The Art of the Essay

Right to life is the most basic form of human rights. Genocide systematically denies a certain race or ethnic group the right to life. Gendercide systematically denies a certain gender, in most cases female, the right to life. This is a growing problem in Southeast Asia, in particular, India and China. Much of the population of these two nations believes that women are inferior to men because they cannot provide the same amount of wealth, strength, or power. The documentary “It’s a girl” clearly outlines this problem in each of the two nations and explains just how urgent the problem of Gendercide is. In both India and China, the problem lies within the dowry system, the government policies, and the cultural mindset, and until each of these issues is faced, thousands of women will continue to die every day.

The first problem, and probably the biggest problem, in India is the Dowry system. When a family wants their daughter to marry a man they must give the man’s family a dowry. This is extremely costly because not only is a family losing upwards of half of their wealth, but they are also losing their daughter. When a daughter is born to a family she is immediately seen as a burden due to the foreseeable dowry. The problem does not discriminate to classes either; as a future dowry is seen as a burden to the wealthy families as well. Because of this, people mainly want to have only sons and it has led to the deaths of millions of baby girls. According to the documentary, if a woman can afford an ultrasound and see that it is a girl, she will likely have an abortion. If the woman is poor she will wait until birth. If she gives birth to a daughter, she will most likely kill her by suffocation, strangling the baby, pouring acid on her, poisoning her, or crushing her neck. Also according to the documentary, 1 in 4 girls will not live past puberty, and mortality rates for girls ages 1 to 5 are 40% higher than boys. This does not just effect young girls either. Each year about 100,000 women are murdered because of insufficient dowries or their inability to procreate male children.

The next problem lies within the government. In 1961, the government in India outlawed Dowries; however, they are still prevalent in every socioeconomic class and often go unenforced. In 1994 India passed the Preconception and Prenatal Diagnostic Technique Act making it illegal to determine a fetus’s gender and illegal to terminate the pregnancy based on gender. However, many doctors accept money to perform illegal abortions anyways. Again, the government often looks the other way.

The last main problem in India is the cultural mindset. Oftentimes women do not tell anyone of forced abortions or pressure from their families for a male child because of status. An unsuccessful marriage not only affects your personal status, but the status of the family you were born to, and this can lead to social ostracizing. The mindset of women being inferior to men needs to change as well if the problem will ever be resolved.

The government acts as a much bigger cause to the Gendercide in China than the dowry system because the dowry system is virtually nonexistent there. In 1979, however, the government instituted a One-Child Policy for population control. The policy also promotes male preference because if the firstborn child in a rural family is a female, they are allowed to have a second child to try for a male. If a woman in a non-rural area has more than one child, she may be forced to have an abortion or forced sterilization. According to the documentary, 20%-30% of all baby girls are killed before birth. The problem is handled by the Family Planning Police, which is a militant group that enforces this law. It also encourages people to report others offering rewards to those who do. Over 30 million abortions are performed every year in China.

The cultural mindset regarding women is just as big of a problem in China as it is in India. The idea that women do not provide as much strength, power, or wealth as men has led to the death of millions of Chinese baby girls and women. Also according to the documentary, 500 Chinese women kill themselves every day. This is mostly due to the fact that they no longer believe they have the right to live because they had to kill their child because she was a girl.

There is always the exception in both of these nations where there is a family who loves their daughter, keeps her alive, and does whatever is best for her. The documentary follows the story of Dr. Mitu Khurana in India, who escaped her husband after he tried to cause a miscarriage of their twin baby girls. She now fights for women’s rights in India and loves her two twin daughters. These cases are few and far in between. In order to fix the problem the dowry system needs to be completely eliminated, government policies need to be reformed and enforced, and the cultural mindset that women are inferior to men needs to change. If families learn to be okay with having daughters, the unnecessary deaths of millions of babies and women will be prevented every year.

Works Cited

It’s A Girl. Dir. Evan Grae Davis. Showline Films, 2012. Documentary.

“It is neither wealth nor splendor; but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness.”

Thomas Jefferson

A number of weeks ago, I went to the movies with my family. We went to see “The Wolf of Wall Street”, Martin Scorsese’s silver screen adaptation of Jordan Belfort’s best-selling memoir by the same name. Mr. Belfort, once a colleague of my father’s before embarking on business ventures of far less legal and moral varieties, accumulated a fortune into the hundreds of millions in the 1990s through manipulative microcap investing techniques, pump and dump schemes, and large-scale insider trading practices. Leonardo DiCaprio, as Belfort in the film adaptation, brings to life a lucrative and savvy businessman in a far brighter light than shone his real-life counterpart, a white-collar swindler and thief. The film fails to hint at the numerous suicides of Belfort’s victims who were cheated out of their modest life savings, or even to thoroughly provide details as to what exactly he was doing wrong. It fails in this sense to such a degree, in fact, that the young man a row in front of us in the theater stood up and proclaimed to his group of friends during the ending credits that he “needs to get into insider trading”.

