Religion
In reply to the discussion: Why Is Religion So Afraid Of Women? [View all]iemitsu
(3,888 posts)spooky powers. The main power being procreation or maybe, more generally, sex. Since women always know who their children are and men can never be certain, all women are suspect.
Recognizing women's equality with men would mean that men could no longer lock women in towers, make them wear chastity belts, chain them in the kitchen, under-educate them, or force them to cover themselves in public in an effort to control women's sexuality and guarantee that her children were his.
The value of women in society is directly tied to contributions to the survival of the family or community. In farming societies women enjoy fairly high status. The industrial economy made women less important and they lost value. Their restricted rights, lower wages, etc. reflect this lowered value.
Churches (the big three Messianic faiths) promote manifest hierarchy. Men on top. They derive their power from the myth of the man savior.
It wasn't always this way.