REVEALING THE GENDER INEQUALITY IN PATRICIA MC. CORMICK’S SOLD: CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

This study aims to reveal the gender inequality between male and female in the novel entitled Sold. It is the representation of Nepalese culture in social life. The data sources data are the novel of Sold. The data in this study are in the form of words, phrases, and sentences that found in the Sold which contains gender inequality. Critical discourse analysis by Van Dijk’s theory is applied in this study. The result of this study shows that male tends to dominate over female. Male points how irresponsibility they are to their own family. Moreover, women have limited decision powers. They will be abandoned by their husbands and they are not allowed to make their own choices due to cultural or religious instructions.


A. INTRODUCTION
Equality is one of the importants thing in life.It is one of the objectives of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights which seeks to create equality in law and in social situation such as democratic activities and securing equal pay for equal work.Both men and women should receive equal treatment and not be discriminated against based on their gender.Mackin (2014:12) states that male and female have to get the same right in term of education, politic, and economic in achieving sustainable development country.
There are many inqualities occur in a social practice, such as women as victims of sexual offences or rape, physical abused by husbands, polygamy, physical and psychological harassment by household members.Some examples above show that male is always dominant over female.It links with Murphy's statement (2004: 25) that sex-role stereotypes say that men should be dominant; achieving and enacting a dominant role in relations with others is often taken as an indicator of success.
Gender inequality does not only happen in the family environment, but it also happens in a leadership and political participant.22 percent of legislators, senior officials, and managers are women, further only 18 percent of the seats in the House of Representatives are held by women (Anderson, 2015: 1).Based on the assertion above, the male is really dominant towards female in economic and political life.
In addition, gender inequality exists in education.It occurs because cultural norms may also be a factor causing sex discrimination in education.For example, society suggests that women should be mothers and be responsible for the bulk of child-rearing.Therefore, women feel compelled to pursue educational pathways that lead to occupations that allow for long leaves of absence, so they can stay at home mothers.It deals with the slogan of "husbands are the breadwinners and wives take care of things at home (Agrawal 2015: 2).
The source of data in this thesis is Sold.It is a novel by Patricia McCormick, published in 2006.It tells the story of a girl from Nepal named Laksmi, who is sold into sexual slavery in India.This study describes about how gender inequality can be revealed through linguistics data and what the contextual background that supports in the novel.The novel is written in a series of short, vignette-style chapters.There are 181 chapters in the novel, but this study will analyse 25 chapters which describes gender inequality through sentences, phrases, clauses.

B. METHOD
Van Dijk's theory is commonly known as sociocognitive.It is the combination of dimensions that consists of three dimensionals concept.Those are social situation, cognition, text.Further, it will be described in the sociocognitive diagram below; The first dimensions is called social situations.The notion of social situation implies social representations of power, domination and social inequality among groups, organizations and institutions.Van Dijk (2001: 32) defined that CDA also needs to account for the various forms of social cognition that are shared by these social collectivities: knowledge, attitudes, ideologies, norms and values.These representations control the production of discourse, text and talk, and they may be expressed directly and indirectly.
The second dimension is cognition.It is a mental representation of a certain group of people.Van dijk (2009:16) views that discourse does not only focus on discourse structure, but also how the text is reproduced by a certain group or people.The production and comphrehension of discourse are controlled by context model.It is based on the knowledge and ideologies of the listeners or readers.Discourse controls the fact that people understand and represent not only text and talk, but also communicative situation.
The third dimensions of Van Dijk's theory is text.The language of text is the main part of controlling people's mind by analysing the words, verb, sentence, proposition, clause and phrase that is used in the discourse to express the implisit meaning of the text.Supporting the assertion above, Van Dijk (2001: 354) views that the text consists of many elements.The first one is macrostructure.It is a global meaning of text that can be observed by seeing the theme of discourse.The second elements are super structure of discourse, the meaning of discourse that can be analyzed from the small part of discourse, those are sentence, proposition, subordinate clause, paraphrase, and picture.
It can be infered that discourse consists of three elements, those are macro structure (global meaning), super structure (discourse framework), and micro structure (semantics, syntax, stylistics).The table below will describe the three elements of discourse breifly based on Van Dijk's theory;

