Reading and Understanding the Political Issues

I’m not a good reader. When I have to read books or handouts in class, it takes me a lot of time to pay closely attention and re-read the text many times. Recently when we have study about political issues with large number of pages, I have to struggle to finish reading, understand and remember the content of the texts. However, I gain experience for myself that I find it less difficult and confusing as I read more and more political texts.
How to read political texts? Political issues are sensitive issues, so that the writers are required to present them with clear organization. In “Women’s Capabilities and the Right to Education in Bangladesh”, Arends-Kuenning and Amin divide the article into many sections with the abstract, introduction, 5 main points (Approach and Methodology, Women’s schooling and Marriage capital, The Effect of women’s education on Women’s well-being and agency, Education and Bargaining power, Women’s education and Traditional social structures) and the conclusion. Similarly, Lesorogol sets up her article with an abstract, introduction, 4 main points (Education and Modernity, Education and Boundary making, Boundaries of Knowledge and Capability, Boundaries of Gender roles and Morality/Sexuality) and conclusion. To save time but still get understanding thorough these articles, we had better read the abstract first. Then, we read the introduction section, skip the body sections and read the conclusion. While the introduction usually provides the background information as well as suggests what the writer is going to talk about, the conclusion summaries again the whole things; therefore, if we go over these sections first, we can have an observation over the issue and visualize what is going on in the text. We won’t get lost in the article. To read and understand the political issues better, we should print the texts. With the paper, we could mark and give our comments in the margin of the texts. In reading political issue, critical thinking will help us discern the points the writer argues for and decide whether or not we agree with the point.
To illuminate the political issues, the political texts are well-organized, precise and explicit but not metaphorical language with objective tone. The writer illustrates the issues with evidence: facts, statistics, and surveys, testimonials… For example, in “Women’s Capabilities and the Right to Education in Bangladesh”, the writers provide specific evidences from their interviews of the Bangladeshi rural residents to exemplify the writers’ claims about the Bangladeshi’s perception of education for women. In the same way, Lesorogol shows many facts and testimonials to prove the boundaries existing between educated girls and uneducated girls in Kenya. With evidences, the tone of the political issues is objective, free from bias. Thus, the writers gain credibility in their readers, convincing 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.
Carolyn, Lesorogol.K, “Setting Themselves Apart: Education, capabilities, and Sexuality among Samburu women in Kenya” International Journal of Politics and Society.Print.

Be Always An Important Factor of Change – Education

In the fifth part – the last part – of his essay “More than 100 Million Missing Women”: “Of course, gainful employment… especially for women” (11), Amartya Sen comes to his second argument in order to help the readers understand and explain the differences of the ratios of women to men in different countries , or even regions in a country: the education and economic rights for women. Through this paragraph, Sen also suggests the solution to “react” to the different ratios as a serious problem around the world.
Sen effectively proves his point by providing the hard evidences such as facts as well as the statistics. Beginning his supporting details, he presents a state in India, Kerala, with its outstanding ratio of women to men. The number of the ratio of women to men – 1.03 – in Kerala itself tells us the extraordinary difference between this state with other states in the whole India as well as in many countries in Asia, such as China. Sen emphasizes the fact that Kerala “does not have a deficit of women” (11). He also points out with the specific statistics that in Kerala, women’s life expectancy of at birth in 1981 was 68 while men’s was just 64. At the end of this paragraph, Sen discloses the reason why Kerala can accomplish that achievement by the fact that “Kerala’s remarkably high literacy rate” (11). By providing such powerful evidence, in this paragraph, Sen successfully convinces the readers the influence of education to change the inequality.
This paragraph properly supports to the thesis that Sen raises at the beginning of his essay: “How can we understand and explain these differences, and react to them?” (1) By pointing out the education factor with hard evidences, Sen clearly explain the difference of ratio of women to men in the world, rebutting to the simplistic explanations about the differences of culture or economic factor. He also answers the question he himself poses: to “react” to this situation, education is the key to succeed, like Kerala – the epitome of applying education for women which successfully elicits women’s well-being as well as women’s employment.

