We’ve Been Arguing About Gender Equality for 2,300 Years. Why Aren’t We Done?

About this episode

We figured out that women and men were equal thousands of years ago. So why did it take so long for the world to catch up?   Arguments for gender equality stretch back at least 2,300 years. Plato imagined men and women ruling together. And yet, again and again, the idea surfaced, stalled, disappeared and returned. In this episode of A Short History of Saving the World, Angus Hervey and historian Ada Palmer take the long view of gender equality: from ancient Greece and Renaissance Europe to the suffragettes, feminism and the unfinished work of progress today. Along the way, they arrive at the bigger question - do we really believe that all people are equal? Because perhaps the hardest part of equality isn't changing the law. It's changing our minds.   In this conversation: • Why can an idea win centuries before the world actually changes? • Did women have a Renaissance? • Why does progress so often provoke a backlash? • Have we mistaken the first 10% of gender equality for 90%? • And what happens if we decide feminism has already won? Timestamps: 1:06 The Quarrel: 2,300 Years of Gender Equality 2:36 Why Good Ideas Take Centuries 7:39 Equality is never a Straight Line 8:48 Ther