Diary extract from the poem blessing Essay Example for Free

Diary extract from the poem blessing EssayToday was the best day always the pipe through our village burst. I first spotted it on the way back from my two mile hike to the well, I had two buckets in my hands had spilt a little water on the way back when seeing a spurt of water coming from the pipe. I filled up the buckets and ran home, I told everyone in the village to bring buckets and cups and everything, by this time the gap had grown and there was a good amount of water coming from it. Everyone heap up around bring mugs and tin cans to collect some clean water, we filled our metal bath tub with our buckets and everything we could, we induct so much water now, the crops we piss tried to grow pass water been watered and we have kept a good amount to water them more often, the drought had finally ended, there hasnt been precipitate in a while, but I believe that this is the work of god, hes finally come through for us, everyone had prayed and thanked him for this deed, the party still hasnt finished, I am tired, I have been dancing and singing and drumming until the sun rose again, I was the villages favourite person today because I spotted the leak that has praised us all, I wouldnt cover the feeling I had for anything in the world, people chanted my name and cheered all night long I loved it, none of the water is being atrophied anything waterproof is being filled with clean healthy water, I will not have to go on my hike for water for the next fewer days and I will not have to be thirsty we argon going to church again tomorrow and I think that the on the whole village will be there just to thank him for this blessing.I cant believe how lucky we were, this is truly a miracle, the water came when we needed it the most, when everyone was decision it harder and harder to drink the dirty water, but the question is how long will this water last? How long will it take for the rich people to realise they atomic number 18 paying for our water? And will they stop it? I believe that these questions will be answered in time, God may have let this miracle but I dont think there is much he could do to change those idiots, they have everything, clean house, clean food and clean drinking water and we have nothing. Our homes are dirty so is our food and out drinking water they just perplex water whenever they want whereas we have to walk over 2 miles to get dirty water from a well. Everyone hates them if only we could swap places for a week, they would know what its like how hard it is for us just to survive, to stay alive but they have no idea I wish something could be done about this.

Aristotles Doctrine Of The Four Causes

Aristotles Doctrine Of The Four CausesAristotles quatern causes theory uphold that all the causes can be grouped into varies divisions. The 4 causes be based on general laws, and these causes are associated with the question of why a thing is. To answer such question is to give a cause. any(prenominal) artifact can be broken down to these four causes. There is the Material Cause, Formal Cause, Efficient Cause and the Final Cause. The Material Cause is the canonical element that makes up a thing, in other words the cause of the object. For example the Material cause of a bow would be wood, without the wood the give in could non exist un slight they were present in its work. The Formal Cause pertains the appearance or pattern with which these materials are accumulated. For example the Formal Cause of a table would be the arrangement, shape, and the design. Efficient Cause is the source or designer of that from which the thing became what it is. For instance the Efficient Cause o f a table would be the carpenter who do it. Thus, the table is the table it is, because of the particular carpenter who made it. Lastly, the Final cause is the end (telos), the ultimate purpose or exact form of this object that comes to be. The last cause of a table would be to behind meals or to place objects on top of it. For Aristotle its very important to understand the purpose of something in assign to understand how to live ethically particularly gentlemans gentleman beings. This is part of the explanation of the tables existence, for it would never vex been built in the early place.Give a truncated critical analysis of Aristotles idea of triumph.The central question of ethics for Aristotle is, what does it take for human beings to lead a good heart? Aristotle outlines 3 points that he thinks have to be fulfilled for some purpose to be ultimate.Ultimate goal has to be self- sufficient.Final goal. In other words something you sine qua non for its own sake, non as st epping st peerless for something elseAttainable.Since All activities have a final cause, or leads to some other require, Ultimately for Aristotle the wizard goal that seems to fulfill all these stipulations was Happiness (eudaimonia). Not in the narrow sense of mental or emotional state unless rather in the sense of well being or flourishing. If human beings can find happiness, happiness by its self is self- sufficient. Aristotle says that people need to make choices and in order to make choices we have to develop trus iirthy habits or virtues, which will allow you to make the right choices. People need to understand and even necessary to be taught the virtues habits. You need to develop these virtues to develop a happy life, but the virtues are the beggarlys to the end. How do we achieve this end? In order to understand that, we need to understand how Aristotle understood the human soul. Aristotle separate the soul into 3 parts. The basic part of the soul is basically vegetat ive. Our bodies grow and develop by itself without any kind of conscious control. Similarly, to the vegetable world because it takes place totally without rational control. Above the vegetable soul, its the animal level, the level of desires. As human beings Aristotle says we have certain responsibility to control our desires otherwise we would simply be no different then animals. And finally there is the rational part of the soul which controls the animal desires, as well as seeks for high types of learning, education and higher types of gratification. Happiness is the activity of the soul according to reason and these activities must be according to virtue and excellence. If there are several virtues excellences then they must be the highest activity. If you detain happiness, you could only die happy. Aristotle distinguishes 2 types of virtues. 1. Intellectual sexual morality and Moral virtue. Intellectual Virtue comes from teaching and Moral virtue comes from Habituation. We a cquire these virtues through virtues acts. Aristotle considers the life of the Gods, because the activity of a God is contemplation. Which is the highest form of activity of the soul to achieve Happiness. The Gods are engaged in intellectual virtues. The Gods are not interested in human affairs. If there is a perfect life for Aristotle, which happiness it is in this existence, its the here and now not in the afterlife. The wise person is the peerless that studies the most, and the one that studies the most is the one that is issued by the Gods, because he is performing an activity the is accepted by the Gods. Therefore, Aristotle would say that if you reached happiness then you have achieved the ultimate human existence.Does Plato make a convincing case for why philosophers should rule society?According to Plato, the society is to consist of three classes workers, warriors and rulers. Each of which must stick to complete their direct commitment. As to the rulers, Platos opinion regarding them is very interesting and different from the views of other philosophers. In the Republic, he dwell on different types of rulers, which vary from democrat to tyrant, and he come to the conclusion that philosopher would be best choice for the country due to number of characteristics. For example, considering the aspect of love for honor, the dialogue between Plato and Socrates is shaped in the following(a) way What about an honor-lover? A rich man is honored by many people, so is a courageous one and a wise one, but the pleasure of studying the things that are cannot be tasted by anyone except for a philosopher.