A number of weeks ago, I went to the movies with my family. We went to see “The Wolf of Wall Street”, Martin Scorsese’s silver screen adaptation of Jordan Belfort’s best-selling memoir by the same name. Mr. Belfort, once a colleague of my father’s before embarking on business ventures of far less legal and moral varieties, accumulated a fortune into the hundreds of millions in the 1990s through manipulative microcap investing techniques, pump and dump schemes, and large-scale insider trading practices. Leonardo DiCaprio, as Belfort in the film adaptation, brings to life a lucrative and savvy businessman in a far brighter light than shone his real-life counterpart, a white-collar swindler and thief. The film fails to hint at the numerous suicides of Belfort’s victims who were cheated out of their modest life savings, or even to thoroughly provide details as to what exactly he was doing wrong. It fails in this sense to such a degree, in fact, that the young man a row in front of us in the theater stood up and proclaimed to his group of friends during the ending credits that he “needs to get into insider trading”.

This is not a movie review, but rather an expression of concern. It seems as though at some point in the United States’ defense of economic freedom and free-market capitalism, wealth has implanted itself in the masses as synonymous with success and as the paramount of value and desire. From impressionable young people to those enslaved by careers with minds only towards the figures on their paycheck, the love of money has swept millions off their feet. This has skewed our capitalist system in ways which have not yet been taken into account by those who tout it as the best and only means to economic freedom. It is at the core principle of capitalism that society benefits from individuals drawing motivation from self-interest, however there is a very slight and very important difference between self-interest and the greed and love of money which we see dominating our economic system today.

This concept of self-interest was first introduced by philosopher Adam Smith, whose work contributed largely to the foundation of many principles of economics and government upon which the United States was built. Smith’s work, though, came before the development of large industries, financial institutions, and other market variables which our economic system is comprised of today, and individual understanding of his concepts of self-interest and laissez-faire policy has withered. Nearly 200 years after Adam Smith’s theories, an American mathematician by the name of John Nash (portrayed by Russell Crowe in “A Beautiful Mind”) made a revolutionary clarification to Smith’s work. Nash acknowledged that, in addition to self-interest, society benefits most from individuals behaving based on their knowledge of the self-interest of others and of the entire group, a concept which is not present in the motivation of the likes of Jordan Belfort, nor, unfortunately, in the minds of millions of Americans.

It is this lapse in understanding that has led to the circumstance we see today, a free for all. In a system where motivation is derived solely from the desire of the individual to accumulate wealth, society does not benefit. Capitalism and laissez-faire economics are most conducive to freedom and to the betterment of society, but today our financial system is dictated by Wall Street, not Main Street, and as a result we see what looks more like an aristocracy than the type of free market which Adam Smith and Thomas Jefferson conceptualized. The haves exploit the have-nots, generating astronomical profits for the richest Americans, and not leaving any room for the self-interest of the entire group, nor for society to benefit.

In order to protect one of the most closely held values of our Nation, we must realize that the love of money is the paralyzing feature of our economy and of our society. Self-interest means more than monetary gain. Happiness is attained through the betterment of oneself and of those around him or her. As for “The Wolf of Wall Street”, audiences must understand that men of fabulous wealth, particularly gained through means akin to the work of Jordan Belfort, are not to be admired. Envy and greed are not righteous convictions. Those who gain their fame and fortune at the expense of others are not living the American Dream, but are destroying it. We must admire, instead, those who further the true principles of capitalism and freedom; those who improve society in ways that benefit themselves as well as empowering and enabling the success of those around them. Former President Clinton spoke at the Democratic National Convention in 2012 and told his audience that “we’re all in this together is a better philosophy than you’re on your own”. While there were much broader terms at stake in Clinton’s speech, his words are as true as any in the discussion of economic freedom. The government is not the enemy of the free market. Our economic freedom is threatened by those, an unfortunately large group, who have forgotten that money is not synonymous with success, and fortune it not synonymous with happiness.

Turn on the TV. What do you see when you watch the news? Besides the latest events being covered, you see the news anchormen reporting those events.

Now close your eyes. What do you hear? Do you hear an unsteady, high-pitched voice that sounds insecure and unstable? Or, instead, do you hear a strong, lower-pitched voice that sounds more confident and trustworthy? Most of the time, you are going to hear the strong, lower-pitched voice rather than the unsteady, high-pitched voice. Why? Because, lower-pitched voices have been found to seem “’more competent, stronger, and more trustworthy’ than their higher-voiced counterparts – apparently, sounding masculine makes you seem like you’ll be better at your job.”

Don’t believe me? Think of the people in the world around you. Sports announcers sound more confident when they commentate with a steady, low-pitched voice. Professors and advisors sound more official when teaching material or giving advice with a strong, low-pitched voice. Doctors even seem more trustworthy if they diagnose you in a more self-assured, low-pitched voice than a nervous, high-pitched voice. So what is it about low-pitched voices that make the speaker seem to possess all of these qualities?

