Author: Andre Coleman

Digital age is same thing as “modernism” and modernism can simply be defined as an overall socially progressive trend of thought that affirms the power of human beings creates, improve and reshape their environment with the aid of practical, experimental and scientific knowledge or technology. In modernism, there are some certain impacts on social, economic and political life of the societies today, because it has touched all these areas. When we talked of the impact of digital age or modernism on the society, we will be focusing on the changes we have on the social aspects of the world in general, that is, how the society is socially on progress. In the economic life of the societies, we will be focusing on the technologies that changed how people lived, where they lived and how they thought, why there is a rapid change in the production of goods, and also the means of moving those goods from place to another in today’s society. In political life, we have the changes in politics, the rise of working class, and the reason why many are poor and lived in bad conditions while the fewer enjoyed the profits.

Industrial revolution is one of the impacts of modernism in the economic life of the societies today because the use of new technologies and inventions of machines helps towards increasing production of goods and services and also delivering those goods to the appropriate place when needed. Today mechanized production and modern economic growth continue to spread to some new areas. As at that period, workers move from their working environment to another in order to search for a perfect industry with requirement that will make work easier and saves time because as at that period before industrial revolution took place, working at the industry is something different because things and requirement aren’t the way they are because the means to carrying out the work is not there but by man power. It was claimed that the factory systems developed during that period were responsible for the modern cities nowadays, because the system was new, and the workers had not experienced such, and thus everyone has an opportunity to go to somewhere in search of greener posture of the world, and much of some human beings have not yet knew or had about the changes. Economic generate a great distribution of funds extracted from resources, which then led to a progressive shift in legislation. After the second and third reform acts, income inequality was reduced by progressive and successive acts of legislation which gave a free public.

Education had also strengthened the legal standing of the trade unions that aided the aged, the sick ones, and the unemployed individuals without abridging their political rights and replaced regressive with progressive taxes on income, land, and inherited wealth. Selling of goods and services like in British, east India companies were opportune by the government; larger ships were built because of enlightenment following an increased in the aspects of production. George Bernard Showed up once again and said “the market solution ended up in the best social solution”. “For the first time in history, the living standards of the masses of ordinary people have begun to undergo sustained growth.

In impact of digital age on the social life of the society today is connected with one’s position in the society, his social class and also his social background, nowadays, there are so many changes in the social aspect of our lives. A very good example of this is festival, changes in tradition and also in the mood of dressing, all this became possible because of the impact of digital age we have today. If we look around us today, it’s hard to find a person that has not added anything new to his traditional attires , what I mean here is, for instance, for the Hausa’s and also the Fulani’s, there were not know for wearing jeans and tops, but now it has become a common thing based on socialization. Before, many do not believe in going to school especially the Fulani’s, they only believe in rearing cattle’s while the women among them are to stay at home, but now, everyone wants to be in school, illiteracy is darkness, people don’t believe in staying at home doing nothing anymore, for at least even when they lack the opportunity or don’t have the means of going school or seeking for job opportunity, they will prepare engaging themselves in a small business just for them to earn something for a living. There are so many changes due to the impact digital age on the social life of our societies today.

Social philosophers of the 1700’s supported the idea of individual human rights, respects, freedoms has dissolved the old ways of supreme wealth of Royalty and everyone else peasants exponential population growth properties kept on getting sub-grouped, couldn’t keep doing that many people moved to towns, people in cities need jobs, and need to buy things instead of making it themselves. Lack of work result to poverty and unavailability of food, so there were few to work, and much waiting to have one. Work made the opportunity to move ahead.

The impact of digital age on the political life of the societies today is connected with the state, government or public affairs. Today, there are a lot of changes in politics, in government, we have the arms of government where it consist of the legislative, judiciary and the executive arms of government and every arm of government listed here has its own responsibility to carry on and also certain years that each president in Nigeria had to spent in office, all this is because of the impact of digital age we have today. Let go deep into the impact of digital age on political life of the society, another considerable impact to look on is during the election period, today, people do come out of their houses to vote for the beloved candidate, individuals were given the right to vote for whom they wish to be their leader and at any period, a well educated individual with the necessary requirement that will qualified him to stand as a candidate during an election can do so. Politicians clued into those dynamics and spoke of growth in that system could get votes. In politics, we considered the working class, people can now vote and be voted for, and that’s the people that engage themselves in politics would probably be the candidate in an election. Today, as a result of the impact on digital age we have on the political life of the society today, you can write an article, letter or even through computers that are all over that will enabled you go online, search for one of your leaders and have a mutual conversation with him/her about the political problems that rises all the time, the issue of corruption among the leaders, misused of the public funds etc and the best way to tackle all this problems .People could get things that were previously not available to common people, and standard of living could go up.

In conclusion, digital age had so much impact on the social, economic and political life of the societies today because it has brought so much changes in our daily aspects of life and also helps us to improve and reshape our environment with the aid of practical, experimental and scientific knowledge or technology.

LIFE CHANCES

SOCIAL CLASS CONTINUES TO HAVE A SIGNIFICANT IMPACT ON LIFE CHANCES OF INDIVIDUALS IN THE CONTEMPORARY UK. DISCUSS THIS VIEW, USING APPROPRIATE EVIDENCE.

In a modern western society individuals strive to achieve the things that are labelled as desirable, the best phone, a big house and a nice car. These are all known as commodities alongside education, health and housing but these commodities are very rarely distributed equally and so actually achieving these things can be difficult (Stroud, 2001). The ability and opportunity a person has to achieve these commodities is known as a person’s life chances. There are various factors that can determine a person’s life chances including genetic inheritance, social class of parents, education, childhood poverty, family, attitudes and discrimination, plus many more (Aldridge, 2004). A person’s life chances will often be determined by their social class within their society. Social class is one of the oldest and possibly one of the most persistent inequalities in British society. Classes are groups of people that all share the same ideals, opportunities and cultural beliefs. These class systems can be defined by achieved or ascribed status. Achieved status is status that has been worked for, whereas ascribed status is from birth. Some class systems have social mobility, which gives individuals the opportunity to move up or down classes.

Throughout history there have been records of many different class systems, including slavery, the feudal system and the Hindu caste system. Some of these class systems still exist even in today’s modernised world. Despite many adaptions taking place as life continues to change according to the National Equality Panel the UK is still a long way from being a society of equal opportunity. There has been a lot of change over the last two decades that have indeed improved the life chances of many; these changes have narrowed the inequalities in earnings, gender and education for ethnic minorities (Timmins, 2010). The biggest inequality that can be seen within the UK would be with income, with the majority of the UK’s wealth being owned by only a small percentage.

Within the contemporary UK there appears to be a class system divided into three categories, upper class, middle class and working class. For each of these three classes there will be differences in the kind of advantages or disadvantages the people within them can have. These differences may be recognised by obvious inequality with commodities such as council housing or privately owned housing in select locations, education at select schools compared to state education, private healthcare opposed to NHS healthcare and highly paid occupations against poorly paid or no occupation opportunities. There could also be disadvantages due to a person’s accent and dialect, appearance and clothing and the leisure activities that person indulges in. There may also be other less obvious inequalities, from social class, that can affect a person’s life chances.

In a modern society social class and life chances depend largely on economic differences between groups, such as wealth and income, possession of goods, and a person’s position in society (SFEU, n.d). The biggest differences in social class within the UK can be seen through a person’s occupation. The upper classes can live off unearned income, such as land rents or inheritance. There are not many upper class people living off unearned income, despite there being some very wealthy people. In the UK most people fall into middle class or working class categories. The middle class is broken down into the higher middle class and the lower middle class. The higher middle class hold occupations in professional work such as law, medicine or owning businesses. This type of work requires education, qualifications and skills. While the lower middle class hold occupations such as teachers and opticians. At one time lower middle class occupations were sought after and would have been regarded as higher middle class, but due to these professions now being stable well paid positions they have decreased in class standing (Mills, 1956, cited in Anon, n.d). Working classes hold manual labour occupations and although this can often require a lot of skill it is not generally well paid (Anon, n.d).

It is more than obvious to say that if a child has a good education and achieves high qualifications then that child is most likely to gain a high paying job. A person born into a family living in poverty would obviously not have the same opportunity to attend a top quality private school as a person born into a wealthy family. There is also the consideration of catchment areas with education that could prevent a person being able to attend a better school than provided in their local area. A lot of the best schools in the UK do have scholarship and bursary opportunities, however these do not always apply as some of the individuals from poorer societies are unable or unaware of how to apply for this assistance and if they do they could still be refused. For instance, a child from a council estate, living with unemployed parents on the outskirts of a city would not be able to go to a private funded school in a big city. Whereas a child with parents as actors will almost always be instantly enrolled to the best private schools available.

The main factor that affects health inequality in the UK is social class. There are many studies that show people born in to poor families have less chance of survival, grow up with poor health and may die at an early age. NHS waiting lists at an all time high, those individuals with either low incomes or no incomes are increasingly waiting longer for potentially lifesaving treatment. In contrast to this those people in what is considered the upper classes are able to pay to have treatment privately and almost immediately, also having the opportunity to choose the best surgeon/doctor to perform the treatment. There is also the fact that many working class occupations cause illness but the people suffering are unable to take time away from their employment for fear of dismissal. Health inequalities may not be directly caused by social class itself but more as a result of social class inequality. Poor health can be a result of poor living conditions, bad eating habits, behavioural habits such as smoking and drinking and lack of exercise (Macintyre, cited in Burton, 2014).

Another difference between life chances and differing social classes is the way crime is handled. A lot of national statistics state that most crime is committed by working class males. This is not necessarily true as a lot of wealthy people often commit crimes but are not prosecuted. Even when they are prosecuted there are major differences in the treatment involved. For instance a white working class male arrested for fraud will find himself face down on the pavement and handcuffed behind his back. He will then be taken to a local police station, thrown in a cell and eventually interviewed for hours before having DNA, fingerprints and photographs taken before being released. In total contrast to this a wealthy public figure such as a politician or celebrity would be contacted through their PA or agent with a request to attend the police station at a time suitable and convenient for them. They will not be handcuffed, put in a cell or subjected to many hours of interrogation. They may have to provide DNA, fingerprints and photographs but this could also depend on the person in question.

REFERENCES

Aldridge, S. (2004) Life Chances & Social Mobility: An Overview of the Evidence [online]. Available from: http://www.swslim.org.uk/documents/themes/lt10_lifechances_socialmobility.pdf [Accessed on: 25^th February 2014].

Anon. (n.d) Social Inequality Class War [online]. Available from: https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CE4QFjAD&url=https%3A%2F%2Fhwb.wales.gov.uk%2Fcms%2Fhwbcontent%2FShared%2520Documents%2Fvtc%2F2009-10%2Fsociology%2Fj-griffiths-a2%2F08%2520Class%2520inequality.doc&ei=cwUNU9qYGoLC7AaH0YGADQ&usg=AFQjCNHztbBO4TkYV-B6XSNIwk_jZoTLiA&sig2=Jpwtyqz8c6wbtXevFwkpBw&bvm=bv.61725948,d.ZGU&cad=rja [Accessed on: 25^th February 2014].

Burton, J. (2013) Class and Stratification Access Sociology [Class Hand-out]. Access to Social Science: Life Chances, Northampton College. 1^st March.

Crossman, A. (n.d) Sociology of Social Inequality [online]. Available from: http://sociology.about.com/od/Disciplines/a/Sociology-Of-Social-Inequality.htm [Accessed on: 27^th February 2014].

Scottish Further Education Unit. (n.d) Sociology Social Stratification Intermediate ? [online]. Available from: https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&ved=0CFYQFjAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.educationscotland.gov.uk%2FImages%2FSocialStratInt12_tcm4-335917.doc&ei=cwUNU9qYGoLC7AaH0YGADQ&usg=AFQjCNFy43tMDIvoc1psuuKEX06umWxxgQ&sig2=5lS1A_bga4yStmZ-aZ4NxA&bvm=bv.61725948,d.ZGU&cad=rja [Accessed on: 25^th February 2014].

Sparknotes. (n.d) Social Stratification and Inequality. Modern Stratification Systems [online]. Available from: http://www.sparknotes.com/sociology/social-stratification-and-inequality/section3.rhtml [Accessed on: 27^th February 2014].

Stroud, A. (2001) How Social Class Affects Life Chances [online]. Available from: http://www.markedbyteachers.com/gcse/sociology/how-social-class-affects-life-chances.html [Accessed on: 27^th February 2014].

Timmins, N. (2010) Social advantages still shape life chances [online]. Available from: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/72110f9e-0ab1-11df-b35f-00144feabdc0.html – axzz2ujHY6eXs [Accessed on: 1^st March 2014].

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Bancroft, A. & Rogers, S. (2010) Introduction to Sociology. Max Weber – Class, Status and Power [online]. Available from: http://www.cf.ac.uk/socsi/undergraduate/introsoc/weber11.html [Accessed on: 27^th February 2014].

Rafaelz5. (2008) Does social class still influence people’s life chances and lifestyle? [online] Available from: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080810055743AA8X0wM [Accessed on: 27^th February 2014].

