Have you been looking for good General Paper sample essays on the topic of Women & Human Rights? Aiming to prepare this sub-topic of Social Issues, Roles of Women, as well as Human Rights, as one of your main content topic for your upcoming GP exam, and is seeking for complete full length answers?
Bookmark us, so that you can return to this site easily , as we update this site often with more full length answers!
Q1: Women have never had it so good. How far do you agree?
For decades, women have been fighting for their rights and for equality amongst men and women, by rallying fellow females and making passionate speeches on how women should be treated with equality. Many people believe that they have made remarkable progress, that indeed, “Women have never had it so good.” (List of human right organisations in Singapore & Asia.)
However, I feel that it is not fair to say that we, women, have “never” had it so good. The word “never” seems so absolute and final. It is a fact that women in the past were treated shabbily, differently with more indifference and less respect but all in all, I still feel that women, then, had their own perception of what constitutes contentment. For instance, women probably felt happier staying at home, looking after the children and doing house chores. They still gained satisfaction watching their children grow and seeing their husband or family eat the dinner they had prepared. This is all part of a female’s basic instinct, to care for others. Of course, man has always exploited this fact, and by reinforcing the idea that women should be the caretakers of the house, they prevented women from pursuing their own interests. This repression led to women becoming domestic slaves. To any modern man or women, the kind of life they led back then must seem really terrible, therefore creating the idea that women now are re ally leading a far better life than they have ever experienced. I feel that it is not fair to see it this way as society’s morals and expectations of women have changed so drastically through the years thus making the comparison between women’s lives then and now not a very good one since difference standards apply.
Another problem is: how does one define “good”? Is it when women are finally on par in terms of equality with men? Where does one draw the line between good and bad? Well, accepting the above idea that women’s lives then and now can be compared, it can be generally said that women’s lives nowadays are more unrestricted, that is, women enjoy greater degree of freedom and more recognition. The fight for women’s rights has come very far to be able to change society’s perceptions and stereotyping tendencies. Previously, women were denied their rights and even in the United States, they were not al lowed to vote or to have any say in anything until fairly recently. Today, many women are finally being recognised for their achievements and praised for breaking through conventions. Prominent females, like Margaret Thatcher, have shown that women, too, can have a say in matters of the world.
In the past, women and girls were denied education by the men since they found it to be redundant and use less to one who is supposed to stay at home and bring up children, but the situation is different now, when young girls are given the same opportunities for education as young boys. Females are generally thought to be living better lives in today’s modern world but the question still remains: Can the situation be even better or is this the best society can do?
I feel that there are still many situations of sexual discrimination which continue to exist despite the fact that life for a female is generally better. This is especially more apparently so in our conservative Asian society where traditionally, men are still believed to be the superior sex. Take Singapore, for example; how many female politicians are there? It is a figure which can be counted on one hand! Although certain ideas (such as the one that women should stay at home) are being gradually worn down, it is still difficult for society to accept certain ideas or dreams a woman might have. For example, a woman might want to join the army but in such a traditionally male-dominated job in certain conservative societies, it is difficult for a lone woman to change this narrow perception. Many women, besides politicians, are also not given the due respect they deserve for achieving so much with their lives. (Changes have been witnessed: Mdm Halimah Yacob as SG’s President, Kalama Harris as USA Vice President, etc) The success of businesswomen who can juggle both a career and family is taken for granted.
I am aware of the sad fact that men and women can never be on equal terms because of the numerous differences between them – biological, emotional or physical but many improvements to the way women are treated by men and society are still desired. Therefore, to the statement, “Women have never had it so good”, I can only say that I can agree with it. In fact, “Women have never had it bad, at least not in Singapore!”