In a recent study for the Public Library of Science ONE (PLoS ONE), biologist Rindy Anderson and political scientist Casey Klofstad tested to see if people preferred candidates with lower-voices for leadership positions, and whether or not this preference was dependent on context. They wanted to see if people would choose the lower-voiced candidates for leadership positions as opposed to the higher- voiced candidates.

They recorded ten men and ten women saying the presidential-sounding phrase, “I urge you to vote for me this November.” These recordings were then altered, and each one had a higher and lower pitched copy. All of the recordings were played for a new group of men and women, who were told that these candidates were running for a PTA president position or a school board seat, not the United States presidency. The study found that the men preferred lower-pitched voices in both males and females, and females preferred lower-pitched voices in other females but had no preference in males. The results showed that, in general, lower-pitched voices are more preferable than higher-pitched voices when it comes to electing leaders of a community.

McMaster University did a similar study, in which they played altered recordings to 125 people and told them to rate their perceptions of the speakers’ attractiveness, leadership potential, honesty, intelligence, and dominance. They also asked the 125 people which version of the voice they would prefer to lead them, both in peacetime and in wartime.

The results of this study showed that all of the subjects preferred the candidates with lower-pitched voices. Even though it seems so arbitrary, humans have subconsciously come to associate lower-pitched voices with the qualities that seem to define a leader. We trust the people with lower-pitched voices because we believe that they are more dominant, and that somehow their vocal pitch can determine their skills and success.

However, do people with lower-pitched voices really possess all of those traits? McMaster psychology professor David Feinberg said, “People think we want to vote for men with lower-pitched voices because they’re more attractive, but it’s because people perceive them as better leaders and more dominant, not just because they’re attractive.” It is our perceptions and our impressions that make us believe that lower voices are a trait of more dominant people. United Kingdom psychologist Sue Lovegrove even added, “Lower voices do tend to have an aura of authority. When people go too high-pitched, it sounds emotional and less trustworthy.” Thus, our perceptions guide us to believe that lower voiced people are more assertive, and higher voices are unsure and unstable.

So what does this mean for males and females in the workforce? In general, because men are more associated with lower-pitched voices than are women, does this mean that men seem to be more capable and accomplished than women? Because women are more commonly linked to higher-pitched voices, do these studies show that women are indirectly associated with subordinate roles and men are indirectly associated with leadership roles? Does this mean that women should get voice-training lessons if they want to sound equally as competent as men seem?

While this certainly is a problem for women who are trying to pave their way in male-dominated work places, I think the more interesting situation is the reverse: when men try to get into female-dominated careers. The PLoS ONE study showed an interesting outcome in that females did not show preference in pitch for males. The study’s authors hypothesize that for traditionally female jobs, women might actually value men with more feminine qualities, such as a higher-pitched voice. It will be interesting to see what happens as more men move into pink-collar roles and are faced with many similar challenges and conflicts as women have been facing in traditionally male careers. Imagine: you turn on the TV in a couple of years and what do you see and hear? One day, it might just be a lower-pitched woman covering a sports broadcast and a higher-pitched man running his own fashion TV series.

Sources:

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0051216

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15718969

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2323673/The-key-climbing-career-ladder-A-deep-voice-high-pitched-colleagues.html

http://www.buzzfeed.com/annanorth/people-prefer-leaders-with-deep-manly-voices

Let me just confess: I dream a lot. I dream at night and on long car rides. I dream about medical school and about research and about everything exciting that can happen in my life. I dream, with satisfaction and gratefulness because these magical images aren’t something anyone should take for granted. Especially not me. I am a woman, so dreaming is something I really cherish. The fact is that we haven’t always been allowed to dream about whatever we wanted.  Just look at how things have changed:

Early Roman law described women as “children, forever inferior to men.” In the 4^th century, St. Jerome of the Christian church proclaimed that “woman is the gate of the devil, the path of wickedness, the sting of the serpent, in a word a perilous object.” The life of a woman in colonial America was much better, but still markedly different from contemporary times. Girls attended dame schools, separate from boys, and a married woman gave up her name and virtually all of her property. During the 19^th century, home nursing was considered “proper” even though nursing in hospitals was done almost exclusively by men. The American Medical Association began admitting women only in 1915, and in 1890, only 5% of total doctors in the U.S. were women. Not until the 20^th century did we begin to see a large movement towards change, manifested in legislation such as the Equal Pay act of 1963 and Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The 21^st century has brought with it great things for everyone, women included. Tense debates and the sheer magnitude of the push for greater equality between men and women, if nothing else, is a sign that we are making progress, and that if opportunity is what you are seeking, then the United States is the place to go to. In a sense, women and men do have equal rights. Women can do almost everything men can. Yet, women continue to be a minority. Men hold more leadership positions and are much less likely to drop out of work to care for their children. Jobs too, attract either a majority of males or
females. Do you know more female physicists or biochemists? Which gender dominates the fields of physical therapy or dermatology? What about astronauts and rocket scientists? This gradient is discouraging; it makes you feel as though you can’t be anything you want to be after all. But if laws are not the reason for this, what is?

