Women and Revolution in China and Iran

During the 20th century, both China and Iran underwent revolutions that significantly changed their social structures. In each case, the role of women in society also shifted enormously as a result of the revolutionary changes that took place - but the outcomes were quite different for Chinese and Iranian women. Women in Pre-Revolutionary China During the late Qing Dynasty era in China, women were viewed as the property first of their birth families, and then of their husbands families. They were not really family members - neither the birth family nor the marriage family recorded a womans given name on the genealogical record. Women had no separate property rights, nor did they have parental rights over their children if they chose to leave their husbands. Many suffered extreme abuse at the hands of their spouses and in-laws. Throughout their lives, women were expected to obey their fathers, husbands, and sons in turn. Female infanticide was common among families who felt that they already had enough daughters and wanted more sons. Ethnic Han Chinese women of the middle and upper classes had their feet bound, as well, limiting their mobility and keeping them close to home. If a poor family wanted their daughter to be able to marry well, they might bind her feet when she was a small child. Foot binding was excruciatingly painful; first, the girls arch bones were broken, then the foot was tied with a long strip of cloth into the lotus position. Eventually, the foot would heal that way. A woman with bound feet could not work in the fields; thus, foot-binding was a boast on the familys part that they did not need to send their daughters out to work as farmers. The Chinese Communist Revolution Although the Chinese Civil War (1927-1949) and the Communist Revolution caused enormous suffering throughout the twentieth century, for women, the rise of communism resulted in a significant improvement in their social status. According to communist doctrine, all workers were supposed to be accorded equal worth, regardless of their gender. With the collectivization of property, women were no longer at a disadvantage compared with their husbands. One goal of revolutionary politics, according to the Communists, was womens liberation from the male-dominated system of private property. Of course, women from the property-owning class in China suffered humiliation and the loss of their status, just as their fathers and husbands did. However, the vast majority of Chinese women were peasants - and they gained social status, at least, if not material prosperity, in post-revolutionary Communist China. Women in Pre-Revolutionary Iran In Iran under the Pahlavi shahs, improved educational opportunities and social standing for women formed one of the pillars of the modernization drive. During the nineteenth century, Russia and Britain vied for influence in Iran, bullying the weak Qajar state. When the Pahlavi family took control, they sought to strengthen Iran by adopting certain western characteristics - including increased rights and opportunities for women. (Yeganeh 4) Women could study, work, and under Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavis rule (1941 - 1979), even vote. Primarily, though, womens education was intended to produce wise, helpful mothers and wives, rather than career women. From the introduction of the new Constitution in 1925 until the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Iranian women received free universal education and increased career opportunities. The government forbade women from wearing the chador, a head-to-toe covering preferred by highly religious women, even removing the veils by force. (Mir-Hosseini 41) Under the shahs, women got jobs as government ministers, scientists, and judges. Women got the right to vote in 1963, and the Family Protection Laws of 1967 and 1973 protected womens right to divorce their husbands and to petition for custody of their children. The Islamic Revolution in Iran Although women played an important role in the 1979 Islamic Revolution, pouring out into the streets and helping to drive Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi out of power, they lost a considerable number of rights once the Ayatollah Khomeini took control of Iran. Just after the revolution, the government decreed that all women had to wear the chador in public, including news anchors on television. Women who refused could face public whipping and prison time. (Mir-Hosseini 42) Rather than having to go to court, men could once more simply declare I divorce you three times to dissolve their marriages; women, meanwhile, lost all right to sue for divorce. After Khomeinis death in 1989, some of the strictest interpretation of law were lifted. (Mir-Hosseini 38) Women, particularly those in Tehran and other large cities, began to go out not in chador, but with a wisp of scarf (barely) covering their hair and with full makeup. Nonetheless, women in Iran continue to face weaker rights today than they did in 1978. It takes the testimony of two women to equal the testimony of one man in court. Women accused of adultery have to prove their innocence, rather than the accuser proving their guilt, and if convicted they may be executed by stoning. Conclusion The twentieth-century revolutions in China and Iran had very different effects on womens rights in those countries. Women in China gained social status and value after the Communist Party took control; after the Islamic Revolution, women in Iran lost many of the rights they had gained under the Pahlavi shahs earlier in the century. Conditions for women in each country vary today, though, based on where they live, what family they are born into, and how much education they have attained. Sources Ip, Hung-Yok. Fashioning Appearances: Feminine Beauty in Chinese Communist Revolutionary Culture, Modern China, Vol. 29, No. 3 (July 2003), 329-361. Mir-Hosseini, Ziba. The Conservative-Reformist Conflict over Womens Rights in Iran, International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Fall 2002), 37-53. Ng, Vivien. Sexual Abuse of Daughters-in-law in Qing China: Cases from the Xingan Huilan, Feminist Studies, Vol. 20, No. 2, 373-391. Watson, Keith. The Shahs White Revolution - Education and Reform in Iran, Comparative Education, Vol. 12, No. 1 (March 1976), 23-36. Yeganeh, Nahid. Women, Nationalism and Islam in Contemporary Political Discourse in Iran, Feminist Review, No. 44 (Summer 1993), 3-18.

