How to interpret political texts and to illuminate political concern from it

The word “politics” confuses general people, when they are asked to answer something related to it. The most common answer people give is that they are not interested in it or they don’t read much political texts. Why is it so? It’s because they don’t know the actual meaning of politics and they are scared of it to answer as it is related to Government Issue. According to “Merriam-Webster Dictionary”, ‘politics’ is “the art or science concerned with winning and holding control over a government”. A political text is a reflection of issues that are related to politics in order to provide the readers some idea and evidence about the writer’s argument about politics.
While reading a political text the indispensable thing is to read title of the text, as it gives some hints about the political problem or the purpose to write the text. The title sometimes explains the political situation or the problem of the country. Mary Arends-Kuenning and Sajeda Amin in their “Women’s Capabilities and the Right to Education in Bangladesh” emphasizes in women education: “a force that enables women to have expanded choices” (Amin, 125). Moreover, Amartya Sen in “More than “100 Million Missing Women” emphasizes in the ratio of women to men in order to show number of missing women. Here, we can see that the author gives an image of the political situation of the countries to keep people aware of the current issues. The writer has to use many evidences in a view to convince the readers to support his thought. In “Women’s Capabilities and the Right to Education in Bangladesh” the writer uses many sources to support his claim. For example, by using the evidences he supports his claim that “mothers’ education is an important determinant of children’s schooling” (Amin, 126). The writer Amartya Sen, also uses data as an evidence to support his thoughts about the unusual ratio of women in his “More than 100 Million Missing Women”.
By reading the articles mentioned above we can give the reader some political outlook about the political situation of the country and the purpose to write this kind of text. Political issue gives the reader information about the problems of the country. In “100 Million Missing Women” the writer shows the problem of the imbalance of women population. Through this the reader gets to know about one of the political issues. The political text helps the author to convince people to support his argument. To clarify a political text, one should give some ideal clarification to make the people believe to the writer’s argument about political issues.
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

“Politics.” Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, 2013. Web. 7 April 2013.

Sen, Amartya. “More Than 100 Million Missing Women.” Nybooks Archives. 20 Dec 1990. Web. 07 Apr 2013.

“The Paragraph, which supports Sen’s Main Argument”.

Economist, Amartya Sen, in his essay “More Than 100 Million Missing Women” indicates the declining condition of the population of women comparing to the men, especially in the orients area than from the population of the occident areas. The writer gave some reason behind the difference among the number of men and women. The main reason behind this unusual ration is the neglect that women face in the Asian country than from the European Countries. Sen also includes the social, cultural and economical reason behind this problem. The author supports his claim on the third paragraph of the second page by using the evidence of logos.
In order to support his claim the author gives the data of the ratio of the men and women in China and India to calculate the number of missing women in the South Asia. According to Sen there will be “6 percent deficit of women” (Sen, 01). The reason behind this deficiency is the inequality in the health care they receive between men and women. But, if we compare the ratio among the people who receive similar health care the deficiency will be more. In Sen’s word “the real shortfall is about 11 percent” (Sen, 01). If we compare it with China than the number of missing women is 50 million alone in that country, which leads us to 100 million missing women when added in South & West Asia and even North Africa. This information clearly supports the claim that Sen made in his article. Sen used the data’s ant rates of the missing women as an evidence to support his claim in this paragraph, which also supports the claim that Sen made in his whole article.
The writer supports his claim by giving the statistics of the ratio of men and women in this paragraph by using logos, which at the same time supports his whole argument of the article.
Work cited
Sen, Amartya, “More Than 100 Million Missing Women.” Nybooks Archives. Dec 20, 1990. Mar 4, 2013.

Judith Shakespeare: A Lady of the Elizabethan Era.