I think it’s an attitude thing.

I was lucky. I was born to a mother and father who encouraged me to reach beyond the stars. They enforced the idea that I should find a career, find a way to be independent, and be confident that I could do things on my own. My friends were raised the same way. School was really competitive, not just among the guys, but equally so between girls. Everyone strived to hone something as their own. Everyone was reaching for the stars. In college, I’ve experienced the same thing – an inspiring community, a floor of 19-year old girls who push each other to believe that the next big break is theirs.

Not all girls get this. Not everyone has parents and friends who inspire them to reach higher and think bigger. I know a lot of women who aspire to do great things, to be “successful” and to establish themselves as the best in their field. With that being said, I can name many more men who want the same thing. Maybe it’s just that they are more outspoken about it. Maybe, women suffer because they believe, without even realizing it,
that men are more likely to achieve these goals. Yes. There is Hilary Clinton. And Sheryl Sandberg, And Marie Curie. But there are also more than 3 million women secretaries today. Huffington Post published an interesting article in 2013; the most common job for women is secretary. It was secretary in 1960 too. According to the American Society of Colleges and Universities, women in 2008 received 27% of PhD’s in mathematics and statistics, 20% in computer science, and 18% in engineering. I don’t think the female brain has 20% of the capacity of a man’s and I don’t think that the majority of women in today’s society can blame other men or unfair legislation for this inequality. We are our own worst critic. We are often our own greatest enemy. Whether we are conscious of it or not, I think that women are effected by past societal restriction, more than they are aware of.

For some women, the attitude problem kicks in later. The New York Times essay “The Opt-Out Generation Wants Back In” is about high achieving, career women. Sheilah O’Donnel, Carrie Chimerine Irvin, and Kuae Kelch Mattox, are examples of women who set their sights high – all the way up to $500,000 job at Oracle, educational-policy researcher, and NBC News producer. Each decided to take a break from her demanding career and found the return to be difficult. It’s an indication that women are still largely influenced by societal norms and pressures. When the family demands get high and something needs to be done, it’s striking how common it is for the female to be the one to sacrifice her career. All three women had decided to opt-out during a times when choosing to do so was “fashionable.” It’s important, I believe, for women to have the mental confidence to guide themselves through challenges, without letting societal norms be a factor.

In the end, I think that getting women to believe is half the battle. If only, somehow, women could erase the unconscious, old ideas they have about the role of women in society, maybe we would see the number of women in all areas of society increase. The power we have within us is incredible. “You are braver then you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”

Sources:

http://www.wic.org/misc/history.htm

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/01/top-job-for-women-secretary-same-as-1950_n_2599560.html

http://www.aacu.org/ocww/volume37_2/data.cfm

http://thoughtcatalog.com/christopher-hudspeth/2013/07/25-wise-philosophical-quotes-from-disney-movies/

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/11/magazine/the-opt-out-generation-wants-back-in.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

It’s a free country so I can do whatever I want! My fellow peers and I during the scholarly era known as elementary school shouted out this phrase whenever we didn’t want to do (or stop doing) something. Clearly, we now understand that there are laws and regulations in place to prevent certain immoral activities and that inhibit the absolute free will that we desired. However, to a certain degree, people do believe that they possess free will—they are able to make the decisions independent of other factors. In other words, every choice is theirs to make. Is that really true? Perhaps the concept of free will is just an attempt to fool us into believing the façade of control. Perhaps free will is just an illusion so that we don’t feel manipulated and used. Perhaps we exist as the product of society and the “choices” we make are the ones put forth by society.

What could possibly inhibit our free will? Well, the answer is simple: we do. It is common knowledge that in general, people will work hard to make more money. Money or wealth is primarily used as a means to an end. The ends may differ: power, fame, or material objects. In our materialistic society, an irrational need for more stuff is prevalent. However, not just any ordinary stuff will do—we desire the better, newer, and more prestigious stuff. We slave away and exhaust our time under the sun to earn the manmade construct of money and all this effort is consumed to satisfy our irrational hunger. The end result is a drastic reduction in the choices we can make. It is significantly more difficult to consider alternate options when driven by this materialistic desire. However, the illusion of free will is not caused just by this one desire. In the philosopher Baruch Spinoza’s perspective, the sum of all desires is responsible for overcoming all “active” thought that could lead possibly lead to free will.[1] He states that when people cannot overcome their desires, they believe that their subsequent decision was of their free will. However, since they decided to pursue the desire, this exemplifies the delusion of free will. Our choices are merely the manifestation of our innate irrational desires. It is impossible for us to exhibit free will when the possibility of choices is limited and the conclusive decision that we “make” is already settled long before we even know it.