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There are many books, articles, academic and non academic papers have been written concerning Multiculturalism and its impact on Western and non-Western societies, religious or cultural groups. The aim of this critical review is to examine, give description, comparing and contrasting, conducting analysis and evaluation of two different articles that discuses the same theme of Multiculturalism. Both articles are written by feminist’s writers who argue the issues relating to gender and especially women.

Description of two articles

Article 1:

This article is written by Susan Moller Okin a feminist writer who argues that policy makers, defenders and advocates of multiculturalism in liberal and democratic countries, have not shown justice and fairness when it comes to the issue of gender especially women. She also argues about the issues of immigrants and raises the question that is why the immigrants, minority groups and indigenous people failed to be part of the majority cultures in Western Countries. Women were the most groups who felt that they were controlled by men in many aspects of life; therefore, the assimilation of women in Western cultures caused huge controversy in the field of multiculturalism.

Article 2:

This article is written by Mandy McKerl, another feminist writer who argues that women who come from different background, cultures, minority groups and live in multiculturalism societies, lack self-esteem and self respect due to the pressure from the their own cultures and their own communities. She presents her arguments based on the status of these women in contemporary societies in which they encounter discrimination, prejudice, sexism, injustice and lack of opportunities. She also criticizes multiculturalism in Western liberal democracy societies in which freedom, social justice, social equality and political representation are terms made by certain establishment to serve only the male dominant and ignore women rights, freedom, and social justice. Again the emphases here are on women who belong to ethnic minorities and Muslim women in particular.

Comparison of the two articles

Similarities: The title of both articles indicates that there are similarities in the arguments particularly from feminist point of views. Both writers illustrate the depth of the problem that women are subjected to issue of inequality and social justice in multiculturalism societies and liberal democratic states. They criticize the policy makers and the government institution in failing to address the issue concerning gender especially women and to recognize that there is a gap in certain laws which left women to become vulnerable to sex abuse, clitoridectomy, rape, polygamy, domestic violence, and killings. In addition, they present similar cases and examples from within Western multicultural societies where women and girls from different cultural background have been subjected to force marriages, children marriages, threat, and in some cases kidnapping. According to both writers, this unjustified behavior led to create negative impact on women and girls, and it also has created fierce tensions between the feminist ideologies and defender of multiculturalism in Western states.

Points of differences and contrast:

The author of article 1 presents her arguments concerning multiculturalism in a broader picture, although her main argument deals with issue of women rights that has been violated and ignored. In contrast to article 2, the author expands her arguments and engages in more details to identify the core of the problem that is hidden behind the mask of multiculturalism. Article 1, rarely diffuses discussion on cultural groups and its role in multiculturalism societies. In contrast to article 2, where the discussion is more energetic to explore with the reader that cultural groups has the upper hand in controlling the lives and freedom of women. There are other views and comments regarding the issue of multiculturalism by anthropologist in article 2, which could not be found in article 1.

Analysis and evaluation:

As the title of both articles suggest “Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women”? Arguably this is the main issue in both of the readings. The authors are not seeking a Yes or No answer here, but to illustrate statement if the society acknowledge and believe in the rights of women or believe in multiculturalism and ignore the rights of women. The other issue that the articles wanted to concentrate on is that in Western countries, immigrants, Muslim women have been deprived from their essence legal protections and have been looked at as third-class citizens.

Both authors argue that because of the dogma of multiculturalism, women from ethnic background and different cultures are exposed to violence, sexism, polygamy, and violation of human rights. According to Wihtol de Wenden, “the French response to such practice as polygamy, excision, and headscarves has often taken the form of the imposition of unsuitable sanctions”. She suggests that “such sanctions, far from helping migrant women, tend to isolate them further into a traditional world that deprives them from equal rights and equal opportunity”. (Wihtol de Wenden, 1998, p. 140). One can argue that some Western countries believe that all these immigrants and women cherish one single homogenous culture; therefore, they all should follow it, missing the fact that this misunderstanding in homogenous culture, has resulted in permitting most men to use the name culture for their own advantages by beating, torturing, and disrespecting women and girls.

Arguably, both authors are discussing the same problem regarding the issues of multiculturalism, women, cultural groups, human rights, and policy makers in same directions, but apply different approaches. For example, article 1 states that some group rights can, in fact, endanger and humiliate women. She illustrates her claim by giving an example of French government’s allowing few thousands of male immigrants from African colonized countries special permission to bring multiple wives into the country.

Ironically, the French laws do not permit polygamy and the wives’ own severe rejection to the practice of polygamy, did not stop these men to marry multiple wives’. (Okin, 1999, p. 10). Okin strongly emphasizes that women should not be considered as disadvantaged because of their sex and should not be treated as sex object to pleasure men. Volpp states that “the assumption that women are by definition more oppressed in minority cultures can be traced to several theoretical base: the history of colonialism, depictions of the feminist subject, the limits of liberalism, and the use of binary logic”. (Volpp, 2001, p. 1195). If this is the case, than Western countries should reject group rights that allow the practice of polygamy on the foundation that they are essential to minority cultures whose existence may otherwise be threatened. (Okin, 1999, p. 11).

Similar arguments can be found in article 2, in which Makerl highlights the issue of minority groups and their cultural rights of practices. She reflects and analysis the argument which is presented in article 1 from historical and political background and this method is important in raising the issue of multiculturalism and gender. She also illustrates opinions of multiculturalism from various thinkers, philosophers, and authors and comparatively weights them to separate facts from fiction. (Mckerl, 2007, p.192).

There is a sense of creating a notion of balance between feminism ideology and the defender of multiculturalism and in doing so; she is establishing a link of mutual debate to highlights and bring the issue of women that has been ignored for sometimes to the surface. In contrast to article 1, these type of analytical approaches and references to other authors are not present which makes her arguments less energetic.

The issues of women and multiculturalism have been addressed by other writers such as, Johann Hari, Judit Hell, Himani Bannerji, and Sarah Song. The article entitled “How multiculturalism is betraying women” by Johann Hari can be seen as a direct criticism of multiculturalism in liberal and Western societies. She demonstrates her arguments by presenting several cases of Muslim women who were subjected to violence, rape, discrimination, and have been treated as third-class citizens. (Hari, 2007). She writes in different style and more critical of social justice and inequality of human rights especially concerning women. Although, her writing may not be considered as an academic piece of work, but she engages extremely well in raising the issues of women especially in courts room. Arguably, there is a sense of resemblance in arguments between this work and the previous two articles despite the differences in approaches.

Another example of resemblances in arguments can be found in the report of Judit Hell “Women’s Issue and Multiculturalism” in which the writer present her arguments about multiculturalism from feminist point of view to emphasis that there are many issues regarding women and girls needed to be addressed in both public and private sphere. (Hell, n.d.). Judit, like Okin concentrate in her discussion on the historical background to multiculturalism and elaborates on the gender issue, but this time on gender of male that use culture as an excuse to establish authorities upon women and to subordinate them.

In this respect, judit argues that multicultural societies are divided into two categories of societies, traditional societies and modern societies. She suggests that in Christian Europe the traditional societies were patriarchal by nature and male were the dominant figures, therefore the status of women was defined. The other ethnic communities groups, such as Jews, Gypsies and Muslims who arrived at later stage and settled in Christian Europe, once again male were the dominant figures in these groups. Comparing the patriarchal status in traditional societies to modern societies, the treatment of women by these dominant male from these ethnic groups were harsh and primitive. (Hell, n.d.).

Himani in her essay “A Question of Silence: Reflection on Violence Against Women in Communities of colour” raises issues concerning multiculturalism and women, but her style in this particular essay is completely different from Okin and Mckerl. She presents her writing in a form of a letter that is written to a friend in free verse style. She states “Breaking with scholarly protocols, I am writing this piece as a letter to you because what I want to say needs an embodied reader”. ( Bannerji, 2000, p. 151). This piece of writing is dedicated to friends and in it the writer opens up her discussion addressing the violation of women rights with especial references to ethnic minorities’ women in Canada. The piece is well structured and full of technical words, but easy to follow its main argument.

Sarah Song, is another feminist academic writer who highlights issues of multiculturalism and women in America. In her arguments, she presents case studies of several women from Hong Kong, China, India, and America who have been kidnapped and raped by men. She states that “not so long ago in the United States, unless there was obvious evidence of coercion, an American woman charging rape had to convince the court that she had resisted the defendant’s advances “to the utmost”. (Song, 2007, p.93). Because of the nature of the cases that she has presented, her style of writing is very descriptive and critical. Tradition and culture are the main themes that run throughout her arguments and seemingly it is critical rather than neutral.

In general, the above articles are written from feminist point of views and highlighted issues concerning multiculturalism and the status of women in the multicultural societies. The presentations of some arguments are convincing and straight to the point where social injustice and inequality of women were addressed throughout the articles. Article 2 in particular is more engaging and interesting because it involves depth arguments and involves the reader to make a decision for him/herself either to agree or disagree with the discussion that is presented. It is an intellectual article which contest political, religious, cultural, and gender issues that evolve around us to understand the core of the problems that we are facing in this multicultural societies.

Conclusion

Feminist writers have presented theories and ideologies of multiculturalism in different perspectives and argued that culture, tradition, religion, and politics play an important role in shaping and controlling women.

The interpretation of multiculturalism in itself could be ambiguous and cultural differences in certain parts of liberal societies are governed by dominant male and this will not help in empowering women.

The articles presented views and challenged the defender and agents of multiculturalism through presenting cases of abuse, sexism, discrimination, social injustice and challenged the policy makers that certain laws are bias and prejudice towards women.

Each article has its unique way in style and arguments despite the differences and similarities that embedded throughout the discussion. Each article had delivered the necessary message profoundly.

The debate and the tension between feminism and multiculturalism supporters has created a balance of understanding each other views to some extent although the division in arguments will continue in years to come.

References

Bannerji, H. (2000). The Dark Side of the Nation- Essays on Multiculturalism, Nationalism and Gender. Canadian Scholars’ Press Inc. Toronto, Ontario.

Hari, J. (2007). How Multiculturalism is betraying Women [online] The Independent News Paper. Available from: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-how-multiculturalism-is-betraying-women-446806.html

Accessed: 4th November 2010.

Hell, J. No date. Women’s Issue and Multiculturalism. [online]. Available from: http://www.bu.edu/wcp/papers/Gend/GendHell.htm

Accessed: 1st November 2010.

McKerl, M. (2007) ‘Multiculturalism, Gender and Violence: is multiculturalism bad for women?’, in Culture and Religion, Vol. 8, No.2

Okin, S.M. (1999) ‘Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?’, in Cohen, J. and Howard, M. (eds) ‘ Is Multiculturalism Bad For Women’? Princeton University Press, USA.

Song, S. (2007) Justice, Gender, and The Politics of Multiculturalism. Cambridge University Press, USA.

Volpp, L. (2001). Feminism versus Multiculturalism. In JSTOR accessed online at http://www.jstor.org/stable/1123774

Accessed: 1st November 2010.

Wenden, C.W. (1998). Young Muslim Women in France: Cultural and Psychological Adjustments. In JSTOR accessed online at http://www.jstor.org/stable/3792118

Accessed: 1st November 2010.

A Leader is a person who guide and lead the team to success. As a leader, he or she must have a clear vision and vivid picture of where to go and a firm grasp on what success look like and how to achieve it. A leader must also be able to communicate with his or her follower on her vision and must be able to persuade them to buy into his or her idea. Moreover, he or she must also communicate passionately and clearly so that it can motivate them and direct them more efficient. Besides that, as a leader, he or she must have a responsibility on his or her follower and to make sure that all his or her follower share the common goal.

Modernization is conceived in several ways. One of them is through an increased knowledge in science and technology, modernization as a process of change in the social structure and social system.

Besides, it is also defined as a movement of transition from traditional society of religion, magic, and superstition to a modern and postmodern society. It is free from religious matrix and traditional norms.

Furthermore, the West explains modernization as a process of mobilization, differentiation, industrialization, and secularization, which can reach high economic growth, stable democracy, and a capitalist economy.

Modernization has brought to advance of human lifestyle and it makes human life easier. Modernization is not a temporal concept since the social keep on changing. It is a result of enlightenment which values reason, freedom and science, in relation to different aspects of society, so that modernization progress all the time.

During modernization, there is universal education and increase of literacy. Democratization in political system and education has been achieved. There are also emergence of rationalization and bureaucratization in social organization of work.

Socialization

Socialization is conceived as a general process of gaining culture; anthropologists use the term ‘enculturation’ for the process of being socialized to a particular culture. A human infant is born without any culture. Human’s parents, teachers, friends and circumferences transform them into cultural and socially adept animals. Socialization helps people to learn the language of culture they are born, or the role they are to play in life.

They will learn about the occupational roles that their society has store for them. For an example, boys learn how to be sons, brothers, friends, husbands, and fathers. During the socialization process, human learn to adopt their culture’s norms, which mean the conceptions of appropriate and expected behavior that are held by most members of the society.

