Ways to do the political analysis

How to read a political text? To know the answer first we have to know what political texts are and what format they follow. Basically political texts are “any textual activity that has a direct or indirect Impact on the political process (intentionally or otherwise)” (Baker, 8). A political text usually has strong title, abstract, clear organization of sections, mostly given statistics and numbers and an objective tone.

To read and understand a political text first we need to read abstract and then the titles very closely. After titles comes the need of reading introduction, as it is the map of the whole text, along with the author’s main argument. Introduction leads us to visualize the whole argument. Reading the topic sentences of each paragraph helps to get the idea of individual paragraphs. Lastly, the most important process in reading a political text is to interrogate the author. We need to figure out the puzzle set up by the author. Sometimes the author likes to provoke some thoughts in reader’s mind to make them think about the political changes that are going on, specially mentioned in his or her argument. We also need to review the evidences that the author provides and how it helps to support his or her argument.
To explain in details we can take the example of “Women’s capability and the right to education in Bangladesh”. In this particular text the authors talk about a political issue prevalent in Bangladesh: women’s capability for education. So, it can be considered as a political text. Again, it has clear titles like: “Approach and Methodology”, “Women’s Schooling and Marriage capital”, etc. which gives a clear idea of what the topic is about. Next, its abstract is summarizing the author’s argument on women’s capability in education. The authors in their introduction set a whole plan along with some background information about the topic. If we start interrogating author’s point of view, like “in the instrumentalist and capabilities approach whose interest is at stake?”, we can see their implication. Finally, the author show many relevant statistics, numbers to support their arguments. For example, in “More than 100 million missing women” Amartya Sen mentions, “the low ratio of 0. 94 women to men in South Asia, West Asia and China would indicate a 6 percent deficit of women” (2). Both of the texts have an objective tone which holds the interest of the readers.
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
Baker, Mona. “ Translating Political Texts”. University of Manchester. April 7 2013.
Sen, Amartya, “More Than 100 Million Missing Women.” Nybooks Archives. Dec 20, 1990. April 7, 2013.

Women’s Employment And Its Effects on Women

Economist Amartya Sen, in his article’s third section talked about women’s employment and its effects. Here, he considered practical observations and experiments which show that “gainful” employment (outside employment) develops the treatments towards women. He also argued that this “gainful employment” can give women easier access to income, improve their social respect and status, provide them safety and security along with “corresponding” rights and provide outer world experience as it is “educational” (Sen 7).
In this paragraph mentioned above he provided “empirical” evidence which is based on “studies of particular localities” (7). He shows logical reasons that if women are given the opportunity to work outside home, rather than household chores, they will become more independent with their own income. Subsequently, when women get the independence to earn for their family, they get the chance to influence family matters and it results in upraise in their social respect and status (7). This reasoning that the author shows, supports his argument that women’s outside employment improves their life standard, as it makes the reader think logically that “gainful” employment actually improves women’s life. He also says that this employment will provide safety and security to them, which can make women’s economical status more stable and can be “educational” too (7). His reasoning about safety and security strengthens his argument by emphasizing on the need of women’s outside service. But he does not show any hard fact or statistics which might have been a stronger support to his argument of women’s employment. Here, Sen emphasizes on women’s role in economical sectors which leads to their development in every field, starting from family, social and personal life.
In Sen’s article “More Than 100 Million Missing Women” his main argument is: the women do not get equal rights as men, as for economical and cultural factors. So, in the paragraph mentioned above, he talked about women’s empowerment and their economical and social development. Here he argued that if women are given enough opportunities to support themselves and their family, it will make their root in society stronger. His argument in this particular portion well supports his argument in whole, as it reflects the need of women’s employment and empowerment, taking men and women to an equal state of economy. However, will the social norms which hold back women from taking part in the economy, let women get economically free?

Works cited
Sen, Amartya, “More Than 100 Million Missing Women.” Nybooks Archives. Dec 20, 1990. Mar 31, 2013.

