• Chinmayi Sharma – Female Genital Mutilation: A Painful Paradox (Jack Wagner, discussant)
• Christy Tormey – Jewish and Catholic Relations Post Nostra Aetate (Kevin Chiou, discussant)
• Adam Attaar – Mormonism: A Troubled Past and Present (Tugce Capraz, discussant)
• Chris Choi – Globalization, Gender and the Taliban (Ashwin Sundar, discussant)
Archive for the '04-22-1450' Category
Recent international efforts accentuate the extension of educational opportunities as the most significant development to promote gender equality and women empowerment. The United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDG) reflects this ideology by highlighting educational targets and measures as the means to advance and assess gender equality. The UN plans to target gender disparity in primary and secondary education and subsequently, evaluate the ratios of girls to boys in primary, secondary and tertiary education.
This piece presents research which shows that despite approximately equal access to basic, secondary, and higher education for Jordanian men and women, males comprise the overwhelming majority of the total labor force. An inconsistency occurs between data regarding educational opportunities available to Jordanian women and the gender disparities present in the Jordanian economy. Because participation in economies reflects overall gender equality within society, assessing gender equality merely through educational targets is inaccurate, as it fails to acknowledge the applicability of an education and the social value of education appropriated for Jordanian women; this assessment is reflected in case studies conducted in Samma and Tel Yahya, villages in Jordan. UN efforts should focus on targets and measures that more appropriately promote gender equality by targeting gender disparity as it occurs in the economy. The programs implemented by the Jordan River Foundation and the Education Reform for Knowledge Economy initiative exemplify successful methods to reduce the current gap that occurs between rates of access to education between girls and boys and expressions of gender equality and women empowerment.
By Jen Yam
The lack of formal education in Afghanistan is at the forefront of concerns that keeps Afghan women in a continuous cycle of poverty and oppression. Goal 3A of the Millennium Development Goals, aims to “Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education no later than 2015.” This particular goal, along with policies implemented by the Afghanistan Ministry of Education, are too ambitious and do not target issues specific to the education of rural women in Afghanistan: the strong traditional values, lack of security and surveillance, and the lack of employment opportunities in the non-agricultural sector. In this paper I address the projected failings of the MDGs to meet their own standards by 2015 due to policies that overlook the social obstacles women face. By assessing school enrollment, literacy, employment rates as well as Afghan tradition and lack of security, I shall attempt to bring a full spectrum of issues that will not allow the MDG goal of gender equality to be accomplished by 2015.
The policies of the Afghanistan Ministry of Education and the MDG pinpoint problems such as insufficient funding for school supplies, poorly trained teachers, and lack of buildings to accommodate the post-Taliban era influx of students. Though this policy is undoubtedly beneficial, it fails to target deeply rooted historical and economical problems.
By Anthony Wang
Although denounced as unfairly repressive of free speech by most of the Western world, extensive Internet censorship is nonetheless employed by China to limit access to allegedly harmful material. Target 8.F of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) declares the need to provide unhindered information and communication technologies, including the Internet, as an essential step in the advancement of developing countries. In the context of striving to achieve Target 8.F, Internet censorship must be examined to determine its effects on the direction and scale of Chinese economic growth. This paper will first analyze present literature to discern current public perceptions of Internet censorship and its effects in China. These assumptions will then be reconciled with the motives of the Chinese government, as declared in its Internet policy documents. Based on the tangible results arising from these conflicting interests, we find that Internet censorship in its present form in China is a tool that protects the complex Chinese social dynamic from disrupting itself while a stable, well-developed country emerges. This argument acknowledges that the grievances charged against Chinese Internet censorship are well-founded, but defends them as unfortunate necessities. The conclusions presented in this paper offer the world a fresh perspective from which to critique Chinese media censorship, hopefully with a newfound understanding for Chinese government decisions as unavoidable compromises that ensure sustainable Chinese economic development.
By Emily Rothen
Over the course of implementing the Third Millennium Development Goal (MDG), to “promote gender equality and empower women,” specifically in the context of Afghanistan, the practice of allocating a certain percentage of parliamentary seats for female representatives opposes the fundamental principles behind this goal. This paper addresses the reality that a society whose women are truly empowered, where gender equality has truly been achieved, should hold elections free from any sort of gender bias. Allotting seats in parliament for women negates their own achievements, hinders the achievement of equal opportunity for men and women, and enjoys falsely successful statistics that ignore the political and cultural problems that persist. By first analyzing the theory behind the third MDG, based in part on the UN Millennium Declaration, the Beijing Conference, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), and then discussing the negative implications of having a constitutional quota while acknowledging the minor benefits that do not outweigh the overall impact, this paper will support the removal of such a requirement and emphasize the need for a more committed, realistic, and comprehensive approach to improving gender equality in Afghanistan.
By Trevor Thomas
Medicine in China is inefficient. With the word’s largest population at 1.3 billion, and a stark demographic shift towards the elderly, a crowd especially prone to pulmonary diseases, cardiovascular emergencies, and other traumas requiring expedient emergency care, there is a swelling need for a proficient health care system in Asia’s fastest growing country. The magnitude of China’s health care system is larger than that any other country in the world, but the quality of its system resembles that of a developing country. Since the 2000 declaration of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the sixth of which regards improved response diseases and overall medical aptitude, one could inquire about the extent to which medicine in China was changed. This project examines two particular aspects of medicine in China – emergency medical response services and general medical adequacy in rural areas of China – in order to respond to this inquiry. Through analysis of several contemporary research articles and policy documents in tandem with other academic sources, it can be concluded that medicine in China has not evolved much since the MDGs, but clear steps have been taken since 2000 to ensure future medical development in the right direction. Continued endorsement, both monetary- and expertise-related, from the Chinese Ministry of Health and developed countries around the world, will lead China to possess a health care system that is able to address the needs of the country. However, such a system will likely not be present by 2015.