There are two types of socialization, which are natural socialization and planned socialization. When infants and youngsters explore, play and discover the social world around them, it is called as natural socialization. Whereas when others take actions designed to teach or train people from infancy on, it is called as planned socialization. Both of these types of socialization can have good or bad features.

Most people try to gain experience in life. This helps to influence their own socialization. The more we learn about the socialization process, the more effective we can be in managing our future learning in the ways that it will help us most. To gain uniformity within a society, there must be a successful socialization. People will share the same beliefs and expectations if all of them receive the same socialization.

Discussion
The Impact of Modernization on Socialization

In the past, there was a bias between male and female, especially in China country. Males were provided educational chance when they are young. They could study in school meanwhile female are not allowed to study at all. In China before modernization, female are only allowed to do house chores and help around their family. Due to the socialization in the past, they are restricted them from getting the chance to expose themselves in education, business and politics. Besides, female are always being treated as servant or a baby producer. They have to obey what the male said. Furthermore, a female must listen to the male order and they are not allowed to fight back. Once she is born, she has to obey to her father. After married, she has to obey to her husband, then to her son.

The changes of modernization has influence processes of socialization, such as learning how to think, how to feel, how to be acceptable, how to be moral and how to be masculine and feminine. This is because modernization had brought lots education opportunities and working opportunities thus women are allowed to work and pursue their own dream as during the industrialization, there is a sudden shortage of labor. Thus woman can join in the men and work independently. After the process of modernization, human think differently. They are more open minded and the bias in between male and female is dribble away. Females no longer listen to their father when choosing their husband who never meet up before. China nowadays is in progress. People pay full concern to their children; no matter they are male or female. Most of them embrace feminism. Female has already got an equal treat as male. Females are also having the chance to study in school. Most of the parents will sent their children, no matter boy or girl to learn extra acqierement, such as drawing, dancing and arts.

There is also gender discrimination in India few decades ago. Female infanticide reflects the statement of low status accorded to women. It is proved by the most brutal and destructive action of anti-female bias that pervade ‘patriarchal’ societies. The phenomena of sex-selective abortion, which targets female fetuses almost exclusively and neglect of girl children is appeared. According to John-Thor Dahlburg, “In rural India, the centuries-old practice of female infanticide can still be considered a wise course of action.” (Dahlburg, “Where killing baby girls ‘is no big sin’,” The Los Angeles Times [in The Toronto Star, February 28, 1994.]) Based on census statistics, in 1901, there were 972 females for every 1000 males. In the year 1993, the gender imbalance has tilted to 929 females per 1000 males. In the nearly 300 poor hamlets of the Usilampatti area of Tamil Nadu, as many as 196 girls died under suspicious circumstances, such as fed dry, made swallow poisonous powdered fertilizer and smothered with a wet towel, strangled or allowed to starve to death.

In India bias against females is still related to the fact that “Sons are called upon to provide the income; they are the ones who do most of the work in the fields. Therefore, sons are looked as a type of insurance. This shows that, the high value given to males decreases the value given to females.” (Marina Porras, “Female Infanticide and Foeticide”.) Furthermore, India is a heartland of sex-selective abortion. In 1974, Amniocentesis was introduced to ascertain birth defects in a sample population by medical entrepreneurs. So, a spate of sex-selective abortions was followed.

Due to the modernization, the phenomena of bury baby have been banned by India. It becomes an illegal legislation. So, modernization has change people’s mindset from traditional to modern. Nowadays, the status of female is equally to male and people are starting to accept that female can also perform any job that a male can perform. Moreover as India become more and more modern, it affect the socialization so much that in the year 1971, India Prime Minister was a female name Indhira Gandhi. From here we can see that through modernization the social structure of the India was also starting to change.

Modernization has changes in reshaping economic, political and social life. It is because it not only helps explain economic, social and political change, but it also provide most efforts at prediction. For example, tends to bring increasing urbanization, growing occupational specialization, and higher levels of formal education in any society that undertakes it (Lerner, 1958; Deutsch, 1964). Modernization linked to a wide range of other cultural changes. Although modernization syndrome of changes becomes probable but social change is not linear when societies move from an agrarian mode to an industrial mode.

‘Women in Management’ is a current social issue. According to Jewell in 1977, the feminist movement, anti-sexual discrimination legislation, and predictions of shortages in managerial talent during the last decade have caused to increased pressure for more women participate in leadership roles during the 1970s. However, in 1978, Malabre said, the progress of integrating women into management positions has achieved limited success.

A lot of people posit that women lack the leadership attributes and abilities required for managerial positions. Those holding this type of stereotypic view perceive women as ineffective leaders in jobs incongruent with females’ more traditionally passive sex role. (Bryce, 1970; Cecil, Paul, & Olins, 1973; Hobart & Harrick, 1977i Peters, Terborg, & Jacobs 1974; Terborg et al., 1974).

Bartol’s findings showed that leader behavior can be influenced by other factors than gender. Based on Lockheed and Hall (1976) studies, men emerged as leaders much more often than female, but there was no different in male and female leadership style. The Bale’s scoring technique, indicated that women releasing more tension and being more communicative, there was no significant difference between democratic and autocratic leader behavior patterns.

Nowadays, women and men are equal, no matter where they are. The modernization process brings more job opportunities to human. Through this, women have more chances to exhibit their ability in working area. The limitation of women to be success is being narrow. It is because people’s mindsets have changed due to modernization towards socialization.

Sex Differences and Inequality

According to a study by Alice Eagly, from the Northwestern University in 2007, she say that there is a Psychology Prejudice against women as leader. She stated that woman is being perceived as nice, friendly, socially skilled meanwhile men are dominant, assertive (behavioral skill which is linked to self esteem and considered a important communication skill), tough-minded and take charge. Thus this had lead us to the term “Glass Ceiling” where woman is harasses and limit by the society on the job that they can do. Moreover, the term “Glass Ceiling” is also use to describe invisible barriers where minorities and women are prevented from advancing to the management position in organization and corporation.

Moreover, if we see from the nature perspective, we can see that female is the weaker sex and male dominance is just a biological manifestation. For example, the body structure of a male is stronger than women thus man often takes up the job as a leader and protects women. Since ancient time, hunting and processing hard raw material as strictly male activities whereas female will just cook, wash clothes and do the entire house chore (Peggy Reeves Sanday). Besides that Murdock and Provost suggest that female is attached to the burden of household and burden for pregnancy and infant care. Thus female was left out and do not have the chance to become a leader. This make them to become and not born as a weaker sex due to the socialization in the past. In fact during the past few years, there is more and more female leader out there in the world.

Feminism

Feminism is a doctrine that women should have the same economic, social, and political equality with those of men.

Feminism is distinguished between sex and gender. Sex, whether male and female, is about physical differences between sexes, while gender, whether masculine or feminine, is about characteristics of behavior, psychology or demeanor, which wished to claim are culturally constructed and conditioned and so ultimately arbitrary. The moral and political program of ‘gender feminism’ was essentially to rescind gender differences. It makes men and women would end up living the same kinds of lives, doing the same kinds of things, and perhaps even looking pretty much the same in “unisex” grooming and clothing.

According to F.Carolyn Graglia in 1998, housewives, not men, were the prey in feminism’s sights when Kate Millett decreed in 1969 that the family must go. Feminists do not speak for traditional women. Men cannot know this, however, unless we tell them how we feel about them, our children, and our role in the home. Men must understand that our feelings towards them and our children are derided by feminists and have earned us their enmity. Whether or not this understanding garners men’s support, traditional women must defend ourselves because the feminist offensive is, most essentially, a breach of solidarity with us, a disavowel of the obligation to honor the Women’s Pact [that religious celibates, professional women, and homemakers respect each other] that women in the movement owed to us.

Deborah Tannen have already explored an aspect of differences between males and females in her bestselling book ‘You Just Don’t Understand’. This book is about how men and women use conversation in different ways. She said that men normally use conversation to build status, whereas women use it to establish closeness. Deborah Tannen does not commit herself to whether it caused of nature or socialization. She does not try to deal with it through moralistic exhortations to abolish it, but simply tries to promote understanding. She thinks that men actually do care about closeness, and women also do actually care about status.

Female Leaders in World

Throughout the years, there have been lots of woman holding a leader position around the globe. This shows that modernization had brought lots of change in the socialization around the world. Woman is not weak but some of them are bound to the socialization around the place they are born.

The first example will be Angela Merkel. She was born on July 17,1954. She is the first female and current Chancellor of Germany. She is the also the president of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) since April 10, 2000. Moreover, she is also the President of the European Council and chairperson of the G8 during 2007.G8 refer to group of eight where it is comprise of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, United Kingdom and United State.G8 duty was to discuss issue of mutual or global concern. Their range of topic include, law enforcement, labor, health, social development, energy, economic, foreign affairs, justice and interior, terrorism and trade. Moreover, in the year 2008, she was awarded the Charlemagne Prize in 2008 for her contribution towards the European Union for the betterment she made. So from her we can see that modernization truly brought change in socialization. It made everyone has the equal chance to be a leader no matter their gender, race, or skin color. Moreover, for Angela Merkel, she is a truly remarkable icon for the female as she dares to stand up for herself and believe in the change she can bring for the society.

The second female leader example will be Indira Gandhi who is the prime minister of India for 14 years (3 terms). She was the first female Prime Minister for India. Her father was Jawaharlal Nehru who was the first prime minister of India. She served as her father personal assistant unofficially before becoming the Prime Minister of India. After her father death, she was appointed as member of Rajya Sabha (Upper House) and appointed as the Minister of Information and Broadcasting. Finally with the help of the Congress Party President K. Kamaraj, she is able to win the election and finally won the seat as the Prime Minister of India. Moreover, during the year she led the country as Prime Minister, she had helped India to win a war against Pakistan in 1971 and managed to create the independent Bangladesh. Furthermore, her policy of Garibi Hatao (abolish poverty) was instrumental in her victory as well during the election. So from Indira Gandhi, we can see that even thought she is a woman, she managed to be a good leader and even managed to lead India to win a war against Pakistan. This clearly show that female is no weak and they can be as good and strong as male. This had proven that male is not the smartest and strongest. So as long as female are given a chance, they might shine and be a good leader as well as a male can. Thus the quote by Vince Lombardi is significant which means Leaders are made and they are not born. They are made by hard effort which is the price that all of us must pay in order to achieve any goal that is worthwhile.

Meanwhile in other field besides politic, we do have women who are also a leader. For example is Dr.Faust whose real name is Drew Gilpin Faust is being elected as the first woman president in Harvard University in the year 2007. Moreover, she was also the first dean for the Radcliffe Institute who guides it to change from a college to a wide-ranging institute for advanced study. In sports wise one of the most famous sportswomen is Billie Jean King who is a professional Tennis player who is known for the Battle of the Sexes in 1973. The battle of sexes was between Billie Jean King and Bobby Rigs who is the former Wimbledon men’s single champion. As women, Billie Jean King managed to beat down Bobby Rigs and emerged as the victorious. Moreover, King became the first woman who managed to make more than $100,000 a year in tennis and was the Associated Press’s Woman Athlete of the Year in 1967 and 1973. She was also the Sports Illustrated’s Sportswoman of the year in 1972. Moreover, King is also the founder of the Women Sports Foundation, and the Women Tennis Association. Furthermore, King was also the first openly lesbian major sports figures when she came out in 1981. Besides that, the beating of the Bobby Rigs also helped to change the gender equality issue in sports and all the areas of public life. Thus in the year 2009, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by the President of United State Barrack Obama as her contribution had really helped the world to be a better place.

Besides these female leader, there are still lots of female leader who are well known such as Benazir Bhutto who was the first female head of the Muslim country, Rosa Parks the civil right female leader who make racial segregation in United State illegal and Margaret Thatcher who is the Prime Minister in the Britain and manage to end the Cold War. From here we can see that female can also function and work well in the Political Aspect. Furthermore in the aspect of fashion design, we had Melinda Looi who is a purveyor of fine art and vintage chic. She won a scholarship to La Salle School of fashion in Montreal, Canada. In 1995, she was awarded Malaysia Young Designer Award in Kuala Lumpur which was also her graduation collection year. Today, Melinda Looi is one of the influential fashion designers who have also sets her design on her world. In the year 2000, Mellooi Creation was formed. It takes the designer’s creation to greater horizons while also strengthening the brand. Mellooi Creation Sdn Bhd has been formulated to further develop business opportunities in local and international markets.

In sum, we can see that these women are important leader who have reached a great height and have change the world to a better place. They are competent, broad-minded, straightforward and efficient. They show out good judgments while being passionate about their vision too. So in future we hope that they will be more female leader out there to guide and bring the world to be a better place.

Female Contribution in the Society

There is numerous contribution of female in our society today. Without them, we may not be able to achieve what we had today. In medical field, we have the famous Dr. Janet Davidson Rowley, who discovered the first consistent chromosome translocation in a human cancer. Rowley is internationally renowned for her study in chromosome abnormalities in lymphoma and leukemia. Her discovery had led to the dramatically improved rates of survival for the previously incurable cancers and the development of targeted therapies.

