Law-Forums.org

[chozai65]

Women’s Rights
The fight for women's legal rights gained ground in the nineteenth century in western Europe, the United States, and Canada, and in many other areas of the world. Historically, while matriarchal societies had existed in some areas, such as southeast China (the Mosuo) and in South Bougainville near New Guinea and Australia (the Navogisi), patriarchal societies dominated most of the world and continue into the twenty-first century to be the predominate social structure worldwide. Women have, historically, held less economic and political power compared to men. One of the turning points in the women's rights movement occurred when voting rights became widespread in western Europe and North American democracies from the late 1800s to the 1920s. With voting rights came some economic rights, such as the right to inherit and manage property, to work and earn wages or profit, and to associate freely in public for business. Women's rights groups in the second half of the twentieth century focused on greater legal equality in terms of wages and credit, reproductive rights, family law, and education.
Women's rights advocates have focused on legal change in societies where the rule of law is an appropriate avenue for enforcing women's rights (rule of law, briefly, is a legal system with clear and evenly enforced rules, including laws about property rights and enforcement of contracts). In many instances, however, legal rights do not translate into actual rights if enforcement of law is not upheld. For example, honor killings—the murder of a female in a family by male relatives after the woman takes action that the family believes is dishonorable—are outlawed by secular law in many countries, including Iraq, and yet cultural and religious practice allows for such killings. In Iraq, the penalty for honor killing is three years imprisonment, but the vast majority of honor killings go unreported and unpunished. In contrast, in countries where laws against honor killings are strictly enforced, high-profile honor killings committed by Muslim families result in strict punishment. A German Muslim man convicted of killing his sister for her “Western” lifestyle was sentenced to nine years, three months, while in Britain a grandmother was sentenced to life in prison in 2007 for committing an honor killing. Honor killings are rare in societies where the rule of law enforces penalties, and where women's rights groups are highly active.
The focus on women's rights under the law involves changing legal practices but also social and cultural norms in all cultures. In sub-Saharan Africa, women in many cultures are treated as minors culturally if not legally, with little or no right to manage or inherit property. In Bhutan, voting rights for women are legally possible, but under the law one vote per household is permitted, and the vote goes to the man under cultural practice, effectively denying women the right to vote. In China, single mothers are permitted by law to maintain custody of their children, but in order to obtain a residency permit and enroll children in school, the woman will need a man's assistance. Local women's rights groups in various regions worldwide work from within each individual culture to change cultural and social beliefs and norms, while at the same time changing laws.
Religion plays a strong role in many women's rights issues. The right to an abortion, for instance, is restricted in strongly Catholic countries such as Chile and Argentina. Freedom of movement in public is constrained for many women in Muslim countries; in Saudi Arabia most women are not permitted to drive. In Malaysia lawmakers considered restricting a woman's right to travel overseas, requiring permission from family and/or employers as a condition. This 2008 measure provoked intense criticism from Malaysian women's rights groups, who claim it is based on the belief that women are less capable of making independent decisions than are men, a belief some charge is rooted in Islam.
Limited inheritance and property rights are a primary target for women's rights advocacy groups, which aim to expand a woman's right to inherit property from late husbands and to manage family businesses. In many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, widows have very few property rights. In Saskatchewan, Canada, widows in the Sakimay First Nation have also experienced a loss of property rights with the death of a husband. A 2004 report related one Sakimay widow's experience: she was evicted from her home on orders of the band's chief on the grounds that, as a widow, she was no longer a member of her husband's band and therefore had no property rights.
The United Nations Millennium Goals—a series of goals designed to reduce poverty, hunger, disease, and maternal and infant mortality by providing better education for children, equal opportunities for women, and moving toward a healthier environment by the year 2015—has as its third in a set of eight

[barclay76]

no, do your own homework

[wilbart]

no, do your own homework

well, yes. But I think the idea here is for you to do it.
The summary should compare and contrast ways in which different countries, religions and ethnicities protect or infringe on the rights, opportunites and stature of women within their societies.