Comparing Judith Shakespeare to a “worm” like woman winged as “Eagle”

Woolf sitting on a chair—consequently reading books of history and poetry in the library—trying to find out what life a common woman had in the Elizabethan era, what kind of image does she get of such a woman? A “worm” like woman with beautiful and heavy “eagle wings”: wings that is much bigger than the body of the worm. This worm like eagle winged woman, according to historians who is not capable of anything and according to poets who is “a vessel in which all sorts of spirits and forces are coursing and flashing perpetually”(woolf 40) somewhat reflects in the authors imaginary character, Judith Shakespeare, as she is bound by the stereotypes of her society and at the same time she was a lovable daughter expected to act according her father’s wish.
I think, this image of Judtih that the author drew to tell the situation of a common Elizabethan woman is quite effective in provoking her audience to think about that particular woman. This is because, “Judith Shakespeare” – a “genius, adventurous and imaginative” girl(woolf 43), gives a mental image to her audience and the audience can get involved with the text itself—a nonfiction would have given some mere information about a real woman, which might have failed to connect to the emotions of the audience.
Works cited:
Woolf, Virginia. “A Room of One’s Own.” Fort Washington: Harvest Book. 1981. First
published 1929.

Gender and Individuality

What is your sex? Or what is your gender? Between these two questions, which is a better one? It is very hard to answer as sex and gender are very closely related. Where, Sex is basically biological, gender is actually social. Confused? To think about it, we use these two words so often that we are not even aware about the difference between them, but they have a huge difference between them. In this prospect, Judith Lorber presents some strong arguments, differentiating sex and gender in her “Night to His Day” and she thinks that, “For Individuals, Gender Means Sameness.”(57).
Sex is natural, where gender is more like artificial- done by the society: male and female have to have different appearance and behavior. Lorber claims that, “Individuals are born sexed, but not “gendered, and they have to be masculine or feminine” (57). So, for separate persons masculinity or femininity is their individuality. Throughout her writing, she states that, sex is biological characteristics that we have from our birth and gender is are some characteristics that we form to identify our sex and when sex is identified through gender, social stratification is done at that point.
She further states that, “Clothing paradoxically, often hides the sex, but displays gender” (57). Therefore, according to her claim, clothes are one of the gender markers which predetermines what that persons position or status in the society will be. However, for one individual person clothes may be a material to hide his or her sex marker. But, with the stratification of masculinity and femininity, this material of sex identifier became a “gender marker” (Lorbor). These phenomena resulted in some expected characteristics from men and women, where women are expected to behave softly and men are expected to behave vigorously. The more masculine a man is and the more feminine a woman is, the more he or she gets “gendered.” Again, this ultimately results gender stratification.
Finally, Lorber argues, “For human beings there is no essential femaleness or maleness…but once gender is ascribed, the social order constructs and holds individual to strongly gendered norms and expectations” (58). Here, she is saying that once gender in done, he or she has to act according to the norms of the society. If every person acts according to the gender norms of the society, then where would their individuality be?

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

Feminism and Plato: Can he really be part of it?

“FEMINISM” if we break the word into two parts it will be: “FEMIN” and “ISM” which means that it was originated from women and for women. In the beginning it was to establish their rights equal rights, but this happened not so long ago. Therefore it is fairly a new concept, but if we put ourselves in the shoes of the women in ancient Athens we might say that this term “feminism” was needed more than we do in today’s world. In ancient Athens, in the era when great philosophers like Plato and Aristotle used to live, women were given much lower status than man. They were considered only for their bodily need which is reproduction. It was hard for anyone to come out of the stereotype of women at that time and establish a new status for them by giving them some credit. However, Plato did break these limitations in his writing especially his Symposium, but most of the time he seemed to considered the credible women to be manlier.
Plato brought Diotima in his Symposium through Socrates. Here Diotima was present in the symposium herself. This incident at one hand seems like that Plato is giving woman a higher status and on the other hand he used a man to voice her which is like giving man more credit. We can see Socrates praising Diotima and her capabilities, but Plato presented her with more manly characteristics. Moreover, Diotima talks about men being able to breed wisdom and women breeding children. Here she seems to be handing over the only capability of women that was admired at that time to men. Although she did so, ultimately breeding is capability that only women has, so was she telling the men to adopt female qualities to be more wise and creative? Was Plato trying to give women credit over men? Or was he trying to say that breeding is not only women’s capability and men can also do that and much better by breeding wisdom?
Plato throughout Symposium presented women as a weaker part of the nature. He used the term “women” to mainly symbolize cowardliness and weakness. Plato did mention that woman can be intellectual if she has a ma’s soul. So, here he seems like giving men all the credit for having wisdom. So, He lacks the qualities of a feminist. But can we really judge him on the present concept of feminism?

