Is television good?

Central Argument: T.V is good for the women who are not very educated and live in rural areas because it helps them get in touch with the new way of life and the new values and morals of life, and this helps them better their lives.

Joel Waldfogel’s statement about television being good for women who live in rural areas is absolutely right. Television shows us the definition of ‘success’ through its very own portrayal of it. When we see their interpretation of ‘success,’ we work towards reaching it.  The rural women in India have lived a very conservative life, for a very long time. This kind of conservatism is too harsh on certain people that some of these actions are against the Indian law. Some of the actions that Joel Waldfogel states are men beating up their wives and finding out the sex of the baby before it is born to make sure it is not a girl. The get the baby aborted if the baby is a girl. These actions are against the law now. The Television shows them the new morals of society.

When rural women who have lived a life based on ancient traditions see how the urban world has changed, they respond by accepting this change. The values of life change. The Urban world portrays radical changes in society. These changes appeal the women who have lived a life with a lot of limitations. These values make the women aware of their rights. Then all of a sudden baby boys aren’t so special, and beating a woman is dishonorable and unaccepted. These were radical changes for the women living in rural communities. However, changes like this gave them confidence to work upon it. When they see on television that even the rich people in the urban areas, who were smarter than others, were against beating a woman, it became unacceptable for them too, as shown in the statistics Waldfogel provides. People living in rural areas have very high respect for people who live in the cities. They fall at their feet instantly. So when the rich life is shown on television, villagers almost immediately assume everything the rich say and do is right, hence they start adopting new morals and values made by the rich.

The obstacle in between the cities and the villages is the distance. Therefore not all villagers know what the modern world is like. Television brings the modern world to them. It connects the urban and the rural areas in a fast and cheaper manner. The only way of knowing what the modern world is like was by going to the city or by rumors. The men would come back and tell the other villagers about what the city life is like. However, the television has brought the city life to them. Since the modern life has new values. They value education for boys and girls and they look down on child marriage and caste system. Even though the mind set of caste system still exists in India, it is usually amongst the older generations, who are few in number. These new values are shown in the soap operas in televisions; therefore the values of villagers will change as well and improve the life of women especially.

Television helps women become aware of their rights, and their freedom. It helps them understand and relate to the rich life more easily. The television shows them the new values and morals of life, which they immediately respond to by adopting them in their daily lives. This is proven in the statistics Walfogel provides. He states in his article that “After a village got cable, women's preference for male children fell by 12 percentage points” and “The average number of situations in which women said that wife beating is acceptable fell by about 10 percent.” This proves that the rich have a lot of influence on the rural life in general, and that television is a good and effective way of helping and improving life in the rural areas.