Are Women Globally Emancipated?

While the Vatican talks about washing machines as being the major force leading to the liberation of woman, millions of women in Eastern and Asian countries live from day to day without any freedom. They are seen as little more than chattels belonging to their husbands and are kept totally under male domination.

This includes countries such as
• Afghanistan,
• Saudi Arabia,
• Indonesia,
• India,
• Malaysia,
• China
• Egypt,
• Pakistan,
• The Muslim countries of the Middle East,
• Many African nations and
• Even tropical islands such as Vanuatu, have their level of male domination.

Many thousands of women are refused access to education, compelled to stay in the home, all freedom of expression restricted, dress codes strictly enforced, free discourse not permitted with men and a general disapproval of women in any position of power, or authority.

However, it is only a few years ago that girls were not encouraged to obtain higher education, even in Western society. After all girls were only going to mess around and maybe work for a few years, before getting married and staying at home to look after the family. Why waste a university education on them?

What then has brought about the dramatic change where many feel women in the Western world have become liberated? Was it really the washing machine, as the Vatican recently declared?

The equal opportunity for women has emancipated many women and set them free to take up major roles in Western society. This was brought about through:

• Germaine Greer and the early ‘burn the bra’ movement
• The pill and the availability of the choice of legal and safe abortions
• Anti discrimination laws both educationally and in the work place
• Day care child minding facilities, backed by the government, which let mums continue to be working-mums
• The anonymity and world-wide reach of the Internet has been another major factor. Women can not only work from home, but if they choose, then can be nameless and sexless.

However, the pendulum may have swung too far, with many anti-feminist supporters stating the feminist movement is seeking a higher status for women than for men. Serious conventional academics like Carolyn Graglia and Allan Carlson insists that the alteration to women’s role, from being firstly mothers, to self-classified professionals, has brought about a social disaster that continues to take its toll on the family.

Many now believe there is an anti-male discrimination in the areas of child custody, reproductive rights, and alimony and property division, in messy divorce settlements. Antifeminists are quick to point to the marked increase in divorce and the breakdown of family relationships as having been formed by the influence of the feminist movement.

Still there are those feminists who declare, "I would rather produce a meal for a man and bring him his slippers and feel myself wrapped in the protection of his arms than have all the citations and honors and awards which I have presented with worldwide, including the Ribbon of Legion of Honor, as well as my property and my bank accounts. They mean absolutely nothing to me. And I am only one among the millions of very unhappy women like myself."

Other women happily promote the role of the business woman, women as leader models, as well encouraging women into competitive environments, in spite of the fact that women sometimes receive ‘special treatment’ in the nature of a lower level of physical requirements in some professions, such as rescue services and the military.

In the finish, it will be neither the male domination, nor the feminist, nor anti feminist movements, that will make a difference to families in the years ahead, but the legalization of same sex marriages. The world is in a fervent of change for both men and women.