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

Fiction and non-fiction in a unique style

In “A Room of One’s Own”, Virginia Woolf cleverly draws the life of a fictional character who is Shakespeare’s sister, Judith Shakespeare. Like her brother, Judith Shakespeare is “extraordinarily gifted” (Woolf, 43) inherited from their family—the family has the intellectual tradition; her capacity by nature is in comparison with her brother. Therefore, we expect Judith to become the model as Woolf has found in the poetry: she plays the “highest importance” (Woolf, 40); she “dominates the lives of kings and conquerors” (Woolf, 40); she is the brilliant woman who makes up the innovation.
However, everything in Judith’s life does not happen in the same way as her brother because of her gender. Here we can recognize Woolf’s purpose when she creates a fictitious figure but not a real one. While Judith has all the necessary base to reach to the success in the same way as her brother, her gender plays as a deterrent that prevents her from having chance to enhance her intellect. It is pitiful that when she just picks up the books reading a few pages then her family ask her to do the things that a woman should do instead. It is bitter that she becomes the “slave of any boy” (Woolf, 40) because of her parents’ wish, wasting her youth. It is angry that her ambition to become a famous writer like her brother has to end up with her death in one winter’s night. Woolf figures it out herself all the reasons for the “odd monster” (40) she has faced when she gets confused between the image of women in poetry and in history. How can a woman have the ability to read or to spell if the environment she lives in keeps discouraging her from being educated?

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

A Vietnamese feminist in ancient time: Hồ Xuân Hương

When we have a look over Vietnamese history, it seems that most of the Vietnamese women were taught to become a good mother as well as a good wife. The feudal society confined women to many limits. They were told to stay behind the curtain, behind men’s backs. They were told to serve men. All their lives leaned on their husbands. They did not have any chance for education. I used to think that they may not even wonder why. However, in the late eighteen century, there was the presence of a female poet that really impresses me as well as the whole world up till now by her unconventional style. Her name is Hồ Xuân Hương. The innovation in her writing is using so many allusions to the “sexual imagery” (Buijs, 146). Her poetry “[scathingly] attacks on men” (Buijs, 146).
All of Hồ Xuân Hương’s poems were written in Chinese classical style since China had profound influence on Vietnam at that time. However, her poems still reflect her strong patriotism as well as her talent when she used Nôm, Vietnamese language at that time while Nôm was really a tough language. Under the domination of many Chinese imperial dynasties, Vietnamese endeavored not to be assimilated by their creation of Nôm based on Chinese language. For men who had chance to have education, it took many years to write in Nôm because to use this language, they had to be skillful at Chinese first! Despite the fact when people began to colletct her poems, many of them were missing, Buijs states that Hồ Xuân Hương is a “prolific poet” (412). When I was in high school, my teacher did call her “The queen of Nôm”. These things convince us to believe and admire her intellectual ability which is not inferior to men at all! Baladan, the American translator of her poems, with his comment: “because of her stunning poetic cleverness, she and her poems survived.” (53), confirms the position of Hồ Xuân Hương and her poems in Vietnamese as well as world literature.
Recently, after a short conversation with my teacher, I have somehow formed my philosophy what a feminist is. You can disagree with my definition (but there is the fact that there is no exact definition for this new word!). If a woman can do whatever a man can do, she is a feminist! Especially when we consider the age when Hồ Xuân Hương lived, she is really a predominant representation of feminist today!
This is one of Hồ Xuân Hương’s poems. It has alreadly been translated into English. If any of you interests in my post, you can try this:
Country Scene
The waterfall plunges in mist.
Who can describe this desolate scene:

the long white river sliding through
the emerald shadows of the ancient canopy

…a shepherd’s horn echoing on the valley,
fishnets stretched to dry on sandy flats.

A bell is tolling, fading, fading
just like love. Only poetry lasts. (John, 57)

Works Cited
Buijs, Gina. Migrant Women: Crossing Boundaries and Changing Identities. Oxford: Berg, 1993. Books.google.com. Google Books. Web. 19 Feb. 2013.
John, Baladan. “Spring Essence – The Poetry of Hồ Xuân Hương.” The International Journal of Transpersonal Studies 21 (2002): 53-58. Transpersonalstudies.org. The International Journal of Transpersonal Studies. Web. 19 Feb. 2013.

Feminist? Not Plato!

What is feminism? And, what is feminist? These two words have just come to my awareness in class recently. I still have no idea. Our teacher asked us to answer the awkward question: “Is Plato a feminist?” according to our own definition. Does it mean there are many definitions for “feminism” and “feminist”? Is feminist that someone wants to seek the equal opportunities for women, stand for women’s rights in the society, as Cambridge dictionary defines? When we consider Plato, who lived in the time so far away our time, nobody can actually know the real answer.
However, from my point of view, Plato might be the predominant one who has different philosophy with others at his time, but he cannot be a feminist. I call him as a socialist. Socialists are ones who want to support the equal rights for every human being in the society. Socialists keep peace around the world, protect human rights. The credit we can give to Plato through many of his works is his thought to seek a peace and equal world, which includes men and women. However, he just did give women some more rights than men, but not equate to men. Women in his thought can be more freedom but cannot transcend a certain boundary. It is the world of men’s strength. Women cannot be superior to men in any field, especially intellect. Plato stood in the line between men and women, but more than half of his body fell down toward men’s side rather than women’s side.
What Socrates speaks in “Symposium” is what he has learned from Diotima. Socrates shows obviously his admiration of Diotima, who is considered as a female philosopher. However, she does not speak up directly in the “Symposium”. My interpretation is women, though they did not have chance to have education, still they gain experience during their lives. In ancient time, women stood behind the men as wives, but some of them also were the advisors. The presence of Diotima in the play is just like a confirmation for the role of women in the ancient time as the chair for men to stand more firmly in the society. Plato, therefore, is not a feminist.
Works Cited
Cambridge Dictionaries Online. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Feb. 2013. .

