Population, Women, and Poverty

Posted: December 22nd, 2022

Population, Women, and Poverty

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Population, Women, and Poverty

Whereas women play important roles in the society, they are at a higher risk of experiencing poverty. The main reason for such likelihood is gender inequality, where more men enjoy a higher social class than women. Despite some essential progress to change the situation in recent years, none of the nations has achieved a socio-economic balance between men and women, and women are still far more likely to experience poverty than males. The analysis starts with a summary of the necessary sources (primary and secondary) before evaluating how the notion of population, women, and poverty develops from the different works. While the socio-economic views that people have about women could disrupt their attempts to empower them, women have the ability to perform equally well if offered equal rights and opportunity. It is necessary to take appropriate measures that would enable women to improve their wellbeing to achieve a society where both genders progress equally.

Summary of the Primary and Secondary Sources

Primary Sources

A Tryal of Skill. The speaker (persona) warns men against bad women who take advantage of any available opportunity to satisfy their economic needs. A man who comes to town to sell his cattle meets a pretty lady who turns out to be a prostitute who is only interested in the man’s money. The two, after getting to know each other, proceed to the man’s house where they eat and drink. The woman, however, sneaks out at night with her child, carrying the man’s bag where he places all the money.

The Lamentation of Seven Journey Men Taylors. A woman maintains constant interaction with a man she believes will help her. Unfortunately, the man leaves, forcing her to find a way of feeding herself.

The Lusty Fryer of Flanders. The ballad describes how a man forms a love relationship with thirty nuns, before escaping. He thinks it is fun at the start but becomes fearful when he realizes that he commits a sin by having sex with them.

Secondary Sources

Society Must be Defended.Foucault (2003) believes that it is easier to achieve growth through independence rather than through authoritative approaches. The author describes some of the factors he feels could ruin sovereignty and equality, and pays particular attention to racism that he feels weakens the attempts to achieve equality. Foucault (2003) describes war as disturbing peace and one that puts power over life. The author fights for the rights of every person and calls on political leaders to stop the acts that promote killings. He argues that even though it possible to change society, transformation does not happen all at once and that proper mechanisms must be in place to achieve the best outcome.

An Essay on the Principle of Population. Malthus (1998) explores the population dynamics and looks at how the population changed over time in ancient times. The report pays particular attention to the Roman Empire and describes how policy changes and food security contributed to population growth. Malthus (1998) shows the importance of developing suitable laws to stabilize and control the population by giving the example of England, where before the reforms less effective policies resulted in a situation where the taxes collected from the poor people did not help improve their welfare. Malthus (1998) also illustrates how colonialism introduced diseases that reduced the population in many areas.

Evaluating the Concept of Population, Women, and Poverty as Presented in the Sources

Even though more men happen to assume a higher position than women, it is important to consider the concept of sovereignty that allows everyone to enjoy their freedom, regardless of their gender. Women should have the chance to make decisions that suit them and should be able to choose between good and bad. So far, many societies do not give as many women as men the chance to participate in political activities in the same way they lack the chance to make major decisions at the family level. Even as the population of women continues to grow, only a few of them get the chance to play significant roles in other people’s lives.

Many societies have the view that men deserve better positions compared to women and that whereas males should go to work and earn for their services, women should stay back at home and attend to the duties in the house. Other than being stationed at home, women who get the chance to fend for their selves usually get into unethical practices. The woman in A Tryal of Skill, for example, has to sell her body to get some money and even steals from other men to get what she needs. The persona in the ballad narrates how he lost “sevenscore pounds besides a fine babe at nurse”. The persona even goes ahead to urge men to take heed of bad women who could take advantage of them. Women, however, sometimes get into such unethical practices because of poverty, making it difficult for them to meet their requirements. The speaker in A Tryal of Skill says she met a poor girl with a good-looking child in her arms. The woman, according to the speaker in the ballad, seemed to be a gentlewoman that was forced into poverty. The woman is pushed into her actions by her condition that makes it difficult to get some of the basic needs. She does not have a job, yet the child needs food. She might not like her conduct but she must take away the money to survive. The ballad clearly illustrates how poverty pushes women to great limits to fend for their needs and their children’s. The case illustrates how many women suffer in poverty but have children to feed.

