FEMINISM_IN_THE_MODERN_WORLD

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FEMINISM IN THE MODERN WORLD

Maria Savitskaya

Group 403

Department of English Lexicology

School of English

Minsk State Linguistics University

Minsk 2008

For years the issue of gender equality has been the focus of attention at various levels – from kitchen talks to international conferences. Before the 1920s women had virtually no rights. They could not own property and they were treated with little or no respect. Women were who they married. When unmarried a woman was the property of her father, and once married, she became the property of her husband. She had only some privileges her husband or father gave her. Married women had to obey their husbands and were expected to be obedient, pleasant, gentle, submissive, and, unless sweet-spoken, silent. Education was an element celebrated by society. Men were pushed to go to college and become knowledgeable in many subjects, but women were discouraged from acquiring too much education and told to be obedient wives. When a woman did involve herself in learning, it was certainly not the norm. Moreover, women had no political rights, could not run for office, and were not allowed to vote [3]. Many women accepted their unequal status without question, but there were also others who took an active interest in political life and who became increasingly dissatisfied with their continued exclusion. That is where the beginning of the Feminist movement was. But has this movement changed the world for the better or for the worse? Is it necessary to continue this movement or everything has already been achieved? Nowadays these are still very disputable questions. But I am for the Feminist movement, and in this essay I will argue that the Feminist movement should not be stopped yet, since there are a lot of things to be changed.

A lot of men still stick to the opinion that women are responsible for housekeeping. Men can’t realize that the position of women in the modern world has changed greatly. That stereotype of a woman, who stays at home looking after her children and doing all the work about the house, has vanished. Nowadays a woman is a self-sufficient, self-reliant person who very often doesn’t depend on men economically [2]. Women work all day long as men do, in most cases earn the same amount of money, sometimes even more. Why should they after a working day of eight hours work another four or five hours at home? By the way, what are men doing while women are cooking, cleaning, ironing, etc.? To my mind, it is high time to ruin this stereotype and to show all the men that they have not only privileges, but also duties as the housekeeping is concerned.

There are a lot of men who consider females to be less important. For instance, a friend of mine quite often says that God created the man first and only then the woman. From the very beginning I want to object: the first does not mean the best. There is a wise saying: “The woman was created from the man’s rib, not from the leg to bite the dust, not from the head to excel, but from the rib to be side by side with the man, to be equal with him.” The results of researches revealed that women have a smaller brain. Nowadays it is a well known fact that men believe in with joy and readiness. But again, who told that more means better? Another research revealed that though a woman’s brain weighs fifty grams less, it has more convolutions [2]. It is the fact that not all the men are aware of. That is why, to my mind, the Feminist movement should not be stopped until females are treated as equals not only on paper, but also in men’s minds.

Feminism has plenty more to achieve. The UN attempts to better the women’s lot all over the world brought about a number of positive changes, but along with this blatant discrimination and humiliating retreats still take place. It can be proved by the following fact: in Pakistan if a woman has been raped she has to have a supporting testimony of four men in order to bring charges against her assailant or she may be flogged for insufficient evidence. As far as the working world is concerned, the following example can be given: although the unemployment rose greatly for the past ten years, women in Japan and the USA enjoy higher employment rates, but, unfortunately, are paid far less. In the UK, on average women earn 82% of men’s hourly wage; female graduates earn 19% less than their male counterparts; female pensioners live on 53% of the income of male pensioners. Again in the UK one in four women suffers domestic violence and an increase in the reporting of rape in the last thirty years has gone alongside a threefold drop in conviction rates. Worldwide, women do two-thirds of all work, earn one-tenth of all income and own one-hundredth of all property. Two-thirds of the world’s illiterate people are women. 300 million women have no access to contraception. More than 80% of the world’s 50 million refugees and displaced people are women and children. Every year 2 million girls under 16 are coerced, abducted or trafficked into the sex industry [1]. These are all real problems on which feminists continue to campaign - as they should.

However, some people are sure that feminism has no more battles left to fight. Victories such as gaining the vote, the right to an abortion and the right to equal pay were important and worth winning. But given that sexual equality is now enshrined and protected in law, there is nothing left for the feminist movement to do in most western countries [2]. According to the poll in the USA some people see feminism as a “disease” that did a lot of harm to society: “Men have lost their place when it comes to manhood. In the 1960's it was real simple what a man knew what he had to do. At 18 he graduated high school, got a full time job, got married and by the time he was 23 he owned a home with his family. With women getting into careers "boys" after they turn 18 are left confused what to do. The feminism movement has taken the pride away of being a man. It cannot do anything better than just to vanish” [1]. The point of view that feminism has no aims to achieve is quite wide-spread in society.

Taking in consideration all the facts that have been mentioned I would like to add that it is impossible, to my mind, to resolve all the problems that have such a long history. It is a very peculiar fight, because it is not a fight with people, it is a fight with people’s minds. It is not an easy task to make men understand that it is not women’s vocation to be a housekeeper, it is a burden and it should be shared in a family; that people are created equal and there are no people who are more or less important. To my mind there are a lot of things to work on. I stick to the opinion that all the problems, which men have, are because of the misapprehending of such phenomenon as the Feminist movement. Nowadays one can find lots of literature, watch TV programs dedicated to this problem. And this means that the battle for women’s rights is still not over.

INTERNET SOURCES

1. www.answers.yahoo.com/questions/index?qid=2007030275041AA6BLNS

2. www.opinions.com/feminism

3. www.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_feminism