In the novel Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, one of the human rights issues dealt with is the women's inequality. One of the main characters, Petra, is one of the only girls in the battle school in the novel. She is often set apart from her fellow male schoolmates, and found it hard to make friends with the children her age since she was the only girl. While this is a fictitious novel, the issue of women's inequality is all too real, and most of the issues are far more severe than a young girl having problems making friends. Let's look at women rights movements around the world, and explore what you can do to change these everyday struggles for women, in other countries and in your own home town.
An example of women’s inequality in other countries is arranged marriage. According to a 2013 study 39,000 girls forced into marriage
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every day. These girls are often sold off by their parents for money or cattle. They have no opportunity to choose who to marry, or make the decision not to marry. Another example is in the West African nation of Niger 75 percent of girls married before they turn 18. These girls considered children in most countries are often married to men more than double their age. A real life testomony from one of these girls is Aguet N. of South Sudan. She was married to a 75-year-old man when she was 15 years old. She said the following about the arranged marriage: “This man went to my uncles and paid a dowry of 80 cows. I resisted the marriage. They threatened me. They said, 'If you want your siblings to be taken care of, you will marry this man.' I said he is too old for me. They said, 'You will marry this old man whether you like it or not because he has given us something to eat.' They beat me so badly. They also beat my mother because she was against the marriage.” Arranged marriage is not the only problem women are facing In Egypt only six women are on the 100-member assembly writing the constitution.
Three of these women are a part of a group called the Muslim Brotherhood, a fundamentalist organization. The women of the Brotherhood say the group is doing more than any other political movement in Egypt to promote women in a political scene where men have always held a near total monopoly. Confident and articulate, the women say they are pushing for a greater voice within the Brotherhood itself and its political party, the Freedom and Justice Party, where the leadership is entirely male. Women’s say in politics are often suppressed because in Islam it is believed that it is a woman’s job to raise children. However, now women are not satisfied with only keeping their role in the household. El-Garf, a 47-year-old mother of seven, said that a woman's role in her family need not contradict with her participation in politics, saying that she balances these two responsibilities. El-Garf joined the Brotherhood when she was 15 and has done social work and community organizing for the
group. Developing countries are not the only places with inequality issues Inside America women are faced with unequal pay in the work field, and lesser opportunity to enter some work fields. Single woman households had the lowest total annual income of all households, averaging about $27,000. Fifty-seven percent of the household income (or about $15,000) came from their personal wage and salary earnings. The remaining $12,000 came from other sources, such as government benefits and other household members’ earnings. Without income from these other sources, the low-wage single mother households would be well below the poverty level of $22,314. In terms of women in leadership positions, in 2009 only 24 percent of CEOs in the US were women and they earned 74.5 percent as much as male CEOs. Another example is that some job field’s women are over represented in, while others they are pushed out of altogether. For example, in 2010, women represented 79 percent of the health and social services workforce and 68.6 percent of the education services workforce. However, women represented only 43.2 percent of the professional, scientific and technical services sector and 8.9 percent of the construction sector. Now you see that the rights of women are far from being equal. Whether it’s the one girl enlisted in military training, the 24% of women who are CEOs in America, or the 39,000 women sold into an arranged marriage every day it is rare to find true equality. While things may appear bleak, there is still opportunity to approve things. The only way women can lose this issue, is if they give up. If women are persistent, this issue can be resolved once and for all.
Some people believe that everyone is born with morality, some people say it is learned. No matter which way morals are given, almost everyone has them. In the novel, Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card constantly brings up the topic of morality. Many years in the future the main character Ender is meant to save the world. He has to make multiple difficult decisions and many of them make him question his morals. Throughout the book, some of the decisions Ender makes are the right choice, but also hurt others. People will often compromise their morals in service for the greater good.
“Responsibilities fall heaviest on those willing to take the load”. Responsibility as a main part in Ender's life in the battle school. Through his responsibilities he had to act and think like an adult. As the reader reads the book “Ender's Game”, the author Orson Scott Card talks about Ender's responsibility as an “adult”, yet still a child. Orson Scott Card still makes us question ourselves if Ender is really responsible as an adult.
Ender’s Game is both entertaining and thought-provoking; but while the author cleverly questions the ethics of war, education, and humanity, this book’s greatest lessons are about what it means to be a good leader, which ties into the Marine Corps perfectly because that is what we strive to do. Ender Wiggin is the third in a family of child geniuses. He is selected by international military forces to save the world from destruction. Before being chosen Ender wears a unique monitor that allows the heads of the military to see things as he does. Ender's brother Peter and his sister Valentine also wore this monitor, although neither were selected, and Peter will never forgive Ender for this. Peter hates Ender, and even when the monitor is taken out it does nothing to make the hate towards his brother any less
Throughout the book, Enders Game it is arduous to establish what it authentically denotes to have human rights. The regime relies on children to preserve the world from the buggers. They are treated like they are adults and are purloined of their youth. Ender realizes that the adults are manipulating the children and his cognizance of what is right and what is not is what preserves the world from the manipulation from the adults. Because of Ender kenning what is right and was is not and withal is authentic this is what he does that culminates up preserving the Earth from extirpation. In Orson Scott Card’s novel, the Ender’s Game shows how in authentic life that children can be utilized in Warfare, which they are called “child soldiers”, and
It amazes me how a few decades ago can seem like a whole different world. A course of time can impact our lives more than we know it. In the article, A Day Without Feminism by Jennifer Boumgoidnei and Amy Richntds, both of these authors created this piece to inform their audience that although women have gained more rights over time, there was still more progress to be made. These authors gave many examples of how life for women had been, the obstacles they had to overcome, and the laws women had to break for equality.