The descriptions in “The Lamentation of Seven Journey Men Taylors” and “The Lusty Fryer of Flanders” further help to understand why women may engage in issues beyond their desires because of the poverty they face. The persona in The Lusty Fryer of Flanders, for example, describes how he manages to seduce nuns who give in because of their inability to safeguard their selves. The woman in “Lamentation of Seven Journey Men Taylors” does not know where to begin after a man she thinks would help her leaves. The ballad illustrates how women depend on men for survival, and possibly to avoid poverty.

Foucault (2003) feels that if it is true that the power of sovereignty is increasingly on the decrease and that forceful power is taking over, the power to kill will dominate and will take life as its object. Disciplinary power interferes with the desire to be independent and weakens the effort by the less powerful to climb the social ladder (Foucault, 2003). Women are likely to be the major victims should forceful power take over because of their physical nature that makes most of them unable to fight for what is rightfully theirs. Political leaders, therefore, need to exercise appropriate leadership; one that is not likely to leave others out or cause oppression.

Other than the growth in sovereignty, the issue of racism still denies many women the chance to excel, thereby putting them at a higher risk of becoming poor. Some women fail to secure jobs because of their race and might fail to get other essential services. Foucault (2003) refers to racism as the emergence within the biological scale of human races, the variation among races, the levels of races, and the facts that some races are viewed as good and some, in contrast, are termed as inferior. Foucault (2003) views racism as a way of separating out the groups that exist within a given population. Racism, according to Foucault (2003), is a way of creating disunity in a group that appears to be together. Such a situation shall allow powerful people to regard the population as a collection of races, or to be more accurate, to treat the groups, and to subdivide it into smaller categories called races. Therefore, the function of racism is to fragment and to cause confusion within a given people that brings people from different backgrounds together.

The idea that women are at a higher risk of facing poverty calls for the adoption of mechanisms that would promote socio-economic growth among this population. An effective approach would be to educate members of the society about the need to equally empower both men and women so as to avoid a scenario where only one gender prevails. The political leaders should allocate sufficient resources on the education sector to acquire enough trained educators on the issue of women and power (Malthus, 1998). People should understand that every person is equal regardless of their gender, religion, race, and other factors that make people unique. More essential is to create policies that offer women equal chances in the job market as their male counterparts to lower the pay gap that deny many females the chance to overcome poverty (Foucault, 2003). The policies should require employers to ensure they have almost the same number of female workers as male employees to avoid a situation where men can easily overcome poverty than women. Even though the global population of males happens to be large, it should not be the reason to have fewer females working in the various sectors. Further, the society should change its perception about women and view them as people with equal capacity to achieve the desired goals and objectives. Failing to embrace appropriate measures could cause a situation where even as the world’s population continues to grow, women may still lack equal representation, especially in areas that would help them overcome poverty.

Conclusion

The analysis pays attention to the connection between population, women, and poverty and describes how so many women still live in poverty despite several developments aimed at achieving gender equality. Historically, the society has placed women in a position that prevents them from climbing the socio-economic ladder. Many women have to stay at home to take care of the family, and a few who find ways of fetching for themselves do not get enough returns, forcing some to enter into unethical conduct. It is suitable to take proper measures that would improve women’s position and help them overcome poverty.

References

“A Tryal of Skill”. Retrieved from https://ebba.english.ucsb.edu/ballad/33399/xml

Foucault, M. (2003). “Society must be defended”. New York, NY: Picador.

Malthus, T. (1998). An essay on the principle of population. London: Electronic Scholarly Publishing Project.

“The Lamentation of Seven Journey Men Taylors”. Retrieved from https://ebba.english.ucsb.edu/ballad/33399/xml

“The Lusty Fryer of Flanders”. Retrieved from https://ebba.english.ucsb.edu/ballad/21040/xml