Knowledge in Sociology
criminals of women rapes be given death sentence?
Since crimes against women have increased manifold nowadays, with the justice procedures extremely slow , one question that faces the society today is..should a death sentence be the ultimate solution to stop thses crimes? Refer to the attached clip
Neha chaurasia
Shivangi Bhansali
SEXISM AND GENDER INEQUALITY
SEXISM AND GENDER INEQUALITY
Arushi Verma
Caste Discrimination
Caste Discrimination
Sociology Notes
Notes on Sociology
Akshay Kumar
COMMUNALISM WITHOUT VIOLENCE
India is a country whose history is filled with communal acts of violence. This is due to many reasons such as its independence from the British, its relationship with neighboring countries etc. In this essay, we will introduce some key terms that will help you understand the topic better and then we will look at some of the ways in which we can stop communal violence in this country. 1. VIOLENCE AS A POLITICAL ORDER Political violence is a term which is used to describe a scenario in which either a single person or even whole governments use violence in order to gain political power or to achieve political goals. In India, we follow a multi-party system and because of that, there is a lot of competition in terms of getting votes. In order to get these votes, most political parties either give false promises to the people, use bribery as a means to get votes, threaten to either kill or beat up people who will go against them etc. It is not only the political parties that are responsible for political violence in India. The public too is responsible as there have been many scenarios where the public uses force in order to express their opinion on political matters. They are responsible for mobs, looting, arson etc. There are also many non- state organizations such as a terrorist group who use extreme ways such as bomb blasts as ways of communicating their displeasure. Now we ask the question of what is state-related violence? 2. STATE- RELATED VIOLENCE State-related violence is when an organized group or the government itself uses violence either against another state or against civilians. For the purpose of this essay, we will be focusing on the latter part which is violence against civilians. There are many types of violence the state can do against civilians such as using armed forces to subdue an uprising. An example of this would be the Maoist movement in North- East India and how the Indian government is using the Indian army as a means of subduing them. What we will be focusing on in this essay is state-related genocide or ethnic cleansing. Ethnic cleansing is a process in which violent acts are carried out against a particular group of people based either on their caste, color, religion etc. This can also be called communal violence. What is communalism? 3. COMMUNALISM We can say that communalism “ in its most commonly perceived form, is the phenomenon of religious differences between groups often leading to tension and even rioting between them.( Mukhia 1983, p.1664). Communalism is a product of British rule in India as the Britishers separated India into separate communities for their own benefit. In India, religious conflicts have been mainly between Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs. It all stems back to pre-independent India, where during the 19th century, there was the cow protection movement. Hindus worship cows and thus killing cows was not acceptable to them and thus began the long conflict between Hindus and Muslims through which numerous lives had been lost. Several pictures and motifs started to appear in broadcast appeals such as “the representation of the Muslim- and to a lesser extent the Englishmen, the Indian Christian and others- as the killer cows and, hence, the enemy of Hinduism”( Pandey 1999, p.310) and “ other pictures more simply portrayed a (Muslim) butcher ready to slaughter a cow, and Hindus of several different castes crying out to him to desist”( Pandey 1999, p.310). This was just the start of the violence between Hindus and Mulims. The partition only deepened the wound as communal violence between the claimed close to 1 million lives. How do we stop communal violence? 4. COMMUNALISM WITHOUT VIOLENCE Communalism does not mean communal violence as “ Communal violence is a consequence of the spread of communal ideology. But it is not the crux of the communal situation at all.”( Chandra 1990, p.38) There are many ways in which communal violence can be stopped. One of the most important ways is to either abolish all communal parties or to make sure that none of them come to power. As previously said, communalism was a product of colonization by the British. Due to this, there was a lot of different communities and each community had their own interests. Thus, to express those interests, each community made their own communal political party and “ The Muslim League and the Hindu Mahasabha of the pre-Independence India are the king examples of such communal organizations” ( Mukhia 1972, p.46) All communal parties have a religious ideology and they would like to implement the elements of those ideologies and that is a real threat to Secularism in India. In many cases, this leads to communal violence between two or more communities. This is also not an opinion but is a fact because there have been many cases of this over the last century. It was the Muslim League who had come up with the two-nation theory and had demanded that another country is formed just for Muslims as they thought that they were second-class citizens in India. That lead to the partition of India which resulted in the lives of close to 1 million people. Another example would be when in 1984 Indra Gandhi attacked the Golden Temple in Amritsar with the help of the Indian army in order to capture the Sikh militants who had taken refuge in the temple. This was not taken well by the Sikh community as the Golden Temple has religious sentiment to them and Indra Gandhi was later assassinated by her two Sikh bodyguards as vengeance for her act of violence. This later lead to anti- Sikh riots in which close to 3000 Sikhs, including woman and children, were either burned alive or killed and thousands became homeless. Even today there are many communal parties. Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh ( RSS) is a Hindu nationalist party who promotes the ideology of Hindutva. If this party were to come to power then it would not be good for people of other religions as they would be treated as second-class citizens. Another communal party is Bhartiya Janata Party( BJP) who share a similar ideology to RSS. Both these parties are also responsible for inciting communal violence as it was their rally that caused the activists and the supporters to demolish the Babri Masjid in 1992. This turned into riots in which more than 2000 Hindus and Muslims were killed. Another incident in which BJP was suspected to be involved with communal violence was in 2002 in Gujrat, when a train full of Hindu pilgrim or ‘ karsevaks’ was burned and the people suspected that such an act could only be done by Muslims. This had again led to anti- Muslim riots in Gujrat and around 1000 people dead with more than 2000 people either injured or missing, with most of them being Muslim. The then chief minister of Gujrat, Narendra Modi, who was also of BJP, was accused of starting or initiating the riots. From the examples we just discussed we know how dangerous it could be if a communal party is in power although it might not be true in all cases. If a communal party has state power then it means “above all, control of education, it means control of media, it means control of ideological State apparatuses in general”( Chandra 1990, p.43). Through this power, the party might bring good to the society, or else it could use the media and manipulate the education system to spread its ideology. Another method to remove communal violence is through the right kind of education. As previously mentioned, most communal parties spread wrong ideologies and one of the reasons that people believe them so easily is because they have not received the right kind of education. That is because in some states the children are brainwashed at a young age as the curriculum in their schools spread their religious ideologies. The previous statement is supported by K. N. Panikar who says “. Much before the M.P. and U.P. governments took steps to rewrite textbooks these books were in circulation, imparting to in young minds Hindu religious consciousness and communal ideology” ( Panikar 1993, p.28). He also says “The focus of these books is religious and their message communal. Extracts from Hindu scriptures, stories from Hindu mythology and the heroism of Hindu kings against Muslim rulers are their main content.”( Panikar 1993, p.28). With the right kind of education, the children can learn the positive sides of every community and not participate in violence rather than being subjected to only the negatives of every other community other than their own. Continuing with the previous argument, better education would mean a better understanding of other communities. This could be used to promote inter-communal marriage. Due to the lack of proper education in many places, religious orthodoxy remains an issue and there have been cases in which a couple from different religions either get exiled by their communities or are hunted down by their communities. This could be changed by proper education as this may get rid of previously mentioned radical approaches. If two families from different communities are joined together by marriage, then this could be followed by other families in other communities too. Through this, they will be able to ‘discover’ more about the other communities and might realize that whatever they had been told about the other community was in fact wrong. This system of inter-communal marriage is already taking place across India in big cities but it will really make a difference if also done in small cities and rural areas. One of the very important reasons of why communal violence takes place mostly between Hindus and Muslims is due to how media portray Muslims. Due to the history between the two communities because of the violence that ensued during the partition and the recent Muslim attacks in the name of Islam all over the world, the media has somewhat demonized Muslims. Due to all this, the term Islamophobia is used. Islamophobia can be “ observed in its various forms such as racial or cultural prejudice, hatred towards Muslims and Islam and their depiction as a threat to world peace”( Iqbal 2010, p.82). There have also been many attacks in India by Pakistan. Pakistan has been blamed for using militant forces on India and has also been held responsible for trying to turn the Muslim population in India against India. An example of this would be when after the independence of India, the dispute over who Kashmir belonged to arose. In an attempt to get a hold of Kashmir, Pakistan sent militants to Kashmir to take it by force. It was only when Kashmir formally became a part of India when India troops arrived and drove the militants away. That is not the only case when India was attacked by Islamic terrorists. In 2005, a group of terrorists, whose base was in Pakistan attacked Mumbai. The attacks lasted 4 days and over 150 people were killed. It is due to these reasons that there are misconceptions about Muslims such as that all ‘Muslims are terrorists’. As previously said, Pakistan targets the Muslim community in India in attempts to turn them against their own country. This leads to some problems for the Muslim population as “some significant groups in the population find it difficult to reconcile their primordial background with the new-found civic order and hold higher allegiance to the subnational groupings'.” ( Azam 1976, p.26). With the help of the media, we can get rid of these preconceived notions. So from all the above arguments and examples, we can say that communalism is nothing but a false ideology and that the impression it has on people is of a wrong reality which will be harmful to the society. The above reasons could hamper India’s position at a global level. If we try to accomplish the above ways through which we can eradicate communal violence, then we will certainly be able to have a better society and build towards a better future. REFERENCES- 1. Mukhia, Harbans. 