Besides our desires, environmental factors also change our orientation in making choices. The semblance of the choice in career, for example, is an illusion. Many people will choose a career considering financial stability first and foremost. While some people may pick a career that pays less because of their particular interests, they are ultimately still under employment for the purpose of earning money. There are still exceptions in the case of other environmental factors that override society’s emphasis on money. The important point is that a community’s influence can heavily change an individual’s prospective choices. For example, an Amish man that grew up with no technology will most likely not use technology in his life. What is significant here is that environmental factors condition people to not even consider certain choices. This severe limitation of the number of potential options available to someone ultimately prevents free will. A parallel can be drawn between this and the logical fallacy of false dilemma in which the arguer only presents a few options when at least one more option is possible. For instance, the classic statement, “Either you’re with me or against me,” illustrates this fallacy. In the same way a person could fall subject to this fallacy and believe it, we are under the spell of environmental influences that prevent us from seeing more options. The very nature of our upbringing impacts the choices we make. Just like with our desires, our experiences hinder our ability to express free will.

In the same way a nation’s laws would prevent an individual’s absolute freedom, an individual’s freedom is further constrained through their own needs. We are not allowed to conduct any sort of behavior we desire just because we are in a free country. In fact, we may not even control the ability to make the decision to behave a certain way. When it comes to our “freely” made decisions, we are limited in what those decisions could be. They could be influenced by our unconscious desires and the past experiences deeply engrained within us. The state of existence that we all share consists of being influenced and influencing the people we interact with every day. Perhaps that is enough to live out our lives peacefully. Perhaps absolute free will is not necessarily the best thing for everyone. Perhaps true freedom exists not in despair of the dream of free will, but in the comfort of accepting our limitations.

My work is college.  I’m pretty sure yours is to.  Vanderbilt University may think we are so grateful for the classes they offer.  But let’s be honest, most of us would rather be doing something else than going to class, most of us would rather be doing something than studying for tests and writing papers on mundane topics.  That’s is exactly why college, at least the academic part of it, is work.  Since most of us don’t really enjoy doing work, why do we come here?

The reason is fear.  We are afraid that if we don’t get a college degree we will end up on government assistance.  And it is drilled into our heads since we are young that education will make us successful.  That is our true motivation for attending college.  It is not because we like to learn.  In fact, most of the stuff we are taught we consider to be useless and only learn it because we want a good grade.  It is because we think college leads to money.   For most of us, going to college was never a “choice.”  It was just something that we felt we had to do.  We don’t like learning about theoretical jargon, especially at 9AM, but we feel if we won’t be successful later in life.  We can’t help but look down at our friend who decided college wasn’t for him, or at are other friend who is learning a trade at the local community college

If you look at the top-20 schools in America, you will notice that on average, the students are wealthier than people at other colleges or not attending college.  In fact, the biggest indicator of standardized test scores is wealth.[1] Most of us come from successful households and we want to emulate our parents.   We want to be just as successful as them, if not more.  Our parents, as well as the educational establishment in America, have convinced us that education is the path to make us smarter.

They seem to be correct as educational levels and income are correlated.[2] The most powerful man in the world has also taken this stance.  President Barack Obama has called for a goal of all Americans attending college, saying that it is necessary for our economy, and will make us better off as individuals.[3] 63% of Americans have completed some college work, up from 34% in 1971.  However, 48% of today’s graduates are working jobs that don’t require a 4-year college degree.  The correlation between degrees, especially advanced ones, and income is nothing more than a correlation.  It is not causation.  Think about the people who usually get these degrees.  They are very intelligent and have an impeccable work ethic.  These people are extremely smart whether they got a degree or not.  It isn’t the degree that made them successful; it is their intelligence and hard work.

Colleges are happy to continue duping the public with the “intrinsic value” of their degrees and the college “experience.”    They’ll be glad to take $100,000 while giving you a worthless piece of paper in return.  But the fact is there is a higher education bubble, and it will burst.  People are beginning to see through the lies that universities push in order to justify taking so much of your money.  Now 75% of Americans say college is unaffordable while 57% of Americans say colleges fail to provide students with a good value for the money spent.[4] The only reason parents keep wrecking their finances to send kids like us to college is the illogical fear in the back of their heads that we will not be successful if we don’t go.  But the higher education bubble is unsustainable and will not be able to continue.  Either tuition will have to fall or enrollment will decline.

We need to change our mindset.  We need to realize that college isn’t the golden ticket to money.  Graduating college guarantees a piece of paper, nothing more.  That piece of paper will not guarantee us income either.  We need to be intelligent, productive, and skilled to earn income.  Income gained is a measure of the value one adds to society.  If you create a product people want, have a skill that is in demand, or can outwork others, you will earn others.  We should focus on honing our skills, coming up with ideas, and applying ourselves.  That is the true ticket to prosperity, not some piece of paper that says you sat through 4 years of class.

“Affluenza is symptomatic of a culture that holds up financial success as one of the highest achievements. People said to be affected by affluenza typically find that the very economic success they have been so vigorously chasing ends up leaving them feeling unfulfilled, and wishing for yet more wealth” (1).