The Movie Monster - 1427 Words

Monster – Aileen Wuornos Introduction The movie â€Å"Monster† is based on the true story of Aileen Wuornos, a woman who was popularly known as â€Å"America’s first female serial killer† (Pearson, 2007, p.256). She was executed for killing six men on October. 9th, 2002, after 12 years on Florida’s Death Row (Jenkins, 2003). Aileen Wuornos was a 37-year-old white woman, born in Rochester, Michigan, and growing up in the nearby Troy area. When Aileen was young, a friend of her father sexually assaulted her for years. She complained to her farther, while her farther did not believe her and physically abused her instead (Jenkins, 2003). After her farther killed himself, she was abandoned by her family because she engaged in prostitution. Due to the†¦show more content†¦Her demeanor was often cocky in the film. 3. Proneness to Boredom/Need for Stimulation: (2) Her history of drank heavily, hitchhiked, worked as a prostitute and ever had several violated relationship, supported an excessive need for stimulation. 4. Pathological Lying: (2) She used various aliases and more than once lied about having children to gain sympathy and money from the potential customers. 5. Conning/Manipulative: (2) She would quote a lower price for sex in the woods than hotels to trick the victims to secluded areas to kill them. 6. Lack of Remorse or Guilt: (2) Aileen never felt guilty toward her victims. In the movie, she mentioned that â€Å"people kill each and other everyday† for religion and politics, and â€Å"there are heroes†. She could not stop killing because she felt that she had to kill people who could rape her to avoid them to rape somebody else. If she had not been caught, she would kill more people. At the end of the movie, after she was convicted, she still considered that the judge sentenced â€Å"a right woman to death†. 7. Shallow Affect: (2) She generally concealed her emotion, even when she talked about her experience of abuse and rape. While, she sometimes behaved dramatically and occasionally produced short-lived angry outbursts. 8. Callous/Lack of Empathy: (1) In the movie, she felt empathy when she killed the innocent person. For example, she said sorry to the last man she killed because the man who let her hitchhike just aimedShow MoreRelatedAnalysis Of The Movie The Metal Monster Essay1496 Words   |  6 PagesRoss picked him up in the metal monster. The road was cleared of others, speeding their journey along in the soft mist of the early morning. Ross had been thoughtful enough to bring him a hot chocolate to drink. Maliki thought it over, Ross was likable enough. To bad he was a human. Their association would be short. 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World History The Worst Dictator of Them All Free Essays

string(52) " stand side by side against the Capitalist nations\." I will be comparing and contrasting three dictators, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. These three men are considered to be the world’s mass murdering dictator and I would like to investigate which one of them is the worst one of them all. Hitler who was Fuhrer for Germany is infamous for his doings in World War II and his killing of Jewish people. We will write a custom essay sample on World History: The Worst Dictator of Them All or any similar topic only for you Order Now Then there is Stalin who caused the great terror in USSR and used cunning schemes to achieve his goals and was a key person during the Cold War. Finally there is Mao Zedong the great Chinese revolutionist who fought against the Chinese Nationalist Party and changed China in many ways using many social and economic policies. I will be judging â€Å"worst dictator† by the amount of death, social and economic problems caused during their rule and will also consider the rise to their power as a basis to judge these three dictators. I will be giving worst dictator to whoever has the most death and worst social and economic problems considering their position. In the social and economic problems caused it will be mainly be the leader create talking about policies and whether or not it was successful or not. I will also take in the consideration of propaganda used by dictators to influence the people’s trust. Firstly, Mao Zedong the President of the People’s Republic China or formerly known Chairman of the People’s Republic China started out to be a mere librarian working in a Chinese college. He then joins the Chinese communist party that rebels against the existing ruling Nationalist party in China, the KMT. Mao led his rebels across china fighting and running away from the KMT. However in October 1st of 1949 he creates the People’s Republic of China and turns China into communist. Many Chinese liked and followed him due to his status as legendary revolutionist who bettered the poor and fought for the people who could not fight. In 1958, he sets out to do the Great Leap Forward, which was