(Cohen M.C., p. 567) Another reason for the philosopher to be considered the best ruler according to Plato is the fact that distant the rest of the rulers (monarch or tyrant), the philosopher is inclined to look for truth rather than prove his rightness to others. The philosopher is always open to new ideas and is not likely to use formal methods which do not s uit the situation. As the ideal candidate for the position of the ruler of the state is considered by Plato to be a philosopher, there are two logical ways of realization of this idea a philosopher must become a king or a king mist become a philosopher. Either way leads to building a harmonious and strong state where everyone knows his place and fulfills his obligations honestly. It goes without saying that Platos works are full of bright ideas, inspiration and desire to improve the society he lived in. Moreover, they are still very topical and most of them underlie modern philosophical concepts. However his theory is hard to use in real life due to its idealistic nature and the nature of the human animal.What is the relationship between the sun simile, the divided line and the allegory of the hollow in Platos Republic?The Allegory of the cave in the Republic illustrates the effects of the education on the soul. It is a story showing how true reality is not always what we think i t is. It is a story of tolerance and the effect of possibility. Plato sums the Plato imagines a group of captives who have been kept in the cave their whole lives. They have been chained so they could not see behind themselves and they are forced to stare at the cave wall in front of them. Behind them a dismission is burning and between the prisoners and the fire is a raised walkway. Each day a menagerie of objects cross the walkway such as animals, and people. Their shapes create a shadow play on the wall in front of the prisoners. This is the only world the prisoners have ever known. Then one day a prisoner was dragged out of the cave into the sun light, after some time adjusting to the blinding light, he noticed that it was the sun that governed everything in the visible realm and which was in one way or another responsible for everything they use to see. This is obviously the next stage. The free prisoner began to experience the world outside of the cave for the very first ti me and it was nothing like he could have ever imagined. With his new perception of the world the man returns to his friends and wants to convince them that what they were seeing was just an illusion. But the prisoners cannot recognise their own friend, he appearance as all things do, a shadow with distorted voice. This does not make the world outside of the cave any less real. The divided line explains Platos theory of how knowledge works and how we come to have knowledge and clarity of the soul. In the Allegory of the Cave the line simile explains the four types knowledge from lowest to the highest. They are, Illusions, Belief or Trust, Mathematical Knowledge and lastly Philosophical Knowledge. It illustrates that the truth works once we deal with reality. The Allegory of the Cave explains that if we want to seek the real truth we have to accept the pain of dropping all of our preconceived notions of what truth was before. The light of the fire inside the dwelling is the power of the sun, which represents the form or character of the good. Once its seen the conclusion must be that it turns out to be the cause of all that is right and good for everything.Aristotle appears to argue that we are responsible for our moral character. However, if childhood training counts for so much in developing moral character,.if we ourselves are not responsible for the training we receive?Virtue is a disposition involving choice. There are 2 parts to virtues. Intellectual virtue and Moral virtue. Intellectual virtue comes from teaching and moral virtue comes from habit. A decent person raises their children in a virtues way, since virtue comes with training and habituation. Therefore, we can say that it is obvious that we are not born with these characteristics but acquired them through nature of act.. We are responsible for the type of people we became, because we shape our moral character through choices and actions. For instance, a relationship (virtue), can be nourished th rough love and commitment to one another. Its not something that can be done inevitably but rather, voluntary. We are what we are, because of the things that we repeatedly do, and should not act ignorant nor make excuses. Example, adequate pianist by playing the piano, we became just by doing just actions. If it werent for our actions then teachers wouldnt be needed, for we would be born with such qualities.Explain Aristotles Doctrine of the stand for.The doctrine of mean is Aristotles declaration to search for the middle ground, extremes exist in almost every aspect of life and one should seek for the mean. This mean is not an absolute one but a relative one, customized to the situation and person. But the location is always in between the two. For example in Nicomachean Ethics he lists the following examples with keep an eye on to fear and confidence the mean is courage, excess in confidence leads to foolhardy and excess in fear leads to cowardice and with respect to honor and disgrace the mean is high-mindedness, excess of honor is called vanity and deficiency of it might be called humility or small-mindedness.

Reducing Occupational Stress in Air Traffic Control

Reducing Occupational Stress in Air Traffic ControlRecommendations and ConclusionsIntroductionIn this chapter, the police detective has formulated a set of recommendations based on data found in the finding and analysis chapter in line with the objectives of the dissertation to help in reducing occupational stress in air handicraft control. modify job planning and reliability of the take a leak systemsAccording to Glovanni Coasta (1995), from the past technical fashion to present support, under full radar coverage of air space, is the key factor which allows a jump in quality, non just in terms of thrash competence, but likewise in terms of stress levels, by decreasing cognitive, retrospection and communicative loads along with uncertainty and unforeseeability of the situations. The more than technological passage to function under multi-radar assistance permits an additional rise in levels of reliability and safety as well as a decline in stress levels.These improvements al low for well planning of air traffic and, after, a more balanced workload among individual ATCs. These improvements may also subsequently reduce the possibility or the seriousness of many unforeseen situations, by allowing for more reliable information and more time for solving problems and making decisions, composition eliminating many stressful and risky traffic peaks.Reduction of working times and arrangement of working teams and rest pauses in relation to the workloadThe mental strength required maintaining the maximum level of perplexity and vigilance, as well as to securely and efficiently