Why do we seek love?

“Why our hands have the empty spaces between these fingers?” – asked my friend.
I laughed at her childish question.
“…because they need someone else’s hands which fit our hands to fill these spaces up to become full!”
Since my friend told me, whenever I look at my hands I remember his nice explanation!
Recently when I read “Symposium” by Plato, I have encountered a speech that makes me reminisce of those words again: Aristophanes’ speech.
Aristophanes began his speech by giving us a nice story about the nature of human beings at the beginning. Human beings, originally called as “androgynous”, were the combination between men and women. They had four hands, four legs, four ears, two faces, two sets of sexual organs (Plato, 473). Because their powerful strength to run riots threatened the Gods, the “androgynous” were separated into two individuals by Zeus as a punishment. Human beings then always need to live together to co-exist with the harsh environment or otherwise, they will “die from hunger and general idleness” (Plato, 474). Zeus also created the magic of reproduction when “the man in the woman” (Plato, 474). Love was formed since then.
This is really a nice story about the birth of love. Because each individual bears the wound in his body forever as the consequence of the Gods’ punishment, the wound will keep causing pain if he is not with someone else. Therefore, he needs to seek people to “heal the wound of human nature” (Plato, 474). This story helps me give the answer why people are depressed and upset when they are lonely. Come and unite together is the antidote for recovering the wound and live happily.
Aristophanes said: “Love is the name for our pursuit of wholeness, for our desire to be complete” (Plato, 476) give me a meaningful interpretation rather than the literary meaning when I first read it. Life is the endeavor to be better than yesterday. The existence of Love in the world, then, plays a significant role in our lives because Love helps to improve one’s personality. The power of love can create the perfectionists. People seek love because their desire of being perfect.
Love, therefore, is one of the most important goals that human beings attempt to seek for. Like my friend’s explanation about the existence of the empty spaces between our fingers, Aristophanes speech really inspires me to seek my own love!

Works Cited
Plato. The Symposium. Plato: The Complete Works. Ed. Cooper, John M. Cambridge: Hacker Publishing Co. 1997.

Women’s Beauty in “Barbie Doll” by Marge Piercy

With a gentle tone of the speaker presenting a short story in the poem, “Barbie Doll” by Marge Piercy depicts a girl doll’s life from her birth till the moment she gained her happiness. In the poem, there is a constant use of images of two parts “big nose” and “fat legs” were considered as ugly parts on the doll’s body. However, she had good physical and mental condition: she had a good heath with a fit body “strong arms and back” and “tested intelligent” (7, 8). Moreover, she had enough good qualities as woman to become a good wife: “abundant sexual desire” and clever in manual work. Yet her classmate teased her about those small ugly parts on her body, which made her feel dissatisfied with herself and caused a so sadistic action with her body:

“So she cut her off her nose and her legs

and offered them up” (17,18)

The poem includes 25 lines that divides into five stanzas but the forth stanza above specially stands out in the poem with only two short lines. These lines actually form a complete sentence expressing an unexpectedly violent decision of the girl doll. 

Through the whole poem, Marge uses assonance in the words: “candy”, puberty”, healthy”, “dexterity”, “hearty”, “putty”, “nightie” and “pretty” with the same sound at last “y”. This sound ties all the lines subtly, making the whole poem fit together. Moreover, assonance can be found in the fourteenth line: “exercise, diet, smile and wheedle” in the same sound “i” of first three words, creating a unique tune that easily goes to the readers’ memory.

In the poem, Marge uses personification to make the girl doll become a human being with many adjectives describing her appearance and qualities lively and many verbs convey her behaviors as a real woman. The poem ends with the last image of an appealing girl whose nose was fixed again. She wore a bright “pink and white nightie” that “everyone”, who must include her classmate, had to praise her beauty. We figure out the allusion the speaker wants to give to the readers – women: no one is completely perfect everything but we should appreciate good things that we have already had. The poem also whispers to women a message: every woman has her own beauty, do satisfy and honor it!