Education: Solution for solving the serious problem about ‘missing women’ all over the world

Noble laureate, Amartya Sen in his article “More than 100 million missing women” portrays the condition of women in South Asia and provides reasons for the difference in the ratio of women to men in Europe, North America, South Asia, West Asia, China and also provides reasons to show why the ratio of women to men in Europe and North America varies from South Asia and West Asia. In the second paragraph of section 5 by using the example of Kerala he explains the reasons for the difference in the result and also offers a solution to solve this serious problem (11). From the statistical data about the higher ratio of women to men in Kerala it is evident that gainful employment, women’s education, economic rights, property rights are factors responsible for raising women’s chances of survival (11). At the same time, literacy rate is one of the most important factors which are responsible for higher ratio of women to men (11).
He also mentions” Kerala’s ratio of women to men of more than 1.03 is closer to that of Europe (1.05) than those of China, West Asia, and India as a whole (0.94).” That means even though Kerala is an Indian state its ratio is similar to that of Europe because it has higher literacy rate. He also compares the ratio of Kerala with Punjab in order to show that even though Punjab is one of country’s richest states, the ratio is lower for Punjab in compared to Kerala. That means economic condition of a state or a country is not the pioneer issue for the difference in the ratio of women to men. Gainful employment is also available in Punjab. The difference between these two states is in literacy rate. Only, for this difference the Kerala’s ratio is ‘much higher than elsewhere in India.’
This paragraph clearly supports the thesis that Sen poses at the beginning of the article: “How can we understand and explain these differences, and react to them?” He uses Kerala as an epitome for showing that literacy rate enhances ratio of women to men. At the same time, he proved that misconception about the cultural difference between east and west and economic development is not responsible for lower ratio of women to men. His main idea behind this paragraph is to show the readers that higher literacy rate is the solution for raising the ratio of women to men. That is we can ‘react’ to the serious problem and can resolve it with the help of education.
Works Cited
Sen, Amartya. “More Than 100 Million Missing Women.” Nybooks Archives. Dec 20, 1990. Mar 31, 2013.

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.

Why fiction interrupts a non-fiction text?

In “A room of one’s own”, the author, Virginia Woolf, writes about women in the Elizabethan time. When the writer wanted to know about the prominent women of this era he hardly could find about anyone. At that time, women were not used to contribute much in the profound thoughts of literature. Even if they did anything their involvement was covered by the male dominant society. One old bishop said that “women cannot write the plays of Shakespeare” (42, Woolf). To prove why women of that age were not able to write Shakespeare’s play, the author brings a touch of fiction in his non-fiction text. He tells an imaginary story where Shakespeare’s sister Judith has to suffer like the other women and girls of her time. He tells this story to convey her readers the situation of women of that age. It is very unfortunate that, at that time women were treated like commodities. They did not have their right of freedom, the freedom to choose their profession, the freedom of higher studies, the freedom to refuse to be a bride. They had to do whatever was decided for them by their parents for their future. To bring up the condition of these poor helpless women Woolf relates them with Judith. The reason why he chose Judith instead of choosing another real woman is that he wants to show a family in which one of the children, Shakespeare, was getting every opportunity and the other child, Judith, was deprived of her rights. Both had equal creative minds but only one got to flourish it as he was a son and the other was forced to marry as she was a daughter. Woolf here compares the children of the same family with the same capabilities to show the readers that it was not the fault of women but it was the fault of the unfavorable circumstances for women of that society. Under the same parental guidance, Judith’s talent was buried down whereas Shakespeare was reaching his success. Woolf’s main aim is to convince his audiences that women could not take part in any work of creativity because of their pre-determined fate not because of their lack of knowledge or capacity.
Work Cited
Woolf, Virginia. “A Room of One’s Own.” Fort Washington: Harvest Book. 1981. First published 1929.