1983. “Communalism and Indian Politics”. Economic and Political Weekly 18( 39): 1664 2. Pandey, Gyanendra 1999. “Communalism as Construction”. Politics in India edited by Sudipta Kaviraj, New Delhi: OUP, pp. 349-364 3. Chandra, Bipin. 1990. “Communalism and the State : Some Issues in India.” Social Scientist 18( 8/9): 38-47 4. Mukhia, Harbans. 1972. “ Communalism: A Study in Its Socio- Historical Perspective”. Social Scientist 1(1): 45-57 5. Panikar, K.N. 1993. “ Culture and Communalism”. Social Scientist 21 (3/4) : 24-31 6. Iqbal, Zafar. 2010. “Islamophobia or Islamophobias: Towards Developing A Process Model”. Islamic Studies 49 (1): 81-101 7. Azam, Kousar J. 1976. “THE INDIAN MUSLIMS— THE QUEST FOR IDENTITY”. The Indian Journal of Political Science 37 (3): 24-42
Kartik Mathur
Compare and contrast Malinowski and Brown’s theoretical argument and their understanding of social anthropology
Bronislaw Malinowski and Radcliffe Brown put forward their own respective theories of functionalism. In this essay, I will first mention the arguments put forward by both of them and then I will attempt to find out similarities and differences in those two theories. According to Malinowski, functionalism is the study of the natural aspects of the cultural phenomenon. Malinowski’s notion of functionalism also includes the concept that “human institutions, as well as partial activities within these, are related to primary, that is, biological, or derived, that is, cultural needs.” ( Malinowski 1960, p.159). Thus, his main argument was that culture exists just so that it can satisfy our biological needs. So, we can say that for Malinowski, the culture was a concrete reality and it was the main focus in his theory. Culture cannot exist without institutions as all institutions have functions for the society. For example, the family is an institution and its function in society is to produce children. We can also say that functions are a heuristic device. In the previous example, we took the institution of the family. What if a couple is a homosexual? Then they will not be able to produce any children. In the same way, the function of the law is to give justice but sometimes that does not happen, for example-the Shah Bano case. Each institution has structures and even though the structures may remain the same, the rituals and the techniques may differ. Malinowski also informed us about the importance of artifacts, which are material objects, which are used by humans to communicate with each other, either by speech or by symbolism. For example, a Hindu woman wears a ‘bindi’ on her forehead and ‘ sindoor’ to show that they are married. In this instance, the ‘bindi’ or the ‘sindoor’ acts as an artifact that shows their commitment to their husbands. He also mentions the importance of language as when an infant is born into a family, the function of the kinship is “to provide the infant with a sociological control of its environment through articulate speech.” ( Malinowski 1960, p. 156) According to Radcliffe Brown, Social Anthropology deals with the study of human society and the investigation of social relations amongst human beings. Brown’s theory of functionalism was in complete contrast to that of Malinowski as he thought that social structures were more important than culture. Brown considered Social Anthropology to be a branch of natural sciences. Brown also attempted to explain it through the methods of natural science. We get to know this when he explains as different branches of science deal with certain kind of structures, such as atomic physics deals with the structure of atoms, there will be a branch of natural sciences “which will have for its task the discovery of the general characteristics of those social structures of which the component units are human beings.” ( Brown 1940, p.2) Brown also used the term ‘Social structures’ to denote the complex network of social relations. Social structures include all interpersonal relationships, and also the division of individuals and groups based on their social role. He also compares humans to animals when referring to associations or relations as he gives the example of a beehive and understands the relation between the queen bee, the workers and the drones. He also mentions some social phenomena such as morals, laws, education etc. and that they play a very important role in the existence of social structures. He also uses the example of Latin as a language to explain how the indirect or direct relationship between a social phenomenon and social structures and the way in which they affect the relations between groups of people. He regards social structures as a concrete reality and refers to culture as only a vague abstraction. He also uses the body as an analogy to describe the continuity of social structure – “Throughout the life of an organism its structure is being constantly renewed; and similarly, the social life constantly renews the social structures” ( Brown 1940, p. 4). He's referring to social structures as being constantly renewed gives us the idea that Brown considers social structures to be stable and never-ending. This idea becomes clearer when Brown gives us the term ‘social evolution’, in which evolution means the emergence of new forms of structures while explaining with the example of how an African culture came in contact with an European or Western culture and then produced Western African culture. I will now give an example which I think will make the distinction