Mid Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Mid - Essay Example Petrarch is known as the â€Å"Father of Humanism† because he was the one who theorized that â€Å"language was the key to learning and a window to the human soul† (Woods). In short, he was the one who first realized the interplay between language and the human being. For Petrarch, if only the human being can use language effectively, we can know ourselves and the world better and we can serve others better as well. Petrarch was also the first to theorize on the need to know the theoretical and practical purpose of human life in order that one may live well and happily (Woods). Petrarch, however, endured the Black Death because a woman whom he had met in his youth, Laura de Noves, died of Black Death, and of whom Petrarch could only write, â€Å"her soul, as I believe, returned to heaven, whence it came† (Petrarch on the Plague). Women were excluded from the history of our culture because â€Å"our tradition tells us†¦that philosophy itself [including history], and its norms of reason and objectivity, exclude everything that is feminine or associated with women† (Witt). Moreover, society is simply biased against women as it promoted the â€Å"negative characterization† of women or anything pertaining to the feminine aspect (Witt). Our culture and cultural heritage therefore have been not only biased against women and once did not recognize many of the rights that they freely exercise now. The passage actually comes from William Shakespeare’s play As You Like It, Act 2, scene 1, 12-17. This means that the speaker is sick and tired of the pretense that he experiences from the world around him. He seems to have been forced to adopt this insincerity ever since and that everytime he adopts this worldview, he suffers â€Å"adversity† in his life. However, without this adversity, he would not have realized the good thing that such adversity would bring him – the â€Å"precious

Margaret Sanders influences Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Margaret Sanders influences - Essay Example At that time it was the early deaths of many women forced to bear far too many children that prompted Sanger’s actions. We know today that bearing many children takes a huge toll on the mothers, and we also recognize the importance of population control. However, in the early part of the twentieth century the attitude was very different. Many churches taught that it was the Christian duty to have as many children as possible to honor God and love Jesus. Though Sanger never said it in so many words, she certainly believed, as shown by her actions, that Jesus does not love hunger forced upon children by men who think they know God’s mind. In her debate with Russell she even mentions that poor children are destined to a life of hard labor and an early death. She blames rising insanity on the reproduction of women in the sex trade with venereal disease. The Roman Catholic church still forbids artificial birth control as do some protestant churches, citing several quotes from the Bible that could be interpreted as forbidding it. At the same time, the rights of women in marriage were nonexistent. A woman had to submit to her husband whenever he wanted sex or he could simply stop feeding her, as Sanger also pointed out in that debate. Frankly, Sanger was desperate to free women from this kind of slavery and she believed that she was also saving the children and even their fathers from losing the mother. Her own mother died young after having six children. "She associated it with dim fears of her father, sorrow and drudgery after the death of her mother, bitterness over the ostracism which a Catholic town dealt the village agnostics daughter, and jealousy toward the gracious ladies who lived on the hilltops.1 Sanger’s activism was actually begun when she started associating with the activists who populated. Her husband’s successful career allowed them access to Mabel Dodge’s Salon where Sanger met such luminaries as Big Bill Haywood,