Slavery: Worse for Women Today Than in 1800s

categories: Human Trafficking Awareness, Technology and the Media, Trafficking in Women

Published August 26, 2009 @ 10:10AM PT

Being a female slave 200 years ago was about as much fun as being a nudist septic tank cleaner for a digestive disease treatment center. In other words, crappy. They were legally owned by another person, frequently raped, physically abused, torn apart from their families, and forced to work exhausting hours for no pay. And yet, according to Pulitzer Prize winner Nicholas Kristof's new book Half the Sky, women have it way worse today.

The fact that women make up the large majority of human trafficking victims in the world today is not the only thing making life rough on them. Girls are more likely to remain uneducated than boys, and thus more likely to live in poverty. Women are raped, forced and duped into abusive relationships, killed during childbirth and from HIV/AIDS, as well as sold as slaves into prostitution and forced labor. But despite all that, are women really worse off today than 200 years ago?

I put together some of the pros and cons of being a woman in the 19th Century and being a woman today. Here's what I came up with.

Despite the obvious benefits Hugh Jackman brings to the collective lives of women, I think it might be a toss up. And that's pretty sad, considering how much society as a whole has progressed since it was legal for one human being to own another. In the old system of slavery, it was Africans, African-Americans, and other dark-skinned people who were enslaved because of the color of their skin. Today, it's women and girls who are enslaved and oppressed because of their gender. Can that really be called progress? No.

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I guess some people "get" the message in "Kate & Leopold". I don't think anyone today will openly shout "The erection still stands!" In the 1800's it meant the bridge across to Manhattan, we all know what it means today.

Trouble is we've lost crucial initiations and rites of passage. Many men function today driven by a teenage mentality because no-one showed them what it means to be an adult man. If today's youth use the internet to educate themselves to appropiate social behaviour, what happens if the main male role model lives there too? Let's go further back Social nit-picking:Meet the pensioner taking Twitter by storm

We can educate our boys, and that requires conscious men. Here's a 3 part doco that screened part 1 last night 21st Century Aussie Blokes

I'm afraid this approach will take as long as the solution offered by the pro-legalization group. I've always believed that to change a bad habit, we need to replace it with a good one. What do we do in the meantime, add something to the drinking water?

I'd like to acknowledge the passing of Teddy Kennedy here, he seemed like a true gentleman.

Posted by Oceania OZ on 08/26/2009 @ 05:12PM PT
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....most of the time.

Posted by Oceania OZ on 08/26/2009 @ 09:35PM PT
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Oh and maybe the answer is for us Western women to get together with balsy Muslim women like this one (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bynld68XNB0&feature=related). and watch the bombs turn into butterflies. Remember Woodstock anyone?

Posted by Oceania OZ on 08/26/2009 @ 10:04PM PT
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You can make a case either way, I suppose. But Im not sure Im buying it was worse in 1800. For one thing, youre not factoring in disease, infant mortality, hygeine standards and a lot of other things that make like today more bearable for everyone living above the poverty level. Some historians even argue that at least economically, living at the poverty level in a Third World country today is vastly better than living the same 200 years ago. Just food for thought

Posted by Slim Chance on 08/27/2009 @ 06:42AM PT
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I think the question really is worse for whom?

In the 1800's developed countries were kept pretty busy with disease, infant mortality, hygiene standards, not to forget industrialization of manufacture and nation building. The people easiest to control to facilitate that were slaves from developing nations.

In the 20th century we got a little lazy and bored, and more than a little bit paranoid (think Cold War). The easiest people to control to facilitate not having to think deeply, were women and children.

In the 21st century who knows? Someone once said that the measure of a civilization is based on it's treatment of women and children. I'd go even furher, how a civilization treats it's women and children is how it will regard the Earth and it's resources, since the two represent the archetypal home and hearth. I think the Earth might keep us all a little busier this century, and a little less resistant to change.

Posted by Oceania OZ on 08/27/2009 @ 08:25PM PT
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I don't know about the measure of civilization as a whole but a wise person once said: "When we die, the only thing about us that the world will remember is how we treated the other people we came in contact with in life." This is why I believe all who traffic women for the purpose of sexual exploitation and all who KNOWINGLY pay a trafficker for the purpose of having forced sexual relations with any trafficked woman, should be hung from a tall Oak tree and publicly castrated with a rusty machete with No anesthetics or antibiotics. Maybe then; people would realize that this is just plain wrong and their simply is no excuse that will ever justify their actions. Not to be confused with CONSENSUAL prostitution which I am in favor of legalizing.

Posted by Mike Nichols on 08/31/2009 @ 07:43AM PT
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You know...Its good to know the whole of our history on mother earth BUT in my mind...It doesnt matter whether it was worse then or now...Human slavery is wrong and must be put an end to.

Posted by Thomas McHugh on 09/08/2009 @ 09:38PM PT
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Author

Amanda has been a full-time abolitionist for six years. During that time, she has created reports, documentaries and training materials on human trafficking in the United States and around the world.