Lexicon
Type of research in this study is library research.It is a research to use nonexperimental design in its data cannot be easily quantified and the analysis is interpretative (descriptive) (Macky & Gass, 2005: 2).Type of data that is used in this study is qualitative data .The data in this study are in the form of words, phrases, sentences that found in the Sold which contains gender inequality.It deals with Blaxter, Hughes, Tight (2006: 60) qualitative research, on the other hand, is concerned with collecting and analyzing information in as many forms, chiefly nonnumeric, as possible.It is only to analyze the data in the shape of information through the phrase, sentence, and words which show gender inequality.
The data in this study are collected through documentation techniques.It means that the data are taken from document and internet browsing.It is not obtained from the field such as by doing interview or giving questionnaires to informant or to respondent.Blexter et al (2006:187) mentions that documentary (bibliographical) study proceeds by abstracting from each document, those element which may consider to be important or relevant, by grouping together those findings, or settings them alongside other which we believe to be related.The techniques of analyzing in this research are descriptive method and interpretative method.Descriptive method is a method to take description, illustration, explanation, accurately and systematically.In addition, As Blaxter, Hughes, Tight (2006: 219) mentioned; interpretation is the process by which you put your own meaning on the data you have collected.In this research, I interprets the data to see gender inequality through phrases, clauses, sentences in the Sold which will be analyzed by Van Dijk's theory

C. DISCUSSION
The discussion of the research describes about gender inequality based on the text, the cognition of Nepalese, and social situation.The first discussion is text analysis.There are three main parts of text analysis.They are microstructure, superstructure, and macrostructure.The second one is the cognition.It is a mental representation.There are two kinds of way of thinking in the novel as a representation of Nepalese.Those are giving a dowry and sons preference.The third discussion is about the social situation.It relates to social culture in Nepal containing of gender inequalities in term of behaviour and harrasment.The detail explanation will be explained below.

Gender Inequality Based on The Text
The language of text is the main part of controlling people's mind by analysing the words, verb, sentence, proposition, clause and phrase that is used in the discourse to express the implisit meaning of the text.This study reveals about gender inquality through sentences in the novel containing gender inequality.There are three main parts of the text analysis that is used by Van Dijk's theory.They are microstructure, macrostructure, superstructure.The detail explanation about three elements parts of text will be revealed in the following.

Microstructures
The first element of microstructure analysis is syntax.This research provides some data which is devided to verb, phrase, noun, and adjective containing gender inequality between male and female in the novel.It is classified in the table 1.The first classification is the verbs that are found in the novel.They figure out that female is always a victim of gender inequlity in social practice while male is always dominance over female.It can be infered by analysing verbs that is used by male characters such as; dragging, rape, cheat, hunt, beat, squint, play card.Those verbs belong to action verb.They express physical or mental action which affect suffering of female.The verbs of sell and play belong to action verb.They emphasize male is always happy and fun with his own life.It is described by Lakshmi's stepfather as the picture of Nepalese male in a rural region.
The second classification based on data source is phrase.There are four phrases which are addressed for female.They are; climb high up the mountain, take food, feed it to the children, silence their own charming stomach.All phrases above are obvious that Lakshmi and Ama as female characters have to sacrifice their life for family members's needs.They have to against their own suffering themselves by climbing mountain for getting wood, serving their children by feeding them and take food for Ama's husband.Another phrase is no part of me unmarked by strap.It is the picture of Lakshmi who accepts Mumtaz's torture whenever she does not want to serve customer properly.In contrast, male characters show their power by stating some phrases such as put you back in the locked room, use a privy, cover your face and head with your shawl.The phrases above imply cultural social practices which exist in Nepal.They have implisit meaning to control female through that kind of rules which are cumpolsory in practice.Another parases are sell earings, wearing his kingly head.They point out Lakshmi's stepfather to enjoy his life on his family's bad condition by asking her wife to sell her earing then spend the money for himself.The phrase of wearing his kingly head describes his performance how he does not care for his family at all.
The third classification consisting gender inequality can be observed from the noun that is used by male and female characters.Female character has accepted all behavior which shows unequal treatment towards herself.The noun that is used in the novel is hurt, pain, sold, maid.McCormick applies them to describe how suffering of Lakshmi staying in the brothel by accepting physical abused from the pimp of the happiness house.Additionally, McCormick uses the noun of honor and gambler to describe male characters.They are praised and honored even though they do negative way.It is influenced by cultural norms that husband is god.As a result, they have to obey and do everything husband's words.
The forth classification consisting gender inequality is adjective.Some adjective that is addressed towards female.Those are burning, aching, naked.It describes obviously that female obtain physical abused from their partner if they do not agree with husband's instruction.Drunken belongs to adjectives which describes the personality of male.It is roled by Lakshmi's stepfather as the image of Nepal people in term of gender inequality.The following classificasion part of speech list is provided to perceive the research easily.The second element of microstructures analysis is stylistics.This element explains that the meaning of discourse can be defined through lexicon or word choice to catch the implisit and explisit meaning in the novel.McCormick uses a conotation to represent of something which makes the language more polite.Chandler (2002: 5) states that the term of connotation is used to refer to the sociocultural and personal associations (ideological, emotional etc) of the sign.These are typically related to the interpreter's class, age, gender, ethnicity.The conotation which is used in the novel containing gender inequality and poverty will be shown below.