One of the main reasons for working extremely hard in high paying jobs is the desire for wealth.  So why do people sacrifice time with their families to gain significant amounts of wealth?  Everyone has heard the saying, ‘money can’t buy happiness’, yet deep down many people believe that the wealthier you are the happier you become.  Or that money buys happiness.  One must note that there is a large difference between people who must work tough hours in order to provide essentials for their family, and those who make more than enough money yet desire more and more in order to gain a sense of fulfillment. The problem arises when people start believing that money makes you superior to others, and that money can solve all your problems.

You don’t have to look further than the Vanderbilt campus to find evidence of the negative results of affluenza.  Affluenza  “has…been used to describe a condition in which children — generally from richer families — have a sense of entitlement, are irresponsible, make excuses for poor behavior, and sometimes dabble in drugs and alcohol.”  This sounds a lot like Vanderbilt to me.  Often, the reason many students are able to get into a great academic school like Vanderbilt is due to their parent’s wealth.  Their money can place kids in elite private schools and also pay for many prep classes for standardized tests that other students may not have access to.  However, having many students living together that are extremely wealthy can lead to problems.  For example, many students spend great amounts of money on alcohol and other drugs every weekend (and during the week) because of the large disposable incomes they receive from their parents.  Not only are students able to experiment with many drugs and alcohol, they also gain a feeling that they are invincible and can do anything they wish.  For a particular case, I will look to a recent example from Texas.

16-year-old Ethan Couch was driving drunk in North Texas when he hit and killed four pedestrians.  Not only was he driving with a blood alcohol content 3 times the legal limit; he had also been seen on surveillance cameras stealing beer, and was driving with 7 passengers in his Ford F-350, which only has 5 seatbelts (2).  Given the circumstances, one would expect a very harsh sentence including jail time.  However, the court ruled that Ethan Couch’s behavior resulted from affluenza, and he would be on probation for the next 10 years, but serve no jail time.  First, it is incredible— no, unbelievable that an appointed judge would make a ruling based off of how wealthy someone’s family is.  Second, this ruling brings many questions to the table.  If the kid had been a lower class kid it would be hard to imagine the judge not giving a sentencing.  However, since the parents are able to spend $450,000 per year on rehabilitation, this kid gets a simple slap on the wrist for killing 4 people drunk driving (2).  Therefore, this ruling is a perfect example and contributor to why many upper class people believe that they are above the law.

Therefore, there results a double standard in today’s society.  Rich, upper class boys are often engaging in similar activities as lower class boys.  After all, as a teenage boy you just want to have fun, which unfortunately often means doing illegal activities with friends.  However, due to a society that values wealth, rich upper class kids are able to walk away free from a DUI offense and killing 4 people, where a lower class citizen might serve jail time for something comparably harmless like stealing food.

I believe that this ‘condition’ of affluenza can be solved if children are not taught to believe that a person’s character can be judged by their wealth.  This does not just go for wealthy people.  After all, the Texas judge was the person who made the final ruling that Ethan Couch would walk away free.  Furthermore, people must realize that money does not buy happiness or make you a better person.  While society as a whole can place less emphasis on money, it is also partially wealthy parents fault for instilling wrong values in their children.  Kids should not grow up thinking they will have everything given to them, rather they should believe that they have to work hard to achieve success.

1. http://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/affluenza.asp
2. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/12/12/affluenza-dwi-dui-texas/3999487/

Sexism in the Workplace: Paper vs. Practice

For years, women have fought for gender equality both in and out of the workplace. Many complaints from professional businesswomen include pay discrepancies between themselves and their male counterparts as well as other discriminatory practices that cheat them of important opportunities. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy signed a bill that required government contractors to “take affirmative action to ensure that… employees are treated without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin.” Today, federal laws enforced by the U.S. Employment Equal Opportunity Commission (EEOC) supposedly ensure that women do not face gender discrimination in an office setting; unfortunately, while these laws seem effective on paper, the harsh reality is woven into complex social constructions that perpetuate gender bias.

When women first began to enter the workforce in the U.S., they were paid substantially less and worked through much harsher conditions than their male colleagues. What’s more, they were often subject to sexual harassment and other degenerative antics that led to decreased productivity and morale. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 requires that both men and women be judged not by their gender, but by the quality of their work when employers consider wages. However, a 2008 study by the U.S. Department of Labor reported that women earned, on average, about 80 percent of what men of the same seniority and level of responsibility earn. It seems the problem has been fixed on paper but not in practice.

However, a similar study conducted in the same year (2008) by New York based firm Reach Advisors concluded that women aged 22 to 30 with no spouse or children earned higher median incomes than comparable men in 39 of the United States’ largest cities. The explanation may be found in that women are now earning more college degrees than men, which makes them more qualified (on average) than the average male applicant. It seems women feel a need to “compensate” for their gender by working harder than their male counterparts. A recent study in the Psychology of Women Quarterly stated that, when asking for a raise, women workers must “pay closer attention to their strategy than men.” So why do women feel like they need to work harder? Why is it that, despite anti-gender-discrimination laws, women are not given equal opportunities?

