WOMEN’S RIGHTS

At the start of the twentieth century, British women had no rights. if a woman had any money, it belonged to her husband. Poor women worked in very bad conditions. Middle and upper-class women stayed at home. Many women did not go to school.

In fact, since the Bible, because of Eve’s treachery women have always been considered second-class beings and  in the Middle Ages some of them were considered witches, persecuted and condemned to the stake.

Up to our times men have always attempted to prevent them from doing anything important in the social, economic or political fields. From their infancy they have been educated towards marriage and having family in the attempt to limit their role as perpetuators of the species.

 The first feminist movements began in the 19th century. The first Woman ‘s Rights Convention assembled at Seneca Falls in New York in 1848 to demand female suffrage and equal opportunities in jobs and education. In the U.S. women won the right to vote in 1920. In Great Britain the Equal Pay Act in 1970 stated that a woman doing the same work as a man qualifies for equal pay and conditions of employment. The Sex Discrimination Act in 1975 required that equal job opportunities should be given to men and women and an employer cannot ask for either one or the other, but both. all this thanks to the fact that in recent years women have been demanding improvements such as equal pay for equal work, equal job opportunities, equal treatment by the law and so on.

Nowadays, the dividing lines between the roles of man and woman have become less defined and in the more highly developed countries they are given the same education; a girl is encouraged to learn a job, to build up a life of her own, even if when she marries or has a baby she is expected to arrange her job and career aside to be a wife and a mother.

The increase of household gadgets which reduce the time spent on housework and the decline in size of families, and the more need of money increased as well the number of married women who go out to work. So, more and more families depend on double incomes and the opportunities available to women are much greater than some years ago. But, most women’s desire to have a job stems from economic reasons and from values of independence and self sufficiency too.

Even if working wives still do most of their duties as housewives too, they think they have the right to develop their own capabilities. Some young husbands are more “egalitarian “ and share everything with their wives.

In our time there are more female managers, lawyers, and politicians too, but they are still outnumbered by men and most of them are often steered towards the jobs that men do not want.

Some women have risen to high-powered positions, becoming female versions of the male or making personal sacrifices and putting career ahead of all other aspects of life. The biggest problem to face for them  is how to be engaged in a career and have a family as well. Many of them give up marrying, some divorce, others have no children.