WOMEN EMPOWERMENT: A PHILOSOPHICAL APPRAISAL
CHAPTER TWO
2.1 THE PLACE OF WOMEN IN THE SOCIETY
In our society, the status of women is low compared to that of men, it is a common belief that women are inferior to men, hence, women are always under the control of men either directly or indirectly1. Since the origin of world, women are expected to be dependent on males and do as they are command or ordered to do. Women are seen as objects or property or even instrument to be used as they (makes) desire. In most societies women are the burden carried more than men. They are the ones doing the heavy jobs in our society for example, they are the ones doing the heavy agricultural labour and other strenuous jobs in the society. Women have been and continue to be subjugated in many ways. Despite their large population everywhere, gender difference is common phenomena.
It is evident that women still have lower status than men and they continued to be discriminated against in many facets of life. Women have always constituted a larger disadvantaged group in almost all known and existing societies. Plato in his “ Republic” proposed in his ideal society, he said that men and women should perform the same task and have the same responsibilities, women and men should be rules and guardian. To him women should be given the same opportunities and responsibilities as men. Aristotle sees this differently, he wrote that “ makes nature fits for command than female.
other thinkers are as well have expressed the view that women are in some relevant ways inferior to men that such inferiorities justify and practically demand different treatment of men and women. Many societies still labor the assumption that women are inferior to and should be subordinate to men. Our society still claims that our society is patriarchal and that women should be subordinate to men. Few women have been elected president or vice-president. Only two women have ever served on the Supreme Court. Although the population of women is larger to that of men, there are and have been very few women elected to the U.S senate or congress or elected a state governor and relatively few are judges in the higher state and federal court. Woman don’t fare much better in business and the professions.
Women remain deserted in low-pay and low status jobs. Women are discriminated against in our society no matter how we pretend to do otherwise. This decimation does not disappear when the girls reach adulthood. Poverty, violence and unrelenting toil are all too often a woman’s lot. In our society, even today women are always regarded as a second class citizen. In the high of the above, we will see the place of women in the following places.
(i) Family
(ii) Labour market
(iii) Education sector
Women are continued to be put in a disadvantaged position. This mangiest in the low level of female involvement in the socio-economic and political affairs of the country.
(i) FAMILY
There is ample historical evidence to indicate that there is discrimination against women in the family. Nietzsche in his Zarathustra said that I quote “Everything in woman is a riddle, and everything in woman has one solution, that is pregnancy. Man is for woman a means; the purpose is always the child. But what is woman for man? He answered also and said “A real man wants two things; danger and play. Therefore he wants woman as the most dangerous plaything. Man shall be educated for war, and woman for the recreation of the warriors all else is folly”3 Women are meant to understand that their purpose in life is for child bearing and what the man can use to play. Women are expected to shoulder most of the burdens of home life for example cooking, food shopping, washing clothes and dishes and cleaning. The discrimination against women all started in the family.
According to Aristottle he says that males are by nature fitter for control than females. He demonstrated that women are physically inferior to men, he goes on to say that their proper place is in the home, controlled by their husbands. Women are not expected to participate in decision making and the husband’s needs have to be her priority. According to Nietzsche said that “The happiness of man is: I will the happiness of women is: he wills. Anstolttle say that the different between husband and wife is always consisted in external appearance, in speeches and in honours he said by nature male is more apt at leading than the female, though both the male and female have the deliberate capacity of the soul, but in the female it lacks authority. Women are made up to believe that they are what men say they are. They are not regarded as a permanent member of the family.
Fredric Nietzsche, a well-known existentialist philosopher but on the contrary was a misogynist. He saw nothing good in women, he saw women as objects, which can be used for amusement. He holds that if you are going to a woman to amuse yourself, do not forget the whip women are always seen as the most conspicuous mischief of human race. Women occupies that last position in the family because even the male child is superior to the female child whenever she is the elder one by age or not. In her husband house, her son has authority more than the mother and even have properties to posses more than the mother or any female child in the family. The place of women is low compared to that of the male counter parts, because they are treated differently and the same opportunity is not given to them. When the properties of the family is been shared among the family members, women are not included male are trained to face challenges to prove their masculinity while the female are trained or socialize to be cool headed and soft. Aristotle believed that women are colder than men and thus less perfect. According to him women are like infertile men. A woman’s inability to produce semen is her deficiency. A woman is an infertile a male. is male in virtue of a particular ability. In female in virtue of a particular ability, and a relation to husband and wife of superior to inferior, and of ruler to ruled, till date the position of women have not change in the family, no matter how we pretend to see otherwise. To Hegel he understand that women by nature deshned to fulfill the role of passive embodiment, nature of family values, while make assumes the challenge of progressively transcending, natural immediacy, creating a cultural sphere of free moral actions politicians, science, religious and philosophy.
(ii) LABOUR MARKET
In the book “Women and the world economic crisis says that Domestic work is not the only work women do. Thus, inspite of the massive entry of women in the workplace and the increasing numbers of women today in mid-level managerial position, top level positions remain as elusive to women today as they were more than a decade ago. Working in a world dominated by male decision-making and their established practices, women encounter variety of barriers impeding their surge to the top of their careers few women have managed to shatter the glass cedling blocking them from top-level position. Some suffer and are still suffering from sexual harassment. Women with their femine attributes leaves their work, desexualized women to serve as a role models. For female domination and descrimination6. Women do not have the same job opportunities in our society with the men. In our society, there is job segregation. There are some job’s refer to as the “women’s job” and the “men job” which job is men’s and women’s. Men are said to be the one doing the hard jobs like carpentry, mechanics, taxi driver etc. Women are not expected to be seen doing this kind of work.
(iii) EDUCATION SECTOR
Education plays important role in gender discrimination, in ancient times, parents remain unconvinced of the need for girls to be educated fortunately, guarantees of equal access to education have been made. According to Hegel, women are capable of education, but are not made for activities which demand a universal faculty such as the more advanced sciences, philosophy and certain forms of artistic production.
Women may have happy ideas, taste and elegance, but they cannot attain to the ideal. Men are seen to have actual and substantive life in the state, in learning and so forth while women have her substantive destiny in family. So they don’t need education as such. Women are now educated but are not considered to be capable of doing anything good in their area of specialization both in secondary and higher learning, most girls are sexually harass while boys at times graduate successfully more than the girls. In the light of the above, we cannot help to wonder whether men and women are seen as equal in our society. Women are educated to please the male and fulfill their feminine potential.
2.2 ARE MEN AND WOMEN EQUAL?
Generally speaking, the status of men in many parts of the world is higher compared to that of women. The society sees women as unequal to men. According to Fredish Neetzsch,