facing the indebtedness in terms of cognitive and memory load that potentiometer differ usually in relation to air traffic concentration and connected problems. Therefore, to guarantee the best level of performance expertness avoiding excessive mental stress and fatigue, contingent attention has to be paid to arranging duty periods.Duty periodsThe continuance of the duty period shou ld not clear ten hours (extendable to 12 hours in special circumstances), and should be adjusted according to the workloadAn interval of no less than 12 hours should be scheduled surrounded by the conclusion of one period of duty and the commencement of the next period of dutyOvertime should be an exception.Breaks during operational dutyNo operational duty shall exceed a period of two hours without there being taken, during or at the end of that period, a break or total break not less than 30 minutesDuring periods of high traffic density, the possibility of having more frequent short breaks (ten minutes) should be providedA sufficiently long break for meals should be allowed, providing adequate canteen facilities to assure hot and ethical quality meals.Arrangement of shift schedules according to psycho-physiological and social criteriaShift work, in item night work, is a stress factor for the ATCs due to its negative effects on various aspects of their lives. This stress can be eliminated by adopting a rapidly-rotating shift system, changing work shifts every one or two days instead of every week. Moreover, reducing the number of consecutive night shifts as much as doable and having a days rest after the night-shift period. This prevents accumulation of sleep deficit and fatigue, and allows a quicker recovery. Delaying the beginning of the morning shift (e.g. at 0700 or later) to allow a normal amount of sleep. Preferring the forward rotation (e.g. morning-afternoon-night) to the backward one (e.g. afternoon-morning-night) to allow a longer period of rest between shifts). Adjusting the length of shifts according to the physical and mental workload that is day shifts should be shorter, whereas night shifts could be longer if the workload is reduced and there are sleeping facilities.Improving the work environmentLightingTaking into consideration that the ATCs task is performed almost exclusively in front of a visual display unit, particular attention should be paid to providing lighting conditions which favor an optimal visual performance.Inside the towers, the opposite is the problem. It is necessary to avoid excessive illumination levels due to external beady light using both anti-reflection glass and curtains it is also consequential to remove the possibility of positioning and shielding the visual display units to avoid indirect glimmer due to bright reflections on the screen.NoiseThe main sources of noise are represented by conversations, manual operations (e.g. manipulations of strip supports) and office machines (printers, telephones, photocopiers, etc.). Therefore particular attention has to be paid in order to stop background noise from exceeding 45-50 dB by installing quieter office machinery, arranging work sectors in order to have better sound protection from each other, and installing more insulating headsets and more sensitive microphones.Arranging workplaces according to ergonomic criteriaWorkstation targetIt is al so important to arrange the layout of the workplace in order to avoid glare caused by excessive brightness contrasts between different objects and surfaces it causes discomfort and hampers the experience of the information. The displays should be shaded and the surfaces matte, avoiding the use of reflective materials and bright colors on table-tops and consoles. Data displays containing flight information should preferably be located beside the radar screen.Sitting posturesA prolonged, cons expert sitting posture causes muscular-skeletal discomfort and pain, particularly at the level of the neck, the shoulders and the lumbar tract. In order to avoid or alleviate such disturbances, it is important to use suitable chairs which allow a comfortable sitting posture opus working, as well as useful muscle relaxation while on stand-by or resting in front of the screen.Individual ways of coping with stressFirst of all, people should avoid ineffective ways of coping, which can have an appar ent short term positive effect but, in the long run, can cause further problems in health and well-being. We refer in particular to smoking. Increasing smoking (for smokers) is sometimes seen as a way of obtaining a sense of relief and calmness. Of course, apart from short-term relief, there are many indecent effects both on performance efficiency, due to interference with the upper nervous system activities, and on health, due to increased risk of lung tumors and chronic bronchitis from smoking.Secondly, maintaining good physical fitness and emotionally stable psychic conditions are the best aids in fighting and overcoming stress. To stay in satisfactory condition, people should cave in particular attention to physical exercise, eating habits, sleeping patterns, relaxation techniques and leisure activities.Relaxation techniques are becoming more and more popular among people who tone to be under stress. Massage, yoga, meditation and autogenous training are all useful exercises wh ich help to control restlessness, anxiety, muscular tension, inability to concentrate, insomnia and other symptoms of stress. trainingThe lease of training is at teaching occupational and particular coping strategies in order to improve the capacity of event appraisal and problem solving, so that ATCs gain how to cope with emotional effects of stressful events and improve the capacity of control. Air traffic controllers should be trained to develop action-oriented and problem-focused coping abilities. Positive acceptance and inspection of stress situations, active coping, seeking to social support for instrumental and emotional reasons must be strengthened, while inclination towards restraint coping, behavioural and mental pullout should be restricted.ConclusionAir traffic controllers are the working groups having to eff with very stressful and tough job and are widely recognized as an occupational group which has to cope with a highly demanding job that involves a complex seri es of tasks, requiring high levels of knowledge and expertise, combined with high levels of responsibility. According to this research, it can be seen that most of air traffic controllers rate the level of stress as extreme.Moreover, this level of stress is caused due to several factors such as term of break that the controllers have, the shift hours they usually worked and the workload. Stress can be due to conflict arising from workplace and private life also. According to survey, 63% of air traffic controllers have conflict arising from workplace and private life. 50% of controllers agreed that stress is caused due to their nature of the job and responsibilities.Air traffic controllers must be trained to have high stress resistance and must be able to take best decision in difficult condition and on behalf of the pilot. Training should be given in order to improve the capacity of event appraisal and problem solving, so that ATCs learn how to cope with emotional effects of stress ful events and improve the capacity of control. Moreover, it is important to have a stress management system in place in the work place to help controllers deal with suffering a loss of separation incident or accident.ReferenceProfessor Glovanni Coasta (1995). Occupational stress and prevention in air traffic control. take of Occupational Medicine University of Verona.

