Some tips in order to understand political text

 

In order to understand a not only a political text, but also other types of text, the title of the reading is the first thing that we should consider. By the title of a text we can have a general idea of the text, and somehow we can understand the author’s side in the article. The title also indicates the path that we are going through for example by title of “setting themselves apart: education, capabilities, and sexuality among Samburu women in Kenya” we can understand that the article is going to disgust about the differences that education, capabilities, and sexuality make among women. That indicates connection between education, capabilities, and the distance that Kenya women have among themselves.

Words and their meaning is the second important part that the reader should be careful about that.  Some times author use some etchings to make her/ his writing meaningful and make the reader think. One of the examples in “Women Capabilities and the Right to Education in Bangladesh” the author uses two words of “instrumentalist” and “instrument”. In order to understand what author means by these two words we need to concentrate on connection of women and education with “instrument” and “instrumentalist”.  These two words were confusing for not only me, but also most of the students. Finally, by the explanations that our instructor give us in the class we could understand that the author implies the essentiality of “education” for “ women” by using “instrumentalist” for education and “instrument” for women.

The third element for better understanding a political reading is to consider the structure of the reading. As It is noticeable “Women’s Capabilities and the Right to Education in Bangladesh” the writer chose the compare and contrast structure.  We should perceive why the author used this structure. One of the advantages of this structure is that this structure gives the author is opportunity to indicates the two side of discussion, however he/she implies his idea through the article. The author tries to make the reader to take a side at the end of the article, and obviously author wants to get an agreement from her/ his audience. For example in “women’s capabilities …” the author says “In some cases, people in the two villages believe that education increases women’s capabilities. For most part, however, people do not see women’s education as a threat to the status quo. For example cultural beliefs about marriage have not changed mush. Despite the increase in girls’ schooling, very few people question the view that daughters should not have much voice in when they are married” (Arends, Amin 129) In this part you can see that how author implies that the agreement for women education has more proponents than oppositions, and however the culture has not changed a lot, the people want education for their daughters.

            As has been shown, in order to understand a political reading we need to consider different aspects of a reading including titles, words and the position of words, and structure that can be another element to guide you to the author goal from the reading.

 

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.

How do texts work to illuminate political issues?

Political texts mention problems which many people concern about, such as the education of women, the population of women. These texts are written to inform, illuminate, and persuade the readers to concern about the political issues.

The political texts are used to give the readers more information about some highlight problem, like the population of women. In “More than 100 Million Missing Women”, Amarty Sen wants to reflect the differences of the ratio of women to men in some places on the word. He gives two simple explanations, the East-Western culture and economic development to help his readers have more information and have a perfect view to the increase of women’s population. This is a political issue and the author wants people to know and can be comprehensive this problem.This is also the best way to illuminate political issue.

Many authors write the political texts to convince the readers to support this problem which is suggested, like the education of women. In “Women’s Capabilities and the Right to Education in Bangladesh”, Mary Arends-Kuenning and Sajeda Amin give the status of women’s education in village to convice their readers to support the education of women. The authors give a lot of benefits from education for women, such as having a good job, “make such a good marriage because of her education” (Arends and Amin, 130), reaching some social values than uneducated women, etc. The writers want citizen to support education for women to increase the educated level of women in community. By this way, the authors have an impact on people’s concern about political issues. When a lot of people are prone to talk about the political text, this problem will be prevalent in society and it is easy to become to illuminate the political text in community.

In short, to illuminate a political issue, a text should give some clear information as well as a lot of strong evidences, such as facts, numbers, and statistic. Thus, this text has enough data to make a belief to the readers. From that, the readers will tend to concern about the political text.

Works Cited
Amin and Arends. “Wome’s Capabilities and the Right to Education in Bangladesh”. Jstor.org. Springer. 1
Sen, Amartya. “More than 100 Million Missing Women”