The answer is found in the numbers. A study done in February of last year by Catalyst, a research firm aiming to increase business opportunities for women, determined that women make up only 4 percent of the S&P’s 500 CEOs, 10 percent of big company CFOs, and that more than a third of public companies had no women as senior officers. In addition to the harmful pay gap, women are also more likely to be hired into low-paying work. According to the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee, sixty percent of minimum wage workers are women as are two-thirds of part time workers.

When those in charge are primarily of one gender, it is difficult to see the other side. Furthermore, gender norms point these men of high positions of power to believe popular fallacies that restrict women’s progress in the workplace as well as decrease productivity. According to a 2012 Forbes article entitled “Masculine Norms in the Workplace Could be Holding Women Back,” the “unwritten rules of the office” tend to favor men. So what are these masculine norms?

First, subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) biases and unintentional stereotypes. For example, not asking a woman to relocate for better pay because she has children. Less subtle practices would include not distributing responsibilities equally because certain tasks are considered “men’s work.”

Next, as Sarah Kendzior points out in her article “Mothers are not opting out,” office culture often places an impossible amount of stress on balancing family life with work life, so many mothers who leave the workforce find it incredibly difficult to find a new job or earn similar pay to when they leave. Although this difficulty could be associated with frictional unemployment—that is, a mismatch of skills (it is less difficult to hire a young, trained applicant than bring up to speed someone who has not been working for several years)—I believe social norms and the demanding office setting make it more difficult for mothers to seek and maintain work.

Finally, Deborah Small, a professor of both marketing and psychology at Wharton, stated that women face more difficulty in initiating negotiations than men do. This lack of negotiation could also be a possible factor as to why women are held back in the work place.

So, while anti-discrimination laws serve to protect women on paper, practices within the workplace often prove to be much different as a result of social norms that stimulate gender bias. Small also points out that, in today’s society, “workplace norms are not just male norms; they are norms.” Identifying these norms and either working to conform to the beneficial ones or to combat problematic ones could be a potential solution. Understanding that gender discrimination still exists both in and out of an office setting is an important first step, and fighting to defy broader, negative gender norms could help with the inevitably gradual change of workplace norms.

Meaningless words are such a pain. I see words like sustainable and dynamic used in virtually ever scenario, yet they convey absolutely zero meaning. Despite sounding impressive and splashy, these empty words serve as an advertising gimmick that lessens the impact of messages. No matter how many “Sustainability Reviews” from BP I read, I doubt that their activities are truly encouraging sustainability in the biosphere. In the same way, I believe the words racial diversity is thrown around like an old rag doll that has seen better days. When a community is “racially diverse”, what does that really mean? The assumption is that there are many different types of people, but that may not necessarily be the case. Rather than an actual measure of diversity, it seems to be a superficial marker for potentially different backgrounds. Colleges can boast about the diversity of their students, but it’s diversity of environments rather than race that is significant. I believe that colleges should stop using race as an indicator for diversity and just be truthful about what the real environmental factors they are interested in.

It is understandable that racial diversity remains firmly ingrained within the minds of the American people. To transcend past transgressions, people will go to any lengths to make up for the past generations’ mistakes. This is not necessarily a bad thing; nothing is wrong with some of these actions such as increasing access to educational and economic opportunities. However, trying to enforce a racial diversity within a college community is still flawed. For example, consider the policy of affirmative action in higher education. The reasoning behind affirmative action is purportedly to enroll a wide variety of students from different backgrounds. This is a legitimate desire since the college experience for a student should not be limited to interacting with peers with similar perspectives. My main concern lies with whether a variety of races corresponds to a variety of backgrounds. I believe that environmental factors are more influential than race itself. For instance, the conditions that would make two students different include socioeconomic status, demographics of their respective communities, and the political influences of the communities. A white woman from southern California in a large public school with many different groups of people will most likely be significantly different than a white woman from Salt Lake City, Utah attending a small private school that is predominantly white and Mormon. They are different because environmental differences constitute the contrast of their personalities. It is not correct to automatically assume race as a condition for diversity. Thus, what schools should actually be looking for is not a diversity of races, but a diversity of environmental conditions.

Many people believe that affirmative action in higher education is necessary to enroll minorities in poorer conditions to improve the state of their respective race and communities. This is, once again, a legitimate point, but the real factor here is socioeconomic status and not race. A considerable number of schools are unable to gauge this factor because of the transition to “need-blind” admissions. In the spirit of fair admissions, the need-blind admissions are supposed to ensure acceptance based on students’ merit rather than a factor the students can’t control. Ironically, race is used to determine socioeconomic conditions. If the purpose of need-blind admissions was to rely more on the students’ merit, then why is race even a consideration? The public lauds need-blind admissions, yet policies like affirmative action are appreciated in the same way. Due to the need for racial diversity, the possibility of a black student in an upper class family attending a high achieving school getting admitted over a white student with the same merit in a poor neighborhood exists. This is the real flaw of the consideration of race in college admissions. Race is being used as a factor to determine other background conditions.