between these two theories clear. Whenever I am hungry I will want to eat food. According to Malinowski, I will only want to have seafood as I am from Goa because I am used to eating seafood as it is part of my Goan culture. If we take the same situation and compare it with Brown’s argument, he will say that if I am hungry then I will have anything to satisfy my hunger and not only try to find seafood. This is because according to Malinowski, the main aim of culture is to satisfy the physical and the biological needs of the individual but on the other hand, Brown does not think culture has an important part to play in any individuals life. We will first look at the similarities in the theories put forward by Brown and Malinowski. Both Malinowski and Brown and trying to develop a universal understanding of functionalism in which they are trying to attain a method which will be applicable and useful when comparing different phenomena throughout the world. This is especially true for Malinowski as he talks about his theory being used for the comparative analysis of phenomena in various cultures. Another similarity is that they are using language as a foundation to explain their theories, as we have already seen earlier in the essay. There are also many differences in their theories. The most visible is their view on the theory of culture. For Malinowski, the function of culture was to satisfy the biological needs of the individual and on the other hand, Brown considered culture to be abstract and claimed culture only played a role in maintaining the society and not to satisfy individual needs. Brown also only considered society as a whole and thus considered individuals as irrelevant or replaceable, in contrast to Malinowski, who emphasizes the importance of individuals. Even though there were many similarities and differences in their theories, both Malinowski and Brown had the greatest influence on the development of functionalism. BIBLIOGRAPHY:- Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1960. A Scientific Theory of Culture and Other Essays. New York: Oxford University Press Brown, A.R. Radcliffe. 1940. “ On Social Structure”. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. 70(1): pp.1-12
Cross-cultural perception of the changing nature of parenthood and designer babies in urban India
The concept of parenthood and the idea of a family have always been private and personal. But with the onset of globalization over the past few decades, we have let technology interfere into our personal matters. In this essay, we will look at the cross-cultural perception on parenthood with reference to designer babies and changing family structures in urban India. With the help of in-depth interviews and micro-analysis, this study will also examine the relationship between intimacy and technology. Background The family structure has drastically changed over the past few decades. During the mid 20th century the idea of a joint family was very popular. Thus we could see many families living together in one large house. This idea was more popular amongst Asian countries in comparison to western countries, as in Asian societies, culture, traditions, and family are given more importance whereas, in western countries, people are taught to mostly live an individualistic lifestyle in a very competitive society. But due to globalization and the exchange of ideas, the point family stricture started to disintegrate and was replaced with the nuclear family, comprising of a father, a mother and their unmarried children. With this, the ideas of parenting also changed as now the parent's primary concern was the well being of their children and not of the whole joint family, which mostly included aging grandparents. With new movements and revolutions such as the feminist movement in the 1960s, parents became a lot more liberal in their views and the children also got a lot more independent. Thus we can say that marriage and family patterns have changed worldwide in the 21st century. The above statement is backed up by Therborn, a professor of sociology at Cambridge University, who states that “ the combination of increasing rates of divorce, high remarriage rates and more people living alone seems to disprove the thesis of a convergence of family structures, even in the west.” ( Giddens 2009, p.337) nowadays we can see new family patterns emerging such as live-in relationships, same-sex marriages, and single parents. With society nowadays is more and more dependent on technology, we have let it interfere with our most intimate parts of our lives, such as our children. For example, parents are giving their young ones access to play on their smartphone, for the purpose of keeping them quiet or busy. Technology has also now play a very important part in the reproductive process, with many couples opting for methods such as in-vitro fertilization ( IVF )or surrogacy rather than the traditional method of coitus. The latest technological development that has taken place in this area is designer babies. A designer baby is a baby that is genetically engineered for the purpose of having some specific traits that are chosen by their parents, such as the gender of the bay, or the color of the eyes and the height of the baby. In this essay, we will if designer babies would be a proper fit for the current society. Literature review There has been a lot of studies that have been done on designer babies, with many perceiving designer babies for the better and the well being of the society and the family while on the other hand, there are a few articles who have noted the cons of designer babies by focusing on the moral and the ethical aspects which would involve not only the parents and the people involved in the process but also the baby itself. As no particular stand is being taken here, this study incorporates the views of both the sides of the debate. Also, as this study deals with changing views on parenthood and family pattern along