I Believe paper...

The Oppression of Women: Past and Present

In western culture, women have a very prominent roll in society. There are women going to college and becoming doctors, lawyers, Chief Executive Officers of very prominent companies, and there are even women running for president. However, our modern beliefs are an exception to many other cultures around the world. In the middle east, the Taliban are oppressing the women of Afghanistan by forcing them to wear a chardri when going outdoors, and things that possibly took away all rights that women had; especially an education. The oppression of women in society is not only a current issue, women during the Cultural Revolution in China were deprived of an education as well because that society's thought was that women would not need an education because all they had to do was have sons and run the household. Since the women of these cultures do not know any better, they would have no idea of the power an education could give them.
In the book Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie, the two main characters, Luo and the Violinist teach a little Chinese seamstress how to read. Learning how to read opens up a whole new world for the little seamstress and sheds new light on things in the world around her.
“When she’d finished reading she sat there quite still, open-mouthed. Your coat was resting on the flat of her hands, the way a sacred object lies in the palms of the pious. … ‘This fellow Balzac is a wizard,’ he went on ‘He touched the head of this mountain girl with an invisible finger and she was transformed, carried away in a dream. It took awhile for her to come back to earth. She ended up putting on your wretched coat on (which looked very good on her, I must say). She said having Balzac’s words next to her skin made her feel good, and also more intelligent.’”(pg. 62)
In reading the words of Balzac the little seamstress was able to realize the feeling of intelligence and how it feels to have knowledge that was not available to her previously.
By teaching her how to read, Luo and the violinist were able to transform the little seamstress’s world. Through the books that Luo read her, her thoughts changed in that she learned about western culture and the things that the women could do in the west with an education.
“’She’s gone,’ I said. ‘She wants to go into the city’ he said. ‘She mentioned Balzac.’ ‘What about him?’ ‘She said she had learned one thing from Balzac: that a woman’s beauty is a treasure beyond price.’” (pg. 184)

In this passage, the little seamstress leaves her mountain village because from Luo reading Balzac to her, she learned that she can be so much more than just a mountain seamstress, especially with proper education. With a proper education, the little seamstress is able to accomplish many things just as women in the Middle East would be able to overcome their oppression if they were able to have an education of any kind at all.
In Afghanistan, the women are oppressed so much by the Taliban that many of the women have to live in fear that if they do not follow the rules of the Taliban that they will be killed. In the book, My Forbidden Face by Latifa, the author gives an autobiographical account of what happened to Afghanistan once the Taliban took over. She also tells about her life as a young girl who thirsts for knowledge, and the opportunity to learn and become successful as a significant part of society.
“This time they’re really killing us, all girls and women. They’re killing us stealthily, in silence… All women are affected, from the youngest to the oldest. Women may no longer work: This means a collapse of medical service and government administration. No more school for girls, no more health care for women, no more fresh air… Women, go home! Or disappear under the chadri, out of the sight of men.”

In this case, the women know what a treasure that they are being deprived of. They know that education is a special gift and that knowledge is a precious thing to waste. What the women of Afghanistan don’t realize is that because they have acquired what little knowledge they were able to attain be fore that they could make something of themselves. However, because of the Taliban’s strict ruling over the women, they have to live in fear of their own knowledge.
In both books the women are being deprived of a decent education because of the governments. In Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress besides the fact that she lives in a rural village in the mountains, the little seamstress was not able to learn how to read because under Mao’s law, all books are banished except Mao’s little red book. In Afghanistan, the women had the knowledge; they just had nowhere to go with it. They were oppressed in many other ways besides their education; they were stripped of their individuality. Since I have been influenced by western ideas and thoughts I believe that the women of China during the Cultural Revolution and the women of Afghanistan had/have the potential to live beautiful and well educated lives. However, because of their government being afraid to educate women they were never given the chance to live that life that they so wished for and deserved. Like the quote from Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress says, “a woman’s beauty is a treasure beyond price.” Beauty in this case would be the intellectual mind and that the intellectual mind of a woman is a treasure that can have no price.