More
Than 100 Million Women Are Missing – Amartya Sen
The article “More Than 100 Million Women Are Missing”
by Amartya Sen is an elaborate analysis of women’s condition in almost all
countries all over the world. In order to show the gender inequality among
different societies, at first the writer, Amartya Sen, starts with the
arguments of ‘mistaken belief’ of women being more than the half of the world
population. He says that the truth is the number of women is less than the
number of men and he introduces the term ‘missing women’ for pointing out the
disparity in gender equality. Based on this argument, Amartya Sen establishes
his idea of women’s inferior condition by showing the reasons behind the gender
imbalance in population.
The writer has divided
his arguments into different sections and in each section; he has used a lot of
a data and statistical evidence for strengthening his claims. At first, he
talks about the fact of less number of women in various countries and regions
and also gives us a hint of the reasons behind this differences in brief. Then,
he thoroughly explains each reason and uses relevant evidences. He says that it
is not necessarily true that the deprivation of women’s rights of education,
proper medical care and many others are always based on the economic status of
a country or a region.
Further, Amartya Sen
claims that the social structure plays more important role in gender
discrimination. The illiteracy and ignorance cause the increase in the
mortality rate among girl children that keeps affecting the ratio between boys
and girls to greater imbalance. He says that the deficit of women / girls is
concentrated in South Asia and South East Asia because the tendency of son-preference
is stronger in Asia than in most of the western countries due to their
cultural, religious beliefs and economical differences. Sons are expected to
take certain, previously decided roles in the families, such as taking care of
their parents’ life after their retirement in South and South-East Asian Countries,
which leads parents to invest much money and much care on their sons rather than
their daughters.
The development of
technology that enables parents to know the gender of their child before birth.
It also enhances the deficit of girls because if the unborn baby is a girl,
they (parents) would commit infanticide either commonly or legally or both. In
order to fix this problem of “missing girls”, it is very important for people
to be aware of this problem and try to bring change in their negative attitude
towards girl children. Involvement of government would also be required as well
to bring change in this respect. Most importantly, girls themselves should
increase their level of self-esteem and parents of a child / children must take
equal and loving care to their kids, whether they are sons or daughters. Thus, Amartya Sen uses some examples of
gender equality in some regions and explains why in those societies women enjoy
same position as men. In such cases only, gender equality will be maintained
and it sets forth for healthy society.
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you have oversimplified the facts, sir. please try to be more specific while you summarize. It will be more informational, then.Thank you!
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