More than 100 Million Missing Women is an research article of Amartya Sen where he focuses on the issue of ‘missing women’ by which he means the inequality between the number of male and female in the world population that is the showcase of inequity that women face because of gender discrimination. According to him this issue has received ‘inadequate attention’ and so he tries to persuade his readers by describing the problem of ‘missing women’ scrutinizing the reasons behind it and tries to figure out a solution. In this article he uses many hard evidences like: data, statistics, figures, ratio and comparison among different countries and societies to demonstrate the impact of economy and culture on the ratio of men and women.
The fourth paragraph of section one of this article directly supports the main claim of the author about ‘missing women’ and also shows evidence on the support of one of Sen’s claim about the influence of economy over the men and women ratio. The women in the ‘first world’ countries (European countries) are considered to have more facilities and so the ratio of women to men is almost equal there unlike the ‘third world’ countries (Asian and African countries). It can be assumed that the economic development of the European countries is affecting the increasing number of women there but Sen opposes against this assumption in this paragraph by showing the evidence of Sub-Saharan countries where poverty is acute, Southeast Asia, East Asia where the ratio of women to men is almost equal as European countries. He says, ‘The ‘third world’ in this matter is not a useful category.’ (Sen 2) He also mentions about the diversities within the regions of ‘third world’ countries where economic status does not support the condition and the status of the women rather the culture does. In the third and fourth paragraph of section five he says that in Kerala the literacy rate is high, women have more career opportunities and they have the tradition of women inheriting the property—these facts contributes to the increasing number of women in Kerala. So here the culture of Kerala is more effective than their economic condition He gives evidence of Punjab and Haryana which are richest state of India has the lower ratio (0.86) of women than Kerala where women to men ratio (1.03) is similar to the countries of Europe , North America and Japan.
From the hard evidences Amartya Sen uses in this paragraph and the comparison he makes between the first world countries and third world countries, it is demonstrated that economic status is not the only reason behind the ‘missing women’, the culture of the society also plays important role in this case which helps to illustrate the author’s reasoning behind ‘missing women.’
Work cited
Sen, Amartya, “More Than 100 Million Missing Women.” Nybooks Archives. Dec 20, 1990. Mar 4, 2013.
Author Archives: nashinauw
Analysis of Amartya Sen’s “More than 100 Million Missing Women”
T
he aricle “More than 100 Million Missing Women” of Amartya Sen is an elaborate analysis of women’s condition in countries all over the world. For showing the gender inequality among different socities, at first the writer starts with the argument of ‘mistaken belief’ of women being the half of the world population. He says that the actual truth is the number of women is less than men and he introduces the term ‘missing women’ for pointing out the disparity. On the basis of this argument Amartya Sen establishes his idea of women’s inferior condition by showing the reasons behind the imbalance in population.
The writer has divided his arguments into different sections and in each section he has used a lot of data and statistics as evidence for strengthening his claim. At first he talks about the fact of less number of women in different countries and regions and also gives a hint of the reasons behind this difference in brief. Then he thoroughly explains each reason and uses relevant evidence. He says that it is not necessarily true that the deprivation of women’s rights of education, proper medical care and others are always based on the economic status of a country or regions. He claims that the social structure plays more important role in gender discrimination. Then he moves into the solutions of this unfairness and after that he uses some examples of gender equality in some regions and explains why in those societies women enjoy same position as men. In each paragraph he has discussed only one point which helps the readers to understand the main idea of that paragraph.
The problems the readers may while reading the article are: the transitions are not coherent enough, the writer seems to jump from one idea to another and for explaining his argument he uses vast information and many paragraphs; the readers may feel lost at some point. But at the end he successfully proves his claims and repeats the main idea of his argument which helps the readers to get a flashback and overall makes his argument effective.
Work Cited
Sen, Amartya. ‘More than 100 Million Missing Women.” Nybooks Archives. Dec 20, 1990. Mar 4, 2013.
