Failure providing women with proper nutrition and health care: A reason for Sen’s “missing women”

Amartya Sen in his essay “More than 100 million missing women” writes about the missing women from the world’s population. He also gives his argument to show the reasons of these missing women and how can we understand the reason behind these missing women and react to them. In the second paragraph of section 1 Sen mentions that “women outnumber men substantially in Europe, US and Japan” (Sen 1) though there is discrimination of men and women in higher education, job specialization and promotions, where men receives more advantages, but it has a population ratio of women higher than that of men. Sen states that these is ratio is because women suffers less discrimination in terms of basic nutrition and health care. Other reasons for the greater number of women in these regions might be due to social and environmental differences that increases the chance of Mortality among men than women.(Sen 5) It is said that this is because men are more prone to die from violence and diseases such as smoking. Even it is biologically proved that women have higher resistance to disease than men. In but in contrast to Europe and US this scenario is completely opposite in most of Asia and North Africa. In these regions women receives mal-nutrition and less medical care than women. Failure is also seen in providing good social services to women, which results in less number of women than men. Immediately following birth, death rate of  women is higher than men as at this stage women is more affected by disease and also suffers as they are neglected to give proper nutrition and medical and health care. For all these reason in most part of Asia and North Africa and lesser extent Latin America has a less proportion of women population than men. After stating the reason for the difference in men to women ratio Sen also provides a solution to overcome this difference. He suggests that this difference can be overcome if women are also provided with proper nutrition, medical and health care, and social services. In these paragraphs Sen provides a very strong logical evidence to show the reason of the missing women from some parts of the world. His evidences are very strong enough to convince the reader that women also face discrimination even in terms of their basic or daily needs. This paragraph strongly claims his argument which leads to the whole argument in his essay about the missing women and the reason behind their missing.

Work cited

Sen, Amartya, “More Than 100 Million Missing Women.” Nybooks Archives. Dec 20, 1990. Mar 4, 2013.

Can women really have a room of one’s own?

In ‘A Room of One’s Own’ Virginia Wolf enlights the status of women during the Elizabethan era. During this era only women from the elite class would receive respect and honor  Normal citizens were not allowed to know about there personal life, “one knows nothing detailed, nothing perfectly true and substantial about her.” (Wolf, 40) But the women in the middle class were not allowed to enjoy the opportunity that elite class women could. Shakespeare was a famous writer at this era who belonged to the elite class society. Though women from the elite class received respect and honor but they were not given the opportunity  were  to write like Shakespeare, “Women cannot write the plays of Shakespeare.”(42) Wolf brings an imaginary figure, Judith Shakespeare who was the sister of Shakespeare. Judith Shakespeare is used to represent all the middle class women during that era. Judith also had the same talents that Shakespeare had. “She was adventurous, as imaginative, as agog to see the world as he was.”(45) But she was not allowed to write as Shakespeare.  She took books to read but her father disliked it. She was  the apple of her father’s eye as the other girls were because they followed the command and did all the household chores that a woman does. She wanted to act and take part in plays but she was mocked by men. These show that women during this era were dominated by men. They were not free as men from elite class. Wolf uses Judith as a representative because she was considered to be Shakespeare’s sister and to compare and show that though Judith has all the talents equally as Shakespeare but she was not allowed to show her talent because she was a female.

Works Cited:

Woolf, Virginia. “A Room of One’s Own.” Fort Washington: Harvest Book. 1981. First published 1929.

Gender: A mistaken hallucination

Almost everyone does gender with out unconscious thought. Though gender does not equal sex, and sex does not equal gender, but many people make a mistake by thinking gender and sex as the same thing. So what is gender and sex?

“Sex” refers to the biological and physiological characteristics that define men and women.

“Gender” refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women.

In another way,” “Male” and “female” are sex categories, while “masculine” and “feminine” are gender categories.”(WHO)

Sex is more of the physical appearance of people where gender is how men and women are treated in a society. From the primitive age we have seen that always men are superior than women. Even in professional life even if a woman has better quality for a job than man, but man is always recommended for that job. In The Social Construction of Gender, Lorber mentioned that “In a gender stratified society, what men do is usually valued more highly than what women do because men do it, even when their activities are similar.” We can see this example in our daily life. A man and woman working for the same post in a company, the man salary is always more than a woman.

But why is always gender referred to women? Why not men? Just because they are physically stronger than women? In our society when we see a father nurturing his child, he receives lots of praises and applauses from the society. But a mother who is nurturing her child and also gives birth to her child never receives praises and applauses, just because it is the rule of nature and it’s her fundamental duty. In other field it is also seen that women does not have the right to do whatever they want. For example, in Viet Nam, many more men than women smoke, as female smoking has not traditionally been considered appropriate and in Saudi Arabia men are allowed to drive cars while women are not.

