The Ugly Truth About Micro Loans

Micro loans. They're presented as a benevolent force, especially the NGO's operating in Bangladesh. Most forms of capital, i.e. loans, have been traditionally denied to the poor, who had no collateral to offer. However,  micro loans in Bangladesh are offered without the expectation of collateral, barring the strategic use of honor and shame. 

According to Lamia (1998), honor and shame already play a heavy role in Bangladesh society, beginning with women. Honor is an exemplarary asset to wield in rural Bangladesh, and can be measured and lost by how honorable a woman behaves. Even as micro loans are offered to women,  Lamia (1998)concludes that over 90% of the loans are used by the men of the household. Therefore, the practice of lending money to rural women under the pretense of economic freedom seems a bit misleading, further complicated by the issue of shame.

As theorized by Spradley & McCurdy (2009), philanthropic efforts and/or gifts, usually come with unseen strings attached. With micro loans, the unseen string is shame. To lose face, or experience shame, in Bangladesh is something a family might not recover from. Since women are the extensions of family honor, and therefore shame, when the loans are not paid on time, shame is a powerful instrument used by NGO's to secure a return on their investment.  Lamia (1998) goes into detail about how women are shamed into paying back their debt: spitting on them as they go by, pulling their hair, hitting, cursing them publicly.  Lamia (1998) suggests that the 98% repayment of micro loans can be viewed in a whole new way when shaming is considered.

Overall, micro loans in Bangladesh have positives and negatives,  but mostly negatives.  One positive thing about the micro loans would be the 50-60% interest, compared to that of rural loans, which can inflate to 120% interest (Lamia, 1998). Many negatives attached to micro loans stem from the revolving sides of honor and shame.  If not for those two societal elements already present in the society of Bangladesh, the high success rate in repayments would probably be a lot lower than it is. 

Read more about micro loans here.

Or

Watch the documentary Women's Bank of Bangladesh.

"Brave New World"- So Close Yet So Far from Utopia

A picture of Richard Stallman, in the style of Che Guevara. 
The title is a play on
"O brave new world / that has such people in it"
from The Tempest and Brave New World.
Date: October 2006
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Huxley’s speculative tale of London in the year A.F. 632 is a Utopian world except for a few distinctive differences. There is the matter of a class system determined even before birth. Fertilized human eggs are chemically treated to be Epsilons, Betas, Alphas, or other derivatives. Once the egg becomes a full-fledged human being, the mental and physical conditioning begins. Children are raised in wards by the State, taught that their god is Ford (as in the Ford that invented the automobile assembly line), and also taught repetitive reasoning in their sleep, such as “Never put off till tomorrow the fun you can have today” (Huxley 93).

In place of love, there is the pursuit of fun in the form of “the feelies” and drugs like soma. Like in The Giver, the public is unaware of the implications of death or what it really entails, another way to shield citizens from feeling anything real. Similar to both Anthem and The Giver, this dystopia is ruled by a handful of individuals known as Directors. Directors are always male, therefore the gender equality implied by Huxley is severely lacking. The reader need only analyze the sexual dynamic between the genders to come to the conclusion that in Brave New World, women are still beneath men in the social ladder.

Women are required to be sexually available at every turn, and part of that is maintaining a fit and “pneumatic” body. Another burden the women must abide is the responsibility of safe sex. All women carry a belt around, a belt full of different contraceptives. In the book, it is never mentioned that a man must upkeep his body for women, or remember to use contraceptives. Huxley leaves that up to the women.

If a woman (or man) chooses not to be promiscuous, they are seen as socially inept. Given that, there is no marriage in Huxley’s world. If two people are considered a couple, it is prudent for them to begin coupling with anyone and everyone else they can, the sooner the better.

The main female characters in the novel, Lenina and Lydia, are both insipid and promiscuous, a product of their society. Two main male characters in the novel, Bernard and Helmholtz, are likewise products of their society, however, Huxley allows them to question their surroundings and long for a better world. Helmholtz confides in his friend Bernard that he is unhappy, even though he is at the top of the class system as an Alpha and women literally line up to sleep with him: “I’m thinking of a queer feeling I sometimes get, a feeling that I’ve got something important to say and the power to say it---only I don’t know what it is, and I can’t make any use of the power” (Huxley 69). Bernard tries to explain to Lenina what is lacking in their society after she repeats the mantra learned in their childhood, Everybody’s happy nowadays. “Yes," Bernard tells her, "‘Everybody’s happy nowadays.’ We begin giving the children that at five. But wouldn't you like to be free to be happy in some other way, Lenina? In your own way, for example; not in everybody else’s way.” (Huxley 91).

Aldous Huxley
Date: (original upload) May 2007
Transferred from Wikipedia
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Happiness is the main objective of Huxley’s alternative London, but as Bernard and Helmholtz illustrate, their world is far from perfect. Even though there is no war, disease, or poverty, not everyone feels happy because they are too controlled. Everyone’s absolute place in the world is chosen from birth, down to what they’re going to look like, their place in the class system, and where they’re going to work. There are no creative freedoms, and that is what is most stifling about Huxley’s dystopia. Everything else, such as gender and class disparities, follows in the wake of that.

Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. London: Chatto and Windus, 1932. Print.

Global Perspectives in the Development of Gender Studies

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony are two names synonymous with women’s suffrage in history. They are two women who made a difference in the world of women’s rights, but at the same time, their experiences make up only a small part of women in society. 

When most people think of gender studies, they think of women’s suffrage. However, there are many other important facets of feminist history and societal impacts that make up gender studies; “The history of notable women is the history of exceptional, even deviant women, and does not describe the experience and history of the mass of women,” (Lerner, 1975, p. 5).

Gender studies was once referred to as women’s studies. However, many universities on an international scale felt the term turned students off and so women’s studies changed to gender studies. By using ‘gender studies’ as opposed to ‘women’s studies’, universities in Mexico and the U.K. were able to legitimize the study of gender and feminism, (Stromquist, 2001, p. 375). Stereotypes about gender studies have slowly begun to fade. While there are still many pre-conceived notions regarding the main points of gender studies (feminism, female history, and women’s roles), global perspectives have helped to change the field of gender studies.

            The term ‘global perspectives’ can be described as the collective voice of the international academic community on any given subject. For example, it is how the study of gender studies would differ in the U.S. and in Spain. Women are regarded differently in both countries; both countries have a different status for women, and show their expectations for women through media or cultural forms. Religious views in either country, along with the roles of high officials (queens, politicians) compared with that of other women (artisans, teachers) can produce new insights. When both the American and Spainish perspectives on gender studies are analyzed together, they can complement one another to create new schools of thought. Global perspectives in the field of gender studies has raised new questions and shaped new theories. 

As observed by Nelly Stromquist, gender studies were once generalized by the following sub-topics: family, work, motherhood, marriage, science, the state, power, law, social class, and ethnicity. In more recent applications of gender studies, it has become apparent that there are more complex sub-topics that made up gender studies. New questions have been raised and changes in gender studies include: “marriage and divorce, educational opportunities, economic struggles of working women, female sexuality, the subordinate position of women,” (Lerner, 1975, p. 7). A big part of creating new and varied perspectives on gender studies is  remembering that while women have been largely victimized throughout history, that should not be the central theme when relating their experiences, thoughts, and roles to society.

In literature and other forms of mass media, women’s roles have been generalized. At times, it is hard to set women apart from their described roles in media from their actual lives. Though mass media is an ethereal part of life, it can sometimes infiltrate conceptualized versions of reality.  In the Victorian era, society’s expectations of women dictated a woman’s place.

Mass media is not the only hindrance to gender studies; racial inequalities in gender studies can create generalizations as well. White women do not have the market on gender studies, nor do African Americans. There are other marginalized groups like Native Americans, Asians, and Hispanics that were almost ignored in relation to gender studies up until the 1990’s (Dubois, 2003). Marginalized views are necessary to the diversification of gender studies. At the same time, Ellen Carol Dubois feels there is a danger in creating a narrow lens that focuses on the racism of early white feminist, and how feminism can be inherently racist in and of itself. Again, that is an unfortunate part of gender studies, (much like women’s suffrage and victimization), but by no means should it become the core of any gender studies curriculum.

            
One more assumption of gender studies that has been renewed is the belief that U.S. gender studies have been internationalized successfully. Dubois strongly believes that that is not the case. She believes that U.S. women’s history has failed to include anything beyond our own national interests. Dubois feels that scholars in continents like Europe, Asia, and Africa will shape the perspectives needed to open up American gender studies to a fuller extent.

Gender studies is still a new field, even though it was introduced into the university system in the 1970’s. Forty years for an academic interdisciplinary field is not that impressive when traditional disciplines like history, philosophy, and literature have been part of the academic world for centuries. Given that gender studies is still in its infancy, it is changing everyday and global perspectives has a lot to do with said changes. When society is analyzed from only one nationalized perspective, the study itself becomes severely limited. In the United States, there are so many classes to be studied, both by race and class. There is much to be gained by looking at gender studies through the kaleidoscope of a larger worldview. The understanding of women evolves as each international school of thought is added to the mix. Gender studies will continue to adjust to the changes brought on by global perspectives and marginalized voices.    

Dubois, E, C. (2003, May 16). “Three decades of women’s history”. Women's Studies, 35(1).

Retrieved on July 17, 2011 from the Utrecht American Studies Network.

Lerner, G. (1975, Autumn). “Placing women in history".  Feminist Studies, 3, (1/2), 5-14.

Retrieved on July 17, 2011 from JSTOR Database.

Stromquist, N., P. (2001, June). “Gender studies: a global perspective of their evolution,

 

contribution, and challenges to comparative higher education”. Higher Education, 41,

 

(4), 373-387. Retrieved on July 17, 2011 from the JSTOR Database.  

Swift Wants to Fry Up Your Baby and Make Sweet Bacon!