with technology and its effect on the process of reproduction, this study will analyze the articles written by authors who have a background in sociology as well as authors who have a background in bioethics and stem cell research. As we have seen earlier in this essay, we have taken a small section on families and intimate relationships in Anthony Giddens book, Sociology 6th edition, to analyze the changing relationship patterns and the family structure. This study will also be challenging Durkheim's theory of functionalism, as he values the importance of a stable family, as it could be seen as a necessary building block for the proper functioning of the society. But with the introduction of designer babies, the relationship between the parents and the designer baby, and the relationship between the parents and a normal baby might be different. This could threaten Durkheim's idea of a ‘stable’ family and thus could harm the society in the future. This essay will also be analyzing the texts of various authors such as Julian Savulescu, who is a bioethicist and is in favor of the introduction of designer babies, including a culmination of texts from various journal such as ‘ The Scientific American’. Also, as this is a cross-cultural study, and opinions on career-inclined women having children were also included in the questionnaire, information on maternity leave in China and Italy has also been taken. In addition to these articles, this study will also include a critical analysis of two Hollywood movies- Gattaca ( 1997) and Hannah ( 2011). The inclusion of these two movies is due to their plot, which sets in a futuristic society where designer babies are being used and are being preferred over normal babies. The proper relation between these movies and the theme of this paper will be mentioned in the findings. Even though a lot of studies have been done on designer babies, very few have focused on the socialization of the designer babies. As this study is focused on the latter part, it is different from the rest of the studies that have been conducted. Methodology The current study adopts a qualitative approach in order to understand the cross-cultural perception of parenthood with reference to designer babies. As the study was qualitative, the respondents were chosen by non-probability sampling methods such as the snowball sampling method. Some of the respondents were mutual friends of the author. A total of 6 people were interviewed- 3 men and 3 women. An even number of respondents of each gender was taken in order to avoid gender bias. Of the three women who were interviewed- two of them belonged to BA 2nd year and the other one belonged to MA 1ST year. In the case of men- one was from BA 2ND year and two were from MA 2ND year. The reason for this differentiation was to understand if age played a factor in perceiving and understanding the questions in the current context. The interviews were conducted over the space of two days and each of the interviews was done in an empty classroom in order to avoid any bias or influence. As this is a cross-cultural study, two of the women were from foreign countries- one was from Thailand and the other was from Italy. Another reason for choosing a respondent from Italy was that designer baby is a western concept and the designer baby was developed and the advancement in that field is happening primarily in western countries. The rest of the respondents were from all over the country. The other female respondent was from Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu). The other three male respondents were from Chennai ( Tamil Nadu), Kakinada (Andhra Pradesh), and Ujjain (Madhya Pradesh) respectively. Thus this study has incorporated many different cultures. Information was taken from the respondents through an in-depth interview. The interview was a semi-structured interview with both open-ended and close-ended questions. The major themes of the questionnaire are as follows: Part 1- ( Socio-demographic facts)- focuses on the demographic information of the respondents Part 2- ( Parenting)- focuses on the change in parenting styles over the past few decades Part 3- ( Technology, morality and designer babies)- focuses on the technological aspect and also the moral and ethical values involved in the process of designing babies Part 4 - ( society and designer babies)- focuses on the impact that designer babies will have on the society It should be noted that a consent form was signed prior to the start of the interview by each of the respondents and one copy of the form was given to them. The respondents were also given a chocolate at the end of the interview as a reward for participating in the study. After all the interviews were taken, the deductive method was used to analyze the major findings in this study. Key findings Change in parenting styles There have been many studies that show that the overall parenting structure has changed worldwide over the past few decades. ( Giddens 2009, p. 337) As we will be using the above statement as a theory to use the deductive method, the respondents were asked if they could notice a shift in parenting styles by comparing their generation with the older generation. Following are me of the quotes by some of the respondents- Yeah, I think it has changed like now parents start having babies later. If I take the example of my mom, she already had me when she was my age, but now a lot of people they plan to have kids in their thirties. ( female respondent 1, aged 24, the location of her home- Italy) Do I think that the perception of parenting has changed? For me, no. In my family, no, I don’t think so. Even in my society, nothing has changed ( female respondent 2, aged 30, the location of her home – Thailand) I mean obviously, it has changed, in the sense that, how as and when we get exposed to more opportunities which we didn’t have previously. I think that the perceptions of the way the parents wanted their children to grow