Zunigo 1

Zunigo, Alexis
English 113B
Santosh Khadka
17 May 2016

Woman Property
My mom would have been. My sisters would have been. My nieces would have been. I
would have been property. We all would have been considered property because of our genders.
Even in some countries today, women are still considered property. I see my nieces and I cant
imagine someone taking ownership of them. Because women who were and are still considered
property, we have this inequality gap that hurts women greatly. It has been long overdue for a
change. We should have a universal constitution so that women are equal to men, so that there is
no property of women, or discrimination.
This idea that women were property of men could be traced further back than medieval
times. However, in medieval times girls had no choice over who they married and many girls
married to someone as a political gesture or because it was an advantage to the girls family itself
as opposed to what the girl herself wanted. Once married, the young lady came under the
control of her husband (The History of Learning). Being under control of someone does not
sound like someones equal. This not only happened in the medieval times it happens today too.
There are arranged marriages in India, China, and Israel. Some arranged marriages are designed
for both men and women to be married for some personal gain from the families. Due to the fact

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that women are treated as if they are treated like property there is a problem that arises. The
problem is that there is an abundance of human trafficking. As you can see in this figure below
females are 40% higher risk at getting
abducted and being trafficked than men. The
main reason that women get trafficked is for
sexual purposes.
We see that there is this inequality in
the world in many societies. In some
cultures, there are certain ways that women
get treated. Some would say that women are
oppressed. In many developing countries
and developing towns and cities young girls
are not permitted to go to school because the
family has not enough money to send the girls. According to the article Little Progress on Girls
Education in Developing Countries, women make up two-thirds of illiterate adults around the
world, a figure that has remained unchanged for over two decades (Caspani). Two-thirds of the
worlds population who are not able to read would be women because in all if not most
developing countries and towns women are supposed to find a husband do work around the
home and raise children. In these developing countries the towns people would say that women
are just for that and that men need the education to prosper in life and to provide for their family.
In the Mexican culture there is a certain dynamic family structure that happens in a mundane
family. When serving food to the family the wife is to serve the husband first then the boys and
then the girls. Another inequality that is present is that the youngest girl of the family is to stay at

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home for the rest of her life, not being able to marry, to take care of the parents the grandparents
who ever lives in the house.
Some people in certain cultures and in certain religions would argue that evil exists in
womens souls. Therefore, they are dangerous and men should control them (Kamguian) in the
article Women and Religious Oppression. Azam Kamguian is the chairman and founder of the
Committee to Defend Womens Rights in the Middle East, she was imprisoned twice, once for
organizing student protests, and the second time for political activities. She is an author of many
books and articles that deal with the rights that women should have in almost every aspect that
males dominate in. What she writes here she is expressing what these religions do to women and
how they oppress them. In some of these religions men are far more superior to women because
they lead to temptation and temptation is wrong to give into. In the same article she expresses
that in Islamic religion and culture women are to be covered up because adultery would be the
fault of the woman due to the fact that women are appealing to the eye and feelings certain
feelings would awaken because of their appearance. Now is that really the fault of the woman
because she is expressing herself through what she wears?
We now have this question and this question leads into a rule: double standard. There are
certain things that men are able to do that women are shunned and made into social pariahs in the
community. Women are called a hard ass or abrasive, these are just some of the very many
labels given to women who are quite successful. However, if there is a man who is just as
successful and powerful they are called ambitious and determined. There is just a bad
connotation sometimes when you hear the word: girl, woman, female. Everyone tends to
stereotype females in almost every way. Some people may say that men are also stereotyped and
discriminated against. For example, men are seen as feminine if they pursue careers in nursing

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because there is a majority of employees in that line of work are females. Or that men are
supposed to be the bread winners of the home so that women would be able to stay at home and
becoming an wife and mother as a career, only leaving the house to drop off the kids to their
activities or going ot the store to buy groceries.
Most societies, cultures and religions around the world put down, discriminate, and
stereotype women and girls to fit into this type of girl mold? There was a commercial that was
made by Always about young women and girls. Always asked young women what it was like to
run, fight and throw like a girl. As the they were asked to demonstrate these actions they did
them as what people thought throwing, fighting and running like a girl was. They asked a series
of girls around ten years or younger these questions and they responded as if they were athletes
doing the best they can to perform the tasks. Always then asked When did something like a
girl become an insult, to a young boy and the producers asked him if he insulted his sister, he
replied no, not my sister, girls yes but not my sister. Always also asked a young girl and she
replied it sounds like a bad thing. These young women and girls are constantly being
discriminated against because doing something like a girl is not same thing as doing something
like a boy. By saying you hit like a girl, it means that person hits with an open palm and with no
strength. By doing this, making women seem as if they
have no

strength, we limit women and young girls. We

basically tell

females: Do big things, but not too big. Dream

big and shoot for

the stars, but not too big and shoot for the star at

Carls Jr. The

figure to the left shows an example of what we

teach our young

girls what to shoot for, as a parody. These

young girls shoot be

shooting for more things than just what

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societies say it is okay that you are here, but that is it. When we limit girls and shrink their
dreams we have an unequal amount of women in places where the careers should be equal.