The Evolution of Being a Dirtbag

Well Sold, by Patricia McCormick is a story about a girl, Lakshmi. Lakshmi lives in a small mountain town not specified but probably somewhere in Southeast Asian area of the world suffering in poverty mostly. Lakshmi lives in a household with a neglecting step-father and her mother. Though in this part of the world women are treated with very little respect despite the work they do.

In the book women are heavily mistreated, they are shunned, treated like servants, even exiled from the village during their natural menstrual cycle, yet still expected to thank the men for being there for them. Even though the men in the village rarely do much at all. At least Lakshmi's step-father. Lakshmi's Step-Father had a childhood injury that permanently prevented him from being too physical or athletic because his leg never really developed correctly again. Though he expects every day he can gamble away all the money he has at a tea shop. The family does not even have a solid roof over their head. Why is this? This "man of the house" has no responsibility. This is just disrespectful one of the lowest of the lows in sexism. Sexism has seen better, (not good) but better forms...

At least in colonial times men would usually work. They would be responsible, they would work for all the money in the house and they would get respect for it. The sexist part is women couldn't do the jobs so they could't earn respect or credibility in general social life. In this book the women do most of the work and get no credit for it. That is what makes this inequality so bad, the fact that it goes to treat women like true dirt. It goes to show you how much our society has progressed in terms of equality. It used to be this bad all around the world. Now, in America at least, we have almost completely gotten rid of sexism.

After seeing the debate on television, I remember seeing the question about women getting payer 72% of which a man gets paid. This is unfair, and not right, but it is heavily minimized in comparison. For people who complain that sexism is still a huge problem in America, it really isn't. It's a big problem in whatever country Lakshmi lives in. Where women are treated like cattle, it shows you how far we have progressed in decreasing of discrimination.

(NOTE: I am not saying that  women should be payed 72% as much as men, I think they should be payed just as much, but in comparison to other countries, our situation is much better)