The Role Of Women In The 16th Century

Throughout the 16th century Reformation through the Enlightenment in the 18th century, was a period of time that saw both change and continuation in European society. One of the biggest examples of this was the role of women and how they should function in European society. Women in this era faced a large amount of hardships and obstacles from great leaders and philosophers such as Martin Luther and Immanuel Kant, who were both against the equality of women to men at this time. From the time period of the 16th century Reformation all the way up to the Enlightenment in the 18th century, the women of Europe were viewed as fragile and unworkable women whose main priority and purpose should only be being a housewife. As time progressed, women

This century saw the Protestant reformation, which is regarded as one of the changeful events in European history. The reformation saw a change in the people 's role of society and change on the religion people practiced, but unfortunately also saw a continuation of the generic perception on women 's role in society. At this time, many protestant leaders and followers were pushing for reform of the church by supporting the leaders of the reformation and releasing papers and voicing their beliefs on both religion and life. Some of these protestant leaders who voiced their beliefs about role in society were Martin Luther and John Calvin. Both Martin Luther and John Calvin were responsible for continuing the generic housewife role of women. They both believed that women had a very distinct role in society which was to be cheerful and follow and respect their partners. They also believed that they had little to no role in society or education and should only focus on being a good housewife, because of their inferiority to men. These ideas are continuous in the time period of the Protestant reformation through the Enlightenment because many of these ideas have been voiced by enlightenment thinkers. Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant are two of the enlightenment thinkers who continued to express the ideas that women were inferior to men. Rousseau and Kant both believed that men and women

Although times and conditions have changed, women in today 's society are still being discriminated against because of the same belief that women are inferior to men. Women in the united states and other first world countries are being deprived of equal pay and equal rights. Women in today 's society make 80 cents for every dollar a man makes and get discriminated against because of the belief that women aren 't as strong and intelligent as mem. They have been excluded from numerous educational opportunities and in some middle-eastern countries, are stripped from their basic human rights like education and equality. Women all over the world are now coming together to fight for the rights that they