Enacting Political Change

“Political” is a term derived from “politics” meaning affairs related to politics. Political texts, in the same way, are those texts which draw attention towards particular issues regarding miscellaneous problems, beliefs, ideas and concerns directly or indirectly related with “politics”. Firstly, before scrutinizing the meaning of a text, I think it is important to determine whether the text is a political text or not. And an effective way to decide on this matter is to think critically about the political perspectives of the claim made in the text and also by matching those perspectives with the reliable evidences used in the text.

In Amartya Sen’s “More than 100 Million Missing Women”, the issue of missing women has been brought to universal concern using the connection of this problem with politics. Sen is firstly highlighting the problem of women outnumbering men throughout the world and then presenting the possible reasons and solutions to this problem. As he mentions, “At birth boys outnumber girls everywhere in the world, by much the same proportion- there are around 105 or 106 male children for every female children”(01). Then he proceeds by comparing the ratio of women to men in different parts of the world. For instance, in Punjab and Haryana, this ratio is 0.86 whereas in Europe, North America and Japan, the ratio is 1.03(Sen 02). Here, it is supporting the idea that in the West, women outnumber men but in the East, women fall short in number compared to men. This shortfall, in turn, causes the shortfall of women globally i.e. “leading to the excess mortality of women” (Sen 02). The problem is presented in a political angle by estimating the fields of discrimination faced by women such as- in job specialization, basic nutrition and health care, economy and most importantly education. Finally, he is making a statement that only after considering its reasons; this problem can be solved by “political action and public policy” (Sen16). So, the whole text weaves together a very powerful message of enacting political change.

Similar to Sen’s “capabilities approach” (Amin 127), Sajeda Amin in her “Women’s Capabilities and the Right to Education in Bangladesh” has also advocated the right of women’s education by “enhancing their capabilities” (Amin 127). She has effectively contrasted this approach with the “human capital approach” by mentioning the factors of “fertility decline”, “growth-oriented development” and enhancing “substantive choices”(Amin 127). Later, by using statistical evidence, she is making the claim credible for the reader and then posing a challenge to the existing status quo in Bangladesh. As a whole, in each of these political texts, a particular issue is discussed and then gradually an invitation for bringing political change through solving these problems is illustrated.
Works Cited
Arends-Kuenning, Mary and Amin, Sanjeda, “Women’s capability and right to education in Bangladesh .” International Journal of Politics and Society, Vol. 15, No.1, September 2001. Print.
Sen, Amartya. “More Than 100 Million Missing Women.”Nybooks Archives. Dec, 1990. Mar 4, 2013.

Why Women Are Missing?

Nobel Laureate, Amartya Sen in his “More than 100 Million Missing Women” has advocated the implementation of rights of women and recognition of women’s status through the estimation of statistics about high female mortality rates in the world. In this research work, firstly the differences in the ratio of women to men in different parts of the world has been shown explicitly and then the social, economic and cultural reasons behind this have been unveiled. In the paragraph 5 of part 1, the writer is claiming that the numbers obtained by calculating the ratio of women to men in Asia and Africa demonstrate the ignorance and discrimination faced by women and consequently enhance their mortality rate. In my view, this claim is not only a brief summary of this paragraph, but also works as a thesis for the whole essay.

The claim made in paragraph 5 of part 1 is well-supported by credible statistical evidence. It is mentioning that if men and women are equivalent in number in China and South-West Asia, then the missing number of women can be obtained by calculating the additional number of women. But that “would indicate a 6 percent deficit of women” (Sen 02). Again, if it is compared with the West, where the ratio of women to men is more, “real shortfall will be about 11 percent” (Sen 02). This, as a whole, encompasses the idea that more than 100 million women are needed to balance the proportion of men and women in the world. These data prove the validity of Sen’s claim that women are suffering due to excessive mortality rate.

Besides analyzing the numerical figures about the inequalities between survival rates of men and women, Sen is also providing explanations regarding the social, cultural and economic aspects for raising the status of women. The East- West divide and cultural contrasts, and the variation in stages of economic development are two plain reasons for high female mortality rate. This rate also has close connection with the lack of gainful employment, crisis in health resources and social reforms and low literacy rates for women. All of these factors directly or indirectly synthesize the claim made in paragraph 5 of part 1 about the “a terrible story of inequality and neglect leading to the excess mortality of women” (Sen 02). As the writer mentions,
“A combined cultural and economic analysis would seem to be necessary, and I will argue, it would have to take note of many other social conditions in addition to the features in simple aggregative theses”(Sen 03).
So, the low status of women being governed by multi-faceted cultural and economic features center the high mortality rates, in other words, the missing number of women in the world.
Works Cited
Sen, Amartya. “More than 100 Missing Women.” Nybooks Archives. Dec 20, 1990. Mar 31,
2013.

