"Anybody who knows anything of history knows that great social changes are impossible without the feminine ferment. Social progress can be measured exactly by the social position of the fair sex (the ugly ones included)." (
Letters Marx-Engels 1868)
Do you think Marx was correct in saying that social progress can be measured by the social position of women? Why or why not?
Well in part yes, as the social position of women is one aspect of overall social progress rooted in the cultivation of equality of opportunity and fair human rights. So in that regard measuring it will tell you about social progress specifically regarding those things.
To put it another way, i think the social standing of women is correlated with overall social progress, but isn’t conclusively all that social progress is about, but rather one factor among many. A factor that could be used as a crude marker for the overall social change occurring, but never the less is still only a marker.
Many aspects of society will need to be taken into consideration when looking at and measuring social progress. These include;
-Consideration of basic human needs such as nutrition and medical care, water and sanitation, shelter, personal safety and so on.
-It also needs to look more closely at wellbeing and education including access to basic knowledge, access to information and communications, health and wellness and so on.
-It also needs to look at opportunity, focusing on things such as personal rights, freedoms and choice, tolerance and inclusion and access to advanced education and jobs.
-In addition to this i think that the degree to which a society is environmentally conscientious goes a long way in telling us of its social progress.
The Social Progress Imperative has created a Social Progress Index based on measuring a number of factors like the ones ive mentioned above, to give a quantified measure for different countries.
Social Progress Index - Data - Social Progress Index - The Social Progress Imperative
To briefly return to the subject of women’s position as a guide to overall social progression, i actually think there is a more sensitive marker to be had, that of the treatment of animals and animal rights.
This is because animal rights is a natural progression from basic human rights and the general principles that underpin how you should treat other feeling conscious creatures. To have a society that has extended this consideration to animal’s shows marked progress.
As such in two societies of generally equal treatment of women (or the difference is hard to see) you can differentiate them in terms of social progress by looking at the treatment of animals. (More sensitive a marker).
