This whole book has been interesting to me. It was a lot of reading but i finally understand more about people and the struggles we as humans have gone through. Stayer explains things very well, and before I assumed a lot. The history of men and women( in any culture) have proven to be a struggle from the beginning. I wonder now just where are we headed. In a lot of ways I am glad I wont be around to see what  the world will be like in another 50 years, but I do worry about my granddaughters. I want the world to be a healthy place to live. I want men and women to get along and be content in their relationships with each other. If history has taught us anything it has taught us what can happen when someone want to dominate, or to take control over a country or culture. It always ends in death at some point.
     As a society, we have come a long way. This doesn't mean that all the problems of the world will ever go away, but it does mean we have been warned about the extremes that can happen. With this knowledge we can do better, but I think there will always be a dictator or extremist who will think they should be the one in power. People have always been a passion of mine.  Humans are over populating this planet and things are getting even more complicated because of over population. Greed has taken over peoples morals and money rules the world. We keep this up we will need another planet to spread to, and then we start over again, but with the knowledge of what to do. Maybe we can do better and create world peace eventually.

     I was fascinated to read about the history of feminism. Growing up I was always told I had to get married and have a husband. That very thought put me in an unhealthy relationship from the start. The ideal of women's rights has given me many opportunities to stand up for myself and I am a feminist. I used to think that was a bad thing but it is important that women feel good about themselves while dealing with some men. Men have decided long ago that they were in charge and we women are the weaker sex. We are proving them wrong everyday. Women are holding more and more important jobs proving we do have brains and abilities. Many are bosses over men.        
   Different countries have their own versions of women's liberation. They may differ because culture is different but it all comes down to basically one thing, and that is we are all people. Nobody is better than the other. Men are a little stronger but muscle isn't the point here. Nobody has a right to dominate the other. Women have put up with sexual abuse, mental abuse, physical abuse and forced to do things because a man forced her into it. I think the world is turning around, men and women are appreciating each other better. We are working together, while men still protect us and do things to make us happy, we try to do the same for them. This is great, but a lot of men are still stuck in the old ways and think women are stupid or weaker. They have to realize we want companions and they will be the ones to lose later because nobody will want to love them. We still have a long way to go, but I believe women are finally getting the appreciation we have deserved since men decided to take over, but as usual we will be the ones to clean up the mess.

     I enjoyed reading about what  I would call a hero. This is because I grew up in the 60's and 70's. I remember hearing about Nelson Mandela in the news. I also believe in fighting, protecting human rights, but have never done anything other than support the  laws and voted on issues in the polls throughout the years. I couldn't remember much about him, so I was curious and looked him up. I was curious, because I have heard many things about this man,and I wanted to understand why he felt the way he did,was it because he was mistreated and had enough, or had he witnessed the mistreatment and discrimination of both blacks and whites in Africa. After reading his biography , I was amazed to see what a price he paid, for what he believed in, and it was basically the fight of his life. He stood for human dignity and respect. He wanted all humans (no matter the color) to live in harmony and without domination.
      He not only went to prison for treason but was also elected president. He and his group of about seven people spent 27 years behind bars, to stand up for the rights of both blacks and whites from discrimination laws. In the time, he was in prison he wasn't allowed but one visitor a year for thirty minutes. Plus, one letter every 6 months written and received from anyone. That had to be tough, he basically gave up his life for what he believed in. Obviously, he had a dream of world peace, and harmony among humans of all colors, and cultures. I have to admire that. This was a great man and I wish he didn't have to suffer the way he did. He did get people to listen. People loved him, this tells me he was also a loving man. He had a passion for people. He also paid dearly for the price for them and that was the price of discrimination for human rights.

     I have always been curious about Hitler, not because i look up to him, but because I'm ashamed of him. I'm half German, and there is a small rumor that we may have been Jewish at some point. I don't know if that is true, but I'm more of a christian now. I remember my family speaking German when I was a little girl at my grandparents home, but nobody has spoken anything but English since the 1960's. The thought that my ancestors were in the middle of the Nazi Party is very disturbing and embarrassing at the same time. If my family was Jewish they were possibly imprisoned in those camps, and if they were just Germans, they may have been there to torture, and kill the Jews. That goes against all my belief system in my life. Nobody talks about this in my family and there fore I will never know.
     I remember being a waitress in a coffee shop in my twenties (I'm now 56), and meeting a women who was imprisoned in one of those camps as a little girl. I was fascinated by her stories. She is most likely dead now, but she told me about the horror of living through that and I have never forgotten. I am also a fan of chorus music and have a good friend who sings with Scola Cantorum from Standford University. They did a performance of the music written by the Jewish  prisoners. If you want to feel their pain of living though the concentration camps all you had to do was sit in that audience. Which is so much easier than being beaten, starving and being raped if you were a women. I think as humans we have come so far, we have learned to be better people, but we have also learned that there is a dark side to our existence too. We have also learned the people like Hitler are to be stopped, and never allowed power if it can be helped. But like any society, we don't always know about a dictator until they gain power, and then it is to late.

