Are women the men’s slaves? Not at all! In the past, women were treated like men’s slaves. Throughout the world, women were expected to be like property of men. If look at the history of the world, mostly women had been deprived from their righteous rights and employment opportunities while men were enjoyed superiorities. Men considered women’s most important business housewife to cook, clean and raise children. After long struggle, women in the majority of countries, “won the right to vote and increased their educational and job opportunities. Possibly most important, they fought for and to a large degree accomplished a reevaluation of traditional views of their role in society,” (women’s international center, 1994, p 1).
In the past, men treated their wives and children as their properties. Unfortunately, mostly men thought on that time, woman does not have any rights, woman was subjected to obey her husband and husband was perceived to provide foods and clothing to his wife and children. Eastman wrote in her essay, woman cannot live by bread alone, what she needs first of all is free soul. That is very logic and really makes sense; how people no mater man or woman can live only with eating alone, human need some sorts of freedom. Previously, in most of religions such Christianity stressed that women are a main basis of temptation and evil. Latin father of the Christians church wrote, “Woman is the gate of the devil, the path of wickedness, the sting of the serpent, in a word precious object,” (women’s international center, 1994, p 1). Men had negative mentality about women status in society.
Women have had been considered physically “weaker” than men, and will not be able to accomplis...
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...said, “Men are saying perhaps thank God, this everlasting woman’s right is over! But women, if I know them are saying; now at last we can begin” (Eastman, 1920). Eastman talked based on facts; women did not stop fighting for their rights even today. They diligently kept struggling which made the politicians to pass several laws to guarantee women’s rights. Like the Civil Right Act, the Equal Pay Act, all these laws passed to develop women’s economic status and equal pay if men and women exactly doing same job and the Civil Rights Act 1964 prohibit any sort of gender discrimination against women.
Works Cited
Eastman, Crystal. “Now We Can Begin.” About.com: Women’s History. 2012. Web. 11 May 2012.
Women’s International Center Retrieved from: http//www.wic.org.misc/history.htm
Towards the end of the 1960s a new era in equal rights took place. Following the example of the race movement earlier in the decade, women decided they needed the same gender equality as men. Up to this time in history women were known to society as house wives, and homemakers. According to David Farber, almost every decent-paying job was strictly held by men. With the increase of support for equal gender rights, Hon. Shirley Chisholm came to the rescue. Being the first woman in congress, she knew the hardships and troubles faced due to gender. When she delivered her speech to congress, it was a stepping stone for the history of women’s rights. With her help and focus on the Equal Rights amendment, it was later passed in 1972.
Crystal Eastman wrote “Now We Can Begin” in 1920 right after the 19th amendment was passed, which gave women the right to vote. The amendment took a long and overdue 70 years before it was passed by two thirds majority. The fight for women’s rights began in the 1840’s and continued when Eastmen joined to further the cause. Eastman’s leading argument was that there was still advancements that needed to be made in women’s rights. She was striving to change the rights of letting women choose an occupation and equal pay, gender equality in homes and not raising sons to be “feminists”, the right to voluntary motherhood, and motherhood endowment, a financial support for child-rearing and homemaking.
In 1960 women were inspired by the leaders before them. This new generation of women fought for many things like, equality in the workplace, because men were paid more than women for the same job. Considering many men went off to war, so many women took over the jobs they use to have. However, when men returned from the war, they took their jobs back. Companies who hired women before stopped and only hired men. Even the newspapers had a separate listing of jobs for men and women. Both genders would work the same jobs, but would be paid on a different pay scale. Women fought for their rights of equal pay by organizing marches and protests in the nation 's capital. Therefore, the government proposed the Equal Pay Act, which was a victory for women once again. The Equal Pay Act was signed in 1963 by President John F. Kennedy, the Equal Pay Act required employers to give men and women equal pay for the same work. In remembrance of this fight, every year during Women 's History Month, in march, Americans honor the women who fought and continue to fight for freedom and gender equality “. “A Brief History of Women’s Rights Movements.”
Women, like black slaves, were treated unequally from the male before the nineteenth century. The role of the women played the part of their description, physically and emotionally weak, which during this time period all women did was took care of their household and husband, and followed their orders. Women were classified as the “weaker sex” or below the standards of men in the early part of the century. Soon after the decades unfolded, women gradually surfaced to breathe the air of freedom and self determination, when they were given specific freedoms such as the opportunity for an education, their voting rights, ownership of property, and being employed.
Prior to the twentieth century, men assigned and defined women’s roles. Although all women were effected by men determining women’s behavior, largely middle class women suffered. Men perpetrated an ideological prison that subjected and silenced women. This ideology, called the Cult of True Womanhood, legitimized the victimization of women. The Cult of Domesticity and the Cult of Purity were the central tenets of the Cult of True Womanhood. Laboring under the seeming benevolence of the Cult of Domesticity, women were imprisoned in the home or private sphere, a servant tending to the needs of the family. Furthermore, the Cult of Purity obliged women to remain virtuous and pure even in marriage, with their comportment continuing to be one of modesty. Religious piety and submission were beliefs that were more peripheral components of the ideology, yet both were borne of and a part of the ideology of True Womanhood. These were the means that men used to insure the passivity and docility of women. Religion would pacify any desires that could cause a deviation from these set standards, while submission implied a vulnerability and dependence on the patriarchal head (Welter 373-377).
