The Status of Women in Nations around the World - Essay Example

Module The Status of Women in Nations around the World INTRODUCTION Since the beginning of time, women have always had to contend with more barriers than men in different areas of existence. Many cultures in the past restricted the abilities of women by creating rules that confined them to the home and compelling them to only seek fulfillment as good wives in the roles of motherhood and homemaking. In past centuries, women were mostly illiterate because they were not given the opportunities to pursue the existing educational academies. In many communities, it was also presumed that women did not have the mental capacity to learn as well as men did. It is only in the modern era, since the 19th century, where large populations of women began to benefit from policies that stipulated that parents should send children of both genders to school. There have been different women through the centuries who have succeeded in having adventurous lives in spite of social customs that were created to confine them to the home. Khaizuran. Al-Khayzuran was a woman who travelled extensively in an era when women were severely restricted in all aspects of social life. She was born at the height of the Abbasid Empire, in Yemen. However, she would be kidnapped by Bedouin traders who then sold her to the Abbasid court as a slave (Hansen and Curtis 253). After she began to serve in the house of the next Caliph Al-Mahdi, she became personally involved with him and married him. She would bear two future caliphs Harun Al-Rashid, and Al-Hadi. In spite of living in a society that deeply oppressed its womenfolk, Al-Khayzuran was able to acquire and wield political power after marrying the most important man in the kingdom (Spodek 57). Her relatives were even awarded positions due to her influence in court. She also deeply influenced her sons who would be future rulers. Even though Al-Khayzuran wielded unusual power for a woman of her day, she only managed to do this because she was the wife of the caliph. The position of women in her society did not benefit from her ascension to power. Gudrid. In some cases, women actually made the decision to go against the grain and take power for themselves. Gudrid, who was the sister-in-law of Leif Eriksson made just such a decision. Leif Eriksson was the man who landed on the American continent five centuries before Christopher Columbus did. After reaching the New World, Leif left never to return. Gudrid, however, wanted to remain there. She attempted to settle in the land that was named ‘Vinland’. Even though women were not viewed as warriors in the same way that men were, they had some more freedoms than their sisters in the medieval era would have in the next few centuries. Viking women, like Gudrid, could own ships as well as farms (Hansen and Curtis 286). Sometimes they relocated with their husbands, just as Gudrid did, when their men went in search of new lands to conquer. However, during such campaigns, they were often left behind to tend to commercial activities as well as the lands that were left behind when their husbands left. Moreover, even in campaigns, there were many times when women were required on trips. Li Qing-Zhao. While this type of freedom cannot be compared to that enjoyed by women in the 21st century, it was still much more than that enjoyed by women in other areas in the world. For example, for Li Qing-Zhao, who lived during the Song Dynasty life was much harder. Women in the Song dynasty were confined to homes and could not hold business related or political leadership positions. In addition, they could only improve their status by bearing male children. Li Qing-Zhao was a unique woman of her time who became a poet in spite of all the restrictions that she was bound by. She also travelled to many places as a result of adversities such as invasions from other nations. After her husband lost his battle with Malaria, Li Qing-Zhao would spend the rest of her life wandering from place to place. When she settled in Hangzhou in 1132, her writings in the book, ‘Record of Bronze and Stone’ showed the extent of her grief and depression (Hansen and Curtis 317). In spite of the fact that she was a woman, even the courts of China recognized her talent. She would relocate again to Jin-hua in order to serve as a court writer for the court there. At the time of her death in 1155, there were literarily hundreds of poems that she had written. Li Qing-Zhao was a unique woman who achieved success in spite of the laws that governed the place of women during the Song Dynasty. Heloise. Women in medieval Europe would be subjected to the same laws that women in the Song Dynasty were restricted by. While the some of the Song Dynasty’s rules on women’s conduct and confinement within the home may have seemed excessive, The 12th century, in which another intelligent woman, Heloise, lived, might have seemed to be less confining but it actually had very retrogressive ideas about the place of women. Heloise was an educated woman who fell in love with her tutor and then got pregnant by him (Hansen and Curtis 363). From her correspondence