simply put a 5-year plan type of scheme where the goal was to modernize China radically. This reformation involved large agricultural communes and about 75,000 farmers, these communes did their own collective farms and families. Following Marxist principles all wages were equally shared amongst the families in the commune. Each family also received a small strip of land. However by 1962 this reformation stopped due to Soviet Union could not afford to back up China and this failure caused Mao to resign from his post as Chairman of PRC. Many had died of starvation and about 50 million died at this point. Even though he resigned Mao was openly still playing politics, in 1966 he would start an initiative called the Great Cultural Revolution. Ap World History Units 1-3 Study Guide iframe class="wp-embedded-content" sandbox="allow-scripts" security="restricted" style="position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);" src="https://phdessay.com/ap-world-history-units-1-3-study-guide/embed/#?secret=1IAr6z5MHK" data-secret="1IAr6z5MHK" width="500" height="282" title="#8220;Ap World History Units 1-3 Study Guide#8221; #8212; Free Essays - PhDessay.com" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no"/iframe This involved in the Chinese government allowing critics of the government to openly speak out against the government and China. This was totally against what Mao had installed when he was Chairman, he took away all forms of freedom of speech and had installed many Marxist ideas that were implied by Soviet Union. After the critics finished criticizing the government and Mao, he gathered up college students and made them attack the critics. Proclaiming that these student body were the Red Guard, who had a responsibility to protect China, Mao started ordering unexplainable orders. During this time there was a politician by the name of Liu Shiaoqi who had notions of wage differentiation and freedom of speech. Mao gave out orders such as banning education, never to consider intellectuals as superiors, and killed roughly around 78 million Chinese people by this time (including Tibet incident). However this was all indirect killing. He then gave almost all his power to the Gang of Four who caused many troubles and the Chinese public despised them. Everyone liked Mao even though he killed so many people and caused so many disturbances. His image as great revolutionary leader is still believed today by many Chinese people and much of his wrongdoings is erased from Chinese history. Mao Zedong’s points are his mass murder of his own people and destruction of class system, which caused many problems, while rising to power his cunning ideas and tactics are admirable, and he always fought for the peasants at all times which is considered as a good thing. Even though he killed many people all these killings were accidental or more like unplanned. He also had a cult of personality, which still exists today. Next is Josef Stalin the General secretary of the Central Committee of the communist Party. This man succeeded Lenin who was the leader of USSR and first ever man to successfully implement communism into a country and was considered a Great revolutionist. He rose to power from his position as a secretary of the party to Leader of USSR by using Lenin’s cult of personality and pretending to be number one disciple. He would team up with his opponents who wanted his position against one main army then change up his teams. In this way he would always be on the winning side and his opponents never considered him a big threat, in this way he tricked and conned his way to become one of the most ruthless leaders USSR has ever seen. After his consolidation of power he soon worked on getting rid of all opponents and all future opponents. He first got rid of Leon Trotsky who was Lenin’s second in command to Mexico. Then one by one he got rid of all intellectuals in USSR. Soon he was the only one in USSR with any proper intellect. This purge of Intellectuals depleted USSR’s brainpower completely. After getting rid of the brainpower in USSR he started to implements plan to modernize USSR. His goal was to be able to stand side by side against the Capitalist nations. You read "World History: The Worst Dictator of Them All" in category "Papers" To achieve these goals he used death camps called Gulags to maintain a rigid control over all counterrevolutionary actions. Then killed the kulak, landlords who owned farm property, and then killed any peasants have any success. In this way Stalin created a mass famine, which killed 23,000,000 people. Unlike Mao, he did this on purpose due to his fear of counterrevolutionaries and opposition to his power. While Stalin boasted that USSR was having successful economic situations during the Great depression in America parts of Ukraine did not have food and many died. After this incident, he acted a major part in ending the World War II. They defeated the Nazis who