WRITING

Find information (read newspaper articles and the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development - p. 5,
watch documentaries, films and news programmes, etc) about violence against women and write an essay
of about 300 words, using all the notes and giving reasons for your point of view.

25 November is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.
What is the meaning of such an initiative?

NOTES
Write about:
1 -The changing roles of men and women in our society
2 - What we can do to tackle violence against women
3 -.........................................(your own idea)

Nowadays women have a lot of advantages, but is it enough ?

The role of the woman has changed throughout history. For example, if we think about Celts,
women had a very important role, they could choose the man they wanted to marry, they could
succeed to the throne and lead other warriors in war. With Romans things changed and they lost
their importance until the 19/20th century. In fact from the Middle Age to the 1800s women
could only be housewives who had to take care of their children.

In our society things are different than in the past thanks to all the dead women who fought in
order to make the society consider women equals to men. Actually, there are still some
differences between the two genders. In the workplace women are often paid less than men or
during job interviews they always ask a woman if she has or is going to have children. Why?
Because companies are scared of assuring a non-productive person that is going to dedicate her
time to her children.

But these differences are a part of our whole life. If a woman is raped but she was wearing a
miniskirt or it was night it’s her fault. If a woman posts a picture of herself with a swimwear on
social media she is considered a girl of easy virtue, while if a man does that he is seen as a sexy-
symbol. Recently a female teacher lost her work because she sent her nude photos to his
boyfriend and when they broke up he published her photos to take revenge. She is a victim of
revenge porn but at the same time she is accused and considered guilty.

Moreover, in a day at least 88 women are victims of violence in the world and most of the time
the abusers are their husbands, their fathers, their relatives. So, what can we do to tackle violence
against women? Firstly we should listen to an abused woman and help her to denounce.
Furthermore throughout education, we can make men understand that there are no differences
between the two genders and that even though a girl is drunk, wears shorts and it is night, they
haven’t got any right to touch her.
According to me, the fight against violence on women and against differences between them and
men is something that has to take place everyday, not only on 25th november. We should start
from little things in order to change the situation. For example, I make my father help us with
housework.
In conclusion, we have to remember that Eva didn’t come out from Adam's head to be superior, or
from his foot to be trampled, but from his rib in order to be equal to him.