Reddit reviews History of Women in the West, Volume I: From Ancient Goddesses to Christian Saints

Let's see if I understand this correctly.

The U.S, grappling the issue of slavery since it's first Constitution, an issue that almost kept the Sovereign States from ever uniting; the U.S. that had already almost schismed into war a few times before the 1860s over the issue of slavery... that U.S. ultimately fought the bloodiest war of its history, pitting father against son, neighbor against neighbor, destroying its economy (and almost destroying itself) ...just to "catch up" with Europe.

Because in the end, Abraham Lincoln decided, "Enough is enough! Europe will pull no further ahead of us! South, gather your weapons!"

Abraham Lincoln would rather go to war than have Europe beat us. The cruelty and and greed of Americans notwithstanding (for we had a very lucrative cotton industry thriving within our nation, worked by a captive workforce) we couldn't let Europe beat us.

What the hell. How the hell do you respond to that?

As for France and their amazing treatment of women and education? Perhaps Geneviève Fraisse and Michelle Perrot could enlighten you on that subject. France had many amazing ideas about sororité and equality of education after the fall of the Bastille, but it wasn't until AFTER the U.S. started getting it's shit together that they started acting on that stuff, roughly one hundred years later.

There are a million things you could whine about, but there are currently some really important things in the U.S. that are way too important to be simply whined about- the danger is that on the internet someone might think you know what the hell you're talking about. Go read a book, it'll do you good. Learn something about a topic and THEN try to make claims about it.

"The U.S. only did those things to catch up to Europe."
"The U.S. is just a bunch of assholes."

Jesus.