Research says, K serials good for women (Page 6)

Its difficult to critique this article as we can't exactly see their analysis and what variables they are using.

If they use dummy variables as a "catch-all" for any other factors which educate rural women, that in itself would be a weakness in the analysis.

But, overall, I am curious to read this article fully just to understand their methodology and how they are correlating Hindi soaps to women's empowerment.

This is my personal guess, but if I had been given the task to go and do some research and figure out if there is a correlation between women who watch soaps and women's empowerment, I would probably measure it the following the way...

The number of television sets (with cable) in a given village vs. the number of women in the village who leave the house to earn some money or run a small home-made business... or the number of females in the villiage who are getting an education (i.e number of girls enrolled in school), as well number of female children born vs. number of male children born. 

Now there is always the speculation whether it is the soap watching that is actually contributing to the empowerment or something else... maybe the fact that these villages have a TV to start with would show that the village is more mordern to begin with compared to a village which may not.  To watch TV you need electricity, if a village does not have electricity means it is not as advanced as another village which does, hence there is more of a chance the people in that village are less educated etc (if you don't have a TV there is a lesser chance you have a well built school and good teachers in the village).  Maybe with the coming of electricity into the village also came the awareness that girls getting an education is just as important, rather than the actual soap watching.  Electricity that we take for granted is a big revolution, and with something like that coming into a village may make the villagers more curious about the outer world, which might get them to explore new ideas etc. and these new discoveries would bring about awareness about other things.  So the direct source might not be the actual soap watching but something else all together.  I will not go on further..hehe.. hopefully I am making my point clear... so there are many factors that have to be taken into consideration... even I am very very curious as to the exact method of the research and how they measured the data to support such a claim. 

They have made an attempt to address this in section 4.3 "Alternative Explanations of the results." They have gathered data over a period of three years (which they accept to be short but not unmeasurable). There does not seem to be any statistically significant pre-trend before the introduction of cable TV. It seems they are studying introduction of cable TV where government based broadcast was already available, so my guess is that electricity etc. should already be available.


Edited by sourav1 - 24 August 2007 at 12:28pm

Oh okay, thanks, that does clarify it a bit...

Thanks Saregama_fan and Sourav for the explanation.

Yes, I assumed their data-set would be short as it appears to be a new working paper. I hope they continue their research in this aspect; its rather interesting.

Hey everyone!

I like the points that everyone has made over here. I'm a guy, and when I get time, I do watch Kasamh Se... and I have to say that the lead women actually come across as worrying in many ways.

I'm in total agreement in Mythili's first post on this thread when she suggested that Bani from Kasamh Se is the epitome of stupidity.

That character was simply getting run over day in and day out - she came across as more of a sacrifical lamb than a woman! At the end of the day, I do not personally believe that Ekta ji is trying to send out any messages to the women that watch Kasamh Se - because there is nothing inspirational about Bani at all... I doubt that Ekta ji or anyone else would want to send out the message that "women should take all the rubbish that is ever thrown in their direction".

It's very unrealistic these days for marriages to last when husbands go and sleep with another woman... and when the other woman is his sister in law, it's almost a sure shot conclusion that the marriage will hit the end of the road! Instead, there was an absolutely lame attempt to make out that Jai Walia was "drugged" and therefore slept with his sister in law. That was simply a lame attempt to redeem Walia because I don't think that such drugs exist that have the effect of turning a "no" into a "yes" for sleeping with someone.

These days divorces happen over much less extreme things like infidelity... yet Bani is made stick with a guy that slept with her sister and tired to cover up his deeds by constantly lying. In real life, I really doubt that a couple would pull through something like that.

Ideally, Bani should have been given strength and portrayed as a person that would not just turn into a zombie and fold up after something like that happened. She should be have been shown to pull herself together and make a go of life.

The other female notable female lead in Kasamh Se is Raashi... before the 5 year leap she was shown as a looney that wanted to get her husband married off to someone else. After 5 years she returned and simply asked for her husband back... it's lunacy! Raashi was once a wonderful character, but these days she has turned into a victim of abuse... it's sad.

Basically, in Kasamh Se, the female leads always seem to be victims that simply soak up all the bad things that happen to them instead of standing up for themselves and moving forward in life.

It's everyone's (both men and women) human right to stand up against bad treatment towards them... but this isn't being shown in KS. I'm not sure about other K-serials, but I really do not think that Kasamh Se has any message for the viewers at all... it only seems to be there for time pass entertainment rather than inspiration.

God bless.