Archives

Monday, April 30, 2012

Women and children: the double dividend of gender equality


The above title comes from UNICEF’s 2007 report on state of the world’s children where they focus on the discrimination and disempowerment women face throughout their lives and how that impacts children’s lives.
The key messages that came out from the report were as follows:
*Gender equality and the well-being of children go hand in hand
Gender equality furthers the cause of child survival and development.

*Gender equality produces a double dividend: It benefits both women and children
Healthy, educated and empowered women have healthy, educated and confident daughters and sons. Gender equality will not only empower women to overcome poverty and live full and productive lives, but will better the lives of children, families and countries as well.
*Women’s equal rights and influence in the key decisions that shape their lives and those of children must be enhanced in three distinct arenas: the household, the workplace and the political sphere
A change for the better in any one of these realms influences women’s equality in the others, and has a profound and positive impact on child’s well-being and development.
*Gender equality is not only morally right, it is pivotal to human progress and sustainable development
Achieving Millennium Development Goal Number 3—promoting gender equality and empowering women—will also contribute to achieving all the other goals, from reducing poverty and hunger to saving children’s lives, improving maternal health, ensuring universal education, combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, and ensuring environmental sustainability.  


 

Women Work More Than Men But Are Paid Less


 For many women, unpaid work in and for the household takes up the majority of their working hours, with much less time spent in remunerative employment. Even when they participate in the labour market for paid employment, women still undertake the majority of the housework.
When women work outside the household, they earn, on average, far less than men. They are also more likely to work in more precarious forms of employment with low earnings, little financial security and few or no social benefits.
Women not only earn less than men but also tend to own fewer assets. Smaller salaries and less control over household income constrain their ability to accumulate capital. Gender biases in property and inheritance laws and in other channels of acquiring assets also leave women and children at greater risk of poverty.
Paid employment for women does not automatically lead to better outcomes for children. Factors such as the amount of time women spend working outside the household, the conditions under which they are employed and who controls the income they generate determine how the work undertaken by women in the labour market affects their own well-being and that of children.

The informal slogan of the Decade of Women became “Women do two-thirds of the world’s work, receive 10 percent of the world’s income and own 1 percent of the means of production.”
Richard H. Robbins, Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism, (Allyn and Bacon, 1999), p. 354

 

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Do Words Hurt?

This is one of the most powerful picture that I have seen. We may not realize how much words hurt others, especially young ones. I see words are like little weapons. We cannot see them, but they do hurt just as bad as a knife would. You might remember for a day that some one told you, you are pretty. But if some one told you that you are ugly, you would remember it for a life time. This is something that is shallow, the outer appearance. However, think about the stuff that we say about a person's thoughts, abilities, and strength. These things would deeply change the way they think about themselves.

Imagine someone telling you that you are weak, and cannot make decisions for yourself. With time, and repetition you would believe that what they are saying is true, and you become this "weak" person they are speaking of. On the other side, think about when someone tells you that you are strong and can do it. At first you might doubt it, but with repetition and slowly believing in your self, you will come to believe in yourself, and really believe that you are strong and can do it.

We find that words that have a negative tone, tend to affect us more than words that have a positive tone. This can be seen in the example above, of beauty and ugliness. In short, I think that when we want to speak, we should think and weigh our thoughts and words, and to see the affect that they might have on the person that we are speaking to. And remember words do hurt, just like any weapon.

Influence of the Parents' Socio-Economic Status on the Academic Achievment

This poster is a result of a study in Sociology of Education, that addressed the influence of the parent on their children, academically. The study addressed the parents' influence on their child's academic achievement, in relation to their Socio-Economic Status. In this poster you will see what is meant by socio-economic status and the factors that influence it. In addition to the study method, and the findings of the study. Also you will find discussions of the result that were found. And finally a conculsion, to see if there is a relation between the parents' socio-economic status and their children' academic achievement...


How to Look Professional

How to Look Professional?
The styles, colors, lengths and fit of your fashion choices will speak volumes about your ability to do your job. If you are concerned about your career, you'll be more concerned with looking professional than looking cute or trendy.
In general, the more distracting a piece of clothing or jewelry is, the less appropriate it is for office wear.

More guidelines to looking polished:
  • Color plays a big part in professional image. Traditional career colors include red (aggressive), navy (trustworthy), gray (conservative) and black (chic). Most of these colors work well in pantsuits, skirts and shoes and mix back with softer feminine colors that are appropriate like ice blue, lilac, soft pink and ivory. Loud colors like hot pink and wild prints are much riskier in the office, but some creative types can still pull them off.
  • Jewelry that jangles (chandelier earrings, stacks of bangles) is distracting. Opt for stud earrings or single bracelets.
  • Slouchy handbags look sloppy. Choose structured styles that project an organized image.
  • Most of what constitutes a polished image is in the details: manicured nails, run-free hose, scuff-free shoes, neat hair.
  • Fit is everything when you are talking about tailored work clothes. Pants should be fitted, but free of visible panty lines. Skirts, especially straight styles like pencil skirts, should be loose enough to sit down in comfortably. Jackets should be able to be buttoned. And blouses shouldn't gap between buttonholes.
  • Designer labels are great, but heavily logoed clothing and accessories look cluttered and frivolous in the work place. A small designer bag is fine; a logo trench coat looks ridiculous. Choose well-made items that are free from obvious designer labels for the most professional look.
  • Wear light make-up. It is in the balance, not too much(you'll you are trying too hard) and not too little(you'll look like you didn't try hard enough, and plus you'll look more professional
  • Wear closed shoes, and not flip flops and sandals. 