During the early 1800's, a general strife was ongoing in Ireland, if one can deduce such facts from the allusions in Jonathon Swift's "A Modest Proposal". In the beginning of his satire, Swift draws in the reader by lamenting about the conditions of his town and country, "see the streets, the roads, the cabin doors, crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags and importuning every passenger for an alms," (Greenblatt, et al, 2006). Apparently, the Irish countryside was flooded with beggars, many of them mothers with children in tow. Not only that, but the children born and raised in the degradation of perpetual poverty would only rise up to 'serve abroad' or likewise become beggars themselves. A last choice for the poor children of Ireland was to be a thief.

If the children truly wanted to aid society, Swift reasoned the only way for them to do that was to become a food source for the rich. The selling of children to the rich would help the oppressed people and made sense because, "this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children," (Greenblatt et al, 2006). In humorous tones, Swift goes on to describe the problems that the selling and eating of children would solve, such as 'lessening the number of papists [priests]', help tenants pay their rent, cause mothers to value their children even more (the ones they intend to keep at least), and it would cause men to appreciate their wives more because they would be more valuable as breeders, like cows, (Greenblatt et al, 2006).

All humor aside, what Swift really would have liked to have seen solved was taxes, pride, vanity, nationalism, fair dealings among merchants and shopkeepers, empathy from landlords towards their tenants, and an all encompassing goodness of man that would not so easily sell out his country or fellow man for nothing, (Greenblatt et al, 2006). His arguments were given more meaning because of the flippant way he made fun of them to begin with. There was truth in his humor and passion in his ending arguments that could not be denied.

Revolutionary writing like "A Modest Proposal" is necessary because it serves the purpose of illuminating the wrongs of society. It may not illustrate how to correct them, but by articulating the problems, change can occur over time once people begin to understand what is wrong and how it can be amended.

References:

Greenblatt, et al. [Eds]. (2006). The norton anthology english literature (8th ed.). New York NY: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Better Government through the Eyes of Thoreau and Douglass

The United States has always been the ideal for a better life and the sought-after ‘all-American dream’. Thanks in large part to the founding fathers with their inspirational words and declarations, freedom of choice is available for each and every United States citizen: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,”. While these words convey a sense of a just government coupled with equality for all, neither of those concepts were always implemented or accepted as the status quo. Before the Civil War, two great men had similar thoughts about what was wrong with the United States government: Henry David Thoreau and Frederick Douglass. Both of these men had entirely different backgrounds, but Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience and Douglass’ What to the Slave is the Fourth of July have much in common concerning the legitimacy of the laws at the time.

Civil Disobedience speaks of the fallacies of ‘big’ government. In fact, Thoreau believed in the idea of no government at all, claiming in his essay that when man was ready for it, they would govern themselves, (McMichael & Leonard, 2011). His ideas may have been rooted in common sense, but at the time they were radical. Radical was also the describing word for Douglass’ What to the Slave is the Fourth of July. He began by complimenting the founding fathers and their sacrifices, leading into a lamentation of slave’s oppressions in comparison with the ideas of freedom sustained only 76 years prior. Douglass explained quite eloquently how the Fourth of July was not a holiday to be enjoyed by all, because it was a celebration of freedom earned only for the white man. Slaves were in chains, at times literally, therefore the Fourth of July for a slave was a holiday that was a pantomime of freedom and equality. The arguments brought forth by Douglass and Thoreau appeared on the surface to be vastly different, but there are some common threads that bond them.

Essentially, Douglass and Thoreau both desired a better government. Thoreau demonstrated this in Civil Disobedience, “But, to speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government,” (McMichael & Leonard, 2011). Douglass also displayed his will for an improved government in What to the Slave is the Fourth of July, “[…] nations number their years by thousands. According to this fact, you are[the United States], even now, only in the beginning of your national career, still lingering in the period of childhood. I repeat, I am glad this is so. There is hope in the thought, and hope is much needed, under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon,” (McMichael & Leonard, 2011). 

Civil Disobedience was not exactly an anti-slavery piece, but it called for men to use their conscience above all else, a sentiment which Douglass would have wholeheartedly agreed with, “Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience,” (McMichael & Leonard, 2011). Given Thoreau’s words, it can be safely assumed that he believed slavery to be an act unjustifiable, to be rectified by men with morals and a conscience.

The United States has had decades to evolve and learn from society’s many mistakes. However, over a hundred and fifty years ago, Henry David Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience and Frederick Douglass’ What to the Slave is the Fourth of July were two intelligent literary pieces that shared similar thoughts about the faults of the United States government and how to better it. Both men saw beyond themselves, differentiating what was truly important from the everyday monotonous tasks of human life. It takes a unique soul to recognize injustice, and an even braver soul to speak out against it. Thankfully, unique and brave men like Thoreau and Douglass paved the way for a better American way of living.

McMichael, G. & Leonard, J. S. (2011). Concise anthology of american literature. (Eds.).

New York, NY: Pearson Education, Inc.