Besides Dr. Janet, we had Nancy Goodman Brinker who is the founder of Susan G.Komen for the cure. It is the world leading breast cancer grass root organization. The organization helps and invested over 1.3 million for research, health services and education since 1982. They had worked with breast cancer survivor and activist to save lives, ensure quality care, empower people and work hard in science and research to find cures. With her help, they had developed new treatment option and a higher chance of living for the breast cancer patient and long-term survivors.

Meanwhile in the engineering or invention section, women had also provided lots of help and contribution. For example we had Mary Jane Montgomery who had made improvements in locomotive wheels in the year 1864 and apparatus for punching corrugated metals in the year 1866. Besides that, Evelyn F. French also helped to invent a sound-deadening attachment for railway cars in the year 1880. Meanwhile, Letitia Geer managed to develop the medical syringes in the year 1899. From here we can see that women also helped out in the engineering and invention section.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we do not agree with the statement that “Male are smarter than female” as through our research we found out that there are also female who is smarter and better leader than the male. The reason they can’t be a leader is due to the gender discrimination at workplace as there is a “Glass Ceiling” that is preventing them from advancing. However, over the recent year due to modernization, women are starting to be conscious and know their role. They do not only stay in the house but started to work and fight for the management role with the male. This had clearly showed that modernization had clearly made an impact on socialization by changing the norm of society on how they perceive the female. Moreover, because the change in socialization, the female is starting to be more confident and believe that they too can be a great leader. Female can be a good leader no matter in what field as we can see from Indira Gandhi who led the nation to win against the war with Pakistan. From here we can see that female can take up any challenge or work that male may take and some of them may out beat the male. Moreover, over the recent year, more and more female are coming out to contest on political position or the corporation management position. Besides that, modernization is also bringing a stronger democracy where social systems will be more numerous and specialized and competition will be more and more prevalent. This will also make the socialization to change from time to time to follow up with the modern society need and requirement as the society will start to be more and more competitive regardless whether they are female or male.

The majority of people instinctively know what the word means; it is the act of an individual taking their life. But, what is understood about the role gender plays in suicide. “Male suicides outnumber female suicides in all countries except select parts of China” (Hadad, pp. 133). It appears to be a contradiction when scrutinized. To most people it would seem like women would be more likely than men to commit suicide. Masculinity is built on the notion of strength, aggression, and independence while femininity is considered nurturing and expressive with the inhibition of anger. Because of the impact of gender roles in society, males have a greater difficulty reaching out for help. Traditionally, the socialization of females has encouraged passivity, dependency, and submissiveness. Of these traits, two may positively affect women’s attitude towards suicide. The first is emotional expressiveness. Because females are free to express their needs more openly than males, females can and do seek help more often than males do. For example, women are more likely to seek help from and disclose mental health problems to their primary health care physician than men (WHO, 2010). The trait of emotional expressiveness may help to explain why women more often than men express sympathy toward suicidal figures. It may also have implications for the treatment of suicidal women in that they may seek help more often than men and at an earlier stage in the development of suicidal ideation. Also, women may give themselves permission to plan less fatal suicide attempts than men do, using such attempts as another more serious form of expressing their need. Females may simple be more willing than males to reach out and nurture those who are considering suicidal behavior. The desire to nurture may also enable females to be more open than men to inform others about suicide and more willing to talk with those considering suicide. Socialization toward passivity, conversely, may block troubled traditional females from exploring healthy coping skills in an active manner. Similarly, because of their socialization toward dependency, traditional females may not be able to find independent solutions, storing up their frustration and anger as they passively wait for change that does not come. The socialization of females to inhibit their anger makes positive coping with frustrating life circumstances difficult if not impossible. One alternative to expressing anger is to turn inward, courting depression and its outward manifestation, suicidal behavior. There is ample evidence that women admit being depressed more often than men do (Fujita, Diener, Sandvik, 1991). Perhaps women experiencing irresolvable anger become susceptible to depression, which in extreme cases may lead to suicidal behavior. Turning to male socialization, there are problems of a different type. Males, compared to females, show higher levels of activity and aggression very early in childhood and these differences persist until at least middle age. Moreover, traditional socialization of males builds upon these existing tendencies toward higher activity levels and aggression. The instruction given to a small boy diverts them from anything thought to be feminine, encourages them to inhibit their emotions; and demands that they become independent as soon as possible. As males develop structures of schemas for masculine behavior, they begin to structure their future interactions in the world in such a way as to maintain those perceptions. Males find their tendencies toward activity and higher aggression sharpened by their cognitive understanding and acceptance of the emphasis on competition and success inherent in traditional male socialization. Especially in North American culture, boys are socialized into competitive games at an early age and often learn to endure physical punishment and pain as part of “having fun” or learning to be a man. In short, male socialization encourages emotional inexpressiveness and denial of feelings of pain and suffering. It also gives permission to be more aggressive and violent and to reach for success or winning at any cost. Males as also socialized to look at life pragmatically, to be problem solvers. Research on attitudes towards suicide tends to support the proposition that males, more often than females, may see suicide as an acceptable solution to problems inherent in living (DeRose, Page, 1985). Males and females differ greatly in their suicidal behavior. They have dramatically different suicide attempt and completion rates, attitudes, and propensities to seek help in a crisis that are deeply embedded in gender related socialization practices. Females seem to know more factual information about suicide than males do. Females may thus be in a better position than males to recognize when friends or acquaintances are considering engaging in suicidal behavior. Females seem more willing to discuss the subject of suicide with suicidal people. This suggests that females are more likely than males to be effective both in crisis intervention and in peer counseling programs. Perhaps females more than males have a general perceptual set to value life. Such a set would have survival value since it is the female who must experience childbirth in order to give life to the next generation and who generally must play the major role in nurturing that life, at least in the early months and years. Therefore, females may have a keener appreciation for life and for the waste that death by suicide engenders. Females have a greater understanding of the enormity of potential lost because of suicidal deaths. Males, conversely, may view death by suicide, especially the death of those who are old or terminally ill, as a representing decisive action in the face of unchangeable fate. Therefore, rather than focusing on the waste involved in suicide, males may see it as a final problem-solving solution. Males seem to accept suicide as an alternative in otherwise insoluble situations but they view other males who attempt suicide with less sympathy and empathy than they view the same troubled males who do not attempt suicide. Attempted suicide, in general, appears to be viewed as weakness while completed suicide is viewed with strength. One of the most important pieces of information I learned from this essay were the differences in attitudes towards suicidal behavior in men and women and the way people view attempted and completely suicide. If attempted suicide is views as weaker and less masculine, males would be more likely to structure any suicide attempt in such a way as to reduce the likelihood of surviving, while females would feel fewer stigmas from surviving an attempt and might, therefore, be more likely to engage in less lethal suicidal actions. It is interesting that sex differences in suicidal behavior are consistent. Females do attempt suicide more frequently than males, while males succeed in killing themselves more frequently than females. With findings such as these it is unsettling to consider that the majority of suicide prevention and treatment is tailor towards emotional evaluation, reporting, and observation when the masculine gender role inhibits any of these tendencies. Males are less likely to exhibit any warning signs or talking about suicidal ideation. Men do not have the benefit of having a suicide attempt be observed as a need for treatment because they are more likely to succeed in their attempt.

Most modern neoclassical economists have ignored the important role played by culture in explaining fluctuations in economic behaviour, hence, they were more concerned about economic variable such prices, output, interest rate etc. However, culture (values, norms, believes and religions) have a profound influence on economic behaviour (Hogeland 2003:2). In contrast those interested in the matter, consider that culture explain differences in economic outcomes however, they face challenges of finding a credible technique to show that the influence of culture can be separated from institutions and economic variables (Tabellini 2007).

In the recent two decades economists became seriously concerned about the effects of culture on economic behaviour and found that culture (religious beliefs, values and preferences) has a significant positive relationship to economic growth. However, the economists find it difficult to explain because they are mainly concerned about economic measurements and because of the broad complexity of culture that makes it difficult to measure and test. Therefore, to overcome the situation variables that include normative values (beliefs, religious, ethnicity, etc) were included in the model as proxy variables. The results suggest that causality between culture and economics is likely to go two way directions, that is, culture may influence economic behaviour and economic behaviour may also affect the culture (Qin, Shuhao, Heerink, & Futian 2008).

In common sense or stylized facts also suggest that culture indeed influence economics behaviour. Thus, government policy toward economic growth may be successful or a failure in different geographical areas dues due individual behaviours influenced by cultural backgrounds.

Therefore, if we can not test the role of culture in economics we cannot assure its implications on economic behaviour (Greif 1994). However, in recent years better techniques have been put in place to identify systematic differences in individual values, beliefs and preferences. These new techniques are now able to measure and test the influence of culture on economics behaviour.

This paper examines the effects of culture on economic behaviour by using proxy variables of culture such as trust, respect, self determination and religious beliefs. The paper will try to answer the question “does culture influence economic behaviour?” To answering this question the paper will provide some theoretical back ground including: definitions of terms in section two, section three discuss empirical evidence, relationship between culture and institutions etc….

Definition of terms

The definition of culture is very broad and complex. However, according to Tabellini (2007) culture is defined as “individual values and convictions about the scope of application of norms of good conduct, is an important channel through which distant political history influences the functioning of current institutions”. Similarly, Qin, Shuhao, Heerink, and Futian (2008) define culture as “customary beliefs and values that ethnic, religious, and social groups transmit fairly unchanged from generation to generation. In other words, culture is a system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviour, and artefacts that the members of a society use to cope with their world and with one another, and that are transmitted from generation to generation through learning”. However, culture that is inherited by an individual from previous generations rather than voluntarily accumulated, such as religion and ethnic background, can largely be treated as exogenous for that individual’s life.’

A Religion is defined by Nath (2007) as “a set of common beliefs and practices generally held by a group of people, often codified as prayer, ritual, and religious law. Religion also encompasses ancestral worshiping or cultural traditions, writings, history, and mythology, as well as personal faith and mystic experience”.

However in this paper culture will be referred as the customary beliefs and values that ethnic, religious, and social groups transmit fairly unchanged from generation to generation.

Historical Perspectives on Economics and Culture

The debate on culture as influencing economic behaviour started with the classical economist such as Adam Smith and John Mill who used culture to explaining economic phenomena. The former in the Theory of Moral Sentiment advocated that culture is an important factor in explaining the Wealth of Nations and the later regarded cultural behaviour as more important than the pursuit of personal interest. In contrast Karl Marx advocated that the technology changes determine the kind of structure dominant in the culture. That is “the hand mill produces feudal society and steam mill produces capitalism (Marx 1859). Moreover, Weber (1905) regarded religions as a key factor for economic development. He defended that protestant religious taught that the creation of wealth should be regarded as a duty. Weber also recognized that culture plays an important role in influencing in pursuing wealth through production and establishment of markets.

Other researchers’ non economists such as Hirschman (1967) also found a link between culture and economics, and culture causes differences in economic output within and across countries. Banfield (1958) suggests that culture is reason for underdevelopment in Southern Italy, that is, the pursuit of narrow self interest by the population contributes to underdevelopment of the region. Consequently the Italian government imposed identical forms of governance within the country, however, the areas with poor government intervention continued to perform poorly.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s neoclassical economist went beyond the formal institutions into informal ones and started considering explicitly culture as a key factor to explaining economic phenomena. Therefore, Fukuyama (1996), Landes (1998) and Guiso, Sapienza & Zingales (2006) emphasized the link between culture and economic outcomes. In their studied they found that cultural factors such as honesty, trust, tenacity and tolerance drive to success of countries economies.

Empirical evidence

Studies conducted by Guiso, Sapienza & Zingales (2005) found that beliefs and religious are highly correlated to trust, thus, when it is associated with savings, taxation or trade it turnout to impact positively the economic outputs. Similarly, Tabellini (2007) studied the effects of culture on economic development in Europe and found that religious values and beliefs have a significant impact on economic success.

Weber advocated that culture have a significant influence on economic performance. He further argued that protestant religious contributes greatly to the capitalist accumulation. Likewise, Landes (1998) and Putnam (2000) found that culture (beliefs and values) explain the differences in economic performance across countries. However the later put more emphases in the role played by social capital (trust) in stimulating trade and government efficiency.

Carroll, Rhee, and Rhee (1994), studied the effects of emigrant culture on savings in Canada and fund that culture affects savings behaviour. Barro & Mc Cleary (2003), Tabelline (2009) studied the effects of culture on economic growth. The former stressed more on the degree of religiosity by capturing the church attendance and religious beliefs in hell and heaven, they found that the magnitude of church attendance and the degree of religious beliefs explain significantly the differences in growth performance across countries. Thus, the religious belief matter to explaining growth. The later, emphasised on the degree of trust across European countries and found that regional variation on trust explain differences in growth rate. Algan & Cahuc (2007) demonstrated that cultural behaviour toward families has an impact on employment patterns of different regions in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. They also show that civic culture and ethnicity has an influence on the structure of the labour market institutions including employment benefits and protection.