Gender now has become a socially constructed accomplishment. It is now in peoples’ genes as it had been practiced from the primitive age. It is nothing except an ideology made by human where women are lowered than men.

Works Cited

Lorber, Judith. “Night to His Day: The Social Construction of Gender”.New Haven:Yale             University Press, 1994. Print. 19 Feb. 2013.

“What Do We Mean by “sex” and “gender”?” WHO. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Feb. 2013.

A serious controversy: Is Plato a feminist?

Is Plato a feminist? That’s a very controversial question. But the answer is not very clear Some people suggest that Plato was a feminist but some people suggest that he was not. So let us first see what is feminist. The Dictionary of Feminist Theory  defines a feminist a someone who has “both  a doctrine of equal rights for women and an ideology of social transformation aiming to create a world for women beyond simple social equality.” (Humm 74) And according to The Free Dictionary A feminist is someone who advocates equal rights for woman. The ideology of feminism was used in during the mid of 19^th century. Many intellectual suggested that Plato was a feminist because in Symposium, in Phaedrus’s speech he gave a woman a higher position than man. He said if a lover is an woman then that woman can sacrifice everything even her life for her lover. He also acknowledges that biological differences do not interfere with the function of humans. He also opened up the possibility if women being equal to man. Though many intellectual support this idea of Plato but I do not .

I support that Plato is not a feminist. Because the reading of  Plato’s Feminism: A Discussion of Women in Ancient Philosophy it was mentioned that a woman can have the characteristics of being a guardians and rulers but first they must be trained so that they are capable and acceptable of being a guardian an a ruler. If he supported feminism that why did he want to train them so they also have the same quality as man? Why a woman cannot become a ruler or a guardian with out being trained? He also mentioned that in order to make females equal to males, females must be desexed. Even if he said that the inability of women to control portrays their weakness in souls. He also alters the nature of a woman to be a perfect guardian. So why only woman have to alter their nature to be a perfect guardian? Why not men. So as after reading the above examples I am convinced that Plato was not a feminist.

Works Cites :

“feminist” THE FREE DICTIONARY.com 10 Feb 2013       <http://www.thefreedictionary.com/feminist&gt;

Humm, Maggie. The Dictionary of Feminist Theory. Columbus: Ohio State     University Press, 1990.

 

Symposium: A Praise of Love

The Symposium is a frame narrative speech by the famous philosopher Plato. The speech includes dialogue of many different characters who praises love in their own way. The first speaker Phaedrus love as god. He defines love as an ancient god and says love has no place in poetry or legend.  In his praising of love he tells about his though about the position of women during the ancient Greek.

According to Phaedrus that a true lover will die for the they love and a lover will do that even if she is a woman. Only a woman has the courage to leave her dearly parents who gave her birth and raised her, and die for her husband. When a woman does so much off sacrifice the people around them becomes surprised by her sacrifice. This work is marked as a noble deed even by the God himself, and he becomes delighted and rewards them with prize of noble heroes and sends her soul back to her body.

Life Of An Ugly Barbie Doll

The Barbie Doll is a poem of four stanzas, which describes the life of a girl born in modern society. The story of the poem begins by the birth of a girl. The line “presented dolls that did pee-pee/and miniature GE stoves and irons/and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy” tells the reader about the usual toys like dolls, GE stoves, iron and lipsticks that a girl plays with. It also describe about the identity that they are given since they are child. The GE stoves and iron refers to the household work that they should do when they become adult. The lipsticks refers that girls should maintain their feminine beauty and be dominated under man. The author then uses an irony “the magic of puberty” to tell the reader the sudden change that modifies her body and makes her attractive. She also gets a big nose and fat legs with the change in her body.
Though the girl was healthy intelligent and strong but she was not as pretty as a Barbie doll as she had a big nose on her face and fat legs. So she was not able to portray her talent as she felt embarrassed due to her ugly physical appearance. She was selected in a play to perform the role of coy and everyone suggested her to change her diet so that she can become beautiful. But she was not able to do so. As a result of facing the humiliation of her physical appearance she cut her legs and nose and offered them to the society whish ultimately resulted to her death. This is what happens in reality, when a girl is born and she is not an epitome of a Barbie doll! Is it the girl’s fault that she is not beautiful? Why all the time a girl needs to sacrifice when she doesn’t have everything perfect? No one has the perfect answer. But the fact is women now, has become an object that whenever society wants they can keep them or discard them.