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June Contreras

Mr. Bengford

English II WWH 6

March 7, 2006

 

Ideas:  EarthÕs Eternal Plague

            Her eyes are piercing, indignant; they seem enough to scorch the blazing blue fabric of the sky like razor-edged lightning.  The face looks carefully molded out of porcelain.  Chubby cheeks are still rosy with the precious first breath of life, which had contained so much promise.  This fresh, warm blossom of promise has wilted, but has not yet withered away completely; it will fade eventually with the pinkness of her cheeks.  Her lips look soft and fragile, as if at any moment they could shatter like glass into oblivion.  But her eyes stand out the most.  Placed here on this angelÕs face, the screaming eyes are an absurd contradiction.  Though scalding with intensity, these two orbs are empty, dull and lifeless, lacking the glint of life; they are eyes without soul.  These are the eyes of one infant, a thousand infants, millions of infants, blessed only with minutes of life before their own parents snatched it away, adorable, tiny corpses gazing angrily at heaven.  This is tragic truth; millions of Asian baby girls were murdered, and are killed to this day, by their own parents.  This is but one example of how the female sex has suffered due to ideas of higher value in males than females.  Gender discrimination has always haunted civilization in all aspects of human life like a relentless and sickening plague.  Throughout history, men have strived to dominate women; the male sex has eagerly sought superiority and control over females in the aspects of home, society, and business.

Males established the role of women in the home; men imprisoned women to act as obedient wives, dedicated homemakers, and mothers of sons.  Taking a wifeÕs absolute loyalty to her husband to seemingly radical extremes was unfortunately not such an extreme and abnormal occurrence.  In her article, Sita Agarwal describes the ritual of sati, sanctioned in India, which took place at the funeral pyre of a deceased man.  If the man had left a wife behind, she explains, this woman was expected to throw herself upon the fire, allowing the same deathly flames that had consumed her husbandÕs body to devour her own.  Agarwal examines various scriptures, which promise eternal bliss for the faithful wife who completes sati, as well as eternal glorification for both spousesÕ ancestors. Scriptures even suggest that, by practicing sati, a wife could have erased her husbandÕs sins, essentially awarding him a divine pardon and lifting his soul up out of Hell (Agarwal).  This barbaric practice, only banned in India relatively recently, allows the world to observe the way that husbands, even ones that were no more than lifeless carcasses disintegrating into ash, held their wives at their complete disposal; even in matters that transcend the mortal universe, women had to submit to man.  Men put women in their lowly place in life as well as in death.  A womanÕs place was supposed to be in the home, performing household chores; the Athenian Greeks provide an example of the domestic lifestyle of a female.  The World Book Encyclopedia asserts ÒWomenÉ managed the spinning, weaving, and cooking in the household.  Wealthy women supervised slaves in these tasks, but they also did some of the work themselves.  Respectable Athenian women seldom left their homesÓ (World Book 384).  This quote affirms the opinion that a woman was fit only for assignments relating to the general upkeep of a home; she was chained to her house and prevented from participating in the outside world.  The undertakings for which women in their homes were responsible did not include only household chores.  Women were supposed to fulfill a maternal duty by bearing and raising sons.  Emily HaughtonÕs book Equality of the Sexes shows how inability to give birth to boys was considered to reflect a womanÕs own personal failure.  In pre-revolutionary China, infant girls were suffocated with ashes at birth.  Haughton recognizes that to this day, millions of babies in China are aborted, abandoned, or killed at the moment their parents discover the childÕs gender (Haughton 14).  The shocking information presented here displays the use of a woman as a vessel for the obtainment of male children; these gruesome facts also prove that female children were thought to be useless wastes not worth their parentsÕ efforts.  WomenÕs homes became prisons as the most personal aspects of their lives were controlled by men, but even when they reached the outsides of their dwellings, women were met with unfair treatment from men.

            Males managed to dominate women in the world of business; men kept their female counterparts in check by offering narrow job options, dispensing lower wages, and refusing them the right to own property.  In 1969, Hon. Shirley Chisholm, overwhelmed and frustrated by a male- dominated professional world, could not resist the inclination to send a passionate letter to the U.S. House of Representatives to protest the status of professional women.  In this letter, Chisholm declared:

When a young woman graduates from college and starts looking for a job, she is likely to have a frustrating and even demeaning experience ahead of her. If she walks into an office for an interview, the first question she will be asked is, "Do you type?''É Why is it acceptable for women to be secretaries, librarians, and teachers, but totally unacceptable for them to be managers, administrators, doctors, lawyers, and Members of Congress? (Chisholm)

