Reasons Why Women Are Counted as Minority Group in Some Countries

The issue of gender is on that holds a lot of significance in the society. For a long time, gender discrimination has been a recurrent aspect characterized by the unequal treatment of women. Communities across the world view and treat women differently. However, women still remain underrepresented in many aspects such as politics, leadership positions and allocation of jobs. The objective of this paper is to compare and contrast how women are treated by various communities presently and historically. While female activists may have fought for equality and parity between men and women, there are significant manifestation that women are still considered as minority groups across the globe.

Historic laws and discoveries can be used to determine how women were treated in the Mesopotamia. In the Mesopotamia, the rules that humans should follow were given to Marduk by the deities. These rules provided comprehensive rules that the people should follow so that their destinies can be fixed. From the rules, there are those that can be used to define how women in the Mesopotamia were perceived.

The rules given to Marduk were meant to deliver the world by destroying evil and wickedness. The treatment of women in the Mesopotamia can be derived from the social structure laws that were presented. According to the laws women were treated as items of pleasure and or worse a commodity that could be replaced conveniently. The laws state that a can divorce their wife by paying settlement to the wife’s father. The Mesopotamian law was also harsh on women than it was on men who had committed the same sin. For example, the law states the women who commit adultery should be killed by being thrown in the water while men who committed adultery were spared and sent to exile instead (Hammurabi – “Law Code”)

In ancient Greece, women were considered to be maidens and housewife. Women are also exemplified as supportive helpers of husbands. Their main role was to make their husbands happy, bare children for their husbands and perform maiden jobs. According to the laws of Greece, women were also considered to be cunning hence men were warned to take note of the wives that they chose. Some of the evil fairies were also considered to be women. While the ancient Greece acknowledged the importance of women to a man, women were also rebuked for being shrewd. Bearing children was the noble obligation of wives and in the event that they sinned against Zeus, they would be made barren which was the most severe punishment. This depicts that women in Greece were more of children bearers than leaders. The only woman who held a precious position in Greece was the daughter of Zeus (Hesiod – “Pandora & the Jar”)

In china, women were uneducated and were regarded as unworthy beings in the society. This is evident since there is very little to find about Chinese women who served in great positions. Women were considered to be incapable in China which made them to be denied equal treatment with men. Men had complete power over women and women had the mandate of submitting to men which was perceived as natural and acceptable. However, the Chinese society acknowledges that when there is disunity between the wife and the husband, it would be impossible to keep the rules that guides how they should behave. For that reason, women were acknowledge as mothers and grandmothers for their grandchildren and respected for that. This means that women had power within the family to give orders and determine rules in a family structure. Women in China continued to receive more privileges when their literacy levels started to increase. This changes the traditional perception of viewing women as unworthy (Ban Zhao – “Lesson for Women”).

According to various findings, women in Rome were considered to be elusive beings in the society. Rome is well known and related to several love stories. For that reason, women are depicted as objects of love objects for the satisfaction and enjoyment of men. According to traditional roman directives, women are perceived as individual who can be disloyal to their spouses. Men are advised to be overly cautious with women they choose to get into an agreement with because women are presented as individuals who can easily break an agreement of marriage. Women are also presented as nagging and persuasive. They ask for impossibilities from their spouses and cause havoc in families. Rome presents women as destructive, Careless and unworthy beings. As a matter of fact, men are advised to find male friends to spend time with rather than finding a woman because they are mindless in what they do to you. Rome perceives women are mere beings that are unworthy in the society (Juvenal – “Satire on Women” )

Women in Europe were perceived as helpers of their husbands unlike some of the above communities. In Europe, women played a significant role in ensuring that their men were presentable in the society. they played a partisan role is the husband’s endeavors to ensure that they succeeded in what they were doing. Women here are portrayed as diligent being who appreciate the hardships that men go though in order to sustain their families. In Europe, women work late into the night and respond to their duties early in the morning. This shows the significant role that women played in the society as builder alongside men. Women are also mandated to look after the children and to teach them how to respect their fathers. They also act as advisor to their husbands by providing them with opinions and advice on certain aspects. The manner in which women are treated in Europe is exclusive and stand out from the rest of the communities described above. While women have been described as elusive and disloyal Rome, European women are regarded as loving companions and responsible mother of the family (Christine de Pizan – “The Treasury of the City of Ladies”).

The modern society has evolved from an agrarian society where males endured the physical strength characterized by leadership and political power. Men fought on behalf of their families and provided for their families. Females on the other hand are depicted to as having lower stamina for roles that involved physical engagement. Women have been carries of generations over time. Their noble role has been to bear babies and nature them for the future. The modern woman has not drifted greatly from this reality.

As much as women are more liberal in the modern world, their role of making families and submitting to their husbands still persist naturally. If I were a woman, I would choose to live in Europe. This is because European women were acknowledged and their role in the society was recognized. Instead of being suppressed, women were praised and safeguarded as precious members of the society. They were also presented with equal opportunities as men. This is what the modern should replicate; women should be treated equally and with dignity as men in a civilized world.