Women's Rights

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http://lauramscott.wordpress.com/2009/03/03/last-few-buttons/

Topic Proposal

For Essay #3, I will write about Margaret Atwood’s book, The Handmaids Tail. The Handmaids in this book are reformed on the way that they think, dress, act, and live their daily lives. They are even renamed and everything that they once knew will never be mentioned again. I am unsure as to why the government of Gilead wants to use these women only for conceiving, and why they are not allowed to be individualistic. The Handmaids are also not allowed to read, write, and can only speak when spoken to. They cannot look at people superior to them in the eyes out of respect. They were ripped away from their former lives, and have to live by a new policy of what is expected of them. They cannot show any emotion or even have any opinion of their own whatsoever.
I would like to research the topic of the different woman oppression societies such as Islam where woman have no rights at all, and they are degraded and hidden away. In the United States, it has taken woman decades to have the same rights as a man from education, career, voting and status. Even today, women are degraded all over the world. I know this through my own experience of being the only woman in a male work environment from construction to auto sales. I feel that researching the history and present issues of woman’s’ rights in different societies, will give me a better understanding of what is going on in this book
I chose the topic of the right that woman have because it is exactly what is going on in this book, The Handmaids Tale. When doing this research, I will be able to better understand the facts of what rights woman have, and why the government would use degrading of a woman to benefit a society. When reading this book, I only get to understand the point of view of the character that Atwood explains. Researching woman rights puts in in more of a broad perspective for a deeper understanding.

Here is a website that explains the different issues of women's rights all over the world today ang throughout history:

http://www.globalissues.org/article/166/womens-rights