Women and Myth

WOMEN AND MYTH

You brashly and publicly not merely wonder but indeed lament that I am said to posses as fine a mind as nature ever bestowed upon the most learned man . You seem to think that so learned a woman has scarcely before been seen in the world

The above are fierce words in a letter by young Laura Cereta dedicated to a critic who had expressed surprise at her writing finesse . But why did he have to be astounded by Cereta 's ingenuity ? Because in accordance with the then prevailing

notion , women were physically and intellectually subordinate to men (Platt and Mathews 296

Since the inception of modern-styled civilization as in during the Greco-Roman epochs , usurpation of women 's status has ceaselessly been perpetrated on the superfluous justification of the physical strength coupled with a deceptive ground that men are also intellectually superior . As far as the former goes studies such as Charles Darwin 's `The Descent of Man and Selection to Sex (1871 ' have ascertained it to be undisputable . At least in the so-called primitive societies this physiological factor was insignificant in so far as assigning roles within the family circles and the community is concerned

Indeed this prerogative bestowed upon man has been over stretched so that it encompasses intellectual dominance as well . Suffice to say that this misconception geared toward unfair exploitation and inactivation of the other half of human population marked the onset of women 's social political and economic misery . During this period `poverty took the face of a woman ' as one politician put it

Therefore , as a result of the above falsehood , women have far so long been curtailed from participating in vital social , economic and political processes . Humanity has existed for hundreds upon hundred of years with a vital democratic process as electioneering in conduction Yet it was not until nineteenth century that suffrage rights were extended to women . Quality education has also taken long to percolate through to women and even today both in industrialized and agricultural economies the trend has barely changed . A girl child is still predisposed to school drop out earlier than her boy counterpart

The conviction that women were of low intellect was strongly entrenched in the Roman Empire 's legal framework . Thus women , considered as imbeciles ' were forbidden by law to act as witnesses , sign a contract or will , inherit or own land (Encyclopedia Britannica 910 .The seriousness of this degradation can best be gauged by benchmarking the above stipulations to their today 's equivalents : today those restrictions in whole apply only to those who are mentally sick

Fortunately certain eruptions somehow shook this misconception Generally , the occurrence over time of revolutions , warfare , and uprisings has enabled substantial gains of women emancipation to be realized . In relation to dilution of male egoism , French and scientific revolution played a significant role . The French revolution with its agitation for equality and human rights would be unsustainable but for an extension of these universal ideas to all man...