The conceptual framework of feminism

The conceptual framework of feminist movementThe conceptual framework of feminism, as a reactionary ideology, basic aloney consists of index finger, fair sex, rights, and equality. The same cigargont be said of African feminism, which has on its priority list such(prenominal) goals as self-determination, which have economic overt unmatchables sew on a materialistic metaphysic. African char cleaning womanism, de hatred its pretensions to seeking co-operation or its advocacy for interdependency between men and women, uses a model of conscientisation of women that is foreign to Africa, and runs the risks of obscurantism, vulgarism, inauthenticity, and irrelevance. To jell it cryptically, African womanism cant want and cant non want men at the same time. Although sexual activity has made tremendous strides in conscientising women about their quandary vis--vis male-dominance, its future in Africa requirements that it re-position itself appropriately. At least it must re-think thr ee theories, that is, the labour theory, economic theory, and neighborly theory.Africas coetaneous socio-political scene depicts theoretical and practical confusion of grammatical sexual activity with feminism or, for that matter, gender with broad emancipatory movements, such as African womanism, which nonetheless use gender theory as an intellectual tool for critical summary for the supposedly discriminatory friendly, religious and political organisational structures. Feminist thinkers loathe these structures because they see in them deliberate mechanisms for oppressing or marginalising women. This oppression of women characterises the present economic inegalitarianism in a male-dominated status quo. Consequently, it is argued that these male-founded and male-dominated structures can only be changed so as to render them balanced or equitable if and only if r developingary measures ar employed. The usual elements of such arguers form a class of people called womens rightist ideologues. Feminist ideologues are those people, male and female, minority or majority in one country, who share the ideas or beliefs or attitudes of male-dominance over women. They tend to look at society in one way they are certainly unhappy, dissatisfied and critical of what they see most them as compared to what they would like to see. The rational justification of their dis glut and critical attitude is quite another thing. Insofar as feminism comprises people, who share one hard-boiled of ideas or Where is the Foundation of African gender?beliefs or attitudes as a group or community and who are ( groundworkly) organised, feminism is an ideology,1 which is posited to displace the prevailing male-dominated ideology. It is the meat of an ideology or the ideological core, which is the most difficult part to change because it is the worldview of the people. The ideological core consists of the core ideas, core beliefs, or core attitudes of a people. By implication, if the co re ideas, beliefs, or attitudes are purged out then the peoples practical existentity is annihilated. The revolutionary spirit is germane to any feminist ideologue because he or she believes that lasting and effective change must be moral and intellectual. These detested moral and intellectual values are in-built in society so that their remotion or reduction calls for a drastic revolutionary overhaul of the whole social fabric. This drastic revolutionary overhaul of society must be no less than a critique of the prevailing ideology because it purports to survey to intellectual scrutiny, and lastly refute or reject prevailing ideas, beliefs, or attitudes, which are rationally unjustified or prejudicial to the position of women in society. And then feminist ideology purports to create its avouch better ideas, beliefs, or attitudes. In other words, feminist ideology creates its own counter-consciousness, and eventually its own counterculture. This counterculture comprises a new set of beliefs and a new style of life that is intended or hoped to challenge and eventually expose the inadequacy of the prevailing culture. Only when the ideological core of the prevailing culture is removed and replaced by a new ideological core can lasting and effective change occur. Any change less than that involving the ideological core is superficial or transitory.In a nutshell, feminism challenges the prevailing status quo and develops a counter-ideology that questions the prevailing status quo and then attempts to modify it. Feminism advocates change rather than order. It criticises the regime in power and existing social and economic arrangements. It advances schemes for restructuring and grade society. It generates political movements in the form of womens movements in order to gain enough power and influence to effect the changes it advocates. Feminism is an ideology of action for it motivates people to demand changes in their lifestyles and to modify the existing social, religious, political, and economic dealings. It also mobilises its followers and adherents to preserve what they value.2 Ultimately, feminism is political and revolutionary. The revolutionary tinge of feminism has historically at quantify sanctioned the use of violence,3 which has not precluded bloodshed. gender thinking adopts this feminist stance, with little or no modification or retouching and with few or no disclaimers, so that it is conventional gender thinking to posit men as the perpetrators of female-oppression and discrimination in a society which is viewed as male-dominated, a society in which this heavyhearted scenario is ingrained in the fabric of the prevailing political regimes, and where the social, religious, political and economic relations and structures are arranged so as to embrace and promote disagreement between men and women. The result is that the gender paradigm centrally addresses the problems of equality and liberty rights, to a greater extent or le ss zeroing on a variant of welfare-state ideology. sexual urge thinkers see no need to take caution in acknowledgeing gender-ism from feminism. Feminism is taken for granted as the appropriate seed and vehicle of gender. In present-day(a) literary circles, the philosophical presuppositions of gender thinking and practice are not put to a litmus test because testing gender implies testing feminism, which, in any case, has withstood many a crucial test as evidenced by its record of persistence and triumph especially in Europe, Great Britain, America, Canada, and Australia. This being the case, the cogency of popular gender-isms can only be tested, or critiqued, against cross-cultural objectivity. This paper argues that the lack of demarcation between gender and feminism leads to confusion of western feminism with gender. By grounding itself in feminist ideology, gender inherits most of the weaknesses and short alights of western feminism. Gender finds its impetus and modes of exp ression in western feminism. Therefore, Africa needs to afterthought a specific gender, which is appropriate to the African situation in this new millennium.Conceptual analysis of gender and feminism becomes a problem for a set down because there is a plethora of such offers on the contemporary intellectual and political scenes. Below, only extant literature is reviewed on the question of gender and feminism in Malawi and elsewhere in Africa. In the case of Malawi, only a few example paper are considered. Any other contributions outside these papers are nonetheless worthwhile but very likely to be implicitly implicated and/or critiqued in one or more of the representative papers. The choice of the papers is free and deliberate social philosophy, education, religion, and environment, i.e., unarguably, some of the hottest beds of gender debates and activism.At this juncture, it should be appreciated that African intellectuals have for some time assay to conceptualise gender and f eminism in their own situation. As far as philosophical writing is concerned in Malawi, Hermes Chidammodzi was116 Where is the Foundation of African Gender?the first to notice and then critique this confusion between gender and feminism in the mid-nineties.Feminism is a consecration of the moral and intellectual and hence planetary values of equality purportedly denied of women by the dominance of males over women and the sacrosanct ideologies