Judith Shakespeare: Reflection of a Woman in Woolf’s View

Virginia Woolf, in her attempt to portray her views about the “image of a woman” provided by the historians and poets of that time, has constructively created a fictional character, Judith Shakespeare in “A Room of One’s Own”. Judith, having attributes and talents in Theatre and poetry like her brother, Shakespeare, was an epitome of a woman undergoing gender discrimination at that time. Woolf mentions that Mrs. Martin, as a woman of that society, could not achieve her dreams and subsequently vanished without any signs of existence. Regarding the middle- class women like Mrs. Martin, she says, “But by no possible means could middle-class women with nothing but brains and character at their command have taken in part in any of the great movements which, brought together, constitute the historian’s view of the past”(Woolf 41).
Judith, when compared, was also a middle-class woman. She had brains, merit and talent for accomplishing great tasks in life, perhaps tasks as great as her brother, William. But she was compelled to remain at home. Judith had no scope of going to school to practice her talents. Moreover, she was married against her wish forcibly. Her zeal for theatre brought her nothing except infidelity ruining all the possibilities of her life into a tragic suicide.
The character of Judith is purely fictional; it effectively helps the author in avoiding bias towards any particular group. Besides, it also helps in making the story more motivating and in strongly connecting the author’s idea with the then societal convention.
Works Cited
Woolf, Virginia. “A Room of One’s Own.” Fort Washington: Harvest Book. 1981. First published 1929.

“Doing Gender Is Practicing Customs and Traditions”

“Gender” is very regular term in our life and thus due to its pervasiveness, sometimes we fail to realize the meaning of this term and intermix it with the meaning of “sex”. In Judith Lorber’s “Night to His Day: The Social Construction of Gender”, he has tried to prove that gender has a different meaning than what is usually perceived of through ordinary connotation. In the very first paragraph, Lorber has mentioned about “doing gender” and then explaining what it meant later. The author has used some strategies very effectively especially grabbing the attention of the reader by stating that discussing gender is considered equal to “fish talking about water”( Lorber 1). This means, a fish cannot think of living without water and likewise human beings cannot also ponder living without gender. The writer has also compared the questioning the authenticity of gender to the rising of the sun. So, it is evident that gender, though being practiced inevitably in our daily lives, many of us fail to assume that it is a way of organizing our lives and practicing gender is like practicing to organize our disorganized lives. Regarding this the author has said, “Most people find it hard to believe that gender is constantly created and re-created out of human interaction, out of social life, and is the texture and order of social life” (Lorber 5-7).
While citing the custom of “doing gender”, the writer has given a very effective example of a man who carried a female child in a stroller dressing the child in boyish clothes. The man was stared at and people around him found it really shocking that he was performing the role of a woman (generally women are thought to handle, carry and take care of babies especially girls). It took the author some time to come to deduction that the baby was a girl because she was wearing “tiny earrings”(Lorber 20) , “flowered sneakers and lace-trimmed socks”(Lorber 21). From here we can see that, no matter how hard we try to avoid gender, there is still a trace of it somewhere in our lives which helps us in doing or practicing gender directly or indirectly. Gender is actually a set of rules, customs and traditions assigned to people of a particular sex. It is not biological. Rather, according to the author, it is influenced by the society and culture. For proving this claim, the writer has put forth the example of the man and this example is efficient in distinguishing “gender” as a practice than as an innate attribute.

Works Cited:
Lorber, Judith. “Night to His Day: The Social Construction of Gender”.New Haven:Yale University Press, 1994. Print. 15 Feb. 2013.

Plato’s Philosophy : Not Enough To Be a Feminist

Before deciding whether Plato, the great philosopher was a feminist or an anti-feminist, it is important to know what the term “feminist” actually means. From my subjective point of view, “feminism” is “to ensure equal rights, laws, privileges and disadvantages for men and women equally as the complementary beings of society”. In other words, feminism is to build up an egalitarian society irrespective of men and women. So, if Plato’s philosophy is judged in terms of this view of feminism, then his philosophy can hardly meet up the standards of “feminism” and incline more towards “anti-feminism” rather than “feminism”. Firstly, Plato strongly spoke for women being worthy of becoming “guardians” but only under certain conditions and sacrificing their dearest possessions. Actually Plato does not believe that the society should change for giving rights to women; instead women should change their roles to fit into the society. For becoming a guardian, a woman had to achieve the qualifications and distinctions of a “man” and for doing that the woman had to go through many odds which ordinary men would never have gone through. At that time women’s role was only limited within the four walls of home and so pursuing education and gaining the power of being guardian was really tough. Moreover, they had to sacrifice their most precious gift of motherhood, the right of choosing partners for sexual intercourse and even the right to own private property. The female guardians had to become like puppets in the hands of the authority just for the sake of their status as “guardians”. However, Plato while advocating about women as guardians, showed them more like men. So, this is like denying the biological rights of a woman to be called a “woman”. That is, a woman had to become a man sacrificing her biological needs to become a “guardian”. Thus, it is evident that Plato, though talking about uplifting the status of women, has never thought of women working side by side with men without forfeiting their identity as women.
When Plato described about the philosophy of Diotima, he mentioned it through the voice of Socrates rather than her own voice. He definitely bestowed high acclaim about Diotima’s idea but never intended to reveal her womanly characteristics out in the public, succinctly mentioning her to be just a “priestess”. Moreover, he mentioned about feeble characteristics of men which were womanish as women are always weaker than men. So, in spite of acknowledging so much about women, there were still drawbacks in Plato’s philosophy to become a feminist.

