Message From The Book Women At Point Zero

Catalina Duque, 2EC “B”
English, Women at Point Zero
The power of Fear

The strongest message that I received from the book Women at Point Zero is that sometimes people, and most often women, donot get to decide how they want to live their lives. The life of the main character, Firdaus, was controlled from an early age. Not only did her parents deny her the chance to get an education, buther family also married her against her will, to a man that had almost three times her own age.
Firdaus lived in a world where the male character has all the control and power. Women thereby, arethought to be slaves for men. For example, the women could not handle any money, they were constantly receiving beatings from any male figures in their lives, they had to stay home and attend to theneeds of their husbands and the house.
Firdaus was a woman of really strong character; she wanted to be able to have authority over her own body. She was always afraid because she was taught toprioritize men before herself, but when she met Sharifa, a known well experienced prostitute, Firdaus finally learns what it means to have something that other people desire.
By becoming a prostituteherself, Firdaus starts to believe that by having something that others desire, she receives a sort of power over them. But when the pimp came, he proved her otherwise. He threatens to kill her,proving that no matter how much money she has, she was still vulnerable to men. That only changes when she kills the pimp.
By killing the pimp, Firdaus become sure of herself, she was able to walk withher head up and look men straight in the eyes. Not fearing men was her weapon and her power, it was the way she found for dealing with a world where women didn’t have any rights and that they wereconstant victims of men. Firdaus had been a victim of every man in her life, all taking advantage of her body and punishing with violence “I am not a prostitute. But right from my early days my father,...