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Double Standards Of Women In The 18th Century

Decent Essays

Persuasion is the last complete novel ever written by Jane Austen, it was originally published in 1818. At the initial sight, we feel that this book is a delightful story about Anne Elliot finding love with Captain Frederick Wentworth again. Accompanying her throughout this story is her arrogant father, dear friend Lady Russell, and her sisters. As we continue to read we see Jane Austen indirectly discourages the double standard women experience during this time period. I regard this novel is classical literature, due to the fact that women still face double standard of men today. We see the everyday complications women had in the 18th century through Anne Elliot, a young, intelligent women of the 18th century. Women of Jane Austen’s time …show more content…

Today this difficulty still exists. Women make up half of the workforce. Studies show that women often go to college longer and graduate with higher degrees than men do. But yet, today women still make less than men. “In 2015, female full-time workers made only 80 cents for every dollar earned by men, a gender wage gap of 20 percent” (Pay Equality and Discrimination www.iwpr.org). Women can do the same jobs as men and still make less. This is consistent in almost every occupation. Double standards against women are still as much of a problem today as it was then. Women today can still relate to the double standards women faced in the 18th century. This would make Persuasion classical literature, literature that has enduring qualities that can still be applied to present times. Women then were thought of as inferior to men, and incapable of the things men were capable of. This still relates to today, women still get paid less and are still thought to be inferior to men. Both then and now women have proven to be just as good as men, so why has nothing changed? Jane Austen tells the story in Anne Elliot's perspective of things to show the double standard women had to face. We watch as Anne Elliot changes Wentworth’s views on

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