Post 3 : The idea of progress

The Idea of Progress

As we have seen above, the idea of "progresss" can be distinguished by two sub-notions - quality and quantity - which are not necessarily related.

Document 1:   Quality 

Notion : Women condition and women's place in society 

My first document is an article from the british newspaper The Guardian speaking of a "new" french law about the global theme of prostitution.


https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/06/france-passes-law-illegal-to-pay-for-sex-criminalise-customers




It's a very good example of the qualitative side of progress because it shows us how the woman condition is evolving in our occidental societies.
Indeed, the french members of Parliament have made illegal the fact to pay for sex and also decided that sex workers would hencefoth be considered as a victim and not as a criminal. At first, feminist organizations didn't think it could work but a year later, the numbers proved its success : 804 arrested persons in only one year !




Document 2:  Quantity

Notion : Chlidren's rights and women condition 

The second document is a clip video produced by UNICEF in collaboration whith electronic artist RL Grime and realised in 2015. It is about "child brides".


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sk-n7qOgaL8&feature=youtu.be

"A girl in Chad is more likely to die in childbirth than attend secondary school"; starting with this terrible and frightening sentence; this video shows the viewer a little bit of a young girl's lifetime. 

At the beginning, she just dies giving life to her baby surrounded by her familiy, then, her life is rewound up to the moment she leaves her parent's house in order to be married.
Finally, the door re-opens and the viewer attends to what her life could have been without her marriage and if she could have went to school with her friends. More symbolically, the door represents a new dawn and the modern music contrasts with this practice which seems to be outdated for european people like us.
UNICEF highlights the fact that, of course, a lot of progress have been made to fight this injustice but there is still so much to be done ! Indeed, each year, 15 million girls are married before the age of 18, that is 28 girls every minute.

As a conclusion, we can definitively say that women condition is in continual growth - even if we still have big progress to do all around the world - thanks to many actors ( governments, charities, NGO, organizations..). Here, the two sub-notions of progress are very well illustrated : on the one hand, living condition of sex workers are improving while, on the other hand, the nuber of child brides reduce.