Relationship between culture and economics behaviour

In general most of the studies done on culture and economics found a relationship between culture and economics, however, they confronts with the problem of causality since it is likely to go in both directions. According to Becker (1996:16) “Individuals have less control over their culture than over other social capital. They cannot alter their ethnicity, race or family history, and only with difficulty can they change their country or religion. Because of the difficulty of changing culture and its low depreciation rate, culture is largely a ‘given’ to individuals throughout their lifetimes.” likewise, religious practices respond slowly to economic conditions (Botticini & Eckstein 2005).

Culture affects economic behaviour in different ways, however, this paper will focus on production, institutions.

Culture and Production

Norms and values of groups or individuals varies significantly not only within or across cultures but also within regions, industries or sectors, that is, countries can be more open to trade or be more flexible in decision making than others, and can also allow external influence. Firms may have more or less hierarchical structure than others, for example the British economy had a decline in the growth rate in 20th century due to the fact that the middle an upper class values did not consider practical education and technological innovation (Fernandez 2006).

In Latin America, the population was characterised as having the “culture of poverty”, thus, the poverty was not a result of structural economic problems but caused by social beliefs that dominated the groups, they would prefer not to engage into economic activities (Barro & Mc Cleary (2003). Similar cases occur in some areas Mozambique where although the population grow and hundreds of cows and goats they would prefer not to eat or even sell due to cultural beliefs. Other studies focussed on studying how culture of elite are as compared to poor and found that some elites would prefer leisure to investment thus, impacting economic outcomes.

Culture and Institutions

Studied found that social capital or culture affect the way institutions in different countries are set and managed that is institutions are dependent on the problem faced by each societal groups including cultural beliefs and preferences, individualists or collectivists (Greif 1994) . For example in post war Japan and Korea engaged into industrial policy to encourage economic growth whereas adopted economic planning bureaucracy, however this kind of institutions are not inclusive to the entire populations and is vulnerable to promote rent seeking. Similarly, institutions set in Latin America and Africa were also not effective compared to the North America counterparts. However, empirical results suggest that causality effect is likely to go in both directions. That is culture affects institutions and institutions also affects the evolution of the culture (Fernandez, 2006).

Conceptual Link of Culture to Growth Performance

Hypothesis 0: Culture impacts on economic behaviour of societies with high degrees of trust, respect, and self-determination.

Hypothesis 1: Culture has no impact on economic behaviour of societies with low degrees of trust, respect, and self-determination.

The above definite of culture (section 3) helps in understanding how would culture affect economic outcomes. According to Porter (2000:14) economic culture are “the beliefs, attitudes, and values that bear on economic activities of individuals, organizations, and other institutions”. Therefore, the variables that compose the culture (trust, respect, self determination and religion) can constrain the economic behaviour and function as rules governing the interaction between individuals, employment, market operations.

Trust

Trust influences economic performance in different ways. According to Boettke (2009: 437), Knack & Zak, (2001), trust affects economic outcomes through decrease in transaction cost, thus when an individual is trustworthy he reduces the monitoring cost and secures property rights. Moreover, high degrees of trust are consistent with high economic performance and development. In contrast lower degrees of trust would result in lesser trading networks and small market operations caused by the increased monitoring and transaction costs. For example trust is mostly relevant when the transaction involves unknown counterparts (Fukuyama 1996, Francois & Zabojnik 2005).

Using data on relative trust within the European countries Guiso, Sapienza & Zingales (2006) studied the effects of trust for bilateral trust among the European counties and found that, countries that trust each other tend to trade more goods and financial assets as well as engage more in direct investment compared to other countries, thus, impacting in the economic performance of the countries. In summary, under circumstances of good environment (trustworthiness) individual would dedicate their time in economic activities whereas under poor environment (untrustworthiness) individual engage into unproductive activities due to lack of incentives.

Self determination and Respect

Self determination is a measure of control over individual determination of their actions. If individual can control their choices, that is, predict success or failure as a result of own actions, then, they will be more innovative, and would invest and work more hard and carefully for greater returns. Therefore, high degrees of innovation combined with high levels of productivity would lead to high growth performance as well as economic growth (Tabellini 2009, Coyne & Williamson 2009)

Respect, is also an important factor since it measures the morality within individuals and societies. High degrees of respects imply high levels of tolerance and lower level of respect would result in poor interaction within individuals and societies. Therefore, high degrees of tolerances connote acceptable attitudes towards trade partners, thus, boosting and increasing the market and increasing economic performance. In contrast lower tolerance would reduce economic interactions and trade can be hindered (Platteau 2000). Moreover, Coyne & Williamson (2009:13) state that “in societies with lower levels of social capital, and hence lower levels of respect, the extent of the market will be limited to close kin and friendship networks.” Clearly, higher degrees of respect should increases economic outcomes.

Religion

The impact of religious on economic can me measured by the rate of church attendance and the religious belief about afterlife in hell or heaven. Individual who attend churches at regular bases tend to build better economic attitudes (respect and self determination and trustworthiness), thus impacting positively on economic outcomes. Similarly, those groups who believe in heaven and hell also tend to participate effectively in church services so as to build confidence on heaven, thus influencing positively economics outcomes through trust, respect and self determination (Barro and Mitchell 2004).

Weber in his study on the rise of the capitalism found that the industrial capitalism developed rapidly in the protestant Europe and North America. He also fund that Hinduism and Buddhism were promoting asceticism, thus, hindering technical innovation and impeding adaptation of foreign innovation, therefore not promoting economic growth and development of these groups. Similarly, Williamson (2009) asserts, that the failure of India to achieve a successful development rate was due to laws of Hinduism that do not allow individual motivation and commitment to perform secular roles. However, there were some Hindu who did not abide with the rules of the Hinduism and show an inclination to economic activities. These minorities are the ones who boosted the modern Muslim in Indonesia.

Moreover, religion also affects economic behaviour through, honest, work ethics and openness to people. For most religious hard work is a norm and should be done diligently. Additionally, work helps people to stay away from immorality, unproductive activities so that they maximize their time in economic activities. Being unproductive is connoted to evils. That is religion increases economic growth through promotion of positive attitudes towards, trust honest and self determination, and reduction of corruption and criminality (Guiso et al. 2003).

Religions may also impact negatively on economic behaviour through restriction on credit markets, profit, resources accumulation, as well as interest. Some religious may allocated massive time and resources on church activities including the construction of cathedrals, thus, deviating resources from economic activities (McCleary 2008). Similarly Beed and Beed (1999) argue that some fundamental Christian and Islamic terrorists promote violent and intolerant behaviour and civil unrest among Christians and non Christians, which impact negatively on the values and norms of secular economics.

Conclusion

This paper attempts to answer the question “does culture influence economic behaviour? The paper found that yes Culture affects significantly the economic behaviour. Cultural behaviour also shapes the structure of institutions in a country. Culture affects positively economic performance through trust, respect, self determination religious and institutions. However, it faces problems of causality, thus it is likely to go in both directions from culture to economics and from economics to culture.

Trust affects economic behaviour through decrease in transaction cost, thus when an individual is trustworthy he reduces the monitoring cost and secures property rights. Moreover, high degrees of trust are consistent with high economic performance and development. In contrast lower degrees of trust would result in lesser trading networks and small market operations caused by the increased monitoring and transaction costs.

Self determination promotes innovation, investment and hard work and diligence for greater returns. Therefore, high degrees of innovation combined with high levels of productivity would lead to high growth performance as well as economic growth. Moreover, high degrees of respects imply high levels of tolerance and lower level of respect would result in poor interaction within individuals and societies. Therefore, high degrees of tolerances connote acceptable attitudes towards trade partners, thus, boosting and increasing the market and economic performance.

Religious beliefs also have a causal relationship with economic behaviour. It promotes economic growth through teaching of positive attitudes towards productive activities including hard work, trust, respect and self determination and absenteeism from unproductive activities. For example Barro and McCleary found that religious beliefs are important factors to explaining economic behaviour and to a certain extent why some nations develop than others. For example Protestantism in Europe and North American has boosted economic growth in these regions through promotion of capitalism. In contrast other studied found a negative effect of religion on economic. Thus, Beed and Beed found that Hinduism and Islam hindered growth and development of South Asia through promotion of violent behaviour.

Somalia was formed by the union of Italian Somalia and the British Somaliland protectorate, after gained independence in 1960. The main legacy of colonial rule was a centralized system of government which the military, under General Mohammed Siyad Barre, seized in 1969, after nine years of democratic elections and amid accusations of corruption. Barre adopted an anti-tribalism policy of ‘scientific socialism’ advocating popular participation through local councils and worker committees’.. It has been now without a central government after its last president Despot Mohamed S. Barre fled the country in 1991. Following, the fighting among warring groups and clan leaders resulted in the killing, raping, and displacement of the Somali community in whole especially in Mogadishu and Baidoa that led hunger of thousands of persons, which made later on an Intervention led by the United Nations peacekeeper.

Due to, without central administration system for the last four decades, and still the country is under different factional leader, thought there is a so called Somali federal government, but it controls less than 30 percent of the capital of the country and at the sometime, according to UNICEF Reports of 2010 ”indicates that the half of the population of estimated 3.6 Million people lives in a state of humanitarian emergency and over 1.5 million is burdened by violence and instability, extreme poverty, food insecurity due to drought and high prevalence of child protection violations, especially recruitment and use of children and youth in armed conflict as well as other form of sexual violence” .

Surprisingly the regions which called themselves by a state that succeeded from the rest of Somalia, like the Somaliland, have achieved a lot in aspects including political, security and economical development.

Somaliland has achieved many things that are including the recent free and fair election which was historically and that same in took place in 2003, April 14. With the emphasise on Security council report that states ”the presidential election- took place in Somaliland on 14 April 2003. That the three candidates representing three political parties were Somaliland’s incumbent -president, Dahir Riyale Kahin of the allied people’s democratic party (UDUB); Ahmed Muhammed silanyo, a veteran politician of the solidarity party (Kulmiye); and Faysal Ali Warabe, a civil engineer from the diaspora, of the justice and welfare party (UCID). On the 19th April the national electoral commission announced that incumbent ‘president’ Dahir Riyale had won the election by a margin og 80 votes out of almost 500,000 cast. and the recently election took in 26th June 2010 peacefully according the report issued by IRI-International Republican Institute ”Somaliland citizens remain committed to developing democratic institutions and carving out a peaceful, self-sufficient nation in the Horn of Africa. For Somalilanders, the upcoming presidential election is a crucial step in their nation’s democratic development.”. However with this discussion the paper will look deeply in the case Somalia conflict and will it narrow toward the women regardless which situation they are the pre and post conflicts.

The Conflict, Political and Security Impact on Somali women

This paper will focus the political history of Somali conflict, and this was very clear that the fighting had begun in the late 80s was mainly limited to the north. Where then the civil war spreads toward the south and middle regions including the capital of Mogadishu until the fighting engulfed the whole country. Resulted the overthrown of Barre’s regime in January 1991.

Somali was under military regime that has been leading the country from 1969 to 1991, creates a platform of balanced gender in Somalia, ”and number of international conventions were adopted relating to the rights Somali women including the convention of the elimination of all forums to discrimination against women, but none has been signed or ratified”.

Somali women were enjoying at that time their roles as a citizen. Barre’s administration issue law that made both gender to be the same under the law, and give the women same right and opportunity as men do and that led women to became and hold such as the highest ranks in the administration, their ranks were varies from profession to profession such as colonels, pilots, ambassadors and as well as judges.

This paper will argue that gender was equal under the Somali law thought there was a cultural and religion misconceptions within the Somali society that were in place. The emergencies situation discourses in Somalia due to the civil war and famine have created less struggles toward in the long and short-term on human development and the empowerment of women. The prolonged civil war, food insecurity and the Islamic secularism threat have turned into the women more vulnerable to political and economic insecurities than men.

According to the June 2003 report of the Secretary General to the Security Council, which states ”that about 400,000 Somalis are refugees are in the neighboring countries while up to 370,000, are internally displaced have no basic human life support such as water, health and school facilities”. Women and children are made the majority of the internally displaced persons living in camps within the country and as well the neighboring countries.

While this paper argues that women became more stronger than they were, and the reason is that the life without the basic human support are entire critical to the human life to lives and the females faces daily such horrible man-made disaster and that they undergo daily consequential problem, which made them to be very strong and endurable to condition.

Somali women become more productive as their husbands, brother and sons joins the warring militias and being absent in their supporting, and with this reality women have gained greater responsibility in the micro economy in the country. Of course the larger businesses are controlled and run by men, but ”Recognition by women of the necessity of petty trading has also led to some co-operation, including that between women from different clans which will be important in future periods of peace and reconciliation. Women have pooled their resources and strengths, increasing the potential of their livelihood strategies. Women with some education assist illiterate women and groups have established small co-operatives. In many cases women are forced to hire men, often relatives, to protect their stores, sleep in shops and warehouses, activities which are socially precluded for women” (Bennett et al 1995).

