...women are not treated by patriarchy as persons who are agents and ends in their own right, individuals complete in themselves.
Instead, they are mere instruments of the ends of others:
reproducers, caregivers, sexual outlets, and agents of a family's general prosperity. Their cultural acceptability is only as appendages of men, as daughters, sisters, wives and mothers, otherwise they are dispensable or ‘fallen'."
From
The Hindu - "Barefoot: Lone warriors"