Data 2
A tin roof means that the family has a father who doesn't gamble away the landlord's money playing cards in the tea shop.A tin roof means the family has a son working at the brick kiln in the city.A tin roof means that when the rains come, the fire stays lit and the baby stays healthy .Data 24 I understand slowly, then all at once, that my stepfather has taken my cucumbers to Bajai Sita, the old trader woman, and sold them.I understand, too, why his cot is empty.
The word of A Tin roof in data 2 is symbolized of the home of Lakshmi's family which is very bad condition.It is a place where every problems happens and the only one place they have to protect all family members from any seasons.The word of cucumbers in data 24 explains the only one thing she has in the family.It represents how poor Lakshmi's family because cucumbers belong to cheap things.McCormick attracts the readers to know more about Nepalese who live in a rural area.

Superstructure
The second element on text analysis is superstructure.It is correlated with schema.The schema of the novel consist of beginning, inciting incident motivating force, complications, climax, anticlimax, conclusion.The schema of the novel will be described in the following table; One more rainy season and our roof will be gone, says Ama.
Tin roof means that the family has a father wo doesn't gamble away the land lord's money playing cards in the tea shop.A tin roof means the family has a son working at the brick kiln in the city.A tin roof means that when the rains come, the fire stays lit and the baby stays healthy.
Let me go to the city, " I say." I can work for a rich family like Gita does, and send my wages home to you.
Inciting insident motivating force.Some event gets story really rolling 26 42 Ama wipes her cheek with the hem of her shawl," Your stepfather has said that you must go to the city and earn your keep as a maid".You Belong to me," she says."And I paid a pretty sum for you too.She opens to the page in her book points to the notation for 10.000 rupees.

Complications
Events that make the solution to the problem more challenging And then he is on the top of me, holding me down with the strength men.
He kisses me with lips that are slack and wet and taste of onions.
His teeth dig into my lower lip.

Climax
The greatest of difficulty and the solution of the major problem 44 45 46 47 I cry out and try to break free, but shahanna has hold on me.
Mumtaz draws back, the jaw of the scissors poised at my neck.
Each morning and evening Mumtaz comes, beats me with a leather strap, and locks the door behind her.
Tonights, when Mumtaz comes and unlocks the door, she sees there is no part of me unmarked by her strap.

Anticlimax
Going to the most important event (climax) to the conclusion.

63
He is too friendly, the pink American man.He grips my hand in greeting, a strange and uncouth gesture that makes me pull back in alarm.