Human rights violation and the violence against women

The challenge of civil war can be summarized as follows. Civil war imposes high costs on the warring people, especially the poor countries, and will impose even higher costs on future generation. It effects on education, health and infrastructure of the country, but it is wisely agreed that civil war causes not only destruction and wiping out of a complete generation, but also the impact on the sustainability on human and economy development. The wars are key that creates the human right abuses, violence against human and deeply effected on women and children, and it is therefore, widely known that militias and other gunmen in Somalia rapes women and girls of opposing clans and other vulnerable groups, particularly the internally displaced people such as the minority group of Bantu, Midgan, Tumal, Yibir, Bravanese and also wealthier Benadiri communities and according to a report issued on Wednesday 24 November 2010 ”minorities such as the Bantu and Gaboi suffer even more than the general population in war-torn Somalia, and this recently published news report reveals that, these groups suffer abuses including summary executions, beheadings and rape. This because they are not protected by the traditional powerful clan structure, quoted from the minority right group international. The Mark Lattimer, the group’s executive director, point out that the worst is definitely in south central Somalia, where much of the territory is more controlled by al shebaab, by Islamist militia, there are acute human rights abuses, including a great problem of the curtailment of religious freedom. Many traditional Somali Muslim religious practices are being suppressed by al shebaab. Who follow a very exclusionary ideology; He adds that his group has noted widespread rape as well as executions, torture, forcible displacement and expropriation of land.”, and this is why the ”conflict has led decreased mobility for Somali women due to the threat and fear of rape” .

So that human rights abuses in Somalia are unaccounted for and those who pay the prices are the minority clans especially those who do not have support with strong clan or military strength.

Women who have been raped suffer health issue related during their forced sexual assault. The stigmatization causes that the women cannot contacted or consulted with doctors after they have been raped, unless they have other serious injuries and this is a difficult to conceal by the doctor whether they have raped or not. Regarding to the Human right watch reports in 1994 that ”Somali women who have raped face not only the physical and psychological trauma of rape but also the likelihood of rejection by their families. The strong cultural stigma is attached to rape in Somalia. In numerous cases, families have begged UNHCR officials to take their daughter to another camp after she has been raped because of the stigma on the family”. Somalia Gender relation in pre-conflict Somalia was distinguished of culture in which men are the most powerful social system and that creates the gap between the genders in the terms of economy and political involvement.

Economic, security and rights

This paper will examine, that the Somali people has the highest illiteracy rate, and it is estimated that eighty percent are illiterate where ”17 percent of Somali children go to school and one in four men and 13 percent of Somali women are literate in today’s Somalia. A total of 81 percent can neither read nor write” (afrol news). And this indicates that Almost near now three generation of children has lost their education since the infrastructure collapsed in 1991.

The causative of the gender inequality in the educational system has vividly increased, where twice as many boys compared to girls entering primary school due to cash impoverished families choose to invest in sons over their daughters.

The other important issue that Somali community cannot survive economically is the narcotic chewing leave called Qaat. The Qaat has destroyed the relationship between the families and it creates that men usually consume this drug that they diverted the funds towards that addicted consumption.

Women and peace building

This paper examines the role and the participation of the Somali women and their traditional role. Traditionally in Somalia, women cannot stand for clans and are not even respected as a clan member that limits their involvement in the Somali political arena. On the other hand, this neutrality has given women greater opportunities to engage in cross clan coalition building. For example, ”at Arta Peace conference, women from different clan came together to form the sixth clan so women could participate formally in the peace negotiation”. Hence the Somali people are oral societies, both men and women, are highly regarded as orators. Women’s viewpoints are heard within the range of family and valued, even though, not frequently in community and public conferences. Women also lend a hand to the attempts for the peace reconciliation, by shaping the formal the ongoing peace and dialog processes, for example, ” marched up and down between the groups demonstrating and singing buraanbur or women’s poems”. Because, they are commonly have no problem and being envoy between the clans in the war. Somali women born naturally into one disputing clan and married into the other often deem loyalty for both clans and work firmly to lower tensions between them and at the same time women are dual connected morally with one tribe she is married and the one she born for, and this opportunity gives them to be free to move in the hostile areas.

and their involvement in Somaliland reconciliation ”women did everything we could stop the bloodletting that dragged on for a considerable time.” at the same time ”women were the wind behind the peace conference from A-Z in term of mobilizing the elders, in preparing the venue, the food, and in encouraging the participants to keep until the final peace accord was reached. So that they have all the credit in making peace possible (Dr Adan Yusuf Abokor, personal communication)” beside, between the peace and hostilities participation, Somali women may work out the disputes at the family stage and ensuring good, decent and fair relationships between her daughters and their husbands. Somali women are very good at settling down family issue, when the situation sometimes reaches that the family to break out, giving the kids the priority and helping finding solution to the issue within the family. Culturally it is a women’s role to provide for guests to her household, foods, and other necessary that guest need for their accommodations, travel etc and it is very skilful performance that women help and contribute to the needy families more than men in Somali society.

On the other hand the ”reconciliation conferences which took place in Somaliland during 1992, have remained male dominated activities in which women did not take a direct role. According to Farah (1993), northern Somali women enthusiastically support local forums but this support is confined to providing tradition domestic service. In the south, where the UN have facilitated high profile peace conferences, women have been present. However, women’s presence doesn’t necessarily represent participation”

Many countries in sub-Saharan region in Africa have been plagued with ethnic and religious conflicts. Nigeria has not been immune to such conflicts. The country has and continues to witness high levels of ethnic and anti-sate violence. Ever since independence from Britain in 1960 the African nation of Nigeria has been torn apart by wars, violence and ethnic conflicts. This paper centers on the effect of such conflicts on Nigerian women with a focus on the conflict in Jos, the capital city of Plateau State. The city has continually been rocked by brutal and relentless riots in 1994, 2001, 2008 and most recently in January 2010. These conflicts have brought about extensive destruction of lives and properties. Most significantly, the conflicts have brought about gross human rights violations perpetrated against civilian populations, particularly women and children who apparently make up the most vulnerable group.

Considerable work has been done regarding women and armed conflicts. Much of this work has been done by institutions concerned with human rights violations, particularly violations against women. Unfortunately, much of this work has focused on sexual violence against women and has largely ignored other important aspects of violations against women.

The purpose of this paper is to consider and highlight a range of ways in which women are affected by armed conflicts (in addition to sexual violence). Using responses from interviews conducted with women who have experienced the most recent conflict in the capital city of Jos in Nigeria, we argue that there is a wide range of ways in which women are affected by armed conflict. For example, armed conflict exacerbates inequalities. These inequalities continue even after the conflicts cease. Our findings show that women experience economic hardships during and after conflict. Furthermore, women are excluded from peace building initiatives that take place during and after armed conflict.

Keywords-Armed conflicts, ethnic conflicts, human rights violations, religious conflicts, and women’s rights.

INTRODUCTION

The frequency of conflicts leading to violence and extensive destruction of lives and property especially since the early 80s in many countries of the world can, without exaggeration, be traced to many factors. Some of these factors are political, economic, ethno-religious conflicts and land boundary issues. Most of these conflicts are often presented as either ethnical or religious in nature, and oftentimes both. However these research findings indicate that the underlying fundamental factor that facilitates such ethno-religious conflicts revolves around prevailing economic and political crisis. This is the basic podium for most of the recurring predicaments.

Unfortunately, ethno-religious conflicts remain the political, economic and social legacies of three decades which involves perceived marginalization, mal-governance and disrespect for the constitution. The greedy and selfish ways in which the Nigerian political leaders embarked on, in acquiring power at all cost, has overturned the true federal constitution negotiated by the founding leaders. This reveals some of the primary basis for the violent crisis in Jos, Plateau State of Nigeria.

BACKGROUND

In 2001, a major crisis occurred in Jos, the capital city of Plateau State in the northern part of Nigeria, leading to the destruction of properties and loss of lives. There was also another crisis in 2004, 2008 and the most recent in 2010. The causes of these conflicts are seen as political, ethno-religious and indigenes settlers’ dispute. In most cases, it is tough to describe the Jos crisis from just the ethnic perspective without observing the political, economic or religious aspect. They are not mutually exclusive.

The recurrent crisis in Jos especially the one that occurred in 2010 left a fatal impact on the society. Many people including women and children were killed. The 2010 Jos crisis recorded the highest casualty of women and children in comparison to the previous ones. About 500 women lost their lives in unpleasant circumstances while other women lost their husbands and children as well as their means of livelihood.

It is rather unfortunate and unlikely that the leadership of the present government will be able to take the bold step to make required constitution changes to douse the festering ethno-religious tension and violence in many parts of the country.

Nigeria is a complex society with a wide variety of religious and cultural allegiance and susceptibility. The least one could do is to come to terms with the reality of the multi-religious status and thus recognize and ensure that the rights of all Nigerians are equally protected. The city of Jos had deadly riots in 2001, 2008 and 2010, and the communal/religious crisis that erupted in Jos (Plateau) in 2001 still causes a lot of clashes in the State till date. It was shocking to many Nigerians that had nursed the notion that Jos was a safe haven for most Christians from other ethnic nationalities who fled from the States dominated by the Islamic Sharia laws. We also observed that most of the conflicts are located in urban areas, and that mostly women and their children suffered the most. Those not killed during the conflict are left to feed and fend for themselves and their children.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Many of these contestations between indigenes and settlers result in violence. As noted, Jos and most of the towns in Plateau State in 1994, 2001, 2004 in which the Beroms, Afizere and others who claim to be indigenes oppose the Hausa/Fulani tribes who are regarded as settlers from the era of the colonial masters who mostly came in to Jos town as miners and merchants.

Jos Crisis: A crisis triggered by inequality. It can easily be traced to the deep inequalities in the society.

In 2004, a state of emergency was declared in Plateau State (of which Jos is the capital) after which over 200 Muslims were killed in the attacks by Christian militia.

In the November 2008 crisis, over 340 people were killed and properties worth billions were burnt when Muslim opposition supporters went on the rampage over alleged election irregularities after they had heard their candidate to head a council had lost to a Christian.

In January 2010, being the most recent crisis, more than 500 people were killed mostly women after the Christians protested the construction of a mosque in a Christian area, and after Muslim protesters attacked a Catholic church.

It is ironic that such catastrophic and bloody encounters have occurred in Jos, a city which derives its name from an acronym for “Jesus Our Saviour”. Perhaps, the origin of Jos – a former enclave for colonial missionaries and its geographic location – aptly described by some as a “de facto fault line” separating Nigeria’s mainly Muslim northern part from its mainly Christian southern region.

Nigeria is a country of strong prejudice between indigenes and non-indigene natives and settlers, the Nigerian constitution even empowers this ethnic affiliation by giving credence to the “State of origin” and likewise some political appointments are based on ethnic and state of origin. The crisis in Jos is not immune to the “State of Origin” contraption – the Christians are the natives, while the Muslims are the settlers. Hence the belief remains that the natives are threatened by the increasing population and prominence of the settlers. The natives are neither too keen to share their lands with the settlers nor offer their hands in partnership on the political outfit. The settlers on the other hand, feel cheated and threatened too by the natives whom they feel have failed to recognize them politically and socially despite having co-existed for decades. The fact that the two are on the opposing sides of the religious divide certainly does not help. The cumulative effect of these factors – the aftermath of cultural and societal inequality is what has been happening in Jos over the years.

METHODOLOGY:

This research work is based on qualitative analysis methods. The principle method used is structured in-depth interviews conducted within and outside the conflict zones. Reports were drawn from rural dwellers and persons affected by the conflict including women and youths were interviewed at different times. Reports from government commissions’ inquiry and other investigation by setup groups were also utilized. The report of the Plateau Peace Conference 2004 was very useful for this paper. Reports from assigned committee at the Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution after visits to the conflict town were also very useful for this journal work.

Some other researchers from the field who were also staff of the Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies similarly gave their report from the field work. Newspaper reports, textbooks and the web were also consulted for the completion of this paper.

ETHNIC AND RELIGIOUS VIOLENCE
IMPACT ON THE ECONOMY

In general, the political instability engendered by frequent communal disputes – riots, armed confrontation and breakdown of law and order – cannot be attractive for local or foreign investors. Jos, as it is right now from what we physically observed remains a ghost city with houses, market places, factories and company burnt down to ashes.

We had met with and interviewed a business tycoon, Alhaji Busari who was a car dealer and narrated his ordeal amidst tears. He said “how can this Jos riot be a forgotten incident to me when I practically lost all what I have worked and lived for in life in just one day. Billions of Naira was burnt down, the showroom where cars are parked for display was burnt down to ashes and all the cars on display were destroyed and burnt by the rioters”.

IMPACT OF THE CRISIS ON WOMEN

Gender is thus a socially constructed identity through which roles are assigned at different levels and which can differ according to culture and can be changed by circumstances such as conflict. While the entire community suffers the dire consequences of armed conflict and terrorism, women and girls are particularly affected because of their status in society and their gender. Parties in conflict often rape women with impunity sometimes using systematic rape as a tactic of war and terrorism.

A youth activist remarked as follows: The conflict inflicted psychological and emotional pain on both genders. However, the plight of women was particularly pronounced. There was the case of about twenty women and girls captured by the Boghom people and taken to a village called Kangyal in Kanam Local Government Area. The women and their daughters suffered the worst form of sexual abuse as their captors took turns on them every evening for three months. When they were eventually rescued, five of them were pregnant and tested positive to HIV/AIDS test.

