we won't be changing each other's minds.
I also disagree that future generations will consider my views on the subject disgusting. If one looks at the arc of the human condition over time it's generally moved towards more freedom and liberty for individuals and more equality independant of gender, ethnicity and /or nationality. I would agree that from time to time progress is reversed but over the long run general direction has been consistent.
That's only your beliefs though, a very subjective point of view and I could say with a good deal of confidence various things like Athenian democracy or French Monarchy were morally better, or to push it to the extremes, that I have a unicorn in my garden.
As for your views that wouldn't be abhorrent in the future, then you are denying that your standards could be as primitives to the next generation as the ancient standards are to you.
I would agree that some women are fine with the status quo but just because some are doesn't make it reasonable or right. I still think that restrictions on individual freedom and liberty based on gender, ethnicity and/or nationality.
I do care about what is happening in other countries because I care about the overall state of the world. Also if it's something that's acceptable in another place it makes it more likely that it could be adopted in my country.
Then just because you think something is right or not doesn't make it reasonable or unreasonable as well, especially when you brandish values as freedom and liberty as axioms, without justifying why they would be desirables.
Wanting to change others because they might be a threat to your beliefs is just a form of cultural imperialism though... Would you also impose your neighbour to remove his shoes in his own house because his practices could be exported to your house?
It would be very easy for you to find out. Pick up a book about the feminist movement in the 60's in the United States. You'll learn what sort of things women were experiencing and what they were fighting for. So for a reasonably large portion of the female population things were not fine and/or they weren't happy with things are they were because they fought hard to change things.
What I would read is that winners write the history, as usual. In France, feminist movements and strikes in 1968 started from men students (then a very small and privileged part of the population) wanting mix dormitories to lay down with women, and this is almost never mentionned. Same, it's rarely mentionned that feminist movements were pushed by industrials who just saw an opportunity to get more workforce pretending that women could do nothing at all, and could suddenly become advocate, doctor, actress.
The wave we're experiencing nowaday still plays this card (nobody promise women that they could become garbage collector and will more likely get into these works, like men, it's not good to sell an ideology in a society in which most of work are seen to be lower than others), which is nothing but a low ball. In addition, a small minority can be as noisy as a majority making the whole perception of a movement biaised. Feminism can look extremely bad because of femen, because they are very noisy, but being extremely noisy can also push a government to make move in favour of a movement without a population fully supporting it.
Thus, no, I would probably not find out easily if women were happier in the 70's than in the 50's, in the 18th or before.
Let me try to put it a different way. Your examples were situational. A woman is always a woman and can never change that to not be raped. About the only people who can stop rape from happening are men by not raping women. I do agree that there are an extremely small number of women who rape other women or rape boys or men but the numbers are small enough to make it a non-issue for now. Once men stop raping girls and women we can start working on the women who rape others.
My examples are situational but so is clothing and taking a risk. I wasn't talking about the fact of specifically being a woman because it would make no sense to point out something that can't be changed. In other words, if we say that men have 1/10 chances to get raped in their life and women have 5/10 chances to get rape, then wearing some set of clothes might increase the risk of getting raped from 5/10 to 6 or 7/10 for a woman. That's all I was saying (obviously, the units used are arbitrary).
However, when you say that women don't change, this is not entirely true... People get old and grannies are less victims of sexual assault than women in their twenties.
Once again women should be able to wear whatever they want without being raped or molested. I don't care how men or others have justified their unreasonable actions the man should not have raped or molested the woman. Period.
So? I never disagreed on this part, quite the contrary, but it doesn't answer my question. Could you deny that some behaviour, some traits might make of someone a privileged target?
If so, then in case the problem remains and is not fixed (and it's been at least 20 or 30 years that this problem is more and more in the public debate without any positive change from what I see), then an ultimate yet pitiful solution, as I mentionned to desiree if you want to lower the chances to get annoyed, is to refrain yourself from wearing some clothes or doing some things.
We disagree completely. Clothing, behavior and cirumstances are just excuses and justifications for rape and molestation. The only time there should be sexual activity is when both parties give their full and uncoerced consent.
They can be used as excuses, but a last time, if women showing them are more likely to get assaulted than others, then it's a variable on which they might be able to act as a last resort.
Concerning the consent, I'm afraid such thing would ideally require to write a paper to assert your consent or something, which would mean that the society would definitely takes the dystopic turn.
How does choosing a particular person based on their being a member of an underrepresented class when they are equal to the member of the over represented class lead to mediocrity?
I was talking about quotas here, but I guess that all other things being equals, then it would not lead to mediocrity but to inequality that is often praised. An "equal" and "fair" system would rather be to pick randomly the candidate instead, because taking someone because of they belong to x or y group is acknowledging that your citizens are differents and one deserves the post more than the other.
I already said that I'm generally against quotas so you don't need to beat that dead horse.
I was only pointing out that quotas are already a thing.