Herstory

Women have come a long way since the beginning of time. From ancient times till the 1940s very few women ever had power those that did include Cleopatra and Nefertiti, Queens of Ancient Egypt, Mary I and Elizabeth I. Ancient Egypt was one of the first nations to have a woman as the ruler, dating back to the 15^th century B.C. For the last 3,500 years there has been very few women rulers until the last fifty or so years. The Ancient queens of Egypt led their great empire to be prosperous as did the queens of England. These women rulers are a rare thing in the history books of the world so few have climbed the ranks to be in such a position, partly because of how the human society has evolved over thousands of years. As the first humans became their global domination they were hunters and gathers. In this system the women would do everything but hunt. The women would take care of the children; gather fruits and nuts to eat, and make what little clothing they had. They made the system work by working so hard and making sure that the men could go out and hunt. This system didn’t change very much for thousands of years. As humans started to settle down and form ancient cities the women’s work became what it is known as today, “household work.” They continued to stay home take care of the kids, tend any small crops they had, make clothing, cook the food and anything else that the family needed to run smoothly as it could in ancient times. Going to the reign of Queen Elizabeth, women still had the household work while the men went to work as blacksmiths, butchers, wheelwrights, shoemakers and what not. The men still had almost all the power except for the Throne of England. Queen Elizabeth is the most influential women in making it possible for women to leave the house behind and take on their own work to support themselves. No matter how obvious it was to the people during her reign, the way society functioned was changed for good, it may take another six hundred years but women will start to take their place alongside and even above men in the 1900s. The first time that they were given a chance was during WWII. All the men were off to war and the women took their jobs producing products to be sent over seas to be used by men. Not only did they help the war effort but they also saved the economy. By having such a large need for supplies, industries were needed to be at max efficiency and the women took the challenge and showed the world not only what America was capable of but also what women everywhere were capable of. Sadly once the war was won and the men returned home the women weren’t back to the household work for some time again. Since then women have fought for and gained every right a man has and are using them to their full potential. One women that has tired to go every farther is Hilary Clinton. In the 2008 election she went against Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination. She was a strong candidate and had a great chance of wining, but after signs Obama winning she had an emotional moment. She tried for the American people and for us to have the best future we can have. Sadly that isn’t what a population wants to see. Hillary Clinton was emotional, but that’s not the reason for her losing the Democratic nomination. It was the fact that the emotion meant she was human and was just like every other American. If she was human then she was likely to make mistakes just like all human. It wasn’t the fact that she cried and was too womanly to be President it was the fact that the people want a more “perfect” person. They believed that if she showed any emotion that could be a weakness than she couldn’t be President of the United States of America. And they were wrong. I’m not saying she should be President but I’m saying that just because a person is emotional doesn’t mean that they can’t lead. There are so many aspects of leadership that can come together to become a great leader and maybe being emotional is one of them but the people are to afraid and stubborn to change how they see the world, so a women may only become President of America if she is as tuff enough to stand up for herself but nice enough to be a lady, because the people won’t have a manly women as President that would be just as bad as an emotional women. It’s a hard world out there it doesn’t always makes sense but nothing ever does make sense in the real world. 

The Oppressed: Bio

The article “Can You Learn Anything From a Void,” (http://www.tnr.com/book/review/druggist-auschwitz-reluctant-accomplice?page=0,0)  is written by Adam Kirsch, and it is written to present the problems of the Nazi oppressive regime coming to power and later on the Holocaust. The story of Victor Capesius shows the fact that ordinary people were forced to sentence others to death or even kill the prisoners themselves. In situation is also discussed in the film “180” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y2KsU_dhwI. In the film the speaker is asking what people would do in the situation of being ordered to kill a person by the “humanly” way with a gun or by burying them alive with a bulldozer. If the person doesn’t kill them then they will be killed. Most would say they would kill the people with the bulldozer because it is the easiest way and they won’t give up their own life if someone else will just take their place. One women says that she would kill the people and expect some one else to stand against the killing of the millions of people. That same woman goes on to ask, “Where were the German people during the Holocaust?” The response was maybe they were all people that thought that someone else was going to stop the horrible cleansing of the Jews people. It would be suicide to go up against the Nazi regime and so people were afraid to stand against the oppressive government, but oppressive governments have been a part of human history since the first man left the tree of the African jungle behind. In the setting of Macbeth, the middle ages, most countries were ruled by a monarchy and they used feudalism to rule their subjects. The largest class of people was the peasants, and they were like slaves to their superiors and had little say in what happened in their own lives. They were oppressed and taught to only follow commands so in the play Macbeth, Macbeth becomes crazy over chances that other man will have a better claim to the Crown. He begins killing innocent men to keep his crown. The men doing Macbeths biding knew nothing more than to follow their master and do what he commands. They would have even less chance of surviving going up against their king than going against the Nazi Regime in the middle of the 1900s.

            Leaping forward in time to the year 2012, “the year the world is to end,” countries that have been under oppressive governments have began to rise against their governments as one, rebel against it and go to war against it. The people of Egypt over threw their dictator and are trying to set up a fair government. The people of Libya have defeated their Dictator in a civil war and have killed him, with the support of NATO and the United Nations. It was a bloody and gruesome war with trained soldiers against everyday citizen with guns. And for eleven months now the citizens of Syria have been protesting their government and have been getting shot, bombed, and beaten for it. Why all of a sudden are the dictators collapsing from the pressure of their people? The answer is knowledge. In the days of King Macbeth and the Holocaust the people didn’t really know what was going on except what their governments told them. They had no idea if other people were rebelling and were oppressing to think that what they were doing was right and fine. In the middle ages they had no idea that they could rebel against their master and even in the mid 1900s they didn’t know they had many choices. The people in Germany were brainwashed to think that their race was the only one made by God and that the others had no right to life. The few people that tried to explain to the people that the government was killing innocent people were quickly throne into the gas chambers.  

]           When people are forced to kill innocent people and are brainwashed no even think of other options how are they too realize the magnitude of their actions? They couldn’t unless they knew their options. If the Germans weren’t oppressed to think that the killing was the Word of God and that the government needs the people to be a government. They would have taken a second look at what they were doing, and realized that what they were doing was wrong and rebelled against the Nazi Regime. To be guilty of the murdering, they must be aware of it. Yes, many might have been aware they were murdering people so they would be guilty. It takes a lot of courage to go against authority and to do what is right.