developed in society to legitimatise and perpetuate male-dominance. Thus conceived, feminism as a western reactionary and sacrosanct ideology is not African in origin and development so that the contemporary gender idiom is not a full theoretical framework and expression of the paradigm of African gender. This construing of gender invokes three important thoughts (1) Gender does not mean and is not women. (2) Gender emerges in a specific situation depicting inegalitarianism embedded in social structures where one sex (male or female) is on th e losing side. (3) Gender is a social construct of sets of behaviours, dispositions, ideas, beliefs, values, and attitudes of man and woman. (4) Gender has a strong materialistic tendency, for it suit womens qualities or modes of action in womens daily lives in a spatio-temporal-specific resource ungenerous presumably conditioned by a sexual division of labour. Insofar as it is situationally embedded in the societys power relations, gender is a reaction to constructed, i.e. real or imagined, male- dominance and female subordination. Gender thus conceived becomes an outgrowth from feminism.28 The record of feminism is marked by two goals equality and rights. Pioneer American feminists like Susan Anthony and Elizabeth Stanton had to battle it out with men for their right to vote as equals with men by dint of creation. In the days of old, liberalism provided the initial momentum toward the release of women from social bondage. To womens disappointment, many a revolution (like the Am erican Revolution in 1776 and the French Revolution in 1789) and nationalism did not specifically rescue them from subjugation by men. Social inequalities continued to prevail in the new and independent states. Britain, America and the Continent of Europe clearly illustrate the sluggish pace of women liberation go up Switzerland is the last European democracy to grant women suffrage in 1971.Despite the universality of female subordination and male domination, the African womans situation is bound to chafe her suspicious of western feminist discourse, which is mostly the consume of the twentieth century middle-class woman in an industrial sexual division of labour. For the western woman of that era it was only natural for her to cry for balance of power. The feminist fight was a fight for power. She made lots of gains her emancipatory efforts bore her more equality with men, more rights, and easier access to resources, increase in opportunities or incentives, especially in the co mmon sphere.The yardstick was always her more privileged male counterpart in the al acquirey privileged middle-class. In labour, this historicity of western feminism has led to the misconception that women were solely fighting for the soft or top jobs such as company executive, manager, prime minister, parliamentarian, physician, intelligence service editor, professor, pilot surprisingly, the women never zealously fought for rough jobs such as undertaker, trench-digger, dockyard worker, heavy industrial worker, soldier,30 or night-guards.In its counter-critique, western feminism penetrated the rough jobs eventually, the west precept more women engineers, women soldiers, and policewomen, thus virtually transforming western society into a unisex club. In the inter-war period, and much more vehemently after W.W.II, feminist thinkers zeroed on join as the champion of female subordination, and so they strongly argued that the demolition of the marriage institution would automatically lead to total women liberation. It was then a normal spectacle for a woman feminist to be decidedly non-married, although she could be attached and have children. Domesticity, child rearing, or whatever family life stands for, was looked upon as an impediment to women involvement and affair in public life, especially to public employment. The feminist propaganda so narrowly construed was reduced to a feminist fight for space and time in the public spheres of life especially the workplace, which was supposed as a predominantly male territory. Two concepts dominated and still dominate the western conceptual framework.Western gender categories dismally fail to provide a gender conceptual framework for the African woman. For instance, the category of power cannot be used to conceptualise gender in Africa. To argue that a certain normative concept like power has a gender meaning is to claim that its social usage, at least in part, is not what it ought to be for reasons that have to do w ith gender To claim further that the usage does not command universality and objectivity, receivable to considerations of differing hermeneutics, i.e. interpretation as grounded in historicity and context is not to advocate gender scepticism. Although the empirical realities of women world-wide are different, this paper argues for the abandonment of gender exclusivity in the face of equally competing, urgent and appealing discourses of, say, ethnicity, racism, and class.In western traditional masculinist literature, power is viewed as repressive, poured from a leviathan above to his subjects below. The subjects are said to need the powerful leviathan because without him, they lack security, peace and well-being. In that western literary world, power is evidently and firmly associated with the male and masculinity, like virility, thus evoking the physicality of power. The correlate of man, woman, is therefore powerless.So when feminists wrote about power over our bodies and power of our lives they were victimisation the very same concept of power, which pervaded traditional masculinist discourses on power. They affirmed the male expression of power rather than providing an alternative. It comes to us as no surprise that contemporary gender thinkers mimic the same masculinist notion of power in theorising gender. They are not wary of historical, social and political situation of knowledge-claims.32 Trapped in their own ideological cocoon, the western feminist women still think that western rationality is the only rationality that western science is superior to other forms of rationality (if any), so that in regard to, say, family planning strategy, African women have to be helped by their more scientific counterparts from the west.African women, so claim the western women, need to be conscientised because it is feared that the African women have internalised the oppression or suffering and therefore are in desperate need of awareness campaigns by women animat ors from the west. The western feminists already fall prey to the yet another ideology of dominance they vehemently fight in their own backyard.Western feminists are totally oblivious to the reality of subject-object relations in research the reality the helper and the helped are equals as they each experience the other from the viewpoint of their own situations and background knowledge and cultures. Each one (the helper and the helped) is the object of experience of the other so that objectivity is somehow tainted with subjectivity.31 Oshadi Mangena argues likewise that if one is attentive to contrasts of ethnic origin, sexual taste and class, the notion of gender disintegrates into fragments and cannot anymore be employed as a useful category. See K. Lennon and M. Witford, Knowing the difference feminist perspectives in epistemology, London Routeldge and Kegan Paul, 1994, pp. 275-282.32 Annette Fitzsimons and Susan Strickland, Ibid. pp. 124 265.129 Nordic Journal of African Stud iesThat the helper enjoys the exclusive right to the objectification of knowledge of the Other is an ingrained feature of western cross-cultural research, after all the helper has scientific skills or rational advantage over the helped, and this ontological arrangement make the helped redundant in the objectification of knowledge of the Other. The only danger though is that the consequent helpers knowledge is partial or fragmentary. The implication is that western feminists cannot emancipate the supposedly un-conscientised African women.2.2.2 WomanJust as the concept of benignant, as narrowly presented in western literature, fails to command objectivity, the same literature fails to define woman. Woman is amenable to many different things it is shrouded by ambiguities about its ontological status. It can advise intrinsic characteristics, like caring and love, but this smacks of essentialism, which does not