THE IMPACT OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

This also has to do with violation of human rights of women, in such situation as experienced by women of all ages, who suffer displacement, loss of homes and property, involuntary disappearance of close relatives, poverty, family separation, disintegration and those victims of acts of murder, terrorism, torture, sexual slavery. These spell out the prevailing human right violations and policies of ethnic cleansing in the war-torn and occupied areas. These practices have created inter alia a mass flow of refugees. Such women and children become refugees that no longer have homes or houses over their heads i.e. they become internally displaced persons. According to the research findings, women make up the highest group of casualties.

The picture above shows women in Abuja carrying pictures of dead women and children. Mostly women and children constitute about 80 percent of the millions of refugees around the world. Other refugees including internally displaced persons are deprived of their properties, goods and also deprivation of their right to freedom of movement to return to their homes for fear and insecurity. The degree of insecurity and disorientation was identified when the Institute for Peace and Conflict researchers went to the refugee camps in Bukuru, Jos (a south Local Government Area of Plateau State) and were told that thirty-one pregnant women at the internally displaced persons (IDP) camps were delivered of their babies at different camps.

Reports from their spokesperson in charge of women in the IDP camps said in an interview “that the women who gave birth were earlier taking refuge at the police stations and premises of Bukuru central mosque before they were later taken to another house which was converted to serve as a temporary maternity”. Out of the 31 women that put to bed only two babies did not survive. However, the two mothers were in very good conditions. In a newspaper report, one of the nurses in charge of the maternity centers created mentioned that “some bullets were removed from some of the pregnant mothers’ bodies who were shot during the crisis and they had to undergo some operations to stitch them”.

THE WOMEN WELFARE: Feeding and Clothing

Lack of nutritious food in the camps is due to their population, although some Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) and United Nations (UN) have visited some camp grounds to enhance the supply and distribution of food stuffs and clothing. Different groups have surfaced to donate generously for the refugees. Other repulsive experiences include:

Snake bites in the bush while attempting to escape

High rate of widowhood

Loss of children

Premature births due to fear and pressure

Mothers abandoning newly born babies due to lack of funds and inability to survive

Forced marriages

This picture shows some illustrations of the impact of the conflict on women in Wase, Yelwa-shendam and Langtang south local government in Jos.

In an interview, Vonnan Dashe, president of the Gani community development association, on 5th November 2004 mentioned that, “Women were subjected to violence and hardship because they had to worry about the fate of their children. Some of their children actually got killed and others were wounded while others were raped by the attackers. They were not only physically harassed but also sexually abused and degraded”. It was also gathered from our research team that apart from the fact that women were raped, they were also divorced by their husbands, which facilitated a worse emotional stressful and painful condition. The resort to divorce by men whose wives had been sexually abused was a means of dealing with the humiliation acquired from the conflict.

EQUAL RIGHTS

Even though women were affected greatly by the conflict in obviously negative way, they have been unable to set up networks and support groups to enhance their empowerment in the aftermath of the conflict. This includes the ability to participate in politics and decision making forum. Most of their voices are heard through the voices of men or proxy groups. Women make an important but often unrecognized contribution as peace educators both in families and in their societies.

In addressing armed or sectarian conflicts, an active and visible policy of mainstreaming a gender perspective into all policies and programs should be promoted so that before decisions are taken an analysis is made of the effects on women and men respectively. Action should be taken to promote equal participation and opportunities for women in government both at the Federal, State and Local Government levels.

There were hundreds of women mostly dressed in black that took to the streets of Nigeria’s capital city of Abuja and also the central city of Jos in rallies against the Jos massacre. They subsequently demanded that the government put the necessary infrastructure in place to improve on the protection of women and children.

This research journal reveals to a large extent how women are streamlined in the policy making groups, politics and in general, all activities. Yet it has not told the whole story, the impact of conflict on women is too profound to be narrated. Most times, they live with the pain, agony, discomfort and under oppression for the rest of their lives.

A lot needs to be done, the bridge that cuts across religious, ethnic and cultural is to have women group work together. However they will need to be empowered through capacity building and enhanced controlled communication before such roles can be played. Women need to be equally represented in organizations so as to be able to contribute adequately in matters and issues that have to do with protection of women and their children during and after such conflicts.

CONCLUSION

It is clear from all the above that women must be involved in matters that has to do with the protection of women and their children. They must prove to the community that they are also relevant and that equality should be practiced when matters that has to do with them comes up especially in politics and decision making.

Women should be courageous and exhibit fearless independence in spite of all odds especially where human right issues are involved. Women are meant to bear the image of the community. In political matters, women should not shy away from their right and their voices must also be heard. In all, this must be the new wave. The culture must evolve.

In today’s society the concept of both identity and human diversity have become both an integral and important aspect of people’s daily lives. In the case of a counsellor’s role, where a mutually trusting therapeutic environment is conducive to the success of any outcomes of therapy, it has become paramount for today’s professional counsellor to acknowledge and address these issues when entering into any therapeutic relationship with clients.

With global migration easily available to many individuals, the World has become a profoundly multicultural, multiethnic and multinational place, with many millions of people moving to live within new cultures. As a result it is estimated that one in every 35 people is such an international immigrant. (Lago, 2011) Such a change in the demographics of potential clients for any counsellor/psychotherapist today has resulted in a high probability that they will come in to contact with individuals of differing race, culture, ethnicity, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, age, physical abilities, religious beliefs, political beliefs or other ideologies.

The issues regarding identity is invariably complex and can be continually changing (Kettle, 2004) and needs to be successfully navigated by the counsellor to ensure a mutually respectful relationship is created between them and the client in order for any therapeutically beneficial outcome to be achieved. If these identity issues are not addressed the effect could be very harmful and detrimental to any potential relationship due to the dynamics of power and control between the client and counsellor (McKenzie, 1986; Lago, 2011). This essay will describe the key issues of what it is that gives us our identity and what it means to be diverse.

A simple definition for diversity can be given as being ‘very different’ (Oxforddictionaries.com, 2012). It can however, be argued that it is much more than that. It is having an understanding that each individual person is unique and recognising those individual differences. For a counsellor and their client it is the exploration of these differences in a safe, positive, and nurturing environment. It is about understanding each other and moving beyond simple tolerance to embracing and celebrating the rich dimensions of diversity contained within each individual and discovering how they may affect both the counsellor and client in developing a healthy working relationship.

The advent of Rogers third force of psychotherapy, the client centred approach in the 1960’s, introduced the idea that the client should be both the focus and at the very centre of the therapeutic session (Rogers, 1957). This soon led to the concept that an acceptance of a client’s identity and culture is paramount to these aims being met. The term ‘the culturally encapsulated counsellor’ was introduced by Wrenn (1962) to critique a universalistic approach to counselling which soon came to be known as multicultural counselling, which today is regarded by many therapists as the fourth force in psychotherapy/counselling.

Multicultural counselling is what takes place when a counsellor and their client are from differing cultural groups. Cultural identity itself however is not simply defined by the colour of a person’s skin or the geographical location or even their ethnicity, it can encompass a multitude of factors. Gender, religious beliefs, social economic status, sexual orientation are all identity factors that a culturally encapsulated counsellor needs to be aware of, not only from the clients perspective but also to have a good self awareness of their own cultural identity. (Middleton, et al., 2011)

The issue of race and ethnic identity comprises of several factors which include an understanding of more than just what it is to black or white. A sense of identification with what whiteness means as compared to being part of a racial/ethnic minority group, including the importance of the difference between race and culture itself is critical to becoming an effect multicultural counsellor. It is vital that counsellors do not assume, for example, that all blacks or all Asians have similar cultural backgrounds. There are various ethnic identifications that exist within each of these racial groups such as language, religion, or gender roles and whilst it is true many of these ethnic groups share the physical characteristics of race, they may not necessarily share the same value and belief structures (Katz, 1985).

Some examples of these ethnic identifications can be seen in the cultural value system of many black Africans, where a great value is placed on the concept of family, especially their children, who are seen as a gift from God. There is a great emphasis on their sense of community and their place in it. Personal wellbeing becomes secondary to that of social conflict resolution, which is seen as more important, to ensure peace and equilibrium within the community. Another example can be seen within the Chinese cultural environment, where passivity rather than assertiveness is revered. Quiescence rather than verbal articulation is seen as a sign of wisdom and there is the role of the “all-knowing father” that the Chinese respect for authority bestows on them (Ching and Prosen, 1980).

The fact that traditional counselling therapies have been developed upon the research with predominantly middle classed white men indicates a propensity towards gender bias within the profession. It has even been reported that some professional counsellors have evaluated female clients as less competent than male clients (Balkin, Schlosser and Levitt, 2009). Aspects of gender can be also affected by religious attitudes from both the counsellor and client, either of which may have more traditional beliefs about specific gender roles and behaviour. There are also certain individuals or groups who adhere to religious fundamentalism which should be taken into consideration, which places women in the more traditional roles other than those chosen by more modern contemporary women. These fundamentalists have been seen to exhibit strong sexist behaviour in regards to issues of gender (Balkin, Schlosser and Levitt, 2009).

It is clear that religious identity has been shown play a pivotal role for both the client and the counsellor within the therapeutic process. It is suggested that highly religious people have a tendency to believe they have stronger moral attributes than those of non-religious people (Hunter, 2001 cited in Balkin, Schlosser and Levitt, 2009, p.420). In the case of a highly religious counsellor, such a bias could cause complications within the counselling environment in regards to issues such as homophobia, gender bias and racism. It could be argued that when faced with issues such as homosexuality, which is regarded as a sin in many conservative religions, it could give rise to problems with dealing with clients who fall into the gay, lesbian, bi-sexual or transgender group for the highly religious counsellor (Balkin, Schlosser and Levitt, 2009).

A person’s gender/sexual orientation could be argued as being one of the more complex identity issues, with its anonymity and invisibility being a large factor that can create problems for both counsellor and client. Despite a growing public awareness of gender identity with the acceptance of trans-identified celebrities on popular television such as Graham Norton and Gok Wan, there can be a certain amount of confusion for the counsellor when working with transgender clients as the distinction between gender and sexuality is prone to being misunderstood. (Hawley, 2011)

Sexual orientation generally refers to a person’s sexual object choice, as in whether we choose to have sex with male or with females. As a result the options are to be straight (heterosexual), gay (homosexual) or bisexual. For most people the determination of sexuality is dependent on the gender of the individuals, i.e.: male/female, male/male, and female/female. However for some this is more complex for what if your gender was unknown to you? For some, this issue goes beyond the physical sexuality of their bodies; it is subject to behaviours, social acceptance and/or belonging to specific groups to which their allocated sex consigns them. (Hawley, 2011)

For the counsellor, it is important to be aware of the multiple possibilities that fall within gender/sexuality identification. Pre-judgement and bias is an all too easy mistake for the inexperienced counsellor to make about sexuality, with the arrival of a cross dressing client. Similarly the client themselves may be feeling terrified and in a state of bewilderment as to their own feelings, in such instances a open minded and understanding therapist would be considered a lifeline. (Hawley, 2011)

In an effort to address the diversity of clients in the counselling environment, a number of models have been introduced to the counselling professional in an effort to provide adequate training in the areas of race, culture, ethnicity and other areas of diversity as key variables in understanding the representations of psychological distress in clients (Moodley, 2005). Sue, Arredondo and McDavis (1992) states that counsellors who practice without adequate training or competence when working with clients from diverse cultural backgrounds are prone to practicing unethically and with potentially harmful actions, which borders on a violation of human rights.

Sue and Sue (1990) identified three areas in which a culturally skilled counsellor could become proficient in multiculturalism. The first is the process of becoming aware of their own assumptions about human behaviour, values, biases, preconceived notions and personal limitations. Secondly, is the attempt to understand and share the worldview of their culturally different client with respect and appreciation and without imposing any negative judgments. Thirdly and finally, a culturally skilled counsellor is someone who actively develops and puts into practice appropriate, relevant and sensitive intervention strategies utilising skills when working with their diverse clients. However, since the publication and formal adoption by the American Counselling Association of the Sue, et al. (1982) multicultural counselling competencies (MCC) model, some researchers have noted that little empirical research has been carried out to evaluate the model itself (Chao, 2012).

Patterson (1996) states that multicultural counselling is generic in nature and as such all counselling is multicultural. It is not hard to accept the uniqueness of each individual client when you consider the infinite number of combinations and permutations of identify. As such to try and develop a different counselling technique for each one would be an insurmountable task. There appears to be an emphasis on the difference in values between diverse cultures, but it should be acknowledged that so many of these different values are actually customs, lifestyles, habits, social norms and as such common to many different groups and even considered to be universally accepted values (Patterson, 1996).

The success of the exsisiting models within counselling/psychotherapy should not be so easily abandoned in an attempt to become more culturally diverse. Any compromise of the westernised therapeutic psychological models should be limited as has been suggested through the intervention of a more multicultural approach when working with ethincally diverse clients, for diluting the process would surely lead to a less effective service being provided (Patterson, 1996)

Sue & Sue (1990) acknowledged that the core conditions such as unconditional positive regard, respect and accpetance of the individual, an empathic relationship of understanding the clients problem from their own perspective and allowing the client to explore their own core values and reach their own solutions are counselling qualities that may trancend culture.

