Category: Free Essays

Rational has a number of specialized meanings depending on which subject matter. Humans are generally considered to be being of rationality. However, when it comes to financial success, humans who are driven by greed have a tendency to act irrationally. This essay will discuss the statement with reference of Weber’s rationalisation theory and Durkheim’s division of labour theory. Weber refers to the change of tradition ideas into calculability idea sparks the spirit of capitalism, bureaucracy as an administration to capitalism and also recognise the probability of irrationality of rationality. On the other hand, Durkheim explain how human are social beings through mechanical and organic solidarity but also recognise the issue specialisation and diversification may face. Thus, this essay will discuss the statement with reference to Weber and Durkheim theories and also use contemporary example such as McDonalization and Starbucks diversification to understand how workers act in the purse financial success.

Weber defined rationalisation as a change in the social trend whereby traditional norms or values and replaced with the idea of technical and calculation of utility when performing a task. This is clearly shown in one of Weber’s most important and famous studies, The Protestant Ethic and Spirit of Capitalism (1965), where he describes the emergence of rationalisation from the turn of events during the time of Protestantism which in turn gives birth to the spirit of capitalism. The rise of rational capitalism and the change of social structure are highlighted through the Calvinist theory. Calvinism is an act to dedicating oneself to hard work in order to obtained god’s ‘grace’ and secure a place in heaven after life (Weber, 2011). The profit gained from the hard work should not be used for sinful consumption but it is to be invested back into the business. Since material success was used a gauge to measure how ‘blessed’ is someone, this resulted in the emergence of a new work ethic within the Calvinists people, who always work hard round the clock and reinvesting back everything they owned have caused them to unintentionally became capitalists. This is further supported by Weber interpretation of Benjamin Franklin’s work regarding the topic of money. In his book, Benjamin Franklin says that ‘time is money and to waste time is to waste money’ (Lemert, 2009). The fact of Benjamin not concern with surviving but with making money as much as possible is an ethic peculiar capitalism. This ethic of pursuing as much money disregards the idea of your wellbeing as the most important thing in life is sign of spirit of capitalism.

Now, we shall look at Emile Durkheim’s view, who is another famous sociologist. In his book, The Division of Labour, Durkheim emphasise on the important of solidarity in the society. Society needs to have some form of cohesive force in order to hold humans together (Durkheim, 2014). Durkheim identifies 2 type of such cohesion which he classifies it as mechanical solidarity and organic solidarity. In mechanical solidarity, similarity and homogeneity is the key aspect present in a group (Grint, 2005). Individuals come together because they share the same likeness and this makes people feel connected through similar work, belief and lifestyle. Individual wouldn’t feel autonomous, because the society here is a collective cohesion (Morrison, 2006). Mechanical solidarity usually refers to the old times where it is found in villages and small towns. An historical example of mechanical solidarity can be seen through farmers before the industrialisation. In contrast to mechanical solidarity, organic solidarity is where people are held together because of their difference where society is now specialised and diversified (Durkheim, 2014). The division of labour requires everyone to depend on each other. In organic solidarity, individuals are bound together because each person adds something different to the group and everyone is considered to be valuable. Durkheim argued that the connection between people grow stronger as division of labour increase because this add dependency on each other for survival. Judging from this, we can say human can make rational action when pursuing financial success because of the diverse knowledge and different opinion of so many specialised individuals in the group (Gibbons et al., 1994). Hence, they are able to make rational decision.

As can be seen from Weber and Durkheim’s work, they both agree humans are rational being (Watson, 2008). We can see a shift of human effort from traditional norms towards rational efforts aimed at achieving economic gain. According to Weber, Protestantism is not the cause of capitalism but the idea of pursuing capital gain give rise to capitalism (Weber, 2011). The money earned becomes its own end and rational capitalism is born. Much like Weber’s view on rationalisation, Durkheim says the development of the division of labour has led to the decline of collective conscious, which is the sharing of similar beliefs and ways, are replaced with specialised and diverse individuals as a product of modernisation (Durkheim, 2014). Traditionally, achieving human satisfaction is the more important than achieving capital gain (Coleman, 1988). But under capitalism, the relation is reverse which cause it to be irrational. Weber believed that industrialization was leading to a growing influence of rational ideas and thought in culture, which, in turn, led to the bureaucratization of society. According to Weber, bureaucracy is the most efficient administration towards capitalism. Bureaucracy can be used as a tool or ideology to coordinate the increasingly pursuit of rational profit in society. Weber’s ideal bureaucracy must have characteristics such as division of labour, hierarchical structure, written rules and regulations, fixed salaries, promotion based on performance (Grint, 2005). However, Weber and Durkheim both are aware that theories of bureaucracy and specialisation are bound to face some issues and limitation.

Bureaucracy is considers efficient and rational because people with expert calculability and knowledge are the ones behind it. Bureaucracy can be seen as an organisation put together to achieve a specific goal (Lemert, 2009). Most of the time, this goal is related to shareholders’ interest, which is to maximise wealth. However, there are a few issues with bureaucracy which has been criticised by other sociologist such as. One of the issues faced by a worker in a bureaucratic organisation is that all form of bureaucracy is built from the basis of rules and regulations. Workers are confined to the rules set by the organisation and there are consequences of breaking it. Since most bureaucratic organisation exercise a top down pyramid like structure, shareholders are the one who decide the direction and goal of the company and it’s up to the managers to manage the employees to achieve it. In other words, individual freedom of a worker has been compromised (Fry, 1989). Furthermore, monthly targets are set for worker and if the worker wants a promotion of pay raise, he is expected to perform well. This is because the promotion in a bureaucratic organisation is based on the performance and qualification of the worker. With all this expectation and the employee personal capital needs, they are motivated to work hard in order to be recognised. This might lead into irrational behaviour such as working tirelessly round the clock and neglecting one’s own heath in order to achieve the target set by management (Weymes, 2004). Organisation is run in the interest of shareholder is because shareholders are the ones that invest and supply the capital to run the business. Weber understood the possibility that bureaucracy might face with obstacles because the red tape that undermined the interest and control of the organisation (Grint, 2005). What start off as a rational administration can turn out to become something irrational. Although market power has increased, workers are still tied down to status, property and identity which can be viewed as the ‘iron cage’ (Morrison, 2006). Individual must not relies solely on bureaucratic control for rationality but instead self-rationality must be present in every individual in order to not confine into the iron cage.

