- The fight for gender equality is exclusively 20th century thing; never happened before

As another poster already commented, and you already acknowledged, the fight for gender equality has been continuing for at least three centuries. It certainly isn't exclusively a 20th century thing.

- Gender equality wasn't imposed in society by an external entity, it was brought about because it was essential

It's certainly not yet proven to be "essential" in any sense of the word that I recognise. Positive, perhaps, but the survival of the species doesn't rest on gender equality. For long periods of history the human race has not had gender equality, and we've survived it. No-one has ever proven that our continued existence (or even prosperity) rests on recognising the rights of others.

- Most societies for most of history were less hostile to homosexuality than the modern West

I'm fairly certain that this is simply wrong too. While there have been some societies in history that have been ambivalent or positive towards homosexuality, the vast majority of societies through history have treated homosexuality as deviant behaviour that should be shunned - most societies that are dominated by Christianity or Islam (which, for obvious reasons, tend to be the societies with the best and most available records) have treated homosexuality as a terrible sin. Even if you look at modern societies, the west is amongst the most inclusive - compare attitudes in Germany, Canada, the US and the UK with attitudes in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Russia, etc.

This isn't to say that the west's attitudes to gender equality and homosexuality couldn't be improved! However, when you massively overstate the scale of the problem, people will generally find it difficult to take seriously whatever else you have to say. We have ways in which we can improve, but things are getting better.

Note to self: don't try to upvote on mobile phone, it might result in me downvoting a awesome post by accident and no way to fix it.

It would help if the upvote button stayed on the left, but with the downvote button moved to the right (after "link").

> The fight for gender equality is exclusively 20th century thing; never happened before

No, this is false. All that differed in historical accounts of gender struggles were the methods and the scale, not the goals. Do the names Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony ring any bells (19th century)? Or Margaret Cavendish from the 17th century?

Suggested reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_feminism

> Most societies for most of history were less hostile to homosexuality than the modern West

Also false -- very, very false. Even the Bible contains accounts of homophobia.

I would not consider a few exceptional single individuals (there were others, beyond the recent anglo-saxon part of history) to constitute a "movement". The social equilibrium at the time did not leave a place for gender equality until the 20th century (industrialization/the need for women to work away from home/the washing machine etc).

WRT homosexuality - you are confusing cause and effect. The Bible was what brought homosexuality to such a negative light in the christian/western world.

Regardless of how Bible affected homosexuality in Rome and later Europe, it does document that homophobia (i.e., automatic death penalty) existed in semitic cultures ~500 BC.

And we have evidence of exact contrary opinions at the same time on the other side of Mediterranean - so this attitude clearly was not something forced by the objective reality of that time, but simply a cultural/traditional choice.

> I would not consider a few exceptional single individuals (there were others, beyond the recent anglo-saxon part of history) to constitute a "movement".

Please read the post to which I replied -- no mention of "movement". The post said "The fight for gender equality is exclusively 20th century thing; never happened before." That's false -- this is not a new fight. All that has changed is the scale, a factor I addressed by using that word.

> WRT homosexuality - you are confusing cause and effect. The Bible was what brought homosexuality to such a negative light in the christian/western world.

The Bible is a historical record of old values and practices, and homophobia is included in that record for a reason. The Bible's influence on modern history is an effect, but its contents allude to causes that were present in ancient times.

I doubt that people are taught by the Bible to be homophobes, or to be intolerant in any other way -- that comes naturally to people with poor educations. All the Bible does is encourage the natural intolerance of the illiterate.

It happened before, I will see if later I find some paper links to paste here.

Also gender equality was not needed in the current society, it is that the current society made it possible, quite different.