ABSTRACT
Women’s status may be higher than other societies in the same group, according to a couple of the criteria people are using for comparison, while it is lower in other areas. In societies where women hold minimal power, they have almost no control over their lives and no influence on the institutions which affect them. Ethiopia is characteristic of countries where women have minimal power. Women’s ability to raise children is valued only as an asset that totally belongs to and is controlled by men. The isolation of women and their control by men makes networking very difficult for Ethiopian women. Although the military government of Peru in the late 1960s and early 1970s is reformist in orientation, it is no less patriarchal than in the past. Beatings are an acknowledged occurrence, even among ‘happy’ couples.