When a college throws in “racially diverse” as a term used to describe their college, it makes me really wonder what that means. I can’t necessarily assume that it corresponds to a diversity of backgrounds because that’s not what race does. In the end, racial diversity becomes a meaningless and trite phrase. If colleges truly care about gather a variety of students, then they should ask about environmental conditions. These could include the socioeconomic status of their community, demographics of their school, and the political leanings of their community. These factors are what really influence people. Race is a factor among many, but it should not be the sole indicator for diversity. The goal of progressive movements is to erase the semblance of difference. There is no point in talking of equality when colleges entrench the differences. Having a different color on your skin does not necessarily make you different.  Racial diversity is a hollow term used to divide the human race into senseless groups. The only race that is important is of the human kind. By no means should the colors of our skin be used to imply diversity.

Essay #3 – Race and its Representations

“A Self-Destructive Fear”

by Dan Petrovitch

It is a common fallacy to assume that the best way to eliminate the racial fear-mongering that infects the white corridors of our society is to establish its irrationality. It functions as some sort of hypothetical beacon of tolerance for even the most intelligent, morally astute, and well-intentioned members of the majority population. It just seems much easier to observe and digest racism, even one’s own, in simple black and white; in which the racists are ignorant, as their fears are completely illogical, skewed by subjectivity and stupidity; and in which the tolerant are liberal, progressive, and rational, as their fears are alleviated by their objectivity, their education, their distant knowledge of how the other half might live. But, in reality, people who idealize this litmus test for prejudice are selling themselves short. In the long run, this mindset is much more effective at capping one’s racial open-mindedness than it is at promoting it. For although it is certainly illogical to fear a man due to his blackness, or his redness, or his yellowness, it is not significantly enlightening or constructive to focus on this illogicality. Instead, consider the severe opportunity cost of racially-driven fear: it is usually extremely self-destructive, as it segregates the fearful, reducing their exposure to most of the countless unique and beautiful cultures of the human race. In her essay “No-Man’s Land” for The Believer Magazine, Eula Biss confirms that, “fear is isolating for those that fear,” and adds that she has, “come to believe that fear is a cruelty to those who are feared.” I have come to believe that it is necessary to take the next logical step along her line of thinking, and to fully comprehend the parlous implications of such self-imposed isolation: that fear is also a cruelty to those who fear.

In general, I do not consider myself to be a very fearful person, especially concerning interactions with racial minorities. Yet I still undoubtedly possess the capacity for that shameful twinge of fear, or perhaps it is only the threshold of fear, that might unjustly follow in the wake of some innocent African American, or Arab, or Mexican. These feelings are neither intentional, nor desirable, nor indicative of my moral standards concerning the value of a human being or the absolute irrelevance of skin color. Each and every time I ignore this unwelcome prick of bigotry, I find myself more and more enamored with humanity’s diversity and overwhelmed by the unfathomable amount of people out there who are so utterly and incredibly different than I. My initial apprehension, or half-fear, is always so thoroughly erased that I am often disgusted by the mere fact that I even felt it, as well as terrified at the existence of the cultural and historical forces that are powerful enough to create it and ingrain it in my head.

While writing about unacceptable versus appropriate uses of the word “nigger” in modern America, the black New York Times columnist Ta-Nehisi Coates makes an excellent point regarding the deep cultural bounty that minority groups contribute to our great nation: “‘Nigger’ is different because it is attached to one of the most vibrant cultures in the Western world…It tells white people that, for all their guns and all their gold, there will always be places they can never go.” Despite the undeniable reality that no white person could ever fully integrate themselves into the black community, or truly understand or appreciate what it means to be black, I interpret this quote as more of an invitation than a barrier. It tells me that blacks have so much to offer, artistically and intellectually, in their joys and in their sorrows, as distinctive individuals and as a community; it reminds me that this applies to so much more than just the black minority, and that I would be screwing myself over in my quest for both knowledge and experience by shunning Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, Arabs, etc.; and it reminds me that this applies to so much more than just race as well, as any prejudices that I hold, no matter how trace or inadvertent they may be, are constantly limiting my opportunities to get to know and interact with people from whom I have a lot to learn. Fear of the minority will slowly but surely destroy the majority, and there is absolutely nothing that the minority can to do change this. It is the responsibility of the majority to rectify the situation, to stop degrading the minority, and in doing so, stop holding themselves back. For our nation is the clichéd great melting pot, and in this day and age, no white man is doing himself any favors by standing at a comfortable enough distance to ignore that. Go ahead, dive into the cauldron head first: there’s nothing to be afraid of, and you won’t regret it.