Veil: A Controversial Topic for Feminists
In “Night to His Day”, the author Judith Lorber has emphasizes on Gender issues—how gender is included into social structure, the meaning of gender to individuals and society and the role of gender classification in the society. While describing, Lorber has pointed out the issue of gender discrimination between male and female. She has compared the social structure as a building which is based on the ‘unequal stuses’ of male and female and the gender issue as a ‘major’ building block in this case. She not only observes the role of ‘gender’ and ‘sex’ in society but also points out how gender discrimination undermines women. She says, “As a part of stratification system, gender ranks men above women of the same race and class.” (60) So, it is clear from her state that in social stratification inequality between the genders is a familiar thing to notice. But she also says that it varies in different societies. As an example she brings out ‘Saudi Arabia’ which is according to her one of the societies that has ‘the greatest gender difference’ and the controversial topic of veil in the life of Muslim women. She believes that it is the ‘veil’ that keeps women separate from the main stream. She has compared veil with ‘wall’ which symbolize that she thinks veil is an obstacle for Muslim women’s development. She points out that the women in Saudi Arabia don’t have civil rights, they are confined within themselves and from her point of view veil or covering up women plays an important role behind this inequality. (61)
on the contrary, in the article ‘Unveiling Muslim Feminism’, the writer Erin Wiegand has presented ‘veil’ as a symbol of freedom and women’s right to choose the way of dressing. For explaining her point, she has introduced the history of veil in Iran’s history and the role of women there. From the evidence of history she has tried to prove that instead of being an obstacle, veil is the part of Muslim feminism. She showed that, in the early 20th century of Iran veil was used as a symbol of aristocracy. She says, “women veiled themselves to proclaim their virtue and, more, importantly, to protest against the Pahlavi dynasty.”She agrees with Nima Naghibi who is the author of the book Rethinking Global Sisterhood: Western Feminism and Iran and they both argue against the idea of veil being a barrier for Muslim women. Wiegand starts from the status and history of feminism in Iran and then she gradually talks about the whole Muslim feminism. She claims though western world think veil as a symbol of inactiveness of Muslim feminism, however, the veil is a symbol of freedom instead of being a symbol ‘oppressed women’.
Lorber and Wiegand both are contemporary feminist but their ideas about veil is totally different. I think the topic of veil is controversial for feminist because veil is related to Muslim religion and Muslim women are likely to be more oppressed than the other women in the western feminism’s point of view. It is related to how western world observes Middle East countries and the Muslim feminism. Both sides are strong in their argument which makes this topic controversial.
Work Cited
Lorber, Judith. “Night to His Day: The Social Construction of Gender”. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994. Print. 19 Feb. 2013.
Wiegand, Erin. ‘Unveiling Muslim Feminism’. In These Times. 7 Sep. 2007. Web. 19 Feb. 2013
Plato in Symposium: Opposite Of Feminism
Before telling my perception about Plato’s feminist or anti-feminist attitude, I need to explain what ‘Feminism’ for me is. I think feminism is to think from a woman’s lens whether you are male or female, you need to think for women’s rights, their progress in society and need to find out what is beneficial for women. In dictionary the definition of feminism is ‘advocating social, political, legal, and economic rights for women equal to those of men.’(Dictionary.com) I agree with this definition but not completely. I agree with Maggie Humm’s words she used for feminism’ ‘to create a world for women beyond simple social equality’. Feminism creates another world for women where women possess the supreme position.
Plato, in my point of view doesn’t meet up the qualities a feminist should have. However, I don’t think he is an anti-feminist also. In Plato’s Symposium he talked about women indeed but did not give women the proper respect. He talked about women in guardian role but at the same time took away the characteristics of women and presented women who were barely women rather man. He thought the ‘guardian’ role is only suitable for men and for the women who possess the characteristics of men. He, somehow tried to show the men have super qualities and women can only be in men’s position if they can give away their feminine characteristics and take in manly ‘soul’ in them. So, basically Plato in his writing was showing how men are better than women. Though he mentioned about women in guardian role unlike other philosophers in his time which may make him different, I think Plato went with same flow of his time’s philosophers. At first he took away the feminine characteristics from women, made them more like men for being in the guardian role and then he compared the male and female guardians and said that male guardians are better than female guardians. So, in no way he has accepted women’s capability in the role that men used to play in society which makes him just like other philosophers of his time.
In Symposium Phaedrus gave speech about Love where he used examples from Greek myths. He said that gods give reward to those who can do extreme sacrifice for their lovers or loved ones. He showed example of Alcestis and Achilles, both were great lovers but Achilles who was a man, he got better reward than Alcestis who was a woman. (Symposium 464) Here also, Plato somehow showed that even among lovers men are better than women. In Symposium we see that, love between two male is ‘heavenly love’ whereas love between male and female is ‘vulgar love’. Thus, he showed that women are inferior to men. Again, in Symposium the only woman who spoke was Diotima and she was not given her own voice rather Socrates spoke instead of her. Therefore, I think Plato was not a feminist; he was just like the other philosophers of his time who neglected women for establishing men’s superiority.