Women who made history!



Amelia Earhart:
Amelia Earhart was born in Atchison, Kansas in 1898. In 1920,
she took her first airplane ride. She loved flying and began taking flying lessons. At that time, women pilots were very unusual. When Amelia earned her pilot’s license in 1923 she became the 16th woman in the U.S. to have her license to fly. In 1928, Amelia was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic. She flew with another pilot, Wilmer Stultz. Amelia became very famous for this flight. When she came back to America, she was honored with parades and met President Coolidge. In 1932, Amelia flew across the Atlantic again, this time by herself. She was the first woman to fly alone, or solo, across the Atlantic. For this, Amelia received the  Distinguished Flying Cross from Congress, the first woman to receive this honor.

Rosalind Franklin:
Rosalind Franklin was born in Notting Hill, London in 1920. She grew up in an affluent and influential family and started studying chemistry at Newnham College, Cambridge in 1938. In her early years she researched many chemical structures including that of coal. in 1951 Franklin started working at King's College London where she studied and started to apply her knowledge of X-ray techniques to the structure of DNA. While working with a student named Raymond Gosling she took X-ray pictures and drew scientific conclusions about the structure of DNA which would later be used by Francis Crick and James D. Watson to declare the structure of DNA to be in the form of a double helix. In 1962, Watson and Crick won the Nobel Prize for their studies and Rosalind Franklin's research helped them acheive that honor.

Eleanor Roosevelt:
Eleanor Roosevelt was born in 1884. She was a writer and a humanitarian, a person who works to help the poor and disadvantaged. She spoke out for human rights, equality for all, and children’s causes. She worked to promote racial equality, and in a famous incident, resigned from the Daughters of the American Revolution when the black singer Marian Anderson was denied the use of their facilities.To help women gain equal rights in a time when they had few, President John F. Kennedy made her the leader of a special group called the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women. As a leader of human rights, she strove to further women's causes, as well as the causes of black, poor and unemployed people.


Diana, Princess of Wales:

Diana was born Diana Frances Spencer in England. From 1979 until 1981 Diana worked as a kindergarten teacher in London. She married Prince Charles, in 1981. The couple had two sons: Prince William, and Prince Henry. By the late 1980s arrived their marital problems were widely known and in December 1992 they separated. Diana had, by then, already adopted charity work as her royal duty. Despite focus on her divorce from Prince Charles, she  continued to volunteer her time to many charities related to homeless and deprived children, drug abuse, and victims of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). Diana shocked many people when she shook the hand of an AIDS patient, showing that she was not afraid of those suffering from the illness. She was the vice president of the British Red Cross. Her work for various causes and charities and her own personal strength in adversity made her an idol for many.


Queen Elizabeth II:

 Elizabeth Alexandra Mary, queen of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, was born daughter of King George VI, in London. In 1944 she served as a councilor of state while her father was on the Italian war front. She married Prince Philip, duke of Edinburgh, in 1947. She had 4 kids, Charles, Anne, Andrew, and Edward. Elizabeth succeeded to the throne upon the death of her father in 1952. She is also Supreme Governor of the Church of England, Commander-in-Chief of the UK Armed Forces, and Head of the Commonwealth. She has held these positions since 1952, the year of the death of her father,. She is the longest serving current Head of State in Europe, Australasia and the Americas. Also in 1992, the Queen and Prince Charles agreed to pay income taxes on their personal income, the first time the monarchy has done so.




Rosa Parks:
In 1955 Rosa Parks made history by refusing to give up her seat to a white person on a Montgomery, Alabama bus. The bus incident led to the formation of the Montgomery Improvement Association, led by the young pastor, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The association called for a boycott of the Montgomery city-owned bus company which lasted 382 days and brought. Rosa's refusal to move further back on the bus in order to accommodate white riders helped start not only the Montgomery bus boycott, but the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. She has since been a strong advocate for human rights issues, a huge civil right activist. Upon her death in 2005, she was the first civilian to lie in state in the Rotunda of the Capital Building in Washington, D.C.

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Physical Punishment Makes Kids more Aggressive!

A research conducted by Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) concluded
that children who go through physical punishment become aggressive in their lives, showing signs after 20 years of age. They show aggressive intent towards friends and family, and become anti-social. Dr. Joan Durrant of Department of Family Social Sciences (University of Manitoba) agrees to the fact that physical punishment is the root cause of aggression in children towards society.

In another corporal punishment intervention program where 500 families reduced physical punishment on their children found out that there was a decline in such anti-social behaviour of children. Result of the outcome is directly linked to the response of children to the improved behaviour of their parents.  

Several mental health problems like anxiety, depression, use of drugs and alcohol also associate themselves with corporal punishment. Recent neuroimaging studies suggest that corporal punishment cause nervous changes, making alterations in performance on IQ tests and increasing vulnerability to drug or alcohol dependence.