This quote demonstrates the limits imposed upon women by men, influenced by misconceptions passed on through generations, false stereotypes of females as unintelligent, unorganized, emotional, and overall lacking in the skills and stability necessary to pursue prestigious careers.  But even when jobs did not require such mental capabilities, gender discrimination continued in its ugly presence, reflected in low-paying jobs for women.  During EuropeÕs Industrial Revolution, the factory jobs assigned to women granted much lower wages than those of men.  According to Womeninworldhistory.com, female workers in Samuel CourtaldÕs Silk Mill were designated positions with lower wages, though they were no less capable than men of the higher-paying, yet simple jobs afforded only to males.  This data exhibits a way in which men abused their power in the workplace by disadvantaging, undervaluing, and unfairly using women.  Even without examining the area of profession, the fact that women have been shunned in the business world is evident.  Zimbabwe, an African country still upholding traditional laws from centuries past, provides an example.  Corinna SchulerÕs article ÒFor African Women, Rights Come SlowlyÓ informs readers about this nation, where a woman cannot legally inherit property.  SchulerÕs article tells the story of a woman whose husband passed away.  Due to ZimbabweÕs ancient law, she could not secure legal rights over her own home.  The house was instead transferred to her son, who then sold the property, leaving his mother homeless (Schuler).  This evidence is testimony that men in African culture completely controlled the every part of the lives of women, who were not considered to posses enough responsibility to own property.  In matters of business the female sex was considered incapable; in matters of image, women were believed to possess skillfully sly capabilities as evil temptresses.

            In society, men have created an image of woman as a sexual and deviant being; men degraded women by over- stressing the appearance of the female body, suspecting women of disloyal actions, and accusing them of existing with evil nature.  Advertisements emphasize the physical element of women.  The essay ÒWhat About Us?Ó by Michelle Simone focuses on the advertisements used to sell products in the 1800Õs and early 1900Õs.  These advertisements used portraits of women considered to be physically appealing, both setting unrealistic ideals for women and using not-so-subtle sexual undertones to sell products to men (Simone). These advertisements reveal that the value held in women was physical; females were presented as mere objects and bodily appearance outweighed non-physical qualities.  Just as women were expected to be sexual, they were also condemned for sexual behavior before it was even displayed.  African native people serve as an example of how society distrusted women.  Emma HaughtonÕs book Equality of the Sexes? details a harsh tradition completed by many African tribes where parts of young girlsÕ genitals are cut and sewn, making any future sexual activity a quite unpleasant endeavor through which the women would experience extreme pain.  The aim of this practice was to ensure a wifeÕs fidelity to her husband, preventing promiscuity by making sex undesirable.  Haughton comments that this abominable practice is not rare in Africa today (Haughton 16).  This tradition established an impression of women as adulterous, unfaithful, untrustworthy creatures unable to control their savage desires.  A negative view of the female gender was not restricted only to matters of fidelity.  Sinfulness and immorality were assumed to grip, with their clammy hands of malevolence, all features of womankind.  The article ÒWomenÕs History in America,Ó presented by the WomenÕs International Center, states ÒSt. Jerome, a 4th-century Latin father of the Christian church, said: ÔWoman is the gate of the devil, the path of wickedness, the sting of the serpent, in a word a perilous object.ÕÓ (WomenÕs International Center).  These harsh words exemplify the fact that females were thought to be devilish, scheming, and manipulative demons; they represented temptation. In society as a whole, men disrespected womenÕs bodies and minds with their unrealistic judgments.

            Women have always made up about half of the world population, yet discrimination against women has occurred, relentlessly and unceasingly, throughout all the ages of time.  Many misconceptions regarding the female sex have been formed and passed down through generations; these misconceptions included the ideas that women were weaker than men in mind, body, and spirit, emotional, unable to control themselves, unintelligent, and sinful.  Overall, women were thought less capable than men, and were therefore degraded and disrespected in the home, business, and societal aspects of civilization.  Reflecting on the world today, to recognize instances of this prejudice still occurring is not difficult; modern advertisements, jobs, and common home roles involve suppression of the female sex.  This injustice will stubbornly continue to persist until the world as a whole takes a stand, each individual recognizing the truth of equal value in woman and in man.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SHARP Works Cited

Agarwal, Sita.  ÒSati - Brahmin Annihilation of Widows.Ó  Genocide of Women in Hinduism.

            28 Feb. 2006  < http://www.dalitstan.org/books/gowh/gowh5.html>

 

Schuler, Corinna.  ÒFor African Women, Rights Come Slowly.Ó  The Christian Science Monitor.

            9 March 2000:  10-11.

 

Chisholm, Shirley.  ÒEqual Rights for Women.Ó  KNOW, Inc.  1997.  Documents from the Women's Liberation Movement.  28 Feb. 2006  <http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/wlm/equal/>

 

Simone, Michelle.  ÒWhat About Us?  A Look of Patriarchy in Advertisements.Ó 

About-Face.org.  1996.  About-Face.  7 Feb. 2006

<http://www.about-face.org/yv/forum/essays/essaywhataboutus.shtml>

 

 ÒTextile Workers Industrial Revolution.Ó  Women in World History Curriculum.

2006.   Women in World History.  28 Feb. 2006

< http://www.womeninworldhistory.com/textile.html>

 

Haughton, Emma.  Equality of the Sexes?  Danburry:  Grolier Publishing Co., Inc., 1997

 

ÒWomenÕs History in America.Ó  WIC.org.  1994.  WomenÕs International Center.

<7 Jan. 2006. http://www.wic.org/misc/history.htm>

 

ÒWomenÕs Rights.Ó  World Book Encyclopedia.  1998 ed.