Conclusion
The ending 66 I see other men, Indian men.My American is with them.'My name is Lakshmi,' I say.'I am from Nepal.I am fourteen years old.
Data 1 to 4 is the beginning of the story.It relates to setting where the story is established, characters are introduced, problem of the story is introduced.McCormick introduces the condition of Lakshmi's family by describing how bad their house is in the rainy season.There is nothing left anymore while hard rain comes.She also introduce a gambler stepfather, another member family who lives in small hut.Data 15 and 24 figure out the raise up of the problems.Her stepfather sends her to the city woman by cheating Lakshmi.She says that she will work as a maid in rich family house.It is the first trading of child trafficking who has been sold by her own family.It is the beginning of Lakshmi's suffering after the city woman sells her to the man who has raped her.It goes worst while Lakshmi has been sold to Mumtaz, a pimp of the brothel.
Data 26 to 42 describe the complication of the novel.It is the event which makes the solution to the problem more challenging.It starts from Lakshmi's life in the Happiness House.Mumtaz exploits her to serve all man who want her body in high price because she is young and virgin.Mumtaz does physical abused whenever she refused customer.McCormick explaines the sexual harrasment which happens to Lakshmi Clearly.It is obvious that she reveals in detail about how child abuse, sexual harrasment happens in the novel.She attemps to attract readers to be aware about how sexual harrasment accours in the life.Further she influences readers not to believe someone easily in term of getting new job or other promises which is said by new people.
Data 33 to 37 point out the climax of the novel.It is the greatest of difficulty and the solution of the major problem in the story.It starts from the cruelty becomes bad which is done by Mumtaz.She beats Lakshmi everyday because of her price is not expensive anymore.She has to move to another rooms which is smaller and dirty.Moreover she has to share with other prostitutes.McCormick attract the readers intention about how bad the main character faces her life in the brothel.
Data 63 explaines the anticlimax of novel.It is part of the most important event (climax) to the conclusion.McCormick introduces the white American in the novel as the solution to help Lakshmi out from the Happiness House.The American man comes to Lakshmi to interview her and to know more about the way how she becomes a prostitute in her age.He tells Lakshmi that he will make her free in her life and explains that she does not need to worry about her debt to Mumtaz anymore.
Data 66 shows the end of the story.It is the arrival of some policemen and American guy in the brothel.They force to get in though the guards of the brothel do not allow them to meet Lakshmi.She keeps shouting by saying her identity in english which is taught by American guy.As the result, she is free from the dirty place and get Mumtaz into the prison.

Macrostructure
The third main parts of text is macrostructure.It is a global meaning of text that can be observed by seeing the theme of discourse.It is related to certain topic of a novel.There are four themes which are found in the novel.Those are poverty, sacrifice, sex trafficking, domination.It will be explained as follow;

a. Poverty
Poverty is one of the theme in the novel beside sacrifice, sex trafficking, child abuse, violence, and domination.This is the basic of any crimes which happen in the novel as Nepal representation.Living in a rural area particularly hilly region is not easy.People mostly rely on agriculture which depends on the season to have a good harvest from their land.They have to wait harvest time to support their daily life.It becomes worst when a huge surge destroy everything.Lakshmi's family is the image of poverty which is lack of sufficient land.The data below provide the job of female and the situation of Lakshmi's family in their bad condition.
Data 12 In the cold months, the woman climb high up the mountain's spine to scavenge for firewood.Data 18 Ama and I must each make twenty trips down the mountain to the village spring, waiting our turn to bring water up to the rice paddy.
The sentence in data 12, climb high up the mountain's spine to scavenge for firewood describes that Ama and Lakshmi are the representation of female's job in Nepal.They have to climb up the montain to get firewood for cooking and water sources for watering rice field.Further, they have to face their own suffering themselves, serving their children by feeding them and take food for Ama's husband.Ama does not care for her own pain.She thinks that family member's needs is more important than anything.Another datum can be seen in data 18, I must each make twenty trips down the mountain to the village spring, waiting our turn to bring water up to the rice paddy.It points Ama, lakshmi's mother, has to to take turn with other people for getting water.It proves that living in a rural area is not easy, especially for women.

b. Sacrifice
The second theme of the novel is sacrifice.It typically means an act of giving up something valued for the sake of something else regarded as more important or worthy (https://en.oxforddictionaries.com).Sacrifice is crucial things in any relationship such as family relationship and love relationship.It shows the quality in a relation and a to measure how much someone cares for.This novel tells about child's sacrifice for her family for getting an improvement in their family's life.She has to work for a rich family to earn money for helping them.She expects that her sacrifice will be useful for each family members.There are two females characters who sacrifice their life.Those are Lakshmi and her mother.The data below will show how Lakshmi and her mother sacrifice their life.Data 3 "Let me go to the city, " I say."Data 4 I can work for a rich family like Gita does, and send my wages home to you.Data 27 If I go, you will have money enough for rice and curds, milk and sugar.
Enaugh for a coat for the baby and a sweater for you.
The data above imply the female's sacrifice which is done by Lakshmi.It can be seen in data 3,4,27.Those are Let me go to the city, I can work for a rich family like Gita does, If I go you will have money enough for rice and curds, milk and sugar.She attempts to sacrifice herself by going to the city for working.She folllows her friend working as a maid, so she can help her mother to complete their needs.She imagines that she is able to make every family members happy.Her intention does not come from internal motivation.Her stepfather forces her to do it through her mother.