Alcibiades love for Socrates- is it worth?

“A moment later they heard Alcibiades shouting in the courtyard, very drunk and very loud” (Plato, 217) such sudden was the entry of Alcibiades. After being accepted to the party he started flirting with Agathon and Socrates. Though he first wanted to drink, but later he agreed to give acclaim to Socrates instead of defining love like others. To him, Socrates is the epitome of lover with wisdom and courage. He compared Socrates to a “statue of Silenus” and “Marsyas”. According to Alcibiades, Socrates was able to convince people with mere words and with his philosophies. These philosophies have “struck” and “bitten” Alcibiades’ heart and he cannot stop wanting to be Socrates lover. He wanted Socrates to accept his love in exchange of his beauty. He was deeply impressed by Socrates philosophies and bravery in the battlefield. In order to gain Socrates love, Alcibiades invited Socrates to gymnasium and when he got the chance, he wanted to start a discussion about themselves, but Socrates did not talk anything about that and he had a conversation with him as he normally do. Finally in order to be alone with Socrates he invited him to dinner and convinced him to stay overnight. When Alcibiades confessed his love to Socrates, he refused his love because; to Socrates love is beyond physical attraction. Socrates refused to give lifelong earned wisdom in just exchange physical beauty.
Socrates narrated Diotima and according to Diotima there is “a ladder of love”, through which a lover has to cross the infinite sea of love moving step by step. After reading symposium I think Alcibiades is in first step of the ladder, where love is just exchange anything with Socrates and Socrates is in the last step of the ladder which is indeed wisdom itself. It seems like Alcibiades want to cross the sea of love in just one go and that was by exchanging knowledge with anything he had. Although Alcibiades had many virtues and good appearance he chose Socrates’ wisdom over his not so good appearance. Socrates thought that Alcibiades’ love is in the last step of the ladder. Socrates knows what true love is and according to him Alcibiades cannot be a true lover. However, my question is, if Alcibiades was brought to praise Socrates, then how it relates to the other speech on definition of love. For me, I think, Plato brought Alcibiades and his love to show a divine face of love.

Behind the metaphors of “The Looking Glass”

In the poem “The Looking Glass” Kamla das intended “you”- a woman as her audience. The poet holds up the image of woman’s dependence on her man. Here, the poet used some metaphors like “perfection of his limbs”, “the redness of his eyes” to show the strength of the man that the woman wants him to look at. The woman gave her everything away starting from her body to her trust. Her dependence can be seen in the poem as she is in an intimate relation with the man and so she wants to show him her womanhood. However, this dependence on her male may lead her to a tough life where she has to live without the support and love of her man. According to the poet, it is easy to get the love of the man, but to live with that love for whole life is not guaranteed. At that point it is almost next to impossible for her to accept any other man as her companion or to forget the touch of the man whom she lost.
I found the tone of the poem to be sarcastic, as the poet first talks about the desires of the woman of surrendering herself to her man and then she tells her the crucial truth of her life. As Kamla mentioned in her poem, “Like burnished brass, now drab and destitute”(24) she presented the woman as a living being with almost no desire. The woman became so depended on her man that she gave her everything to the man and when she lost him (by death or separation), she lost the desire to be loved again by another man. Her dependence and blind trust on the man that he would never leave her took over all her thoughts and made her helpless enough to stand up again for love.
“The Looking Glass” reflects the helplessness of the woman as it reflects the desires of the woman to portrait her man as the stronger part in their pair. If the man leaves her, she suffers from loneliness and lack of love and if the man dies, she keeps lamenting over his death throughout her life. So, in this situation where is her individuality as a woman in the pair? Isn’t it like it is all about man and woman is just an objective matter?