Idea of progress-bac

IDEA OF PROGRESS

The idea of progress can be defined as an improvement, a development, or a change – a technical, scientific or social advance which contributes to making the world a better place. Even if most of the people think progress it's beneficial, is still debated because some people fear it. There is a huge possibility of different kind of progress but I found interest in social progress that we’ve seen in the past years in the world. This brings me to the following problem: Are human rights making progress? To answer this question, we are going to look at the progress about women’s rights and after that we will look at the progress for the black community around the world.

I/ Progress about Women’s rights

In the 19th century woman was seen as inferior as the man. Men had the power over them, they weren’t treated on an equal footing when it’s about their wage if they have a job because it was rare to see a woman working. Women knew a big change in their rights during the 20th century. Women struggled for their rights and some women were put in prison for defending their rights. After the begging of the First World War, during which they replaced men who went to war, women were allowed to vote in several countries such as The United Kingdom. However, in France women could vote only from 1944. As we have studied in class, in the extract from Made in Dagenham, Mrs O’Grady and her co-workers are fighting for an equal pay between men and women. But since the beginning of the nineties, women’s salaries approach those of men little by little. Thanks to the Matrimonial Property Act and the Equal pay act in 1968, contraception, abortion and divorce became possible since 1968 in United Kingdom. We can noticed that abortion became possible in France in 1975 thanks to a woman, Simone Veil. And in many countries, women have the right to vote since the XXth Century. In United States there is the Equal Rights Amendment was created in 22th of march, 1972. The place of women in the society has considerably changed in France but also all around the world. The evolution of the mentality about women in our society can be seen in advertising. We used to see women doing the cleaning and now we can see men doing that, this reflects this evolution.

Moreover, if we can speak about progress in occidental countries, what about women’s rights in Arabic peninsula for instance ? In many families, girls are considered as houseworkers and can’t go to school and learn like boys. Through many facts, from the XIXth Century to nowadays, the evolution of people’s mentalities helps to the evolution of the laws and finally to the women’s rights.

Even the full equality does not exist yet everywhere, women’s rights has evolved. We can quote Barack Obama « Today woman still made only 77cents to every man’s dollar, and the pay gap is even wilder for woman of colour.

This brings us to study the question of the rights of the black community.

II/ Progress in black’s community

Social progress about black’s community began with the abolition of slavery in 1865. It was a major breakthrough and this made it possible to launch the possibility of seeing the life’s conditions of black’s people improve even if

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