The article “TV is good for you” shows studies that have been done in India about the women that live in rural Indian villages. The effect of cable TV, coming to villages, on women displays how married women change their attitude towards their life, such as the beating of the husband, paying attention to the children, and on the fertility rate that has decreased by a lot.
The article “TV is good for you” explains how television changes life of women. Due to the soap operas in which the emancipated women are educated and have control over their own life much more than such women that live in rural villages in India.
The life of such women in the television shows and the life that women in villages have to go through is a huge contrast split, it is like living in two different worlds. Due to the availability of television in more villages, a study has been conducted to follow up on the television watching. It has increased from 40% to 80% watching.
After this the attitude of many women has changed, due to the impact of such shows that are being displayed on television. The changes were that “women’s preference for male children fell by 12 percentage points. The average number of situations in which women said that wife beating is acceptable fell by about 10 percent. And the authors’ composite autonomy index jumped substantially, by an amount equivalent to the attitude difference associated with 5.5 years of additional education.” This shows that a dramatic change in the attitudes of many women has changed after cable television has “reached 2,700 households in villages of four states (Bihar, Goa, Haryana, and Tamil Nadu).” In the time between 2001 and 2003. In that time period the villages that got cable television, 21 villages, the “women’s attitudes changed quickly and substantially.”
In addition to that, the study revealed that, the villages who had lived in more tradition before had a bigger change of attitude towards life than other villages had that did not live with a lot of Tradition before television reached them.
The way that television has changed women’s life in the villages is quite big. As the study proves that many attitudes of married women do change after watching television shows that resemble a life in urban areas and where women get to have their own choice about life. The percentages of women that belive that having a boy as a child decreased, as well as the acceptable beating by husbands. Not only that but also the preference for education grew as it became more important. Overall it can be said that the women attitudes towards traditional life in rural villages in India has changed in a big way.
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