with Abelard, her lover, it is evident that in her society, women were viewed as being much more inferior than men. They were also accused of being extremely evil, and were thought to sometimes collude with the devil in order to cause righteous men to fall. In Heloise’ era, the Church sanctioned sexual relations between married people but dictated when this would be allowed to happen. The Church also contributed towards women being perceived as inherently evil and capable of causing the doom of their own husbands. Heloise proved to be different from the majority of women in her day by choosing to fall in love with a man, marry him in secret, and then get pregnant by him without the input of others being required. In those days, women were subject to their husbands and could only follow laws that were given by others. Moreover, her choice to go into the convent was based on the suggestion of her lover. In the end, she was unable to develop a will of her own and refuse to obey the voice of the man she was involved with. Catalina de Erauso. The woman who probably lived completely according to her own statutes was Catalina de Erauso. Born in 1585, Catalina was an extremely courageous who chose to reject the restricting life that women in her society were condemned to live by passing herself off as a man. At the age of 15, after a bad experience at a nunnery, she converted her skirts into a man’s doublet and cut her hair so that she resembled a young man (Hansen and Curtis 408). Since that moment, she adopted the name ‘Francisco de Loyola’. The fearless Catalina then went on to serve as a cabin boy where she travelled to different lands. Catalina even regularly participated in duels with other men who could not tell that she was female. Catalina would also go on to fight in battles in different nations such as Chile and Peru. It was only when Erauso was caught and accused of murder that she finally admitted her gender. Moreover, her records of fearlessness caused the Pope Urban VIII, whom she had traveled to see, to allow her to continue dressing as a man for the rest of her days. In Catalina’s Spain, most women were confined in convents and lived there for the length of their lives if they did not have marriages arranged for them. She was unique in that her character allowed her to take chances and experience life in a way that other women might not even have thought possible. The Spanish society at that time was very similar to that of the 12th century or the Song Dynasty. It would not change for a few other centuries until women began to be recognized as human beings in their own right. In the 19th century, women had many more chances to flout the rules of society. Most of the time when they did this, the only penalty that they received was in being shunned by others. Their very lives were not put in jeopardy- as happened when omen in past centuries decided that they wanted to be more creative than being a mother, a wife, or a nun entailed. Pauline Johnson-Tekahionwake. The best example of this was Pauline Johnson-Tekahionwake. Pauline had an English mother and a Mohawk father. Instead of doing everything she could to hide her heritage on her father’s side, she eagerly embraced both sides of her heritage. This scandalized the society. Pauline would also write poetry based on her experiences with Indians as she travelled in England and Canada. Pauline epitomized independence and defiance at a time when both the members of American Indian tribes as well as women did not enjoy the rights that White men enjoyed in society (Hansen and Curtis 488). She effectively balanced between making a place for female poets and artists on the world stage as well as making a place for First Nations people. Moreover, she was more likely to succeed because she lived in an era in which there were trains and ships that made travelling to distant lands relatively easy- unlike determined and defiant women like Catalina de Erauso living in earlier centuries. Pauline also lived in an era in which the rules governing the lives of women had been somewhat relaxed. The 20th century saw the increase in the push for suffragette ideals to be accepted. For women, it was the most promising century that had ever dawned. Women were suddenly gaining access to different areas of work as well as social purpose which had remained closed to them for centuries. It was brand new experience for women who had always been confined to the home and the task of childbearing. The emancipation of women was accelerated, during the 20th century, by the incidence of the two world wars which caused large sections of the young male populations in European nations as well as in America to be sent to fight in the wars. Louise Bryant. This meant that the women who were left behind were presented with special opportunities to realize their dreams to work in factories or in places outside the home. Louise Bryant is an example of a woman who achieved far more than she had ever expected to due to this opportunity. Louise moved from her native Portland to write for a revolutionary paper in New York. She would take full advantage of the developing new means