Since the biblical days, society was very structural with the role of the “Man” and the “Woman.” This concept came to be known as the term gender roles, referring to the significant differences between men and women due to an established role and expectation created by society itself. Society’s expectations of the man’s character were assertiveness, analytical, and unemotional. These characteristics, collectively, coin the term masculine for men. And society’s expectations of the woman’s character were sensitivity, nurturing, and emotional, which together coined the term feminine. Along with the standards of feminine and masculine came responsibilities both the man and the woman. The male had economic responsibilities and the female had domestic
...hin women’s movements there still was never a conclusion and a truly fair treatment of women. To this day women have not been treated equals to men. This has been a constant battle for the past one hundred years and until the women are treated same as the men there will continue to be a problem between the two genders.
This movement had great leaders who were willing to deal with the ridicule and the disrespect that came along with being a woman. At that time they were fighting for what they thought to be true and realistic. Some of the great women who were willing to deal with those things were Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Jane Hunt, Mary McClintock, and Martha C. Wright. These women gave this movement, its spark by conduction the first ever women 's right’s convention. This convention was held in a church in Seneca Falls in 1848. At this convection they expressed their problems with how they were treated, as being less than a man. These women offered solutions to the problem by drafting the Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions. They cleverly based the document after the Declaration of Independence. The opening line of their document was “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal” (Shi & Mayer 361). In this declaration they discuss the history of how women have been treated and how men have denied them rights, which go against everything they believe in. This convention was the spark that really
In the mid nineteenth century America was going through an age of reform. The person who would be the center of these reforms would be the women in society. Women soon realized that in order to make sure that all the reforms went through they would need more power and influence in society. The oppression and discrimination the women felt in this era launched the women into create the women’s right movement. The women fought so zealously for their rights it would be impossible for them not to achieve their goals. The sacrifices, suffering, and criticism that the women activist made would be so that the future generations would benefit the future generations.
There were many women who fought for female equality, and many who didn’t care, but eventually the feminists won the vote. Women today are still fighting for equality in the home, in the workplace, and in society as a whole, which seems like it may take centuries of more slow progress to achieve.
Corinthians 14:34 states, “Let the women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but let them be in subjection, as also saith the law” (Holy Bible, King James Edition). Edith Hamilton, "recognized as the greatest woman Classicist", says that the Bible is the only book before our century that looked to women as human beings, no better nor worse than men (Tanner). However, it cannot be said that this book was consistently favorable to women. Maybe not absolutely, but conditionally in personal opinion, the Bible shows numerous examples of a woman’s inferiority to men, an assessment that has been translated into the cultures of generations. In this essay I will address briefly instances in the bible pertaining to women, and continue on with thoughts on how I believe these notions have been interpreted into society.
Throughout history, women have remained subordinate to men. Subjected to the patriarchal system that favored male perspectives, women struggled against having considerably less freedom, rights, and having the burdens society placed on them that had been so ingrained the culture. This is the standpoint the feminists took, and for almost 160 years they have been challenging the “unjust distribution of power in all human relations” starting with the struggle for equality between men and women, and linking that to “struggles for social, racial, political, environmental, and economic justice”(Besel 530 and 531). Feminism, as a complex movement with many different branches, has and will continue to be incredibly influential in changing lives.
Throughout the 19th century, feminism played a huge role in society and women’s everyday lifestyle. Women had been living in a very restrictive society, and soon became tired of being told how they could and couldn’t live their lives. Soon, they all realized that they didn’t have to take it anymore, and as a whole they had enough power to make a change. That is when feminism started to change women’s roles in society. Before, women had little to no rights, while men, on the other hand, had all the rights. The feminist movement helped earn women the right to vote, but even then it wasn’t enough to get accepted into the workforce. They were given the strength to fight by the journey for equality and social justice. There has been known to be
It reflects a belief in an ideal woman such as the Virgin Mary. This ideal woman is gentle, passive, virtuous and self-sacrificing. In the 19th century, there was an belief in the “Cult of True Womanhood.” It was an idea similar to marianismo, where the virtues were piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity. Religion was considered a natural sphere for women and for the ability as moral centers to influence men. To be a “True Woman” gave a woman the ability to make a better man. Purity, of course, was essential. No good woman ever considered lewdness or sin. Submission was dictated in the Bible and was an essential part of family life. Women wanted a strong man and the man needed to be the head of the family. It carries over into modern households, where the man is the breadwinner and often domestic violence is just the man getting his wife in line. Domesticity was the obvious “women belong in the home” and “real women take care of their children, not their career.” Women were wives and mothers, taking care of their kinfolk and making a beautiful home. Few women were able to live up to this ideal, then and now. However, the traces of it still linger in the media and in social expectations of
Women have always been essential to society. Fifty to seventy years ago, a woman was no more than a house wife, caregiver, and at their husbands beck and call. Women had no personal opinion, no voice, and no freedom. They were suppressed by the sociable beliefs of man. A woman’s respectable place was always behind the masculine frame of a man. In the past a woman’s inferiority was not voluntary but instilled by elder women, and/or force. Many, would like to know why? Why was a woman such a threat to a man? Was it just about man’s ability to control, and overpower a woman, or was there a serious threat? Well, everyone has there own opinion about the cause of the past oppression of woman, it is currently still a popular argument today.