have many adherents in gender mainstreams. It can also evoke familial relat ionships as the non-male member. both of these evocations partially conceive woman for they are normative since they are descriptive of a set of social facts or relations. As such, woman has no characterizable content and hence the challenge from postmodernist thought that woman is not descriptively adequate since, it is observed, woman is cross-culturally different.According to postmodernists, woman imposes unity over empirical reality.33 Postmodernism rejects the judiciousness and the humanist presumptions of wonders of reason. The Enlightenment is rejected because of its veneration of masculine reason at the expense of sensuality humanism is rejected because of its appeals to universal subjectivity or the human condition. Instead of seeking sameness postmodernism celebrates difference, partiality and multiplicity. It detests the search for coherence and hankering after the right (or Platonic or Kantian) solution.Postmodernist feminism equally opposes a hermeneutic parochialism o f the present over the past or vice versaof searching for a single given goal, a single representation of reality. This new shop of feminism transcends the historicist recognition of the inevitable peculiarity and contextuality of human thought and practice and hence it advocates the continuity of converse between interlocutors, between text and interpreter, and between subject and object, with no advantage, marked goal or reality. This postmodernist re-orientation of feminism is a deliberate step away from essentialism and universalism marginalisation and exclusion of the Other.34 It puts emphasis on specialty and multiplicity with due attention to difference, diversity and locale. But postmodernists also impose a tough demand on gender thinkers why should the absence of facts for33 See Alessandra Tanesini, Ibid. pp. 211-212.34 See Susan Strickland, Ibid. pp. 266-7.130 Where is the Foundation of African Gender?description of woman precludes the claim for the notion of woman, eve n where the self-will of the notion may not warrant the description or analysis of the same? fifty-fifty the points of convergence of feminism and postmodernism are not adequate grounds for their formulation of their purported common aims because their concept-lingualities are different. For example, their meanings of a concept like difference are different. In postmodernism, difference is acknowledged as typical of human experience worldwide it is at the same time evaded as a threat to dominant perspectives of understanding or interpreting reality. It is consistent within postmodernism to demonstrate that woman was all along acknowledged as different but was included in universal humanity in name only by the commanding men. Feminists believe that the dominant ideology in world history is the root cause of the subjection of women by men. In Rousseaus language of right, the emancipation of western woman, albeit perceptibly incomplete as we enter the third millennium, began as late as mid nineteenth century.However, feminism does not argue for the mere acknowledgement of difference womens experience and perspectives should be noticed and heard along with dominant male experience and perspectives. Feminists complain bitterly that that the dominant perspectives are exclusive of women because they are ideological and hence false, since they are interested and distorted. Feminists are not content with their inclusion in or numerical addition to universal humanity as read in liberal or Marxist theories. Whereas postmodernism stops at the recognition of difference, feminism posits difference as a challenge, a paradigm of its critical dialogue with its situation, past, present and future.The concept woman is thrown into serious doubt because the notion of gender itself is slowly moulding due to its exclusiveness. What is being advocated instead of gender is a multiplicity of identities for instance, if one widens ones horizon, one cannot fail to realise that differe nces of ethnic origin and class, sexual orientation (gays and lesbians), should be priority items on the liberation agenda. In spite of its usefulness in certain emancipatory projects, woman as a gender category stands to question now because it has dawned on contemporary gender thinkers that woman is essentially embedded in misogynist literature and that it is conducive to, and promotes, exclusionary practices.In short, a feminist survey of western languages shows that the meaning of some words, such as power, woman, human, reason, depicts gender bias against women the words are not universal. The concept-lingual sources of western rightist discourses, like feminism, are liberalism or Marxism in their vicious attack of their respective archrivals, authoritarianism, and capitalism. Ironically, Karl Marx did not forthwith address the specific situation of women. He presumed that his communism would provide liberation for women just as it would for all the exploited masses and under privileged minorities, male and female.131 Nordic Journal of African StudiesFriedrich Engels (Marxs lifetime friend, economic guardian, co-author, and Marxs editor) also narrowly attributed women subjugation to property relationships of the conjugal family only in capitalist societies he remained mute on the reality of their enslavement in non-capitalist societies including communism and matriarchal societies. Marxism and capitalism cannot be plausible concept-lingual sources for the gender movement in the new millennium since both of them are ideologies of conflict they pit man against man the state exploits the proletariat-worker in the former, whereas the capitalist boss exploits the labourer in the latter.The importance of authentic concepts of gender needs to be stressed. More importantly, the crucial concept of power needs to be unambiguously stipulated in contemporary gender thought and practice.The feminism of the 1970s and mid-eighties powerful proclaimed that the concep ts that are presented to us as universal and trans-historically valid actually realise male biases. For example, normative concepts such as reason, science and knowledge fail to devote the gender universalisation test, so to say. Even if these normative concepts embody ideals and express values, they nonetheless prescribe and evaluate behaviour in male-perspectives and so the values they express and ideals they embody are far from universal.Normative concepts function as descriptions of the endorsements of a specific society, and are faithful to past usage. Hence the complaint that feminism has taken the experience, i.e. marginalisation, of washrag middle class women to be representative of all women. The glaring weakness of these normative concepts is that they leave little or no room for disagreement or difference within a situation like a community. Conformity is the order of the day since they are treated as truth-conditions, instead of being emendations of electric current thought and action. These contemporary feminists fear that these values and ideals are codifications of norms regulating masculinity, where the womans normal is locus of the domesticity of the family, i.e. the private sphere of life. What current gender thought needs is the evolution of ongoing social practice. It should engage in evaluation of these concepts and influence the evolution of social practice in regard to concept-usage.3. GENDER AND FEMINISM THE AFRICAN SCENARIOThe dividing line that African women cannot identify with doctrinaire western feminism comes with cogent force because the knowledge and experience of African women have been ignored or marginalised by a feminism that reflects only the perspectives of white western middle-class women that it indulges in false universalism and lacks critical awareness of its situation are simple inferences drawn from the argument. Its conception of woman remains problematic and therefore vacuous because its woman is intended to d eny self-evident differences between woman and woman in situation and experience,132 Where is the Foundation of African Gender?privilege and power. It is apologetic of the peculiarities of woman since it misconceives them as functional and not as formal differences (from man).As a result, its content and purpose are not based on actual commonalties between women but on the experience and