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Women Are A Crucial Part Of Today 's Society

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Women are a crucial part of today’s society, but unfortunately, that has not always been the case, in most every country from the start of time women have been treated as second class citizens and not treated the way that they should be. There are still many countries in the world today that treat women the same way. Luckily, the United States has seen the true value of women in society and given them a great sense of equality now, but it has not always been that way. Less that 100 years ago, Women were not even given the right to vote in the United States. History has never been kind to women, and in this essay I will review three documents from history that take different stances on women throughout the course of ancient history.

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When Homer writes things such as, “And his loving wife went home, turning, glancing back again and again and weeping live warm tears.” I know that someone with no respect for women would write something that sincere when referring to a woman. This really speaks to the character of Homer, for someone that lived when he did (between 484 and 425 BC) it would be very easy to treat women with disrespect, and I’m glad Homer did not.

Euripides created a play titled “Medea” in 431 B.C. This play is written from the viewpoint of a women in fifth century B.C Athens. The first thing I noticed from this writing is how proud the character is to be a women with the opening line starting, “We women” this conveys a sense of power and leadership that she is happy to be a woman. The tone of the writing quickly shifts when she starts talking about how women are treated in this time period. She says, “Firstly, with an excess of wealth it is required For us to buy a husband and take for our bodies a master; for not to take one is even worse.” She goes on to talk about how in this culture, women have no chance to say no to their marriage, and even worse the women are stuck in the house at all times because they are not allowed to leave, whereas men get to come and go as the please. The line at the end of this passage is the one that hits me the hardest, it was when she says,

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