The Success in Integrating fiction into nonfiction text

I have read lots of fiction and non-fiction masterpieces but A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woofl was the first work which integrated fiction into nonfiction text I have read. This integrated way of writing which seemed to confuse the readers made me very excited. Woofl imaged a fiction character Judith Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s sister, to show the general of unfair treatment between male and female in the age of Shakespeare. Judith’s talent and life was representative of majority of women’s fate at that time.
Judith was a literary gifted girl like her brother. Two persons were in the same time, same family and had same talent but just because of their sexual difference, their fates were completely different. With writing talents, Shakespeare could go to school and promote his talent to become a well-known playwright. With the same talent, Judith was not sent to school and her talent was kept from developing. Then she entangled with her hateful marriage under her father’s imposition. When she tried to resist her fate, a woman’s fate, she suffered her society’s insults and contempt. Finally, she had to kill herself in the soul’s pain of a talented woman.
Woofl successfully created the life of a fictional woman instead of a real one’s life. You might think that a real story would make the reader feel vivid and close with their life. Yes, you were right. But in this case, the problem that the authors mentioned was not small problem; it was a big issue of society. Women at the time of Shakespeare were discriminated in many aspects so if Woofl had told the story of a real woman, her work would have been in a narrow vision. Judith’s life had included most of the injustices that women suffered so it made A Room of One’s Own more general. Therefore, I believe that this kind of writing was a creative writing style and the author’s very successful in her way.
Work Cited
Woolf, Virginia. “A Room of One’s Own.” Fort Washington: Harvest Book. 1981. First published 1929.

“a worm winged like an eagle” what happens to it?

A worm—small, weak, negligible, considered useless, doesn’t have anything to do by its own, just worthless, depending on others, taking from others to save its life, to survive. It got a wing like an eagle. Wings of eagle which is so strong, significant, stunning, when a eagle files with them it looks like those wings are powerful enough to fly higher and higher without caring about anything. Is it possible for the worm to fly high with those strong wings of an eagle? It is not possible for the worm to take the burden of the wings. However it tries, it can’t fly. Even if it could fly a little high, it won’t last longer. It will fall down on the ground and it is enough for the worm to die.
In Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own”, she mentioned “a worm winged like an eagle” (Woolf, 40) where she uses metaphor to describe a deep thought. In her fiction, she brought non-fiction characters just to show us what could happen if the woman tried to break the norms, that worm wanting to have wings like the eagle, fly high naturally. Here, a woman of Elizabethan times, Judith Shakespeare—sister of William Shakespeare, who could be considered genetically as intelligent as her brother William who was a famous playwright of that time and a legend still now. But she was deprived of the rights to be educated like him, to explore, to create and mostly, she was not “the apple of her father’s eye” (Woolf, 43). When she took the venture to join theater like his brother “she was beaten by her father” (Woolf, 43) as she was not allowed to do that. She had the potential like her brother so that the spirit to run away and join the theater. But she faced humiliation from different men. She roamed around the streets for works and an actor manager named Nick Greene showed mercy on her. But in return she got pregnant “by that gentleman” (Woolf, 44) which was totally against the rules of society and she killed herself finally.
Judith was just like that worm. She tried to get out of the norms of the society. The wings which is a symbol of freedom, create something by using her intellectual ability, when she tried to have the wings, she fell down and lost her life. She couldn’t be like her brother who used the same way and got fame, flied high and high. Society took it normally to see a man with the urge to do something as we see normally an eagle having the wings. When we see a worm with wings either we laugh at it or try to kill it for its foolishness. That’s what happened with Judith Shakespeare, a worm which tried to get the eagle wings.
Works Cited:
Woolf, Virginia. “A Room of One’s Own.” Fort Washington: Harvest Book. 1981. First published 1929.

Societal norms: Responsible for woman’s not showing their talent in literary works during Shakespeare’s time

In “A Room of One’s Own” the author, Virginia Woolf by portraying the image of a ‘woman’ provided by the historians and by developing a fictional character, Judith Shakespeare looks into the life of English women during Elizabethan era. She explicitly describes about the image of a ‘woman’ provided by the historians and by the poets who referred woman as “a worm winged like an eagle” (Woolf, 40). That means historians considered women as useless like a worm who were incapable of showing their talents in literary works. On the other hand, Woolf’s imaginative character, Judith Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s’ “extraordinarily gifted sister” was very imaginative, adventurous; apple to her father’s eye experienced the gender discrimination of the society and acted according to her father’s wish (Woolf, 43).
Basically, Woolf invented the fictional character and uses in this non- fictional text to illustrate her point against the idea “A bishop, I Think, who declared that it was impossible for any woman, past, present, or to come to have the genius of Shakespeare” (Woolf, 42). What she wants to show is that, Shakespeare’s sister inherited same qualities like Shakespeare; she was imaginative, adventurous, “as agog to see the world as he was” (Woolf, 43). But, she was not sent to school. Even, she didn’t get chance to explore in many fields like her brother. She had the talents to proof her as a writer. But, she was bound to follow her father’s wish which was to get married in a early age. Moreover, Shakespeare was a renowned figure during that time. So, the use of the fictional character makes it more convincing to the reader and also effectively shows that the idea of woman incapable of writing like Shakespeare is not true. If a woman gets proper chance they can also show their intellect and can also become genius like Shakespeare.

