> But there's also centuries of entrenched societal structure that is only slowly dissolving. And much of that structure was built up with bogus explanations of what women were biologically capable of.
I don't think the centuries old explanations are as bogus as you imply. The differences between men and women that we can all agree on such as avg. strength, breast feeding composed a lot more constraint on the divisions of labor. Regardless of what you think about breastfeeding or formula today you can't argue that it more or less forced women to do the early child rearing in centuries past. And men's increased brute strength was far more important for much of the labor before the industrial revolution.
"Natural differences" was used to explain all sorts of things. E.g., why women couldn't be writers or doctors or lawyers or senators. I think those were bogus. Women weren't allowed to vote in the US until 1920 (and we were early adopters). I'm pretty sure that voting didn't require brute strength before then.
"Natural differences" was also used to justify slavery. That goes back to Aristotle, and up through the US Confederacy. I think that was bogus too.
I also assert that the claim of individual differences can only ever justify individual situations. If a strong person ends up having to carry the coal because a weak one can't, fine. But we're talking about systems where millions of people were judged on hypothetical averages and the crudest of stereotypes. E.g., firefighters need to be strong, but there's no reason to think that the US's weakest fireman was stronger than the US's strongest woman.
And I think that the reason women were forced to do all the childrearing was mainly not biology. Even if we ignore things like cow's milk and wet nurses, dads are perfectly capable of doing all the work once a child is 2 or so. Women were forced to do it because they lived in patriarchal societies where women were nearly property.
So I think we should always be deeply suspicious of any justification that comes down to natural differences. The history of it as an argument is absolutely terrible.
I don't think the centuries old explanations are as bogus as you imply. The differences between men and women that we can all agree on such as avg. strength, breast feeding composed a lot more constraint on the divisions of labor. Regardless of what you think about breastfeeding or formula today you can't argue that it more or less forced women to do the early child rearing in centuries past. And men's increased brute strength was far more important for much of the labor before the industrial revolution.