Interpreting Political Texts

As we read political texts, we know from the Free Dictionary that political texts are basically texts that bring up an issue relating to, or dealing with the structure or affairs of government, politics, or the state. This kind of texts deals with social problems like population increase, infanticide, women’s education, racism, inequality in gender etc. that play a big part in the political structure of a nation or the world. So, whenever a reader sees such issues that bring up a global problem, the text is a political text. Political texts are somewhat confusing to readers at times due to their discussion of complex issues. It becomes easier for the reader to understand the writer’s message when the text is written point by point.
As an instance, we can take the article “Women’s Capabilities and the Right to Education in Bangladesh” by Mary Arends-Kuenning and Sajeda Amin into consideration as an ideal epitome of political texts. The organization of the text is point by point as follows: Introduction, 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 conclusion. The text has five major points that discuss about the issue while the introduction creates the lead in and the conclusion presents a brief overview of the issue discussed in the major points. Again, in Amartya Sen’s text “More than 100 Million Missing Women” we see that he has categorized the important points of discussion with numbers rather than giving a short reference to what he is going to talk about in the text. But still the text is clear to us as he imposes the question “How can we understand and explain these differences, and react to them?” (Sen 1) in his introduction and ends it with this question. The reader becomes aware of the fact that he might be presenting possible solutions to the question that he has posed.
In addition to this, political texts stand mainly on statistical evidences which make the reader understand what the author is trying to prove. For example, in the text “Women’s Capabilities and the Right to Education in Bangladesh” the authors try to draw the reader’s attention to the condition and reason behind women’s education in Bangladesh. In order to gain credibility, the authors provide statistical evidences such as statistics from interviews conducted in two villages in order to see people’s thoughts about the expenses and welfares of education (Arend & Amin 129).Again, Sen in his article talks about the ratio of women to men surviving in the world as he coins the term “Missing women” to refer to the difference in the ratio of women to men surviving of the total population. The author thus gets attached to the reader’s emotions as he states his evidences to prove his claims. The author addition of analysis gives the text a more vivid understanding.
Thus, a political text is based upon methodical writing, statistical evidences, author’s ability to gain credibility and effective analysis of the text. Also, a reader needs to read the text more than once to understand what the text actually means and what message the author is trying to convey.

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
Sen, Amartya. “More than 100 Million Missing Women”
“Political”. The Free Dictionary. 7 April 2013.
http://www. The Free Dictionary thefreedictionary.com/political

Economic development do not cause deficit of women

The last paragraph in page four of “More than 100 Million Missing Women” by Indian philosopher and economist Amartya Sen discusses about the relationship between economic development and deficit of women. He states, “Certainly all the countries with large deficits of women are more or less poor” (Sen, 4) through this statement we can understand that there are more missing women in poor countries. Therefore if there is an economic development the standard of life of a woman might also become better. He supports this claim by giving an example that if women were provided with better hospital facilities “the rate of maternal mortality at childbirth can be expected to decrease” (Sen, 5). Hence, economic development do not cause deficit of women.
To prove that economic development do not cause deficit of women Sen provides a data which states “Punjab and Haryana –among the richest and most economically advanced Indian states have very low ratios of women to men (around 0.86), in contrast to the much poorer states of Kerala, where ratio is greater than1.03. (Sen, 5) This evidence implies that the state with higher economic development has deficit of women whereas the state having poor economic development has no deficit of women. The first example shows that there is direct or positive relationship between economic development and the population of women because if the economic development is high then she would get other facilities and there would be better survival rates. But in the second illustration shows he inverse relationship between economic development and population of women because in economically developed state there is deficit of women whereas the economically poor state has higher rate of women’s population. The writer uses illustrations, data, statistics, and comparison between two states or countries to support his claim.
The main idea of the essay “More than 100 Million Missing Women” is to inform, create awareness among people regarding the difference in the population of men to women and persuading the audience to react by suggesting ways to remove this inequality. The main idea of the paragraph I have chosen is about the economic development and the population of women. This paragraph supports the main claim of the essay clearing the doubts and confusions regarding the economic development and population of women
Works cited
Sen, Amartya, “More Than 100 Million Missing Women.” Nybooks Archives. Dec 20, 1990. Mar 31, 2013.

A paragraph from More than 100 Million Missing Women

Amartya Sen in third paragraph on the second page of his article “More than 100 Million Missing Women” claims that the number of missing women we estimate by comparing the ratio of women to men in countries like china, India, and Africa and the ratio in the countries where women and men are given similar rights, reveals that these countries—China, India, and Africa—have terrible gender inequality, which leads to low survival rate of women.

