flowers wrote:
That can always be fixed later. Controlling precedent is Petruchio v. Katharine (W. Shakespeare, lead attorney)
I don't know. There's always been discrimination against personality guys. One case I'd cite is
Jia Baoyu v. Jia Zheng (1791).
I really need to read The Taming of the Shrew now XD I read a little analysis of Petruchio and I was totally intrigued, but I can't tell if he's a good guy or a bad guy. There was one who totally reviled him as a character, then Sparknotes seems to be really sympathetic to him and saying how he's a good person, how he loves Katharine, or something. I'm confused.
Berserk wrote:
*Political scientists define "civil liberties" as being legal protections. Women still had freedom of religion, speech, etc., could not be sold as property, could not be beaten or murdered, etc.--all protections that were not granted to black Americans.
Wait, WAIT! HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!
I would argue that the same would be true for women but not in that direct African American slavery form. Women had no political say, were not allowed to do anything without their husband's permission, get a divorce, have their own property, women did not have the freedom to go into every establishment they wished to, could not enter into most careers, get into contracts, etc, they didn't have a legal status and were treated like property, they could be raped by their husbands, they COULD be beaten because this was actually a normal thing to do to your wife until recently. I don't think women had a real "freedom of speech" until this century because of how society was. Then you have to think about who was actually protected against murder or not. Maybe a white middle class lady would be murdered and her murderer punished, but if it was a low class woman it wouldn't have been as big of a deal. And murders of prostitutes were even less recognized. Not doing anything about it--like letting women get beaten by husbands-- is the same as condoning it. It's only been recently, in the 1980s, that domestic violence was seen as an actual issue and not something private, normal, as the husband's right, etc. Beating women isn't seen as horrible, as something that stood out in history, because it was entirely normal for society for it to occur until recently. You can even look up the laws for this because it looks like you don't know much about women's history and abuses.
Anyway, just because we all know of one type of slavery doesn't mean there are other types of it or we shouldn't examine other types seriously and dismiss it, like a sexist society keeping women beneath women without letting them have any power of their own. I think there are some similarities, especially when you consider sexual slavery which has been going on for hundreds of years. Maybe women weren't the actual slaves to husbands, they were not called that at all and weren't seen as such, but I think it could be said they were slaves to a more subtle, sexist society that dictated how they were supposed to act and what you could and couldn't do, making them always beneath the men in their lives. For example, it's only been in the last century that women could have more opportunities for employment (although many are still discriminatory against women entering), not get discriminated against, vote, not be legally beaten, could not be raped by their husbands, get divorces, etc.
If we're talking about the entire world, which I haven't even mentioned, the situation is even worse because in many places women are still regarded as property and as having no say of their own. Women are still kept illiterate and uneducated on purpose, beaten with an implicit OK from society, still don't have equal opportunities for employment, are still raped at an alarmingly rate, still married off as young girls, punished for not wanting to get married, etc. Women are still sexually enslaved through sex trafficking and by other means. That's been going on for forever, with women being sold as sexual slaves in the marketplace all over the world. Women in different parts of the world can't even give their consent to have sex, it doesn't matter what they say. Women are also still held to outdated notions of sexuality. For example, you don't want men to rape you or touch you? It was your fault, you should cover your entire body up and be "modest". You need to be proper for your future husband, why don't we stitch up your vagina when you're still a girl to maintain your chastity, that'll make you suitable for him. Your husband is beating you? Put up with it...or it's your problem, not the police's. I haven't even gotten to reproductive rights. I can go on about everything still happening in the US and internationally. I would say all of this is dehumanizing, incredibly awful, and reasons for why women are still not equal.
Maybe it's not legal per se to beat up a woman (only recently did this become illegal), but it doesn't mean that it's not happening every day, every hour, with the implicit thumbs up from society because not much is being done. There's a difference between laws and reality. Just because women were said to have free speech, that doesn't mean they actually had it because they were beneath men and had strict roles and restrictions on their lives. Just because we're all said to be equal doesn't mean we actually are. Slavery PER SE is illegal, but that doesn't mean it's still happening in the US, the world, to different types of people, including women and blacks, in different ways.