Woman's Special Enemy Analysis

that they need to remain clean and pure leaders. Rather than the men learn to control themselves and behave appropriately, it is apparently a duty placed on women to make men better. This just an indirect way of scapegoating women for an issue that is clearly the man’s own responsibility. Men being given higher status in society is much too common, and it can be seen in how women were referred to in this time period: “while the women whom they married and who accompanied them, are generally referred to as their ‘wives’, with their names very rarely mentioned”(24). This is a clear portrayal of women being under the direction and command of men, of them being an addition to men. Men receive the higher emphasis and attain higher status with women being viewed as having a sidekick role to men. Women were also considered “little more than an appendage to the work of their husbands”(24), again portraying them as attachments to men, not independent or whole. It is clear that the role of women in this era was seen as one that was less important to the man’s role and that they were only aids in a mission. Although many men may have considered them helpful and necessary to this mission to New Zealand, it is evident that they
believed that women were not as important as themselves in the mission and that the men were the key factor. This is just another unfortunate example of women coming second, never receiving more credit for a success than a man would. Women being scapegoated for events that were clearly at the fault of male hands is not unusual in history.
Alana Jayne Piper’s article “‘Woman’s Special Enemy’: Female Enmity in Criminal Discourse during the Long Nineteenth Century” provides insight into this issue by describing familial roles of women in the 1800’s. She explains that “Even dangers that seemed to indicate clear culpability of male family members, such as incest, were laid at the door of maternal negligence”(Piper 7). This reveals the utter cowardice of some men to take responsibility for their own mistakes that were clearly their fault. It was easy for men to blame women for their own egregious mistakes since women have always been considered less intelligent and wise than
men.
Women have also been prevented from making social progress throughout history, being encouraged to have kids and stay at home to manage them rather than pursue academic and educational endeavors. Anu Rahi makes an excellent point about this in his article “Gender Discrimination in India and Its Solution”, stating that only “54% of Indian women are literats as compared to 75 % of men, women receive little schooling”(Rahi 3). This reveals the intentional motives of the Indian male-preferred society to discourage women from making social progress and self growth. It represents the idea that women should remain at home and continue to listen to what society tells them rather than achieve the same social status that men hold in Indian culture. Similar are aspects of preventative discouragement placed upon women in Nigerian culture, and Yetunde A. Aluko’s article “Patriarchy and Property Rights Among Yoruba Women in Nigeria”. He mentions that “women were prevented from holding spiritual positions within mainstream religious organizations, like Christian churches and mosques”(3). This is clear proof of how women have been placed in a deep hole of unenlightenment due to the length of the existence of patriarchy and although there have been efforts to help them get out of it, it is evident that many men still prevent them from making meaningful social progress. Although many men claim that they support equal rights and opportunities for women and men, the measures taken to stop women from gaining social, political, and religious power in cultures across the world are still prevalent and obvious.