of transport, airplanes, to go to Europe in order to report on revolutions like the Russian revolution. She even covered the First World War while in France (Hansen and Curtis 541). Bryant felt that any political or social changes taking place could only be referred to as being revolutionary if they freed women entirely from the expectations of society. As a working woman, Bryant greatly benefited from the changes that were brought about by the revolutions being experienced in different nations. Louise was a Suffragette who, after watching the astounding Russian revolution, felt that the women in the Western world could experience similar changes in their own benefits if they pushed for changes with the same fervor. She toured different places in America and encouraged women to seek for equal pay as well as treatment. The fact that the life that Louise made for herself as a travelling correspondent who visited places such as the Middle East and Europe was touted as a success and an inspiration for other women showed just how far the Western societies had come in redefining the roles of women in society. It also showed that women can become prominent for choosing to live their lives according to their own plans and not those of society. Halide Edib. While the beginning of the 20th century ushered in the suffragette movement in Western nations, as well as a re-defining of the roles of women in Western society, women in other parts of the world did not benefit from these changes. They still struggled, for the most part, with archaic customs that confined them to the home and the church or temple. Halide Edib was born at the turn of the 19th century to a Turkish family. At a time when women in America were fighting for their freedoms, Halide was living in a nation that still confined its women to harems. Halide, however, had a father who was quite progressive for that age. He enrolled his daughter in a school- something that was only done for male children. Halide would go on to become a campaigner for women’s rights, a politician, a novelist, and a University lecturer (Hansen and Curtis 572). By embracing the significance of education and making a life for herself that was of a more Western bent, Halide Edib was able to benefit fully from the objectives realized by the Women’s rights movement in European nations as well as in America. The gains made by the suffragette movement encouraged adventurous women to take on even more dangerous roles such as were formerly only open to men (Lockard 26). Nancy Wake’s activities of espionage during the Second World War were so effective that she attracted the attention of the German army which put a bounty of millions on her head. Nancy fully believed that women could do everything that men could. She proved this in her extremely courageous and daring attitude in participating in extremely dangerous underground activities during the Second World War (Hansen and Curtis 617). Nancy traveled to different parts of Europe at a time when almost the entire continent was engulfed in war. Nancy Wake was essentially a modern ‘Catalina de Erauso’. After the war, she was decorated with medals from different nations for her matchless service for the allied troops. Nancy’s example would further serve to show that women could accomplish anything if they were determined to do it. Her exploits raised he estimation of women in Western nations. Mira Nair. Moreover, they did not affect much of the status quo of women in nations such as India. While women in Western nations continued to benefit from acquiring more equal rights to male citizens, women in developing nations still struggle, to the present day, to get fair representation in the most mundane areas of social life. Mira Nair, a female Indian film director, has used a different method from the direct confrontational method that was used by Western suffragettes many years ago. She makes films about controversial subjects that societal customs in many communities dictate that women should not even think about. For example, she has made a film about the Kama Sutra- which is an explicit manual on sexual intercourse (Hansen and Curtis 722). In her movies, Nair tries to concentrate on producing works of art that re-define Indian society on an impartial basis. CONCLUSION In the modern era, women’s status in society has greatly improved when compared to what it was centuries ago. In even third world nations today, women are accepted as human beings who have rights. Though there are still subtle societal pressures that may be put on women who choose to pursue their careers or realize their dreams instead of opting to become wives and mothers first, this cannot be compared to what women endured in bygone eras when they could not live their homes for any reason. Works Cited Hansen, Valerie, and Kenneth Curtis. Voyages in World History. Vol. 2, Since 1500. Boston: Wadsworth Publishing, 2010. Lockard, Craig. Societies, Networks, and Transitions. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2008. Spodek, Howard. The World’s History (3rd Edition). Upper Saddle River: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2006. Read More