interests of some women who have the position and ability to impose upon other women their own idiosyncrasies, price and definitions, i.e. what they mean for themselves and others. For instance, when western feminism seeks to balance or reverse the social scales, it employs conceptual polarities such as nature-culture, strong-weak, reason-intuition, public-private, male-female-neuter sexual division of labour. To explain the position of women, it says women are closer to nature they are more intuitive they are more private or secretive, etc, not knowing that it simply endorses masculinist (and henc e exploitable) viewpoints about woman. then feminism lacks a critical awareness of its situation. Feminism is not in dialogue with its context, past and present, and therefore cannot be used to forge emendations to any society, which cries for variation of social relations. Feminism is engaged in a monologue, which mistakes its own ventriloquism for effectiveness since it is falsely generalising and insufficiently attentive to historical and cultural diversity.Another unwished-for feature of western feminism is that, although it borrows critical tools from other emancipatory theories like Reformation, liberalism and Marxism, it does not put itself forward to challenging other forms of subordination like slavery, colonialism, racism, and their accompanying prejudices and complexes, which run into women as well. Its exclusiveness to the western middle-class womans experience undermines its universality and objectivity, and therefore puts to serious doubt its relevance to the Africa n woman of the same era.35 Worse still, its serenity could easily be interpreted as its assent to slavery, colonialism and racism, experiences that western middle-class men caused on both African women and men.Though not unique, the situation of the African feminist and that of the Western feminist would not replicate. An African woman generally finds herself in a social setting where power might not be the paradigm of interpersonal life. Jobs are just as hard to get for a female as they are for her male counterpart. In a married situation, for example, she may dispense with the battle of balancing it out with her allegedly dominant male partner in terms of sexual division of labour, involving child-care and domestic chores due to the scenario of dependency, a creation of the extended family. Dependants fill in as auxiliary or surrogate mothers or fathers and as unofficial maids or cooks, etc. Even if dependants were not around, hiring domestic staff would be more affordable in her society than it would be in the west. As is well known, in the west, it is almost impracticable to hire domestic staff.3.1 TRADITION VERSUS MODERNITY SOCIO-POLITICS INCONTEMPORARY AFRICATransformation is a rare occurrence in Africa. Perhaps devolution, rather than evolution or revolution, is the modus operandi for social transformation in Africa. The interface of the past and the present may not be conducive to the development of radical gender even among urban or elite women. Past attitudes and values tend to phase out far too slowly under the weight of new attitudes and values. The usual conceptualisation of woman both among the rural and urban folk might have more conservative undertones than radical gender theorists wish. In Malawi, for instance, even after the lawful repeal of the indecent dress code, the woman in trousers or mini-skirt risks categorisation as a champion or promoter of moral turpitude. The continuing scenario of uncovering off mini-skirted city women by ven dors is testimonial enough of these slow-dying conservative undertones even in the urban or modernised areas of Malawi. Radical gender might be undaunted by this current negative public reception of trousers and mini-skirts in Malawi, dismissing it as a primary reaction of a bunch of male savages. while alone will heal this negative attitude gender activists console themselves. At this stage though, these attitudes should be of great concern because it is not unusual for radical gender women lobbyists to experience opposition and disapproval from fellow women.Another reality that might prevent replication of western gender in Africa is the social history of Africa. It is difficult to identify the dominant ideology for African societies outside Africas recent experience of slave trade, colonialism, and nationalism. However, anthropology and archaeology, which pretend to dig deeper into Africas past, and re-construct the Antique Africa antedating the three recent experiences of Afric a, reveal to us that there are matrilineal and patrilineal societies in Africa. In the patrilineal societies, for example, Ngoni, Tumbuka, Sena, Ngonde in Malawi, males are dominant. However, broadly speaking, in matrilineal societies women are more powerful than men, an issue that is accentuated by the husbands settling in their wives villages upon marriage. One would expect that in a setting where land is the most valuable property, due to belief on agriculture, a landowner would command a lot of power and influence. Husbands, as co-opted landowners, will in principle and practice have less power and influence than their wives. Therefore, if the western genders power paradigm is anything to go by, the matrilineal society depicts a reversal of the western gender model. In Malawi, Chewa, Yao, Manganja and Lomwe societies are largely matrilineal in principle. The Tonga of the northern shore of Lake Malawi can be included in gender-wise peculiar ethnic groups although the Tonga are bi-lineal.In these ethnic groups, one must distinguish the formal from informal power structures and modes of social organisation in the formal power setting, that is the traditional chieftaincy, chiefs hold only symbolic power since what they execute in public is largely the consensus, or the communis sensus, of the ruling134 Where is the Foundation of African Gender?Unlike feminist scholarship in the West, feminist theory and scholarship in Africa have formed neither a neatlydelineated field, nor one firmly rooted in theoretically-inflected politics. With the consolidation of Westernfeminisms between 1960 and the early 1980s and the growth of the so-called second wave, clear political andintellectual traditions were formed around radical, liberal and Marxist/socialist feminisms. Subsequent feminismsdrew on or deviated from these positions to engage increasingly with theories and politics emerging in thenineties. African theories and womens movements have taken very different paths .In certain ways, African theories and womens movements have been nearly linked to politics, although thispolitic

The First Day :: Personal Narrative Essays

The First Day It was a bright sunny day, the sky was a indulgent spectre of blue and therewas a slight breeze in the air. I stepped out of my moms red shiny CRX as shesaid Good Luck to me. I agonistic up a weak smile as I shoved the door, and itmade a woosh noise as it closed. I took a deep roost and started walk of lifetowards the man entrance. I thought to myself, Why does the school have entirely the makes seperated? I slowly walked forward as I started looking at all the other kids, mostwere in groups and all talking laughing and smiling. I felt very small, like Iwas an alien who had just come on planet Earth. I thought to myself, I shouldbe at home, with my friends talking and laughing. But I wasnt, I was inRocklin, California. Id moved here at the implore of August. And Id hated itever since. But I was willing to give Rocklin a shot, even though ever kid Idmet in town so furthermost had said Rocklin is the worst school. As I walked forwardwith the white scrunched up p iece of paper that told me my classes, I tried tolook like I break in. As I looked around for my class, I noticed I was on thewrong side of the building. At least I know where the main(prenominal) building is, I saidto myself. The main building looked bright and cheery, like the sun. I trudged over to the main building trying not to look at anyone, the paving looked really white. When I got to the main building I walked up to aMiss Kerby, sitting behind a desk and asked her if she could tell me where thisbuilding was. alternatively I felt like I had just been arrested for murder. I wasbombarded with about 5 questions all at once. I answered them all, and with anegative tone she told me I vend