Virginia Woolf created a picture of Elizabethan woman in his writing “A Room of One’s Own”. The writer observed women in Elizabethan England and fell in an enigma, where women’s had no name as a writer. So, Judith Shakespeare was an imaginary character created by Virginia Woolf keeping connection with the real character William Shakespeare, as his sister. Though it was the era of the great lady Queen Elizabeth, the writer had to create an imaginary character as there was no lady in the history—famous enough to speak, “nor shall we find her in any collection of anecdotes” (Woolf 41). This lack of famous women forces the writer to create a fiction of a powerful lady.
The writer imagines a Judith Shakespeare as an equally gifted sister of William Shakespeare, who had the same talent as her brother in study, drama and theatre as well. However, she was not provided with education same as William, as she was a girl of that era. Women were disdained at that time and was discouraged to study, write and doing things like men. Because of gender discrimination, women’s’ were confined in the house snatching their opportunity by the men of the society. Judith—forced by her father—got married at an early age despite her wish, but having a passion for the theatre she ran away to London. She was betrayed by a person in the theatre and forced her to commit suicide.
Woolf tried to describe the position of women at that time. Women were deprived from their rights being dominated by the males of the society. The writer pictured the dominated women of the Elizabethan era through the creation of Judith Shakespeare.
Works cited:
Woolf, Virginia. “A Room of One’s Own.” Fort Washington: Harvest Book. 1981. First published 1929.

Gender and Sex: Are they same?

In our everyday life we use the word ‘gender’ and ‘sex’ equally. But this is a common misunderstanding of people, which is wrong. These two words are often used interchangeably by people, which is quite distinct. Sex refers to the biological and physiological characteristics; on the other hand gender refers to behaviours, roles, expectations and activities in society. So, sex is the way a man or a woman is born and gender is the differences between men and women made by the society, which can change with time when a society changes. The writer Judith Lorber on “Night to His Day: The Social Construction of Gender” tried to explain the differences between these two words. On the very first line of the writing the author gave a great example by saying, “fish talking about water”. Here the author tried to explain that, it is very difficult for a fish to talk about water. Though it cannot survive without water, it does not know what water is. All that a fish knows is water is essential for its survival. In the same way, people does not know the different use of the words ‘gender’ and ‘sex’, they take the words as the similar one. Many people fail to understand that gender is the creation of people and society but sex is not. The way of the usage of the word-‘gender’ may change with the thoughts of the people of the society.
The author also mentioned the word –“doing gender” by giving example of the people on the subway and on the bus stop. It was very glad for the author to see that men are taking care of the children as most probably women take care of a child. This is one kind of effect of gender that a mother would take care of her child, so the author was amazed that people is trying to avoid the word gender. But suddenly the author noticed “the gleam of tiny earrings in the child’s ears”(Lorber, 54). This indicated the author that despite avoiding the use of gender, people are using it in their day to day life. The writer is explaining that gender is the invention of the people of the society, of their culture, which is changeable.
Works Cited:
Lorber, Judith. “Night to His Day: The Social Construction of Gender”.New Haven:Yale University Press, 1994. Print. 19 Feb. 2013.
Christian Nordqvist. “What Is The Difference Between Sex And Gender?.” Medical News Today. MediLexicon, Intl., 5 Aug. 2011. Web. 19 Feb. 2013.

Plato’s thoughts say: He is not a feminist.

The first thought that comes to mind while answering the question-“Is Plato a feminist?” is: what is feminism? Feminism is the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes as defined in the “Merriam-Webster Dictionary”. So, who is a ‘feminist’? A feminist is a person whose beliefs and behaviour are based on feminism.