c. Child Trafficking
The third theme of the novel is child trafficking.Nepal is one of country that is trafficked to India.According to UNICEF ( 2009), approximately 200,000 Nepali girls and women work in brothels.Nepali girls are desirable as prostitutes in India because they are considered more attractive due to their lighter skin color.Further, Nepali virgins are believed to be able to cure AIDS (Wasti, 2011).Trafficking victims are taken in locations within Nepal, from rural areas to the urban centers.Mainly young girls and women are trafficked for sexual exploitation.In addition, a numbers of child trafficking increased because poor, orphaned girls, and young women believe to traffickers' promises to support them financially and their relatives.The novel describes about child trafficking as the picture of Nepals.It is proved in the following data.
Data 28 My stepfather squints.He takes in the cosly fabric of the woman's dress, the baubles on her ears, the silver bangles on her wrist," one thousand rupees," he says.Data 42 You Belong to me," she says."And I paid a pretty sum for you too.She opens to the page in her book points to the notation for 10.000 rupees.
The italic sentence in data 28, one thousand rupees expresses that Lakshmi's stepfather sells her deliberately.Her stepfather has taken money from the city lady to fulfill his own happiness.He spends the money in the gambling place.Lakshmi does not realise that she has been sold to rich family.She is shocked when she arrives in a big house.She feels that she is lucky girl because she is able to use all facilities after her job done.The day after, she has to move to another place, called brothel.It is the beginning of her suffering in that place.

d. Domination
Nepal is patriarchal country where male dominates female.Men are considered superior as leader of family, such as being father and husband.The status of Nepalese woman is powerless than the man in society.Domination is the exercise of control or influence over someone or something, or the state of being so controlled (Cambridge Advance Learner's Dictionary).Sold is the representation of Nepal situation which domination is one of social practices in society.The domination in this section relates to violence.Gelles and Cornell (1990: 54) state that violence is an act carried out with intentions perceived for causing physical pain or injury to another person.In many parts of Nepal, the crime against women is increasing day by day.
This novel tells about some violences which happen in the Nepal.Lakshmi as the main character faces violence that is done by two people.Those are the old man, the owner of the brothel and the woman named Mumtaz, a pimp who helps the old man.Those can be seen in the following data.
Data 30 We are in India now," Uncle Husband has told me.Don't speak to anyone here.If they hear you talk, they will know you're from the mountains and they will try to take advantage of you.
The italic sentence above describes clearly that the old man, the owner of the brothel tries to remove the girl from everything that is familiar.The unfamiliar things can be very scary and can make anyone feel powerless.The sentence of Don't speak to anyone here belongs to prohibition for girl by not to talk to a stranger people.It implies that the man is afraid if someone knows about his illegal job.Lakshmi as a pure girl follows everything he said.While they are going to cross the border, he attempts to convince policeman that she is his wife.He also tries to influence her by saying that the city people are bad.The old man does not only cheat her but also he treats her very bad.The next datum shows how bad the old man and the pimp treat Lakshmi in the brothel.

Gender Inequality Based on The Cognition of Nepal
The cognition in this term is a mental representation of a certain group of people.Nepalese view that women's position are dominated by male including in the social practice, tradition and other cases.Many women think of their husbands as their God, one who should be worshipped and he should be followed without questions.The tradition of girls going away to their husband's house upon marriage has reduced their status within their own family.
Gender inequality refers to unequal treatment or perceptions of individuals based on their gender.Shastri (2014:28) reveals that gender inequality refers to the disparities between women and men based on their gender rather than objective differences in skills, abilities, or other characteristics.Gender basically refers two sexes men and women.Biologically both are having different roles and some major responsibilities which they have to fulfill.
Generally, gender inequality word used for women because they considered being most inferior and weaker section of Nepal society.Gender inequality is not a very new phenomenon in this modern time in Nepal, but it was also prevailing in the ancient time.Women face every kind of discrimination in this society.Jha & Nagar (2015: 47) classify seven types of gender inequalities in Nepal.Those are mortality inequality, natality inequlity, employment inequality, ownership inequality, special opportunity inequality, basic facility inequality, and household inequality.The novel tells about household inequalities that often occurs in Nepal.