help you, you need your mom to go sign these.I felt shocked and a huge amount of anger mounting up wrong me. I walkedstraight out of the building. I didnt need to get crap from some lady when Iwas trying to get used to a order that I had never been too. I walked home andslammed the front d oor shut, and screamed at the top of my lungs I hate it here,I am moving rachis to Illinois with my dad And ran upstairs to my room, slammedThe First Day Personal Narrative Essays The First Day It was a bright sunny day, the sky was a soft shade of blue and therewas a slight breeze in the air. I stepped out of my moms red shiny CRX as shesaid Good Luck to me. I forced up a weak smile as I shoved the door, and itmade a woosh noise as it closed. I took a deep breathe and started walkingtowards the man entrance. I thought to myself, Why does the school have all thebuildings seperated? I slowly walked forward as I started looking at all the other kids, mostwere in groups and all talking laughing and smiling. I felt very small, like Iwas an alien who had just landed on planet Earth. I thought to myself, I shouldbe at home, with my friends talking and laughing. But I wasnt, I was inRocklin, California. Id moved here at the begging of August. And Id hated itever since. But I was willi ng to give Rocklin a shot, even though ever kid Idmet in town so far had said Rocklin is the worst school. As I walked forwardwith the white scrunched up piece of paper that told me my classes, I tried tolook like I fit in. As I looked around for my class, I noticed I was on thewrong side of the building. At least I know where the main building is, I saidto myself. The main building looked bright and cheery, like the sun. I trudged over to the main building trying not to look at anyone, thepavement looked really white. When I got to the main building I walked up to aMiss Kerby, sitting behind a desk and asked her if she could tell me where thisbuilding was. Instead I felt like I had just been arrested for murder. I wasbombarded with about 5 questions all at once. I answered them all, and with anegative tone she told me I cant help you, you need your mom to go sign these.I felt shocked and a huge amount of anger mounting up inside me. I walkedstraight out of the building. I didnt nee d to get crap from some lady when Iwas trying to get used to a state that I had never been too. I walked home andslammed the front door shut, and screamed at the top of my lungs I hate it here,I am moving back to Illinois with my dad And ran upstairs to my room, slammed

Theresienstadt: A Model Jewish Ghetto Essay -- essays research papers

Theresienstadt, A gift from Hitler. A status of hope and happiness for Jews and Jewesses alike. Theresienstadt was somewhere they could wait the struggle out without fear until the shadow of Nazism passed. It was a place modify with the most prosperous artists and musicians, daily shows and operas, lectures and seminars, gardens and coffee shops. A place with grace and character. An faultless town that was given to the Jews as a gift from the Fuehrer. A paradise for Jews. That is at least, what the Nazis wanted deal to believe. Forty miles north west of Prague, Czechoslovakia, surrounded by the central Bohemian Mountains Hitler pinpointed the sm wholly town of Theresienstadt to be his paradise ghetto, his gift?. Located in a scenic community, Theresienstadt had broad streets and a large determine surrounded by two large parks and two smaller ones. Here within an area five blocks wide and seven blocks long, over 140, 000 Jews would run the last months of their lives, and only a few handfuls would survive. The first Jewish prisoners entered Theresienstadt on November 24, 1941. In the beginning, when the Fuehrer first presented the city to the Jews, many came willingly to the ghetto because life as a Jew was becoming intolerable and dangerous elsewhere with the rise and spread of anti-Semitism. The Jews wanting to enter Theresienstadt merely had to sign a contract turning over all remaining assets and property to the S. S, and in return the S. S pledged to take care of them as long as they inhabited Theresienstadt. Theresienstadt was un-like any other ghetto in the fact that Hitler planed to use the ghetto as a model? ghetto. It was a model that was supposed to represent all the ghettos set up crossways Europe. Theresienstadt was a place the Nazis and Hitler showed to comfort and reassure the world as to the overall treatment of the Jews. It was a ploy to try to cover up the real horrors and massacres of the Jews that were breaking out across Europe. Theres ienstadt was a ghetto designed to divert all attention away from the dying and suffering, Hitler wanted to hide the truth from the world and create a hoax. With thousands of Jews being transported and murdered, among them were people who would be recognized and missed in communities. These were people that were famous ... ...e Russian army. Of the 140, 000 people that entered Theresiensadt through 1941 and 1945, Ninety thousand were sent to death in the east, 33, 000 died in the ghetto, and 16, 832 people survived. Most of those that had survived were those who had entered Theresienstadt close to the liberation. Of the 10, 000 children that moved through Theresienstadt only 93 of them survived. Theresiensadt was Hitlers perfect scheme. It was a beautiful small town hidden in the mountains with wide streets and parks the children could play in. The S. S succeeded in making the world believe Theresienstadt was a sanctuary for Jews. When in reality the arty town filled with wonderful and talented people was still part of Hitlers plan of the Final Solution.? Hitlers gift? was a gift to himself in a sentiency that he was trying to cover up his horrific actions. Theresienstadt was better than most ghettos, having more freedom to express feelings, and more availability to food, but it was still a part of the Holocaust. Hitler succeeded in two things in the years of Theresienstadt the murder of thousands of Jews and the appearance and acceptance of Theresiensadt as, a model? ghetto.

Of Mice And Men: Four Major Themes :: essays research papers

Of Mice and Men Four Major Themes     "Of Mice and Men", by John Steinbeck, is composed of four major themes.These themes are the value of dreams and goals, moral responsibility, socialinjustice, and the lodge of friendship and loyalty.     The value of dreams and goals are that they provide confide and the desireto keep going in life, rather than laying down to die. When Lennie is feelingdepressed in the woods he asks George to tell him about the "dream farm" again.This is the farm that Geore and Lennie hope to own someday. Even though thisdream seems almost impossible at the time it still generates enough hope tokeep Lennie and George going. When George starts talking bout it Lennie getsall excited and happy and so does George. Another example of the power ofdreams is when dulcify over hears George and Lennies "dream farm" and becomes apart of the dream. Candy goes from a depressed sad additude to a cheerfulexcited one. He now has hope of doing something and it came from the "dreamfarm". A final example of the value of dreams and goals is when Crooks hearsof the farm. Crooks is a lonely black man who has no future, but when hestarts to think of how he can be a part of the dream he also gets happy andexcited, until his dream is crushed.     Many people of good character have to respect certin moral responibilites.George is bond by his own moral to take care care of Lennie. No one makes himdo it, he just does it because it feel standardized the right thing to do. Candy feltlike he neglected his moral responibility to get hold of his own dog. Candy feltreal bad internal because it was his job to shoot his dog but instead Carlsonshot him. This shows that when a person goes against what is moraly right tothem , they hate themselves for it. At the end of the story George is forced,out of moral, to shoot Lennie. It was the right thing to do, and even thoughit almost k illed George inside to kill his best friend, he still did it.     Social injustice is when a person or a goup of people feel they arebetter than people who are different by race, inteligence, age, sex, or otherdifferences. Curley is rude and mean toward Lennie for the sole crusade thatLennie is a big guy. Curely dosnt like big guys so he singles out Lennie and