How Men View Women in History - Through Voltaire, John Locke, Joesph Co

America has made great advances in women’s rights over the last few decades. Women are prominent in the work place, living independently, and even running for office. However, this has not always been the case, during the course of history, women have been subjected to slavery, denied the right to vote, and have been viewed as property. Throughout all of human history women have been mistreated by men. 70 years after the American Revolution, white males enjoyed freedoms they viewed as their god given rights, but woman were somehow left out, they even seemed to be excluded from the constitution (â€Å"All men are created equal.†) â€Å"After so much had been done to ensure America’s freedom, it was hypocritical that woman were not allowed to vote, married woman had no property rights, and husbands possessed so much legal power they could beat or imprison their wives on a whim. Even most professions were closed to women, it would be unheard of to see a woman practicing medicine or law. The jobs that were available to women only paid a fraction of what the men were making.† [Eisenberg] This made women completely dependant on men. Women’s oppression is not just unique to our history alone. Different civilizations around the world have portrayed women despicably. In Japan during world war two, teenage girls were rounded up into sex camps. â€Å"An estimated one hundred thousand to four hundred thousand girls were forced to do sexual favors for Japanese soldiers, some of the girls were as young as 11 years old. They serviced up to 50 Japanese soldiers a day, while enduring beatings, starvation, sterilization and abortions. Even today, over half the 27 million people enslaved are woman in underground sex brothels.† [Robinson] In J... ...ic will help some woman see hope too, then so be it). â€Å"I would not even have mentioned my own misfortunes, if you had not irked me a bit, and if it weren’t the custom, on shipboard, to pass the time with stories.† [Candide, ] For her, tales of woe are neither enriching nor moving, only a way of making a point (and passing some time). Though her suffering does not move her to self-pity, it does shape the simplicity and frankness that define her character. In conclusion, even though our society would like to believe that women have always had equal liberties (with men) in everything they do, we can see this is not the case. Throughout human history, woman has believed she is inferior to man, however, now with our civilization progressing in the women’s right movement everyday, women can finally come to terms with the fact that they are indeed equal to men.