To support his claim Amartya Sen uses two hard evidences: the ratio of women to men (0.94) in South Asia and the ratio of women to men (1.05) in countries where women and men get similar rights. These two claim strongly supports the main idea of this paragraph that women’s survival rate is low because of the discrimination of women. He further deduces logos by calculating the number of missing women—6% deficit—first by considering equal population of both sexes and comparing the ratio of women to men 0.94. Then by comparing the ratio 1.05 he finds that the number of missing women increased to 11%. The number he calculated of missing women in China—develop  country—that  is 50 million, supports one of his claim that only development in the society does not affect on the women survival rate. Further the 100 million missing women in India supports the claim that discrimination of women regarding the basic rights can cause fewer women survive.

This paragraph specifically discusses the reason of the missing women and gives logical evidences and facts in support. It is the directly related to the main purpose of the article: finding the reason of the missing women in countries like India, Africa and China. This paragraph shows that the one of the largest reasons for the missing women is the unequal rights, and the strong logos helps the readers to believe the author’s claim.

 

Work cited

Sen, Amartya, “More Than 100 Million Missing Women.” Nybooks Archives. Dec 20, 1990. Mar 4, 2013.

Contribution of A Paragraph to More Than100 Million Missing Women

Amartya Sen In paragraph four on second page of his article “More Than100 Million Missing Women” argues that East West division does not hinders the political career of women in East. Although the ratio of women to men is very low in large countries of South Asia as compare to West. His argument seems very vague but he manages to strengthen it by his evidences and facts.
To prove his main argument about East-West division and political career of women yet low ratio of women to men in South Asia, he uses logos from South Asian countries. For instance, he uses “women to men ratios of South Asian countries being lowest in the world” for examples India and Bangladesh: 0.94, and Pakistan: 0.90, which are the large countries of the region having lowest ratio of women to men. Furthermore, he adds the political status of women in South Asia and he discusses these regions being “pioneer in electing women as top political leaders’ but not for ensuring women’s rights. By his evidences he appeals the readers to accept his argument. He simplifies his argument later in another paragraph that women in West have not such political privileges as East have but western common women have more rights and they have outnumber men. Through his examples of Pakistan, Sri Lanka, India and Bangladesh having an elected heads of government, he implies that political career cannot ensure equality and cannot be the cause of low or high ratio of women to men. So people who claim that the East West division is the reason behind low ratio of women to men and doing gender is not valid after analyzing his examples from Eastern world and the right women have in politics.
The paragraph discusses very specific and logical argument of Sen that East West division is not the cause of missing women. It overall presents the idea that there cannot be one reason in lacking women from the world. It also contributes to present the situation of women to men ratio in four largest countries in South Asia which is again very helpful in understanding the ratio of women to men in South Asia as part of the world. The main purpose of Sen in writing this article was to figure out reasons behind 100 million missing women and this specific paragraph is helpful in proving that the conventional believes of East West division cannot be enough reason behind missing women from world. Rather there may be this reason of empowerment of common women in West which makes women less deprived of their rights than in East.

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

Education Influencing decrease of female mortality rate

Nobel Prize laureate Dr. Amartya Sen used the term “missing women” in the article to describe the large number of women throughout the world who succumb to death due to social circumstances, family neglect and discrimination. He considers two factors responsible for the neglecting of women one of which is the cultural contrasts between East and West and the other is stages of economic development (Sen 2). In point 5, second paragraph, Sen Claims that “gainful employment is not the only factor affecting women’s chances of survival. Women’s education and their economic rights—including property rights—may be crucial variables as well” (Sen 5). By this he means that besides gainful employment opportunities, women need proper education and financial support to live better lives and increase life expectancy.
Sen has provided statistical evidences to support his claim. He has used Kerala, a state of India as an example to prove his claim to be correct where he compares the literacy rate of the rich state Punjab and the poor state Kerala of India. He mentions that even though Kerala is a poor state, it has high rate of education of women but still the death rate of women is low compared to that of Punjab which is a rich state. He states that Kerala is not deficit in women as he provides the ratio of women to men in this state as 1.03. He also provides the ratios of women to men in Europe (1.05), China, West Asia, and India as a whole (0.94) (Sen 5). He claims that the literacy rate in Kerala is remarkable as he say –“What is exceptional is Kerala’s remarkably high literacy rate; not only is it much higher than elsewhere in India, it is also substantially higher than in China, especially for women.” And he compares the literacy rate of women in Kerala to that of China. By these evidences, he tries to prove the impact of education besides improvement of economic condition for raising the life expectancy of women folks.
Sen uses Kerala as an ideal state where women have high rate of living as they gain rights to education. He gives a possible solution to the question that he asks at the very beginning as “How can we understand and explain these differences, and react to them?” (1) by stating education as a factor to increase the life expectancy of women as he points out cultural differences between the East and the West and economic development as two major factors of women going missing.