have also changed as they are more liberal and open-minded. ( male respondent 1, aged 19, the location of their his home- Chennai) Yes, it has changed. It might have changed in terms of how family itself is constituted because it is a general notion that there were previously joint families. if there was any work that individual of the family had then it would be related to the family. But now as the opportunities have become so vast that your child might just want to go somewhere else because that work could be more rewarding. So I think this is why nuclear families have come about. ( male respondent 2, aged 24, the location of his home- Andhra Pradesh) As we can see from the first two quotations, there are differences that need special attention. From the perspective of the first respondent, she has clearly stated that the perceptions of parenthood have changed, while for the second respondent, nothing has changed. A lot can be understood from their social context. Societies in Italy are a lot different from societies in Thailand, as societies in the west are more developed as compared to those in the east. Development should not be understood only in terms of technology, but also in terms of having more liberal ideas about society. Thus we can see the effect of liberal movements such as the feminist movement in Italy, where more and more women are working, as compared to Thailand, where a more oppressive society still exists. One must also realize that most societies in the west are more predominant towards the idea of individualism while most societies in the east are more inclined towards family, culture, and traditions. This could be another reason why there is pressure on people to start a family in eastern societies while in the west, people are more liberal and thus are willing to start a family later on in their lives. Even though our society is more close-minded than those of the west, that does not mean progress has not been made. This has been made clear by the second male respondent as has pointed out that the general trend of a joint family system has changed and has paved the way for nuclear families. This change in family pattern can also bring with itself changes in ideas. This goes with what the first male respondent was saying as parents are becoming more liberal in their views. With this, we can say that with more and more having liberal views, these views will pass on to their children. Thus we can say by analyzing the responses that the parental style has changed in many of the societies. The reason why this is categorized as the first finding was to connect it with the overall theme of the paper, as designer babies can be considered as a radical change, and so we wanted to understand how these liberal or non- liberal views would affect in perceiving and then later on accepting or rejecting the idea of designer babies being incorporated into the society. The sibling relationship between a designer baby and a natural baby There have been a few studies which show that sometimes parents design babies in order to take their bone marrow or blood to treat their terminally ill child ( Sheldon and Wilkinson 2004) In these cases, the designer baby is also known as the savior sibling. In order to understand how this would affect the relationship between the two siblings, the respondents were asked their opinion. The following are their responses on the subject matter- I think the brother will feel a big responsibility because he will feel that I am here to save my elder brother’s life, especially when they are children and don’t exactly understand what is going on. It might get a little complicated but it is not a negative thing. ( female respondent 1, aged 24, single child) I think there will be a lot of pressure on the elder sibling to take care of his sibling, because he has gotten something out of his younger brother, without his consent also. I don’t know, I think there will be a lot of guilt. If it was me I would definitely feel a lot of guilt because of the realization that my brother was created just so that we could get a part out of him to save myself ( female respondent 3, aged 20, 2 younger siblings) I think it will bring them closer if not anything in a way because family is also seen in a way where they help you in your thick and thin times and there are some difficulties in life where if there are one group of people whom you can count on, it’s your family ( male respondent 1, aged 19, has 2 elder siblings including a twin brother) I don’t really know if the parents would be able to love this designer baby as much as their own child because they got their designer baby in the first place to sort of cure their own child. Just the fact that you have a new member in your family because of a particular purpose, or you got that baby for an end, is problematic for the entire family. When we talk about the relationship between the siblings, I really really hope that this happens at a young age so that they don’t know that one was designed and one is not. Even if the designer baby gets to know that they designed him in the first place to cure their child, so how will he look at his parents. He may start feeling self-hatred ( male respondent 3, aged 24, single child) We can see from the responses above that there are mixed reviews on the sibling relationship. Thus we can see that for some the elder sibling should feel guilty and should feel responsible for their younger sibling, while on the other hand, some feel that the younger sibling should feel responsible for saving the life of his elder sibling. Here there is a conflict of moral issues. Both male respondent 1 and male respondent 3 talk about family and the views of the parents respectively. Even if we look at this case through the perspective of the designer child, there will conflicting report. On the one hand, parents designing a baby to save their child’s life could be interpreted as “ the parents are willing to conceive