After reading this definition, can we say that Plato is a feminist? My answer is, “No”. If we compare his thoughts according to the society he lived, sometimes I feel that he is a feminist. But if we compare his thoughts according to our society, we must say he is not a feminist. In symposium, we can see that most of the speeches were defined by Plato through the voice of some males but if we think of any female voice we will find only one person and that is Diotima. Her speech was also described through the voice of Socrates. Here we can see gender discrimination that was done by Plato. If he was a feminist he might have used other female characters or showed Diotima speaking directly not through Socrates’ voice. Some people who agree that Plato is a feminist will show the condition of the women of that time. They might say Plato used the voice of the male characters because that time women were deprived from their rights and they did not have any equality with the males. But I want to tell those people that if Plato was a feminist, why not he raised his voice against the condition the women at that time. If he was a feminist, he might have described the definition of ‘love’ through Diotimas’ voice not through the voice of Socrates. We can also see in Aristophanes speech that Plato is saying the pairs of boys as the best one being bold, brave and masculine. Here we can find that Plato prefers the male as the best one. So, he is discriminating. Thinking of all these things I can’t accept Plato as a feminist. Though it is very confusing to go to any conclusion that he isn’t a feminist, his writings and thoughts in the symposium says that Plato is not a feminist.

Works Cited:
“Feminism.” Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, 2013. Web. 10 Feb 2013.

A DESIRE TO BE COMPLETE

According to Aristophanes, human nature was not the same before. There were people of three sexes: there were male, female and an addition of two. The shape of the people was round as they were a combination of two people with faces on opposite sides and a heads in the middle of them and with organs which were double. They were the whole of male-male, female- female and male-female. At present, what only remains is the word “androgynous” which constituted the body of the male and female. Aristophanes also said that they must be the offspring of the sun, moon and earth. As the humans were round shaped, he compared them with the round shaped earth, moon and sun. To give punishment, Zeus divided them cutting them in the middle which also decreased their strength to fight. This is how Aristophanes describes how people became divided and how the feelings of love came to people.
Love is a desire of the other half according to Aristophanes. The feelings of love invented from the very first day Zeus divided them into two. For Aristophanes, this is where heterosexuality and homosexuality came from. Woman’s desire for woman, mans desire for man and a desire between a man and a woman, they are oriented towards the other half from where they were divided. Though his imaginations sounds like a joke, Aristophanes announced before his speech not to make fun of his thoughts. Aristophanes demonstrated that love is a search for the other half of people to heal the wounds of being separated. They want to fulfil their happiness which was lost by the punishment they received from Zeus. The word “Love” is a need of those people who could not do anything being apart from their other half. That is how love came. Actually the reason was human nature was originally one to be in a whole and the expectation to be in whole again is called love according to the thoughts of Aristophanes. Giving an imaginary thought he described the word ‘love’ with great enthusiasm, which had the description of the attraction people feels towards each other.

Interpreting a Poetry

In “Introduction to Poetry” the poet Billy Collins teaches the reader about the way to read a poem. He helps the reader to find out the real meaning of poetry. In this world there are many people who read poetry only to know the actual meaning. Through this poem the poet wanted to change the idea of those people who reads a poem with one point of view.
The whole poem has a proper use of “metaphor”. In this poem the poet wants us to know that everything is beautiful and simple if we take it easily. So, the poet compared each line with those things, which we commonly use in our day to day life. In the beginning, he compared poem with “a colour slide”. Through a colour slide we can see different colours if we look from different directions. This helps us to see the world in a different way. Similarly, if we read poem with different thinking we will get to know different meanings about what the poet is trying to explain. He also compared poem with “a hive”. This means there may many difficulties to know the actual meaning of poem as there is danger to give one’s ear near the bee hives.
The most amazing comparison the poet did with his poem is – where he wants people to “water ski across the surface of a poem waving out the authors’ name”. Here the poet wants the people to water ski with the words of the poem, where people will have fun to play with the different meaning of the poem and also with the words. This will help people to interpret the poem in a different way, which will increase their curiosity to read a poem. Poem will be fun for every people then.
At last the poet says to take a poem easily then to torturing oneself. A person can’t get to know the actual meaning of a poem if he judges the writing by its appearance. Only reading doesn’t help us, we have to go to the deep to find out the real meaning. The real fun to read a poem lies in interpreting it.