Give women a chance to survival

Gender inequality is an issue which should be concerned about because it leads to negative consequences. The imbalance between male and female population in some countries in Asia, is one of these consequences.
To analyze the reasons and to find the solution, the react, for this imbalance, the economist Amartya Sen researched and wrote the work “More than 100 million missing women”. After reading this article, we can see the cause of the shortage of women in Asian countries due to economic, cultural and social. The causes and the actual statistics are the suggestions for family, society and government review and take care of the birth rate and social life of female.
In paragraph 2 of part 5, Sen partially conveys a message of supporting for the rights of women. In this paragraph, the author claims the importance of “women’s education and their economic rights” in “women’s chances of survival” and use of Kerala in India as a strong evidence for his claim. Be compared with other regions of India and most other countries in Asia, Karala’s ratio of women to men is significantly higher. In addition, the life expectancy of women is also much higher than men here. Although Karala in India is also a part of Asia but here women’s education and rights are higher, which leads to higher women’s population life’s qualities.
By providing specific numbers to compare women’s rights in Kerala and other areas and showing its benefits, this paragraph contributes to find out the solution for the “terrible story of inequality and neglect” that Sen mentions.

Missing Women in China Super Power of Economy

 China is a country with a traditional bias against women, but women’s importance could be identified by support of Chinese leaders that was done for reducing inequality between men and women. The Chinese leaders did this help by expanding medical services, and by increasing gainful jobs opportunities for women. Even though China was challenging with a terrible famines, the expectancy at birth increased from the low forties around 1950 to the high sixties. By 1979 that the economic and social reforms were introduced, there had been a sharp reduction in general mortality. After the reformation China had a big economical improvement. But at the same time, the official figures also record an increase in the general mortality rates(Sen,9).

While some people emphasize on economy to reduce mortality, this paragraph from “More than 100 Million Missing Women” indicates the peripheral role of economy in mortality of women. Good economy usually brings a good perspective of life in different aspects including medical treatment, nutrient food, and all the necessaries for a good life; therefore, people expect low mortality. China is a good example to indicates that powerful economy always does not help women. The reformation took women’s jobs from them; therefore, they lost their power and respect both in the society and families.  Medical services for women were stopped. Men took all the power of economy and women were forced to stay home; therefore, men were introduced as bread winners. The one child policy of China and the job situations for women pushed Chinese for being more sexist, as result there are many cases of abortion for baby girls. On the other hand since women lost their respect in the families and society, their needs are ignored both in families and society because they are not productive anymore. Obviously each person cares about her or his own needs more than anybody else, but unemployment of women made them helpless to answer their essential needs. As result Chinese are missing 50 million of women in their country.  All these clearly show that how women’s mortality is hidden under stereotype about wealthy countries like China.

 

Work cited:
Sen, Amartya. “More than 100 Missing Women.” Nybooks Archives. Dec 20, 1990. Mar 4, 2013.

Gender discrimination in the past leads to no information about women’s status in history

In the essay “A Room of One’s Own” the writer creates an imaginary character named Judith Shakespeare, who is supposed to be William Shakespeare’s sister. She was adventurous, imaginative as her brother and also extraordinarily gifted. However, she was not allowed to go to school and learn grammar or logic as her brother. There existed gender discrimination that resulted as a tragedy of killing herself for trying to flee from the boundaries of society.

 According to historian’s point of view women are considered weak and incapable of reading, writing or doing any other job except for handling households. Similarly, the poets only consider women for their physical beauty and claims that they do not possess the intelligence. In contrast to historians and poets point of view Judith Shakespeare was capable like her brother but she was not given an opportunity to enhance her inherited qualities. The author chooses to write about the imaginary character “Judith Shakespeare” instead of telling the story of real women because she could hardly get any information about women’s life during the Elizabethan age. Therefore, she used fiction in order to form the image of women’s lifestyle and status which was not available in the real world.