In Ernest Hemingway’s short story, “Hills Like White Elephants”, the two characters, the American and Jig, are arguing about whether or not Jig should have an abortion. Throughout the story, the American attempts to persuade Jig in every way that he could think of to get her to go through with the operation.Throughout history, men are the one that gets to make the decision while women are to do whatever they are told to do In fact, the first slaves really are women.They generally had no powers to make any decision for themselves at all. And there have been instances in other cultures in which women have been forced to go to the extreme because of the views of society at the time. Through the use of characters and the history of women, Hemingway …show more content…
Back then, women really were slaves. They didn’t have the right to vote until later on in times. It wasn’t like they were treated horribly, but at the same time they didn’t really have a say in anything either. Once women got married, they belong to their husband. They were mainly there to do what men say and to not say anything unless necessary. An excerpt from an article, “Why Men Oppress Women”, goes a bit more into detail of the lives of women in the past: “Even if they belonged to higher social classes, most women throughout history have been enslaved by men. Until recent times, women throughout Europe, the Middle East and Asia were unable to have any influence over the political, religious or cultural lives of their societies. They couldn’t own property or inherit land and wealth, and were frequently treated as mere property themselves.”(Taylor). And in some cases, there are countries in which women can also be used to pay off debts. Also, in the same article it states that, “in ancient Assyria, the punishment for rape was the handing over of the rapist’s wife to the husband of his victim, to use as he desired.”(Taylor). While there are things that are more extreme in other cultures, these are only a few example of how in the past, women were treated as property rather than a human