A Comparison of Articles: Tackling Gender Disparity in South Asia

Danielle Plesser
SOC202
September 26, 20008, 1:40 PM

I read two articles for this one entry, I hope that’s all right. The articles discuss a meeting that took place in New York this week to discuss the Millennium Development Goals and the efforts that should be made at this half-way mark to ensure they are achieved. Dr. Noeleen Heyzer focused at the gathering on the gender inequality prevalent in the Asia-Pacific region. She noted statistics about maternal deaths and female illiteracy that showed that South Asia has a long way to go before these Millennium Development Goals can be met.

I’d never heard of the Millennium Development Goals, so I looked them up. They include eight goals and twenty one targets within those goals. They were set in the year 2000 to be achieved by the year 2015. They’re fairly standard ‘fix the world’ sorts of goals: eradicate world hunger, ensure that everyone is offered primary education no matter where they are or what gender they are, so on and so forth. A sweet little dream, I guess. But honestly, I found it completely unrealistic. The goals require the cooperation of the whole world, and while 189 UN member states have promised to participate, that’s still not the whole world , and I even doubt that they’ll all do their share.

About South Asia in particular, I felt that the first article (from Bernama.com) was more objective about the matter. Even though they both listed the same statistics and concentrated on the same woman’s words, the second article (from Bangkok Post) was more like a column, with Dr. Noeleen Heyzer authoring the article herself and declaring that South Asia should work harder to improve these conditions for women. She was entirely too optimistic in my opinion as well. She offered no solutions or suggestions and merely stated: “We have the resources. We have the expertise.” If that was all it took to fix problems dealing with gender inequality, the world would be a much more balanced place already. But she did make one good point, which was only mentioned in the first article: gender inequality is hurting the region financially. There’s something interesting- I wish they had elaborated on that more.

Article 1: http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsindex.php?id=360868

Article 2: http://www.bangkokpost.com/250908_News/25Sep2008_news23.php