Persuasion Research Paper

Jane Austen’s book Persuasion is a classical literature. At the time it was published in 1816, Persuasion was a well known and loved novel in England. Throughout the book Jane Austen shows a theme of women inequality. This happened back then and still occurs even today.
In her book, Austen shows how women were treated by men. Women “found themselves in positions of almost total dependency on their husbands” according to Marylynn Salmon from The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Women at the time, could not even decide who they wanted to marry if they were of a higher class. The belonged to their fathers and after that, they belonged to their husbands.
Men were allowed to do what they wanted, while women were restricted to what they could do. Jane brought this up by having the character Mary say “If there is any thing disagreeable going on, men are always sure to get out of it...” (Austen, Jane. 52) Women were not even allowed to receive their father's land or wealth after they passed, the land and money would be passed on to a male heir. If there
Women were not even able to publish books, like Anne from the book Persuasion says, “Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything.” (Austen, Jane. 224). An just like back then, men still have an advantage over women. Gender equality has definitely improved since the early 1800’s but the two genders are still not a hundred percent equal.
Gender inequality is still going on today. Women still do not occupy as many of the jobs that men do according to SDSU Newscenter “...women accounted for 13 percent of writers, 17 percent of executive producers, 24 percent of producers, 17 percent of editors…”. Females were not seen as equals in the past and are still not seen as complete equals