Work Cited
“Feminist.” Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com. 10 Feb. 2013 <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/feminist?s=ts>.
“Plato’s Feminism: A Discussion of Women in Ancient Philosophy.”
From Phaedrus’s Lens: The Greatness Of Love
Can a lover love so passionately that he can even sacrifice his life for his loved one? The gods like the person most who can serve extreme to the person he/she loves- this is the overall theme of Phaedrus’s speech. He has praised the gods of love and lovers in his whole speech; he showed the greatness of love and the powerful emotion that inspires a person to go extreme for the sake of the loved one through some Greek myths. In his speech he used Greek myths and poetry as examples to support his opinion about love.
Phaedrus’s speech is different from the other speeches in Plato’s Symposium. He is the first speaker and he formed the base of the conversation they had about Love. He did not talk about the negative or vulgar sides of love like the speakers instead he talked about the greatness and honor of love. According to Phaedrus ‘Love is a great god.’ (Symposium 463) unlike other speakers, Phaedrus believed that there was only one god of Love. In the beginning of his speech, Phaedrus praised the god of love by honoring him as ‘most marvelous of al’ and ‘one of the most ancient gods’. Here he used two examples of poetry, written by Hesiod following Parmenides as the proof of Love’s ‘great age’.
Then he defined Love as the ‘guidance’ as for him Love provides the proper sense of right and wrong. For living life properly everybody need a proper guideline and for Phaedrus nothing but love shows the difference between moral and immoral and without this guideline nothing can be achieved. Phaedrus suggested that if a city or army is formed by lovers and the boys they love; it would have the ‘best possible system’ as Love will restrain them from doing wrong and will inspire them to act as a good person so that they can earn the respect from their lovers. When a person is in love, Love gives him inner strength to do the right thing ‘as if he’d been born a hero’. (Symposium 464)
Then he gave examples from Greek myths to show the power and greatness of Love. He talked about Alcestis and Achilles from Greek Myths who sacrificed the extreme, their life for their loved ones and they were rewarded and honored by the gods as the gods were so pleased by their passion of love. He also gave example of Orpheus whose love was weak and did not have the courage to sacrifice for love and later was punished by the gods for his weakness.
In the conclusion Phaedrus said ‘the gods honor virtue most highly when it belongs to Love.’ (Symposium 465) From his this statement, it is clear that the person is in love passionately, he/she is liked by the gods most. Phaedrus bestowed the lovers as ‘more godlike’. After reading his whole speech, I think Phaedrus has succeeded to explain the beauty and greatness of Love and Lovers.
Expressions of a Woman’s Love
In the poem ‘The Looking glass’, the poet Kamla Das has created a great imagery of physical love between a male and a female but mostly she focused on the female part where she showed the physical beauty and the emotions and necessity of a woman. According to her, it is easy for a woman to get the desired love from a man because her beauty and physical appearance are great attractions for a man. The structure of the poem is simple, not divided into stanzas and the language of the poem is also easy to understand. Also the poem has no rhyme scheme. Kamla Das did not use difficult word or examples of abstract things. Her metaphors and verses are realistic as she talked about body of male and female which are known to all. As in the first sixteen verses of the poem her description is about body and love and desires of male and female so from those verses anyone can easily anticipate that the poem is about physical love but after reading the last eight verses it appears that the poem is not only about physical love but it is also about the desires and emotions of a woman and how she feels when her loved one is not with her.
In the poem, Kamla said that it is easy for a woman to get the desired love from a man and the way is to be honest with him about her desires. ‘Stand nude before the glass with him’(3), I think in this verse she tried to tell us about honesty and transparency in a relationship. Also Kamla spoke about the physical appearance of male and female because men are stronger physically than women and men love this fact. If a woman appreciates and shows a man how fragile she is in front of him, it makes him happy and then it becomes easy to get him as her own. The physical love between male and female is natural and so the poet said ‘A man to love is easy’(17) but the pain of losing him and living with all his loving memories after he leaves is very difficult for a woman. When a woman loves a man, she gives him everything-her love, her body, her admiration but when he leaves, he takes her everything with him and then the woman becomes a ‘destitute’ shell which has nothing left inside it.
AUW's Interpreting Texts, Spring 2013 