The Girl Effect Analysis

Progress or Retrogression Humans’ needs have been changed all the time with the changing of society. Moreover, the progress of satisfying human’s demands requires the changing of the business, government, and society. Under this circumstance, we need a bridge to link all things together in order to set up the “good life” and capitalism is one of the concepts. One significant example of capitalism is putting women into manufacture. The essay “The Girl Effect” written by Nicholas D.Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn narrate how “the girl effect” benefits to both economics and society. On a social level, the emancipate of women contributes vastly to the progress of society. However, the problem is always developing when capitalism impacts our lives
further. When it becomes a part of humans’ culture and religion, people’s minds and opinions are altered which change the concepts about “good life” as well as the definition of family. Arlie Russell Hochschild is one of those people who suffering from the troubles which capitalism bring to society. In her essay “From the Frying Pan into the Fire”, she appeals how capitalism breaks the formal balance state about families and communities. Beyond all doubt, the family is the core for everyone and they work and make money just to supply their families. People have a limited amount of time; the more they spend in working, the less they will have for their families. However, the concepts of capitalism encourage and force people to work in order to create wealth lives. Thus, it reduces people’s time with families by the temptations of money. The developing in capitalism is the progress of human beings. It makes the individual wealthy at the same time stimulate the social economics. Thus, if people wants to go against capitalism, that will be a serious retrogression. On one hand, we criticized capitalism but on the other hand, we cannot live without it. It is true that there are some accessory problems, and in order to make a “good life”, we need to solve these problems. But solving the problems does not mean go back but moving forward to adapt the system and to find the balance between working and family. For any family, education and growth of the next generations are always the serious topics, nevertheless, no matter education or health, the finance is always the bases.
Some researches indicate that “Women’s empowerment helps raise economic productivity and reduce infant mortality. It contributes to improved health and nutrition. It increases the chances of education for the next generation” (D.Kristof and WuDunn, p211). As introduced, women’s empowerment is an example of capitalism. When the society emancipates women from being house-wives, it benefits both families and society. For the family side, when two people supply the family instead of one, their lives will become richer which means they have more money for their children’s education and health. Similarly, for the society side, when women take part into manufacture, it increases the productivity and at the same time stimulates the social economics. When the whole society is developing and becoming richer, the younger generations will have more opportunities to acquire the better resources about education and health. However, there is no such thing as perfection. People have a limited amount of energy; the more efficiency people put into work, the less they can share with their families. The capitalism requires people to become more efficiency and Hochschild points out that, “This efficiency-seeking is transferred from man to woman, from workplace to home, and from adult to child” (p184). It is true that
children get better education and health. But can wealthy represent all children’s needs’? The attendances of parents are also significant to every children’s lives. However, the concept of capitalism is pushing everyone and everything in a hurry in other word, time is money. Then, when both parents are attending into work, who should accompany with their children? The absence of parents will bring unpredictable mental traumas to children. That is one of the problems that capitalism accompanied. As a result, capitalism enrich the society and provides better education and health for children, but at the same time, it ignores the psychological needs of younger generations. However, children are not the only part of each family. Capitalism changes not only our attitudes to children but our indeed definitions of the family and love.
Thousands of years before, males are the dominant of their families, and their wives are just their appendants. These changes shift women’s emphasis from families to the whole communities. As well-known, women are much emotional than men, which means, they can bring more “love” to society. The word “love” means morality and peace. Just as the example given in D.Kistof and WuDunn’s essay that, “women are the key to ending hunger in Africa” (p.211). women’s power is more than benefiting economic, it at the same time disseminates their thoughts to public, something that men cannot think of. Whereupon, the inadequacies of society have been fixed by that. That is the key to the morality and to perfect our world which is a progress due to capitalism. However, everything has two sides, and the problems are always inevitable. The meaning of “love” changes simultaneous with the diffuses of morality. This shift to a family side is the changing ideas about being “good parents”. While shifting to society is the changing of the importance of everyone’s lives. As Hochschild discusses, “Family and community life have meanwhile become less central as places to talk and relate, and less the object of collective rituals” (p.186). When discussing family, it always comes with a whole that everyone is bounded with each other. The bound is called “love” and it used to be the
companioning, understanding and things like that. However, capitalism alters the meaning into how wealth can people bring to their family. “A lot of money” instead of “a lot of companioning” becomes the definition of “a lot of love”. The consequence is that people shift their vital from family to business. And as discussed, the time they spend with family reduced which is opposite to the meaning of “love” before.