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

Why Women’s Access to Literature Was Not Evident in Shakespearean Time

In “A Room of One’s Own”, Virginia Woolf compares her imaginative character, Judith Shakespeare to the whole image of “women” according to her readings that she has been reading. She shows the literal and figurative position of women in men dominated literature field. She has been reading that, “. . . it was impossible for any woman, past, present, or to come, to have the genius of Shakespeare” (42) and “women cannot write the plays of Shakespeare” (42). From her readings it is clear that women were not genius rather than fully dull. But Woolf gives an idea through her creation Judith Shakespeare about why women were not capable of producing or writing anything like Shakespeare where women had to stay in limitations; they were not free to do anything and they did not get the chance to do as men. Woolf makes clear women’s position using her artistic character that women are treated as unintelligent, but though they are qualified to write as Shakespeare, they do not get the opportunity from family and society. That is why they cannot express and explode their merit.
Woolf uses fictional character Judith Shakespeare rather than use original character, because that time there was not any prominent woman using whom she could shows her argument that though a woman has same quality as Shakespeare, she cannot express her genius as Shakespeare rather than being a woman including women characteristics.

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

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.

Can women really have a room of one’s own?

In ‘A Room of One’s Own’ Virginia Wolf enlights the status of women during the Elizabethan era. During this era only women from the elite class would receive respect and honor  Normal citizens were not allowed to know about there personal life, “one knows nothing detailed, nothing perfectly true and substantial about her.” (Wolf, 40) But the women in the middle class were not allowed to enjoy the opportunity that elite class women could. Shakespeare was a famous writer at this era who belonged to the elite class society. Though women from the elite class received respect and honor but they were not given the opportunity  were  to write like Shakespeare, “Women cannot write the plays of Shakespeare.”(42) Wolf brings an imaginary figure, Judith Shakespeare who was the sister of Shakespeare. Judith Shakespeare is used to represent all the middle class women during that era. Judith also had the same talents that Shakespeare had. “She was adventurous, as imaginative, as agog to see the world as he was.”(45) But she was not allowed to write as Shakespeare.  She took books to read but her father disliked it. She was  the apple of her father’s eye as the other girls were because they followed the command and did all the household chores that a woman does. She wanted to act and take part in plays but she was mocked by men. These show that women during this era were dominated by men. They were not free as men from elite class. Wolf uses Judith as a representative because she was considered to be Shakespeare’s sister and to compare and show that though Judith has all the talents equally as Shakespeare but she was not allowed to show her talent because she was a female.

Works Cited:

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

NEED OF ROOM FOR WOMEN IN SOCIETY

Virginia Woolf seems much moved when she confronts with the lost identity of women in the history. She compares this lost status with the status women enjoy in the poetry and other literary works. By this comparison she comes to a mournful conclusion that there is a wide gap between statuses of women portrayed in history and poems.

The fictional story of Judith Shakespeare is much similar to the stories of “women” that are lost in the history. The only difference between the women of these two is that women do not posses any qualities or creativity other than doing household chores. Moreover, in this fictional story Judith is shown with creativity, intelligence and talents. From this comparison, she surely wants to focus what might be the consequences of a girl with multiple qualities? She explains the truth that no one values the talents of a girl and this ultimately led to the miserable and pathetic end of her life. On the other hand, when she gives Judith Shakespeare all the qualities that women in a poetry or literary works mostly have. The distinction between these women occurs when Judith suicides and ends her miserable life. Although, in literary works women do not suicides rather than they inspire and encourage others to tackle and sort their problems.

So we can say that Woolf successfully incorporated qualities of “women” portrayed by historians and poets in her fictional character Judith Shakespeare. I think she creates an entirely fictional story because she wants to portray that neither historians nor poets are right in portraying women. She also tries to illustrate that combination of these two images are true for women. But as a matter of fact that she does not have any specific evidence like records of history or personal diary of any women. So, she describes her imagination in the form of fictional story.

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