Gender Inequality Based on The Social Situation in Nepal
The social situations has been explained in the previous chapter.It implies the social representation of power, domination and social inequality.The culture of Nepal is represented in the novel entitled Sold.Nepal is one of developing countries in which male dominates female.Women need a husband and a family.Their dominating nature has led women to walk with their head down which applies until now.Nepalese believe that women are born to do household tasks, manage children and family.In addition, there are many gender inequalities which are found in the novel in term of behaviour and harrasment.It is linked with the data below; Data 14, 16, and 17 belong to Nepalese women's behaviour in the social life.the first data is shown in data 14.Those phrase are carry yourself, bow your head in the presence of men, cover yourself with your shawl.They are obvious that women must be able to know how to behave as women while they are not with her family and husband.The phrase of bow your head in the presence of men points that women have to nod their head while they passed in front of men.This kind of body language shows the way how women respect men so much.This kind of behaviour is not enough showing respecting men.It is shown in the pharse of cover yourself with your shawl.The phrase reveals that women may not see other men except their own husband while men are able to see woman freely.It figures out the powerles of women in Nepal by covering their face with the shawl while they are in front of men

D. CONCLUSION
Nepal is a developing country in which gender inequality is going on in terms of education, health, employment, social values, customs, on the name of caste, as well as on the norm of sexual harassment.Nepal has witnessed gender inequality from its early history due to its social, economic and religious practices that resulted a wide gap between the position of men and women in the society.The novel entitled Sold is the representation of Nepalese culture.It tells the story of a girl from Nepal named Laksmi, who is sold into sexual slavery in India.
Gender inequalities are found in the novel by analysing the text, cognition, and the social situation through sentences of the novel.There are three main parts of the text analysis that is used by Van Dijk's theory.They are microstructure, macrostructure, superstructure.The first text analysing is microstructures.It examines syntax and stylistics to interpreate and understand what the messege of discourse is about.it is calssified into verb, phrase, noun, and adjective containing gender inequality between male and female in the novel.The sytlistics of the novel that is used in the novel is implisit to show a conotation to represent of something which makes the language more polite.The second text analysing is supertructure.It is correlated with schema.The schema of the novel consist of beginning, inciting incident motivating force, complications, climax, anticlimax, conclusion.The third text analysing is macrostructure.It is a global meaning of text which can be observed by seeing the theme of discourse.There are four themes which are found in the novel.Those are poverty, sacrifice, sex trafficking, domination.
The cognition of the novel is a mental representation.There are two kinds of way of thinking in the novel as a representation of Nepalese.Those are giving a dowry and sons preference.Giving dowry is a practice of giving money or property or some kinds of special gifts at the marriage of a daughter by the father to bridegroom or bridegroom's family.Sons preference is boys are given the exclusive rights to inherit the family name and properties and they are viewed as additional status for their family.Nepalese claimes that if families are lacking a son, they have to find a nephew to perform the funeral rights, a daughter will not do.
The social situation relates to social culture in Nepal containing of gender inequalities in term of behaviour and harrasment.Nepalese girls have to cover her face while she walks alone, they have to wait for their husband whenever they will eat their food.Further, she has to receive harrasment in term of jokes.
This thesis concludes that gender inequality is crucisal problem in developing countries.It needs the awareness of society that gender inequality can be reduced through education.The educated people will never stop struggling in any condition, especially for women.They will not have fear to oppose gender inequality whenever it happens toward herself.
at me, she grabs me by the hair and drags me across the room.She flings me onto the bed next to the old man.
Tabel 1.Three elements of discourse based on Van Dijk's model Tabel 2. The classification of part of speech containing gender inequality

Table 3 .
The schema of the novel

The Novel Schema Description Data Text
Data 14 Now, she says, you must carry yourself with modesty, bow your head in the presence of men, and cover yourself with your shawl.Data 16 Once you are married, she says, you must eat your meal only after your husband has had his fill.Then you may have what remains.Data 17 If your husband asks you to wash his feet, you must do as he says, than put a bit of the water in your mouth.