The desire for education is very different from the desire for work.
I am not saying there are no women (or even the majority of women) who want to work because it is their choice. But I think we are making it a gender issue when really it isn't. Do most men want to work or do they have to? Social mores have dictated the man be the provider for centuries, if not millenia.
I think it depends on the individual more than the gender.
That is kind of not true.
1.) That is what happens when there is no war, country is rich and when industrial revolutions take people to factories. When they worked on small family farm, both genders had to tend animals, do crafts and so on. Most of things had to be made. The work was gendered, physical strength mattered, but it was not women twiddling fingers at home painting pretty pictures out of boredom.
2.) During economically bad periods, women had to work to survive. Their chances and options were just inferior. Victorian england required male to provide for women, but economics was bad - marriages not happening. (A lot of prostitution tho.)
3.) Plenty male occupations killed males soon. Miners were old by 40 and dead. Women lived longer and used to live from crafts they made and sold.
4.) And obviously, as men die in wars (and some wars killed a lot of men) or are just away then you cant possibly have all women having male provider. Plus, women were raped making them less viable partners.
5.) Take California gold fever - demographics very heavily skewed toward males (and very violent). That means, other places necessary lack males. There is no way for all women to be provided by males, social mores or not. Because males are not there, they are in California and anyway are killing each other. Not coming back. Some women were provided for by family and brothers etc, but the less rich family was the more they had to figure out how to make themselves some money.
Also, overall they easily make majority of population. Combination of family farms, non-aristocracy, poor people, war situations, dangerous or far away occupations for males, pre-industrial are largely majority of "centuries if not millenia". Can I add former slaves who would be significant part of population here?
The "we expect the half of population to be mostly idle and mostly unused" is unnatural exceptional situation. And in case of muslim countries considerable physical violence is used to keep it that way.
When you talk about what was happening and was feasible for centuries, you cant skip over such was populations. They did not had power, had less control over own lives, but they did existed and count.
Also, most of those feminists marches were middle class or rich women. Poor women worked already, they however had sucky jobs and had completely different needs. Turns out that when women are actually in that supposedly great optimal situation, they want to get out, significant percentage is discontent and unhappy.
Yes, I never said or implied otherwise. I don't know why you think I'm fighting with you.
My entire point is people work because they have to more than they want to, and gender is irrelevant. What I originally said:
> I think it depends on the individual more than the gender.
For example: only 40% of all Homo Sapiens Sapiens males that have ever lived were able to have offspring. Compared to 80% females.