     Religion has always fascinated me. This is because of the differences between them. I guess in life we all have different beliefs and we learn from our families what to believe. For me I am a Christian, but I don't push my beliefs onto another person. From the history of Christianity it appears I'm unusual because they started out pushing and still continue til this day. This explains why people shy away when they hear you are a christian. Our world has gone through a lot of major changes and i believe religion has put down the rules to live by weather you are a christian or some other religion. We have to have social rule, religion keeps us in line. We all fear death at some point, and because of this we need to hang onto the possibility of life after death. I will always believe in god, but i have now chosen to just believe in god and not religion. This is because there is a lot of hypocrisy out there. People now have a chose as to how they believe spiritually, it is through religion that we live out our lives without hurting another person. We do this with the promise of life after death. According to our book it has been a long hard road for religion, we have fought each other for centuries and continue to do so even til this day. You would think we would have an open mind enough to realize we all believe in our own way but not according to the history. There has to be a place we could all agree but for some people they want physical proof. We just have to decide what is right in our heart of hearts, and that nobody except god has all the answers.

   It is fascinating to me to read about the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. It seems to me humans have come so far but not without lots of bloodshed along with enslaving a race or a sex. Women didn't seem to have any importance except to feed and care for these men who fought the wars, sailed the ships and ruled the world. This actually has made me appreciate our world today more. Though i still think men are still trying to rule the world with their women behind them.
   When i was in school we thought Columbus was such a great man and now we come to find out he was a horrible man was a not much of a surprise. Why would we put such an importance on him? Was it because he founded America? Actually the Indians were here first, so he really didn't. I also think those Indians came from Mexico and south America during the migration period, because the lands are connected or not far to sail with a boat. I have also always loved the romanticism of the Renaissance period, though there was a lot of politically stuff going on in the world not to mention the recovery of the Plague.The movies now a days make it all seem so perfect. A time men romanced their women and fought wars and came back heroes. While part of this is true it wasn't as perfect as they portrayed. It appalls me at the fight for who is to rule and the enslavement of many people. Power and wealth seem to be on the minds of all the empires. Also how the church seem to encourage the beliefs of society back then. They all tried to get everyone to believe that their religion was the correct one. For this, they had to kill each other is just crazy. It also fascinates me in how much we discovered about ourselves and how we learned to live in such a hard time.

CHINA

   It has been interested in reading about the formation of our cultures as humans. We have really created a lot of social rule along the way. The one thing that was appalling to me though was the practice of binding the feet of a Chinese women in the name of beauty and status. This was painful and what where they thinking?Women have had such a hard time since the beginning of time, and this seems like torture to me.

   This practice started in the "golden age" of the Song dynasty. Chinese women of the Tang dynasty influence, in the north participated in this practice.  Confucian writers highlighted the subordination of women and men to separate them. They felt a boy leads a girl, so a man should lead a women. Men were to be masculine, be able to ride horseback, and have all the values of a warrior. Women were thought to be week,reticence and delicacy. (pg,371,Strayer)

    Foot binding began with the dancers and courtesans in the 10th and 11th centuries. This is were a tight wrapping was placed on a young girls feet to keep her feet small. This also broke her bones, and causing her lots of pain. This practice spread widely among the elite families and later became more wide spread in Chinese society.It was associated with with images of beauty, and eroticism emphasizing small size, frailty, and deference. It served to keep women restricted to the inner quarters.Many mothers would did this to enhance their daughters marriage prospects, and to get attention from their husbands.These women who practiced this binding of the feet became a right to passage and a source of pride of their tiny feet and beautiful slippers. Foot binding also distinguished these  Chinese women from their barbarian counterparts (commoners and peasants). (pg 372,Stayer)

    To me this practice was unnecessary and Chinese women are beautiful without altering their bodies. Not to mention it doesn't look right, how can this possibly be attractive?While, I understand why they did this (from the read), I don't understand why they felt they had to put their young women though this and deforming their feet. Of course, I'm a modern American women who would never consider this for my daughter, she already has beautiful feet nature gave her.