Response Essay 1: Empowerment Boxes

Central argument—Televisions benefit the women in the rural areas of India, because they get empowered from what they watch.

Technology. What would I do without it? Actually, I would do a lot more if technology were not around. I remember having a lot of free time in my childhood. That was back when nobody had iPods, iPhones, and all the other iStuff. Nowadays, I cannot even sit with my friends for more than five minutes, before one of them whips out their iPod. Now, why am I saying all this? Oh yes. Televisions. Televisions, (especially in USA) take up a lot of people’s time, and they are used in an unhealthy way. In the rural areas of India, the story is not quite the same. Televisions actually give the women a sense of empowerment.

            According to Joel Wardfogel, the person who wrote the article TV Is Good For You, women in rural India learn a lot from their sets. Television for them is actually an “Empowerment box,” rather than an “Idiot box.” Wardfogel mentions that the women have to get permission for almost everything they do, so even if they watch TV, they would probably do it in a moderate amount. My mother always told me, “Too much of anything is not good.” Many people have become so used to four hours of TV a day, that they have even forgotten the health risks. The women in the rural areas watch a healthy amount, and that is why they gain from it. Society is still quite backward in the rural areas, so men often dominate the women. The women do not know their rights, so they take the ill treatment they are given, and do not complain about it.

            In the societies in the rural areas, men expect the women to “cook and clean and to have lots of babies.” This is a very outdated way of thinking. According to Wardfogel’s research, with the introduction of television, “Women’s attitudes changed quickly and substantially.” There a lot of shows that have great role models, and people tend to emulate their behavior.  In the case of some Indian shows, which show the women standing up to the men, the lesson could be beneficial from where the oppressed women stand.

            Technology is made to benefit us, and make life easier for us, but there are many ways that we have made technology a disadvantage. If some of the women do choose to stand up to their husbands, then it would not necessarily end up in a happy discussion. Although, Wardfogel’s point is that televisions empower the women in terms of knowledge, and their rights. He does not mean that they should argue, and start fights, but instead, he means that the women should not just sit back, and take random beatings. They should know that they are not just robots that are supposed to cook, clean, and make babies.