Women play an influential role in the lives of those who surround them. Not only do they make great teachers, who practice right from wrong, molding us into great human beings: but they show a level of caring and sensitivity that the male race as a whole could not achieve. In the book Candide, the author Voltaire points our the cruelty put on to females, makes the reader aware, and want to act upon it. Two woman characters were traded a few times, kidnapped due to being born rich, and survived through waging wars due to their beauty. Contrary to belief given in this book, women are not mere objects. .
In fact, there is a whole other side to them that is portrayed in Candide. The old woman tells of a time when a mistress of the husband poisons him: showing the mysteriousness and how mischievous a woman can be when the wrong buttons are pushed. Cunegonde and the old women are literally put into brutal battles, whether they be in their own homes or in the middle of nowhere, and their fearlessness waded them through it. Cunegonde and the old woman sometimes escaped from certain places within the book, making themselves runaways, when they decided they had enough torture, establishing their tolerance level. Even today, the same types of things happen. The news often points out how some girl ran away from home or how she killed her boyfriend. Talk shows often tell when a woman's had enough, they express their hurt of anger vividly. .
Like men, women have natural survival skills. They are more than just that "pretty face", although it does help in some situations like getting pulled over by a cop or in Cunegonde's case, "getting traded off". Even Candide gave up riches for her beauty, and ended up learning the hard way that he really didn't love her.
Values are sometimes robbed from women, since, as a whole, they are the weaker gender. Voltaire points out how men are so vulgar as to taking away the virginity of a girl without their consent.