Gender Relations Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Gender Relations - Essay Example However, the pain of the sacrifice is plain on their faces. Women, on the other hand, sacrifice with a glow on their countenance. They have the creativity and the ability to withstand drought to the maximum extent and make food out of whatever sources available (Eldridge, Christopher, p2). Flood, drought and famine have struck all countries across the globe. The evidence of famine is scripted in the ancient texts and millions died in those days in the absence of effective communication and fast transportation available today (Dreze, Jean and Sen, Amartya; 1989). However, one must give thought to accounts of heroism and endurance that never-say-die men and women exercised to outlive those events. Small remnants of brave men and women survived to carry on with life and challenges they overcame to script their experiences with future generations. The threat of hunger may or may not be an isolated incident. There are those that experience hunger as a daily challenge. In the ancient days, a lot depended on the ruling class on the extent of hunger in their land. If rulers were benevolent, people experienced prosperity and thrived with only fleeting acknowledgement of hunger. However, if rulers were exacting and impersonal large number of people below the poverty line came in grips with the pangs of hunger. This situation was man-made. But one learnt to live with it. ... However, if rulers were exacting and impersonal large number of people below the poverty line came in grips with the pangs of hunger. This situation was man-made. But one learnt to live with it. It was only a matter of survival to live another day. There was no shortage of food as such. Life went on although the question of where the food was to come from faced the hungry segment of the population. Nonetheless, even hungry people got their needs met long enough to survive. To the hungry, it mattered little if the cause of hunger was man-made or an act of God. The challenge of survival presented a test that sometimes was overcome and other times meant defeat (Barraclough, Solon L; 1991). The scourge of famine continues to haunt large swathes of regions in Africa and Asia. These regions have witnessed famine owing to myriad reasons chiefly uncertain rains, disruptive floods or crop failures due to absence of rains. Apart from natural causes, the phenomena of famine exists owing to socio-economic failures, unstable political conditions, lumpen environment, and other factors that contribute to continuance of famine conditions that lack education and trigger contingencies (Bryceson, Deborah Fahy; 2006). The gender that does better It is difficult to pinpoint a particular gender did better than the other although natural indications point to women as better managers of hunger. By and large, women are endowed with better resilience and determination to scrape through periods of hunger irrespective of their cause. In Bangladesh which experienced famine in the 1970s, it was women who were organizationally entrusted to fight famine through community empowerment and other material means (Dreze, Jean and Sen,