Rogers (1957) claimed that there are five basic qualities that all counsellors need to become an effective counsellor and as such create an effective therapeutic relationship. The nature of this relationship has been well established within the counselling environment and is the same, regardless of whatever cultural, ethnic, gender or social group a client belongs to.

Having respect for clients, trusting them to make the right decisions, take responsibility for themselves. Genuiness, where the counsellor acts like a real person, not coming across as the all knowing expert or using a battery of techniques on the client. Empathic understanding for a client is more than simply having the knowledge of the group to which they belong. It is being able to use this knowledge to enter the clients world by invitation through self disclosure by the client, which is related to the degree of respect and genuiness displayed towards the client. (Rogers, 1957; Patterson, 1996)

It is essential that communication of these qualities is perceived and felt by the client during the threapeutic process in order for them to be effective. The understanding of cultural differences in both verbal and non-verbal behaviours can overcome some of the difficulties encountered when dealing with culturally diverse clients. It can also be said that these qualities are not only essential for an effective counselling environment but also facilitate all interpersonal relationships. Being neither time-bound or culture-bound thay can encompass all issues of identity within the counselling environment. (Patterson, 1996)

In many international countries such as Britain, intercultural communication takes place. This is all about ‘the interpersonal interaction between members of different groups, which differ from each other in respect of the knowledge shared by their members and in respect of their linguistic forms of symbolic behaviour'(Karlfried Knapp 1978). It can be analysed to prove that there are many different ways in which the world works, in order to show how intercultural communication happens in day-to-day life. Although this report is going to be evaluating four of them which are, high context/low context, individualism/collectivism, uncertainty avoidance and masculinity/femininity.

High context/low context is a type of cultural coordination that can be understood in various ways. This image shows the majority of the countries on a scale ranging from high to low context. Whatever the situation may be at hand, high context cultures depends on their speech and behaviour. This is explained as a theory from Hofstede (1980) stating that, high context conversations consist of the sender pre-planning what they have to say, in order for the receiver to understand. There is evidence in China of this, because before they meet up, all of their discussions take place beforehand. Once they have met, which is officially known as a ‘ceremony’; they would make whatever they spoke about beforehand approved. On the other hand, in low context conversations, the sender may say there dialogue in short-form, although the receiver would still understand. In contrast to China, America and Germany don’t have a discussion beforehand, but inform the participants in the meeting. Generally in high context cultures, information is carried out through body language. From this, people are likely to understand the discussion without much explanation. In some cultures, looking at people in the eye is normally used for people to have a straight forward dialogue. A good example of a high-context experience would be the Japanese tea ceremony. As shown in this image (Copyright © 1990 by Japan National Tourist Organisation), this is a traditional cultural activity; therefore everybody who takes part knows what to do. Also the shared experience shows that every citizen would know what is included i.e. ‘the tea house, the flower arrangement, the calligraphy scroll, and the ceramics.’ (F.E. Jandt, 2001).context.gif (550A-185)http://www.bookmice.net/darkchilde/japan/japan/tea.jpg

Also, individuals in the Arab culture feel that if they use too little eye-contact in their conversations, they may find it impolite. Conversely in the USA, the best way to bond with people is to have eye-contact with them. Even in the English culture, a certain amount of eye contact is essential, but too much makes people uncomfortable.

Problems often occur when workers from high and low context cultures, have a work-related conversation with each other. This may happen as citizens from high-context cultures familiarise themselves to their families, friends and close colleagues. In this group, everyone knows what is going on, as they regularly communicate and exchange information about everything. On the other hand, in low-context cultures the people do not get along with others in their daily life. So therefore they do not get a chance, to go out and meet new people like citizens from high-context cultures. Also, they are never able to create a close relationship with the people they meet, as their conversations happen in a long-winded way. In professional situations they only talk about the necessary information that is needed in order to complete the job; this doesn’t happen constantly.

When dealing with people from a high or low-context culture, each person has to notice the origin culture of the speaker. This is to be able to avoid any confusion, and it allows everybody to have longer or future conversations.

Individualism/Collectivism

Individualism/Collectivism is the concept of how people make important and useful decisions. A decision can be made in two ways, either as a group (collectivism) or as an individual (individualism). The main difference between the two would be that, ‘in an individualistic cultures, “people are supposed to look after themselves and their immediate family only,” while in collectivistic cultures, “people belong to in groups or collectivities which are supposed to look after them in exchange for loyalty” (Hofstede & Bond, 1984, p.419). Although nowadays, Masakazu (1994) defines modern individualism as “a view of humanities that justifies inner beliefs and unilateral self-assertion, as well as competition based on these”.

An example of an individualistic culture would be people in the USA; they are likely to only take care of themselves and their direct family. Normally to be able to create a close relationship, you would like to know more about the person’s personal life i.e.: their occupation, their achievements in life, where they live etc. Although, this doesn’t occur in individualist cultures, as surveys show that the most unique and everlasting characteristics of the United States character are independence and individuality. The country also allows citizens in the country to have the freedom to be an individual, which is what their passion is. In theory Patterson (1991) has believed that this passion is related to the country’s history of slavery.

In contrast, collectivistic cultures mainly look after other people and understand their characteristics (Gudykunst, Gao, Nishida, et al., 1992). They also try to avoid situations where they hurt people, either physically or mentally (Kim, 1994). This may be because in collectivist cultures, they expect people to fit into groups. http://www.watchmesavetheworld.com/wp-content/themes/Nomad/timthumb.php?src=http://www.watchmesavetheworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/P1040042-1024?768.jpg=300=720=1

Let’s start by unpacking the concept of “collectivism” and its ideological counterpoint “individualism.” In simplest terms collectivist societies place the primacy of the group over the primacy of the individual, vice-versa for individualist societies. Archetypal examples of collectivist societies include communist China and Russia, and Scandinavian countries with strong social services programs. Examples of archetypal individualist societies include the United States, Japan, and Germany. Of course, this is all a massive oversimplification of a complex concept. In reality, levels collectivism break down over political, social, educational, and even technological dimensions. A country might be highly collectivist in one dimension, and not at all in another, or it might comprise various sub-cultures that are far more or less collectivist that the country taken as a whole. Notwithstanding the breadth and depth of this subject, I want to focus on a few particular facets of Moroccan culture that most powerfully indicate the presence of a collectivist mentality: meal consumption, the educational system, and received wisdom.

Examples of collectivism in social interactions abound, but one of the most obvious is in food preparation and consumption. With very few exceptions, meals are eaten out of a large common dish, using bread as utensils. Vegetables and sauce are eaten first, and meat is eaten last, often divided up by the person who cooked the meal to ensure an equitable share for each participant. This is an easy contrast to western eating, where individual portions, utensils, and ever increasingly, individual meals are the norm. Moroccan families will almost always wait for all members of the family to arrive before eating. If you are anywhere in the vicinity of a meal as it starts, you will inevitably be invited to eat. Every invitation that you get to join a person or a family for a meal is absolutely sincere, and they will expect you to come. These examples point to the prevalence of collectivism on a the level of an individual or a family, but collectivism in Morocco is equally prevalent in the aggregate, and sometimes with less copacetic results.

An example of this culture would be in Japan. In this society people are dependent on one another, which is the main indication that shows that Japan is a collectivistic culture. Groups are formed in which citizens will hold onto all the way through their lives. It would also be their back-up and protection for whenever they are in need for unquestioning dependability. This brings a joy to the group, as well as the need to connect with others. This has a great importance as the difference can be defined with what is said in public and the truth. – wrong

Nevertheless, people in individualistic cultures apply the same standards to everything whilst relating to everything and everybody. This is compared to collectivistic culture citizens, who treat member of their in and out groups with different value standards. Individualistic culture members are more worried with the simplicity of their conversations (Kim, 1994) and view this as an important issue for effective communication (Kim & Wilson, 1994) compared to collectivistic cultures. Another comparison between both types of cultures, is that individualistic people notice direct requests as their most effective strategy in order to complete their goals, while members of collective cultures are the opposite (Kim & Wilson, 1994). In completion, it can be understood that the stress in individualistic societies is based on the individual’s personal goals and achievements, whereas the complete opposite is the where the stress is based on belonging to groups in collectivistic cultures.

Uncertainty avoidance

Uncertainty avoidance looks at a degree to which cultures feel defenceless due to doubtful situations, also the point to which they try to avoid these. It shows that to a certain point a culture pushes their members out of their comfort zone, to be able to see how they deal in situations which are unknown, surprising and different from usual. Uncertainty avoidance can either be high or low. The main difference is that, citizens normally show their emotions more in high compared to low uncertainty avoidance cultures. This may be because in low uncertainty avoidance cultures, people have lower stress levels as well as they don’t mind either disagreeing or taking risks compared to people in high uncertainty avoidance cultures.

Uncertainty avoiding cultures have a chance of reducing the chance of any risky situations happening. This is by having strict laws and rules, which have safety and secure measures. An example of high-uncertainty avoidance country would be France. This is because their organisations approve having strong establishments and in general discourage risk taking activities taking place. On the other hand, Britain and Norway are countries which have low-uncertainty avoidance. They will follow a more flexible structure and encourage people to have diverse views.

In the ‘Uncertainty avoidance by Country’ graph (Appendix 1), it shows 12 countries and how much uncertainty avoidance there is in each country. It can be analysed, to be able work out that U.S.A is known to be highly debateable so that is why they have a low rank of 46 on uncertainty avoidance. Even though India is less avoidant of uncertainty compared to U.S.A, they still have scored a reasonably high score of 52. Interestingly, of the G-8 countries, only Canada (48) and the U.K. (35) had relatively low scores like the U.S.A. On the other hand, Russia (95), Japan (92), and France (86) were out of the range, when comparing to other countries as they have scored extremely high for uncertainty avoidance.

Masculinity/femininity

In all of the countries around the world, everybody has an opinion about gender inequality. Always questioning themselves as to why there may be more masculine or feminine. Therefore it can always be identified, that in every culture and society around the world there is a gender disproportion. In general, it is normally specified that some responsibilities or jobs are assigned to women. Even in religious ways, allocation of different social responsibilities goes to men and women. Not just in family households, the whole social system becomes a characteristic, as it leads to unequal distribution of control, respect and properties. It shows that in principals, everybody cares about this situation compared to showing their concern for individuals and their quality of life. In other words, “Masculinity is the opposite of femininity; together, they form one of the dimensions of national cultures. Masculinity stands for a society which social gender roles are dearly distinct: men are supposed to be more modest, tender, and concerned with the quality of life.” (Source: Hofstede, page 262).

A main example would be India and Malaysia. Between these two countries, India has a high male portion of citizens in their society, compared to Malaysia who has a high female portion. In these cultures, one gender is normally controlled by the other. There is known to be six types of gender inequality which are; mortality, natality, basic facilities, ownership, household and special opportunity.

One of the main types of gender inequality is to do with basic facilities. In India, boys have a greater opportunity of having an education compared to girls. Girls are also unable to showcase their talent and also take part in social events that take place within the community. Not just in these sorts of situations, parents also favour their sons to enter higher education. In their opinion, this may because they believe their sons need to earn a good education to be able to take care of their future families. Also for future families, ladies are expected to be a good housewife, but this doesn’t need a lot of knowledge, as they are able to study this information from their mother. Even if women try to finish their studies, they are only able to continue on, with the condition that they must come from a rich family. Alternatively, in Malaysia their cultures are more caring. As in their education system, women and men are allowed to have an education, yet anybody can be defeated in the act. This shows that based on Malaysian culture, gender unfairness does not exist.http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3815/3529/320/basic%20facilities.0.jpg

Another type of gender inequality is to do with household work. As in India, it is mainly known for men to go to work and earn a living, and then for women to stay at home looking after their children and do the housework. This is a disadvantage, as women will never get the chance to be able to experience the outside world. This links from the fact that, they are unable to have an education as well. Then again in femininity countries such as Malaysia, women have the freedom to be able to choose the jobs that they favour. Also, they are capable to gain more experience, by furthering their studies whilst overseas. Elsewhere, when it comes to housework, men also share the load. This helps the family a lot, as both parents are able to work and help with the financial matters.http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3815/3529/320/Household%20inequality.0.jpg

Conclusion

Overall, it is essential to understand that there are many differences in people who come from other cultures. The main difference is that in all the countries around the world, there may be an issue with cultural coordination, how people make important and useful decisions in their life, how people may feel doubtful in various situations and the way gender inequality occurs.

It can be understood that a role of individualism-collectivism is low-and high-context communication. (Gudykunst & Ting-Toomey, 1988). Also when looking at gender inequality, pain is more familiar for people in masculine cultures compared to feminine cultures (Gudykunst & Ting-Toomey, 1988).

Therefore, everybody must be careful whilst having a gathering with people. This is because by not knowing what culture they come from, problems may occur easily due to the way the person communicates, their attitude towards conflict, the way they make decisions and the how they approach to knowing about life.

Appendices
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