Women's Rights Analysis

Women represent over half of the world’s population, and yet face some major human rights violations on a day to day basis. Women are viewed as less than men, and are treated accordingly. Though there have been some major strides in improving the world for women, it is important to acknowledge the historical and current treatment of many women across the globe. Of particular interest is women as property. Women are objectified and treated as property in almost every sector of life, particularly in marriage, sex, and before the law. In regard to marriage, women have been sold into the relationship, women are treated as the lesser partner, and women are essentially expected to become one with their husband. In sex, women are treated as the less

The treatment as a purchasable item already put women on unequal footing within any marriage born of an arrangement by the father that included money. In the marriage, the woman was not an equal or partner to the husband. Simply something that the man owned, and was had complete control over. This inequality was extremely dangerous, and left the woman completely vulnerable to their husband. Mills states that “After marriage, the man had anciently (but this was anterior to Christianity) the power of life and death overhis wife. She could invoke no law against him; he was her sole tribunal and law.” (1870). Women’s rights at the time were dismal, and as soon as she married a man, she had to completely surrender to his will. A woman would have to completely follow what she wanted of him, not anyone else. No wife could levy charges against her husband, unless there was truly grave abuse going on, according to Mills (1870). What constituted grave abuse is hard to say. It is hard to even call the historical version of marriage an actual form of marriage. Mills thinks it is more fitting to deem that version a form of slavery (1870). That is easily understood, as women had to submit completely to their husbands without their

Sex is very general, but when it comes to women as property, it is important to discuss sex work and attitudes that women are taught to have about sex. In a lot of media, specifically pornography, and in teachings about sex, women are taught that sex for them should include being “passive, dominated or ‘done to.’” (Fahs & Plante, 2017). Essentially women are told that they are there for the men’s pleasure, and that they should let them take the lead for everything. Goldman states that “It is a conceded fact that woman is being reared as a sex commodity, and yet she is kept in absolute ignorance of the meaning and importance of sex.” (Goldman, 1910). Goldman makes a valid point; women are raised being taught that their bodies are sexual, but are not taught anything about what sex is and the value it holds. Women becomes objects of sex, and the property of men through this socialization process. Though women are raised as a sex commodity, only some will become sex workers in their life. Sometimes the line between sex work and being a sex commodity becomes very blurred, and it could be argued that all women are raised as some sort of sex worker. In sex work, women become the property of men completely. Many sex workers are the employees of men, their pimp, and are sold to men for sex. For a set amount of time, the worker becomes the property of the paying man. In the 19th