Before the civil war

Before the civil war, a woman had a specific place in society, one that was extremely inferior to that of men. People had developed notions of what it meant to be a woman. The Civil War changed those notions. The War was the beginning of womans strive for suffrage in America. As the war came to an end, women became more involved in the world, and were allowed to achieve and accomplish a lot of things that only men had done in the past. The attributes of True Womanhood, by which a woman judged herself and was judged by her husband, her neighbors, and society could be divided into four cardinal virtues- piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity. (Welter 152). In her work, American Quarterly: The cult of True Womanhood, Barbara Welter explains her view on the role of a woman before the Civil War. In order for a girl to reach true womanhood she would have to reach for perfection in the four above categories. After the war, two of these attributes began to decline greatly in women, as they began to find new roles in society. Women started becoming more independent, and the submissiveness and domesticity gradually started to fade. They still had these qualities, but they were definitely not as strong as they had been before the war. Submission was perhaps the most feminine virtue expected of women. Men were supposed to be religious, although they rarely had time for it, and supposed to be pure, although it came awfully hard to them, but men were the movers, the doers, the actors. Women were the passive, submissive responders. (158-9). Women were very submissive before the war, but after it, they felt that they had earned a new role. They learned to perform the duties formerly only performed by men, and now felt that they did not have to give in so easily to the commands of them. A wife should occupy herself only with domestic affairs-wait till your husba...

The My Lai Massacre of the Vietnam War

The My Lai Massacre of the Vietnam War On March 16, 1968, United States Army troops murdered several hundred Vietnamese civilians at the villages of My Lai and My Khe during the Vietnam War. The victims were mostly elderly men, women and children and all non-combatants. Many were also sexually assaulted, tortured or mutilated in one of the most horrifying atrocities of the entire bloody conflict. The official death toll, according to the US government, was 347, though the Vietnamese government asserts that 504 villagers were massacred. In either case, it took months for U.S. officials to catch wind of the actual events of that day, later filing court-martials against 14 officers present during the massacre yet only convicting the second lieutenant to four months in military prison. What Went Wrong at My Lai? The My Lai Massacre took place early in the Tet Offensive, a major push by the Communist Viet Cong  - National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam  - forces to drive out the South Vietnamese government troops and the U.S. Army. In response, the U.S. Army initiated a program of attacking villages that were suspected of harboring or sympathizing with the Viet Cong. Their mandate was to burn houses, kill off livestock and spoil crops and pollute wells in order to deny food, water and shelter to the V.C. and their sympathizers. The 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade of the 23rd Infantry Division, Charlie Company, had suffered almost 30 attacks via booby-trap or land mine, resulting in numerous injuries and five deaths. When Charlie Company received its orders to clear out possible V.C. sympathizers in My Lai, Colonel Oran Henderson authorized his officers to go in there aggressively, close with the enemy and wipe them out for good. Whether the soldiers were ordered to kill women and children is a subject of dispute; certainly, they were authorized to kill suspects as well as combatants but by this point in the war Charlie Company evidently suspected all Vietnamese of collaborating - even 1-year-old babies. The Massacre at My Lai When the American troops entered My Lai, they did not find any Viet Cong soldiers or weapons. Nonetheless, the platoon led by Second Lieutenant William Calley began to fire at what they claimed was an enemy position. Soon, Charlie Company was shooting indiscriminately at any person or animal that moved. Villagers who tried to surrender were shot or bayoneted. A large group of people were herded to an irrigation ditch and mowed down with automatic weapons fire. Women were gang-raped, babies shot at point-blank range and some of the corpses had C Company carved into them with bayonets. Reportedly, when one soldier refused to kill the innocents, Lt. Calley took his weapon away and used it to massacre a group of 70 to 80 villagers. After the initial slaughter, the 3rd Platoon went out to conduct a mop-up operation, which meant killing any of the victims who were still moving amongst the piles of dead. The villages were then burned to the ground. The Aftermath of My Lai: Initial reports of the so-called battle at My Lai claimed that 128 Viet Cong and 22 civilians were killed -   General Westmoreland  even congratulated Charlie Company for their work and the Stars and Stripes magazine lauded the attack. Several months later, though, soldiers who had been present at My Lai but refused to take part in the massacre began to blow the whistle on the true nature and scale of the atrocity. Privates Tom Glen and Ron Ridenhour sent letters to their commanding officers, the State Department, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and President Nixon exposing Charlie Companys deeds. In November of 1969, the news media got wind of the My Lai story. Journalist Seymour Hersh conducted extensive interviews with Lt. Calley, and the American public responded with revulsion to the details as they slowly filtered out. In November of 1970, the US Army began court-martial proceedings against 14 officers charged with participating in or covering up the My Lai Massacre. In the end, only Lt. William Calley was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for premeditated murder. Calley would serve only four and a half months in military prison, however. The My Lai Massacre is a chilling reminder of what can happen when soldiers cease to regard their opponents as human. It is one of the worst known atrocities of the war in Vietnam.

Ethical issues Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Ethical issues - Essay Example onted by Don Marquis in his ‘Future-like-ours argument with regards the morality of abortion, an assertion which was later on opposed by Bonnie Steinbock in his ‘Interest View’ argument. While Marquis argues that abortion is immoral as killing deprives the fetus of its future and Steinbock believes that abortion is not wrong based on the moral status of the unborn and its lack of consciousness, their arguments continue to confound rather than illuminate the morality or immorality of the issue. Marquis contends that abortion is seriously immoral as taking another person’s life, as for instance, an adult’s, as it dispossesses him of his future. This is akin to the killing of a fetus. Marquis asserts that fetuses are in the same category as adults with regards moral value. Thus, the immorality of abortion rests on strong presumptions such as on the dogma that killing is wrong. The concept that killing is brutal and thus, it is wrong does not explain the depravity of the act. For Marquis, what makes killing unacceptable is its consequences on the victim as the loss of one’s life is considered the greatest loss. This loss constitutes loss of activities and gratifications which make up the valuable future of the victim. As death divests a human being of the ‘value of his future,’ the most justifiable reason against killing an adult individual is the consideration of the ‘loss of his future.’ In addition, Marquis argues that other l iving entities and species have similar ‘future’ like our and believes that it is likewise wrong to kill animals. Although he does not support active euthanasia, he admits that killing the ‘very ill or the dying’ cause no wrong. The heart of Marquis’ arguments, however, lies on his contention that killing an infant or fetuses amounts to immorality as they have acquired ‘futures of value.’ As the personhood theory does not put to light the immorality of killing, this notion should be replaced by the idea that