invaded European country. However Stalin ordered Russian army to stay put in the country they had just liberated from the Nazis. In this way he was able to procure Satellite states. In the Tehran and Yalta meetings amongst the Big Three, he was able to argue equally amongst Churchill and Roosevelt. In this way he was allowed to keep satellite states however the next American president and Stalin did not get along as well. Eventually Cold war started and Stalin implemented mass production of arms. He died on 1953. Even though his methods were harsh he was able to modernize USSR into a world power that was at one point equal to America. Stalin is still considered as a hero amongst some Russians, this is mainly due to history books in Russia do not talk about Stalin’s misdeeds. His misguided methods were very harsh however it produced results, which Stalin sought for. His mass murder of 23,000,000 people was done on purpose unlike Mao, which makes him a very scary man. Stalin’s personality was one of a calculative and methodical almost like a serial killer. He wanted to satisfy his own goals, which was to be better than the Capitalist nation, mainly America. Stalin’s points are that he killed many people during the modernization of USSR, his cunning methods when he was rising to power, his method to spread communism by using satellite states, and he also made USSR into a Super Power. His successor Nikita had to use De-Stalinization due to Stabilize USSR and make sure it was a safer place to be in. Finally, Adolf Hitler the most famous mass murder and mastermind behind World War II. His genocide of Jewish people is famous amongst all people. He was a painter in Vienna before he formed the Nazi party. He looked for rich patrons to support his work but the Jewish patrons, most patron are Jewish. However they all rejected him and his hatred towards Jewish people started to grow. He then joins a political party and later on forms the Nazi party. He becomes the leader of this party and leads the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. He was arrested in this event and then held at prison for 5 years. He wrote his book â€Å"Mein Kampf † and starts to scheme political methods to get his revenge on the Jews. His pride as Germans started rising and he became very Nationalistic after the Great depression which caused the Germany to fall down with America due to the huge debts owed by Germany given out by America. This was to pay war reparations to other countries, from World War I. Hitler saw this as a sign of weakness on America’s part and started to do special speeches to the German people using carefully rehearsed speeches. In this way the Nazi party was elected to German Reichstag. Soon Hitler massed enough influence to become Chancellor of Germany and switched took over instead for democracy he becomes the Dictator of Germany and creates a one party state. Soon he felt compelled to take back what was rightfully German and took back Rhineland. Then soon took Austria, next came Czechoslovakia and then the other European nations started to feel threatened and attacked Germany. This was the start to World War II however before all this when Hitler was just the President of Germany he used his SS to destroy and harass all Jewish people and objects. He used terms as sub-human and started the mass genocide of Jews in Europe, this lead to about twelve million Jews dead. Hitler was a very nationalistic person and could not be considered sane considering the fact that he took revenge by climbing to the top most position in Germany which he used to say he was against and then killing twelve million innocent Jews are serial killer kind of actions. His points are his sudden rise to power and he was just plain crazy. As a dictator he was just crazy compared to the other two dictators. I think the worst dictator goes to Mao Zedong, due to mass murder of seventy-eight million people and being a former intellectual but still destroying all beings proclaiming to be intelligent is beyond comprehension. Even though he wanted to modernize China and help out the peasants and make everyone equal, there is no point in destroying the education system and making a group of people suffer just to make another group happy. Also the fact that he was a former librarian just makes it all the worse he should have realized the value in having intelligent people. Unlike Hitler who was crazy I think Mao Zedong as he became older became senile and dumb which is why he started the Great Cultural Revolution. Also even though his actions before becoming Chairman of China was very calculative after he became Chairman of China he seems to lack importance to life. He does not care about how many people die just for his policies to work. Which just shows a crazy person or a sick person’s mind. However I believe he just turned senile and slowly lost his edge. How to cite World History: The Worst Dictator of Them All, Papers