What was the contribution of Mary Wollstonecraft to understanding the Essay

What was the contribution of Mary Wollstonecraft to understanding the social and political situation of women - Essay Example As in India, the dowry, although legally banned, still persists. Indian feminists â€Å"decry the dowry, an outlawed but entrenched tradition that can trigger murder. Some greedy grooms kill their mates to marry again- and gain another dowry† ( Hodgson 1985, p. 531). In China, some women are not yet free to choose their mates and in most Muslim countries, women are still subjected to the use of veil or chador, which signifies their role as subordinates. The veil is a form of â€Å"sex-segregation that has always been related to such matters as power, domination and exclusion. It has restricted women’s mobility† ( Paidar 1995, p.3). Women’s continuing hold to power and dominance should be deemed as one of the most stirring phenomenon because since time immemorial, women had always occupied the backseat and once were even treated as nothing but a rung higher than dogs in the echelon of society. In biblical times, women were treated as mere possessions: fathers owned them, sold them into bondage and even sacrificed them (Genesis 24:42; 29: 16-28). During the age of royalty, they were treated as slaves or sex objects to be thrown by the king to his harem if he so desires. Up to the time of the 19th century, women were denied the access to education and to political rights such as the right to suffrage, economic independence, employment to any position carrying power and property and other legal rights. Things could have gotten worse had not some gritty, independent, crusading women beat all the odds by going against the status quo and faced ridicule, humiliation, and ostracism by stemming the tide of women’s subjugation, repression and oppression. To protest women’s abject destiny, Emily Davison in 1913 â€Å"threw herself under the king’s horse at the Epson Derby and died in the process â€Å" (Taylor 2001, p.23). Emmeline Pankhurst braved arrest and detention in 1914 when â€Å"she