ALCIBIADE’S SPEECH : INNER DEPTH AND MEANING

In the “Symposium”, Plato has put forth the speech of Alcibiades as an ordinary perception about mortal love, a completely deceptive idea among the youth of that time. When all the other men were involved in praising and understanding the perception of love, Alcibiades narrowed the concept of love only within his personal woe and grief. Firstly, Alcibiades starts his speech in a heavily drunken condition which is revealing that he is completely differing from the other men who deliberately avoided drinking for the sake of giving speech. The young and handsome Alcibiades admired and cherished Socrates even though he was an old and ugly man, comparing his attributes with those of the Gods Silenus and Marsyas. It is evident that he had a profound weakness for Socrates. Thus, he praised him even when he knew that Socrates would never value his words or feelings. Earlier, he tried to seduce him in many ways as he actually wanted Socrates to make him a better man through exchanging his wisdom and philosophy. He lured him by keeping him engaged in conversations late at night, invited him several times to gymnasium or other places and even ended up spending a night with him. But Socrates’ self-control and restraint reversed the ordinary occurrences where love for attractive men is pursued by unattractive men like him.
Eventually, Alciabiades could not resist his temptation to pursue Socrates for loving him. But, he failed. So he is sharing his experience of being knocked over in love by Socrates with the rest of the men present that very evening and especially Agathon. However, everyone realized that he was doing that only because he wanted to create misunderstanding in their relationship because he still approved of only Socrates as his lover and wanted to gain his love by hook or by crook. His speech demonstrates that his awe and love for Socrates had a lack of sincerity. If he really possessed love for him, then he would have valued the spiritual love rather than aiming for mere physical satisfaction. Socrates, in his speech had uplifted the Diotima’s opinion about love. He has narrated love as an epitome of wisdom, knowledge and good and elevated love to an infinite, immortal standard. The key difference between Socrates and Alcibiades speeches is that they were reversing each other’s opinions which in a broader sense, is challenging philosophy by reality and hence it has been included in Plato’s Symposium.

The Looking Glass: Imagery, Alliteration and Figurative Language.

In the poem “Looking Glass”, the poet Kamala Das has used bold and intrepid imagery of sexual appeal which is expressing the unquenchable thirst for love of the poet. When the poet says, “Stand nude before the glass with him/So that he sees himself the stronger one/and believes it so, and you so much more/Softer, younger, lovelier. Admit your/Admiration. Notice the perfection/Of his limbs, his eyes reddening under/The shower, the shy walk across the bathroom floor,/Dropping towels, and the jerky way he/Urinates,” she implies that standing nude in front of the looking glass portrays the unfathomable reality of the male-dominated society that is, women are weaker and men are stronger(3-11). The looking glass concurrently demonstrates the perfections as well as imperfections of the human body but the poet ardently admires those. Moreover she mentions, “Gift him all, /Gift him what makes you woman, the scent of/Long hair, the musk of sweat between the breasts, /the warm shock of menstrual blood,” she balances the secrets of men who urinate in jerky way and women who cannot refute the flow of warm menstrual blood (12-15). She has highlighted that the fragrance of hair and the musk of sweat between the breasts are precious possessions of a woman which she only reveals and gifts to a man when she strongly yearns for love from him although the man may not rightly value her sacrifice.
In this poem, a constant use of alliteration is observed in “wants as a woman” (2-3), “so that he sees himself the stronger one” (4), “what makes you woman”(13), “between the breasts”(14), “burnished brass”(24) and “drab and destitute”(24). Besides, a good use of figurative language is seen when the poet says, “Body which once under his touch had gleamed/ like burnished brass” (24). The poet signifies that the body of a woman glows like that of burnished brass when it comes in contact with her beloved’s touch. The poem as a whole encompasses the idea of a looking glass as a symbol of the truth that the lust aroused by a woman in the man’s soul can never prevent the man from leaving her. But still this tough reality should not narrow the horizons of the passionate love of a woman for the man. Rather, it should serve as a memory overpowering the permanent solitude of a woman which is always undisclosed from the inconsiderate society.