Women and all of mankind need to live a life together, not of solitude, working towards the greater good for all. Sadly, this key concept is often discovered aftermath of mass destructions, devastations, ill treatment, in-equality, and so forth. Feminism and women’s movements were not created for women to be “bigger and better” than men, but for women to work their way up to what men have. Many misunderstood this then, and continue to do so
Women’s participation in school or the workplace are negatively affected because of the fear of violence, and many long-term health consequences arise from physical and sexual abuse. Heartbreakingly, a woman in South Africa has a “greater chance of being raped than she has of learning to read” (Tracy 6). In the patriarchal society of China, infants or fetuses face death simply for being born female (Tracy 18). After reading the reported incidences of violence against women, it is nothing but frustrating to hear women not supporting feminism. They do not need feminism because they represent a victory for this movement with the freedom to work alongside men, attend school, and choose their life partners. However, as shown in International Violence Against Women, there are many women and girls begging for a change. This population is the next victory for
Many ancient laws and beliefs show that women from all around the world have always been considered inferior to men. However, as time went on, ideas of equality circulated around and women started to demand equality. Many women fought for equality and succeeded in bringing some rights. However, full equality for women has yet to be fulfilled. This issue is important because many women believe that the rights of a person should not be infringed no matter what their gender is, and by not giving them equality, their rights are being limited. During the periods 1840 to 1968, total equality for women did not become a reality due to inadequate political representation, economic discrepancy, and commercial objectification.
...ir rights and to gain equality in the world. If the women in the world do not work together to produce something they all desire then it will not work. They bring about a few small changes but not enough to create a more equal society and a happy environment for everyone to live in. ‘Only within the interdependency of different strengths, acknowledged and equal, can the power to seek new ways of being in the world generate’ (Lorde, 1984: 367) all women are different and therefore they all have different experiences, thus working together, listening to each other taking into consideration the views and ideas of all these different women, they can become strong enough to dismantle the masters tools and to produce equality something that all of these women. They all want equality so they should work together to gain the more there are the higher the chances of success.
Throughout time, there have been certain influential individuals that have dominated their age and have forever marked that era with their name. Among them are Cleopatra, Queen Victoria, Queen Elizabeth, and Nefertiti, with many others. One thing these leaders have in common is their gender: they are all females. In this day and age, it’s a rarity to come across strong, powerful women who have been allowed the opportunity to be powerful. It begs the question, if these women were alive today, would they have the same chance to change the world as they did? However, it’s not only the powerful who feel the sting of sexism, because the misogyny in today’s society affects each and every woman, of every color, age, and shape. The most important lesson to learn for the cultural and societal growth of people is to understand the causes and affects behind anti-feminism. Sexism takes many forms, yet it can be broken down into three main parts: the portrayal of women in media, the oppression of women in society, and the boundaries of women through laws.
...action with others… especially men. This supplies final substantiation of the authors' argument, that women continue to be oppressed by their male-dominated societies. It is a bold undertaking for women to ally and promote a world movement to abandon sexist traditions. Although I have never lived in a third world or non-Westernized country, I have studied the conditions women suffer as "inferior" to men. In National Geographic and various courses I have taken, these terrible conditions are depicted in full color. Gender inequality is a terrible trait of our global society, and unfortunately, a trait that might not be ready to change. In America we see gender bias towards women in voters' unwillingness to elect more females into high office, and while this is not nearly as severe as the rest of the world, it indicates the lingering practice of gender inequality.
Since the beginning of time, women have strived to achieve an equal status in society. The vast majority of women have rebelled against the norm for equal status. As if washing the dirt off one’s hands, women are forgotten for all of their achievements. The identity of women in the Western world has evolved from domesticity and servility, and moved toward their valuation as individuals of intellect, talent, and independence. The culture about women’s empowerment has been reflected in literature and history throughout many ages.
A growing population of women’s activists can be attributed to the growing number of courses being offered and information available. Only a few decades ago this would not have been heard of. It is due to the increasing amount of awareness on the topic of women’s status as second class citizens that activism has increased. Through various media, we have learned of topics such as the “glass ceiling”, the working conditions of women in Third World countries, the current injustices against women being carried out in the First World, reproductive rights, as written about by Angle Davis, and other limitations imposed on women.
Throughout history, women have remained subordinate to men. Subjected to the patriarchal system that favored male perspectives, women struggled against having considerably less freedom, rights, and having the burdens society placed on them that had so ingrained the culture. This is the standpoint the feminists took, and for almost 160 years they have been challenging the “unjust distribution of power in all human relations” starting with the struggle for equality between men and women, and linking that to “struggles for social, racial, political, environmental, and economic justice”(Besel 530 and 531). Feminism, as a complex movement with many different branches, has and will continue to be incredibly influential in changing lives. Feminist political ideology focuses on understanding and changing political philosophies for the betterment of women.
Throughout history, there have been constant power struggles between men and women, placing the male population at a higher position than the female. Therefore, in this patriarchal system women have always been discriminated against simply due to the fact that they are women. Their rights to vote, to be educated and essentially being treated equally with men was taken away from them and they were viewed as weak members of society whose successes depend on men. However, this has not prevented them from fighting for what they believe in and the rights they are entitled to. On the contrary, it has motivated them to try even harder and gain these basic societal rights through determination and unity.