another child to protect the first suggests that they are highly committed to the well-being of their children and that they will value the second child for its own sake as well.” ( Sheldon and Wilkinson 2004, p.536) On the other hand, the child may suffer from psychological harm, considering the fact that she was brought into this world, not for himself/ herself, but to be used as a means to save someone else. As previously mentioned in the literature review, the movie Gattaca ( 1997) has been watched and a critical analysis has been done. The movie has a futuristic setting, where designer babies have more or less become a common thing. The protagonist, Vincent, is a naturally born child, or as they are referred to in the movie- an ‘invalid’. He then gets a younger brother, Anton, who is a designer baby. He is much smarter and taller than Vincent and is more loved by their parents. Due to this, Vincent has always been envious of his younger brother and is always in competition with him. Also, due to a lack of support, while chasing his dreams, Vincent chose to abandon his home, as he was an invalid and was told not dream high. There is also a class divide between those who have been specifically designed and those who are invalid ( naturally born). Thus even in a Hollywood movie, designer babies have been portrayed as leading to a dystopian world where designer babies are being preferred and are given more priority by the society, which includes parents. Even though the debate against designer babies and savior siblings is more or less similar, there is still a stark difference between them. The cause for a savior sibling is for it to save an existing child’s life. But the exact same cannot be said for a designer baby as they are only chosen for superficial reasons, such as determining the gender of the baby, the height or even the color of the eyes. Also, there have been a few studies regarding the welfare of the child ( Sheldon and Wilkinson 2004) There are moral aspects involved around the future of the savior sibling, as there could be cases where after the tissue is taken from the savior sibling that is needed for saving the existing child, it is discarded as there is no more use for it. The effect of designer babies on career inclined women. With society becoming more and more liberal by breaking social stereotypes and gender roles, more and more women are entering the workplace. So we can see that a lot of women are putting their careers ahead of starting a family. With designer babies being a lot more cooperative and requiring a lot less attention, the respondents were asked whether career inclined women would prefer designer babies over normal babies. The following are their responses- If you think that you need to focus on your job, then why have a baby at all. That is because life has to follow this process and the beauty of life is that you are born and you need to grow up. There won’t be a point in raising the baby, because the baby is already raised ( female respondent 1, aged 24, home – Italy ) When you say women don’t have time for baby and giving birth and stuff, then maybe we can change the law that for pregnant women they can have left for a long time because, in China, it is maybe like 1 month or 2 months. The side effect of this is that then the employer does not want to give work to women. ( female respondent 2, aged 30, home- Thailand) Yeah, I think, designer babies on a large scale can change the way society works. For example, there are sociologists that say that the family structure is what revolves and what makes them the society, and if these babies can change the way the family works in a more efficient way, then the society would a be more efficient and a more productive one ( male respondent 1, aged 19, home- Chennai) One very important aspect that is related to working woman and childbirth is maternity leave. There is no one standard maternity leave and the duration of the leave ranges from country to country. After analyzing the maternity leave in both China and Italy ( Saurel-Cubizolles, Romito, Escribà-Agüir, LeLong, Pons, Ancel 1999) ( Deng, He, Horrigan, Miao, Ning, Pang, Tevini, Wang, Warren 2012), we have found out that the social context plays a very important role in determining the maternity leave. As female respondent 2 mentioned, the maternity leave given to women is a lot less than what is given in western countries. This shows the existence of patriarchy in countries like China, where maternity leave is not given much consideration due to the fact that not many women are allowed to work. On the other hand, in countries like Italy, the maternity leave is around 22 weeks, where a woman can use those 22 weeks before the child is born and also after the child is born. This shows how eastern countries like China and Thailand lack in encouraging women to enter the workplace, as compared to their western counterparts. In the case of male respondent 1, the fact that he has a positive attitude towards women having designer babies in order to focus on their work also stems from his background. This is because he is from Chennai ( Tamil Nadu), which is more of a matriarchal society instead of a patriarchal society. Therefore in that region, more women entering the workforce would be seen as women empowerment, and not be looked down at. Another point raised by female respondent 1 was that “ There won’t be a point in raising he baby, because the baby is already raised.” This response is very important because this challenges the idea of parenthood itself, as the term implies that as a parent, you have to raise the child and that you need to be responsible for the child. Another quote from male respondent 3 was that - “I would not go for designer babies because then the entire charm of it being your baby goes away. I mean, are you looking forward to having a new member in your family or are you looking forward to having a new product in your family? Do you want to be a parent