HIST112 World Civilization II - M03: Discussion

For this week answer each of the following in your original post:

1. Read "A Radical Critique of the Land Problem in Mexico" (textbook page 504). What serious problems for Latin American politics were created by the concentration of land ownership in the hands of the elites? How did such large estates affect the structure of Latin American societies?

2. Read "Advice to Women: Two Views" (textbook pages 5512-513). In your opinion, do the attitudes of Elizabeth Poole Sanford in the excerpt from Woman in Her Social and Domestic Character reflect the consensus attitude in late nineteenth-century Western society? Why or why not? Would social class influence one's attitude about the proper role for women? Does the conversation between Nora and Helmer in Ibsen's A Doll's House demonstrate modern pressures threatening the marriage relationship? Is any real communication taking place between husband and wife? Does Nora's plan to leave indicate assertiveness, selfishness, or both?

Read "A Radical Critique of the Land Problem in Mexico" (textbook page 504). What serious problems for Latin American politics were created by the concentration of land ownership in the hands of the elites? How did such large estates affect the structure of Latin American societies?

Some social liberals were protesting against the conservatives who were siding with the elites who owned most of the land. The social liberals didn’t think it was fair for the elites to own so much land and for so many other people to have no land at all. The Latin American societies consisted of a lot of people who knew how to farm land but didn’t have any land to do so. And the elites who owned so much land weren’t able to farm it all. So there were a lot of poor people who didn’t have anything and rich people who had so much that they didn’t know what to do with it or they had so much but not enough resources to take care of it. Which created a lot of land that was just being wasted that could’ve been farmed and fed a lot of people, if the elites just would have handed some of their land over to the people who didn’t have any.

Read "Advice to Women: Two Views" (textbook pages 5512-513). In your opinion, do the attitudes of Elizabeth Poole Sanford in the excerpt from Woman in Her Social and Domestic Character reflect the consensus attitude in late nineteenth-century Western society? Why or why not? Would social class influence one's attitude about the proper role for women? Does the conversation between Nora and Helmer in Ibsen's A Doll's House demonstrate modern pressures threatening the marriage relationship? Is any real communication taking place between husband and wife? Does Nora's plan to leave indicate assertiveness, selfishness, or both?

Her attitude does reflect the consensus attitude in the late nineteenth-century Western society. It was a prude view which expected middle class women to do everything for their husbands and that their place was in the home. They were expected to be a stay-at-home mother and to attend to her husbands and children’s needs at any time before anything else. I do think that social class had influence on the view of proper roles for women. I think it was definitely expected in wealthier households for the women to just stay at home and take care of the household and take care of the husband and children. In poorer households I could see it having been more acceptable for the wife to help bring in money also besides taking care of everyone. I don’t think the conversation between Nora and Helmer demonstrated modern pressures threatening the marriage relationship. And there was no real communication taking place between them. Helmer didn’t really try to listen to what she had to say or to understand what she was going through. He was under the impression that his wife just had to do whatever he wanted and didn’t really have a say in anything. In my opinion Nora’s plan to leave indicated assertiveness and selfishness both. She just wanted to be treated like a human individual being instead of being a caretaker for everyone else with her own needs and opinions being pushed aside. But I think it’s selfish of her to want to leave her kids behind too. Children are the responsibility of both parents, not just one. And for her to just leave like that would have been very traumatic for the children.