Answer
The Rise of Jamestown
According to the World Health Organization, the ratio between male and female at birth is 105 males to 100 females. This means that the number of newborn males outnumbers newborn females slightly. When growing up, male species experience a higher death risk from accidents or natural death than female. This is expected to equalize the male-female ratio. Although research shows that at the age of 60 years women again outnumber men due to their increased death rate. This, therefore, shows that women outnumber men in numbers. Although women are considered more than men in number, men are dominant in most fields. The main objective of this essay is to show that society requires both men and women to overcome their day to day challenges. A strong society is built by both male and female.
In society today, women are no longer afraid of being alone with a bunch of strange men. They can be able to protect themselves from dangers that may arise in such a situation. Also, not all men want to abuse women sexually therefore even if four women were locked up in a room full of strange men, there would be nothing to worry about. In such a scenario, no man would have the courage to call for the shot as he would be afraid of the rest of the men.
Take the scenario where a woman finds herself at a lonely place with four strange men. She might think that these men wouldn’t want to have sex with her because she is a stranger, but why not? They are men and they succumb to sexual temptations easily (Tidwell & Eastwick, 2013). According to Buss and Schmitt (2011) men are always eager to have casual sex with strangers and are often likely to go for a nightstand.
Jamestown was the first permanent English colony in America. It was sponsored by a joint-stock commercial organization known as the Virginia Company of London. All of the 104 settlers who sailed to James River were men. They consisted of laborers, carpenters, bricklayers, a barber, a blacksmith, a tailor, a mason and a preacher (Mapp, 1974). They were not welcomed lightly by the different tribes that they found. Although some of the local Powhatan Indians welcomed them. Life in early Jamestown consisted mainly of danger, diseases, hardships, and death.
The settlers were not well prepared to start a new colony at Jamestown. They were welcomed by diseases such as malaria from breeding mosquitoes in the swampy areas and starvation too. Only 38 settlers survived the first year at Jamestown. More settlers came in as England wanted to get rid of its excess population (Brown, 2000). The first two women arrived at this period of 1608. The relationship between Indians and the settlers worsened around this period also due to a terrible famine and the settlers had to find means of surviving the starvation including a man slaughtering his wife and eating some parts of her body (Perry, 2018). The Council claimed later that the woman was murdered as a result of hatred.
Before the arrival of English colonialists in Jamestown, the Spanish had already been to this part as explorers. They attempted to colonize Virginia but they received little support as Spain was not interested in a colony far north from its other settlements in the New World. They allowed England to settle at Jamestown in 1607 with no military response.
The scarcity of women in Jamestown affected the settlers greatly in their day to day activities. The ratio of men to women in the early colony was four men to every one woman. Women were raped and kidnapped to satisfy the colonialist (Brown, 2000). Settlers in Jamestown starved to death during their first year of settlement due to lack of women. Women would have played a great role like Pocahontas who brought food to the settlers.
Lack of marriageable women in the settlement discouraged the settlers from making Virginia a permanent place to settle it. Men only wanted to make a fortune for themselves and go back to their home country. Their intentions were only to remain in Virginia for a long period that would enable them to become rich. A member of the Majesty's Council of Virginia stated that "When a plantation grows to strength, then it's time to plant with women as well as with men; that the plantation may spread into generations, and not be ever pieced from without.” Lord Bacon.
In conclusion, women should be respected and given a chance to be leaders as they are a strong pillar in the foundation of the society we are living in as they play an important role of maintaining peace and building the nation.
References
Brown, K. M. (2000). Jamestown Interpretive Essays. Virtual Jamestown.
Buss, D., & Schmitt, D. (2011).Evolutionary Psychology and Feminism.Sex Roles, 64(9-10), 768-787.
Mapp, A. (1974). The Virginia experiment. La Salle, Ill.: Open Court.
Perry, J. (2018). The Formation of a Society on Virginia's Eastern Shore, 1615-1655. Retrieved from https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/1724428
World Health Organization. Sex Ratio. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.searo.who.int/entity/health_situation_trends/data/chi/sex-ratio/en/
The Indispensable Role of Women at Jamestown - Historic Jamestown Part of Colonial Tidwell, N., & Eastwick, P. (2013).Sex Differences in Succumbing to Sexual Temptations.Personality And Social Psychology Bulletin, 39(12), 1620-1633.