or a product manager? (male respondent 3, aged 24, home- Madhya Pradesh) Thus we can see that the whole idea of being a parent is being substituted by them being referred to as a production manager and the designer baby as just a product. So, from the above quotation, we can understand that the entire process of becoming a parent has shifted from a baby being born and bought up naturally to a baby being designed by picking the traits wanted by the parents, and the baby being ‘made to order’ like any other product. ( Walker 2008, p.351) We started this study by giving a brief background on how the family pattern has changed over the last few decades from being a joint family system to a nuclear family, and then to recent trends such as live-in relationships and same-sex marriages. We also understood how the advancement of technology, our personal lives have become a lot less private and more dependent on technology. Our literature review consisted of a few academic articles to a couple of movies from Hollywood that fitted into the general theme of the study. The methodology used for this essay was a semi-structured interview and the number of people interviewed was 6, of different ethnic backgrounds. The interview contained various themes ranging from the respondent's socio-demographic information to the effect of designer babies on the society. After performing a micro-analysis on how designer babies would affect intimate relations such as that of parents and siblings, the study shows that the majority of the respondents would agree that designer babies will violate the privacy of the family and would also breach and question some moral and ethical values. This paper hopes to have contributed to the existing intellectual scholarship of sociology. BIBLIOGRAPHY- Deng, Ying and Jing He, Brenda Horrigan, Qingqing Miao, Susan Ning, Wesley Pang, Anna Tevini, Chang Wang, Adria Warren. 2012. “China”. The International Lawyer. 46: 517-535 Giddens. Anthony. 2009. Sociology 6th edition. New Delhi: Wiley India Pvt. Ltd Saurel-Cubizolles, Marie-Josèphe, and Patrizia Romito, Vicenta Escribà-Agüir, Nathalie Lelong, Rosa Mas Pons, Pierre-Yves Ancel. 1999. “Returning to Work after Childbirth in France, Italy, and Spain”. European Sociological Review. 15: 179-194 Sheldon, S and S. Wilkinson. 2004. “Should Selecting Saviour Siblings Be Banned?”. Journal of Medical Ethics. 30: 533-537 Walker. Mark. 2008. “ "Designer Babies" and Harm to Supernumerary Embryos”. American Philosophical Quarterly. 45: 349-364
Cooperation and conflict - management
Printed study material on the topic cooperation and conflict by IIT BOMBAY.
shubhangi Gupta
Class 10 sample Questions
Sure shot questions for class 10 boards.
Pranjal Batra
BOMBAY STORIES – BY SAADAT HASAN MANTO
In the book Bombay Stories SaadatHasanManto has given a very clear description of the daily life of those living in the rural slums of Mumbai during the 1930’s and the 1940’s. He vividly describes his memories and experiences and incorporates them into stories ranging from those of alcoholic delirium to the daily activities of a young prostitute.The poverty at the time is evident as nearly all the women in the novel have been portrayed as prostitutes who also have pimps. Manto plays with our expectations many times,for example- when a young prostitute of 15 years who goes by the name Sarita returns the money she was offered for her ‘job’. In “Ten Rupees' , Sarita unexpectedly returns to the men the 10 rupees that they paid for her services as they didn’t do anything to her and when asked why ,she simply replies, : “ why should I take it ?”.( page 25, Bombay Stories , SaadatHasanManto).One of the most interesting characters in the novel is Manto himself, who appears in some stories as himself. He also brings some bitter humour about what people go through. Often,he is also unorthodox with the endings of his stories. We can see this in many cases such as in “ Ten Rupees” when Sarita unexpectedly returns the money or as in “Barren” when Naim confesses that he had made up the story about himself and Zahra, but amazingly felt that he had still lost her and because of that he commited suicide. It is also fascinating that Manto is not interested in writing stories about the elite and the rich class of Mumbai but focuses instead on the pimps and prostitutes of the lowly slums of Mumbai. Another interesting aspect of this book is that all the stories in the book are written in first person.That brings a sense of immediacy to the narrative. Manto may not be the biggest admirer of women ( regarding the fact how he has portrayed them in Bombay Stories), but he has in a way correctly portrayed how Mumbai was in the 1940’s amidst the chaotic times of independence and partition. He discussesissues regarding many problems such as depression , poverty, satire and moral decay. This helps us get a better view of one of the most violent , turbulent and brutal chapters of Indian history. He also on multiple occasions portrays men as stifling figures, most notably in the story “Insult”, in which Madho was a man who takes advantage of Saugandhias he keeps asking for money and also keeps making false promises. The story “ Insult” is also one of the few stories in which the female character has her own voice and her own opinions and she stands up for herself.This novel with its controversial and radical stories is, unsurprisingly, not short of critics with a few stating that Mumbai had been falsely portrayed as a dangerous place full of ‘gangsters’ and ‘brothels’. In the end it all comes down to the creativity of Manto and how he has depicted pre- independence Bombay. One of his most wonderful quotes is “If you find my stories dirty, the society you are living in is dirty. With my stories, I only expose the truth.”It would also be an understatement to say that Manto was one of the best short story writers in Indian
War between forces of development
anti development forces- Arundhati roy
Adyansha R. Rajput