Additionally, Durkheim’s theory may lead to irrational behaviour too. When a group become more segmented, integration and coordination will be more of a problem (Korczynski et al., 2006). Specialisation will cut down an organisation values and culture. Task specialisation and delegation of work can improve efficiency but this comes at the price of cohesion at work, as too much division will cause worker to be aimless and thus losing sight of the main objective (Lawrence & Lorsch, 1986). What may appear to be rational for the organisations may not be rational for the workers. Likewise, managers who are specialisation orientated gets to choose to promote a particular division rather than the whole organisation. This can be viewed as an irrational behaviour if the manager is doing it for his own personal benefit but regardless of the reason behind the manager’s action, an act like that is consider to be unfair to worker in other division.

We now can take a look at some contemporary examples of rationality that a few market leaders are practicing today. Weber’s theory of rationalisation can be closely related to McDonalization. McDonalds is a popular fast food company that has franchise all over the world. McDonalization is a process where the growing industry of fast food can be seen to be dominating more and more sectors of society and the world (Ritzer, 2004). McDonalds is so successful today is because it offers workers and managers calculability, predictability, control and efficiency. Calculability is a main dimension of both rationalisation and McDonalization. The management in McDonalds focus on the quantitative aspects of work instead of quality since the job scope doesn’t vary and there is a high dependency on machines. Workers are judges based on how fast they solve a given task. Workers in McDonald’s follow a certain rules and protocol when they carry out their job or interact with customers (Leidner, 1993). Control in McDonalds is explained by how workers are trained to operate the machines to cook the burgers and fry can be a mundane task. This can be associated with the lifestyle of assembly line workers. Lastly, McDonalds stress on efficiency by installing closed-circuit television camera to monitor how efficient their employee works. Similar to Weber, Ritzer thinks that a rational business will inevitably have irrationalities that is dehumanising. As we can see, Weber and Ritzer both agree that bureaucracy and rationalisation will spawn the irrationality of rationality.

On the contrary, a contemporary example of Durkheim’s organic solidarity can be seen by how Starbucks include diversity in their company’s strategy. Starbucks recognise the importance of diversification and included it as one of the organisation’s responsibility (Starbucks, 2014) Starbucks is one of the most recognised coffee brands in the world and stand out as a market leader. Starbucks main attraction are their coffee and coffee beans. However, the company is slowing moving into the pastries and fruit juices in order to capture more audience from the market. There are some critiques that points out the dangers of diversification for a big organisation like Starbucks. People relate Starbucks to coffee, and this might cause the new products to not sell. However, as we can see, Starbucks has been able pull it off successfully. It is reported that the company profits from the first three quarter of fiscal year grew by 11.7 per cent to $9.9 billion dollars (New York Times, 2013). As we can see, Starbucks rationally carried out Durkheim theory of organic solidarity and gain a competitive advantage.

In conclusion, both sociologists state that workers can start off rationally but may end up doing things irrationally. Weber recognises the change in traditional belief into something calculable need a form of administration that is bureaucracy. The answer to the spirit of capitalism is bureaucracy but Weber is also well aware of the rationality of bureaucracy turning into something irrational which is the iron cage. Weber also states that specialisation and diversification can lead to a rational connection between individuals but should not lose sight of the cohesion among individuals. Ultimately, individual must incorporate self-rationalisation, rationalisation of bureaucracy and also specialisation in order to be rational and sustainable in the pursuit of success.

In todays world, we are surrounded by media. Our lives are saturated by newspapers, radio, books, television, movies, Internet, and many other aspects of media. These can be broadly classified into news media and popular media. In India, both these types provide an insight to Indian life, which is filled with romance, tradition, and all the other day-to-day experiences and situations one might come across. But, even though they might seem the same, they both play very different roles in society.

Popular media represents and recounts a vast number of real life stories, and portrays them in a manner enjoyable for the audience. News media on the other hand, provides more facts and gives raw information for the audience to understand, with or without a firm opinion of its own on the matter. Popular media reaches out to a much larger audience, as both literate and illiterate people are able to access it, while news media only reaches out to the literate and wealthy people. This difference can become a problem in certain situations. Both these parts of media reflect society constantly, as they are shaped from and around experiences and stories of the people in the society. Usually, both these types concur with each other in the content and representation of society, but there are specific cases in which this ceases to be true. An example of this is the portrayal of the prominence and effects of the dowry system in India today. For a long time, both popular and news media reflected the aspects of the dowry system in Indian society very vividly and comprehensively, shared the same view about the topic, and thus were in concurrence with each other. But overtime, it was noticed that popular media deviated from this pattern and no longer reflected the prominence of the dowry system in society, while the news media continued to do so, thus creating an ideological difference between the two. The problem of the dowry system is still prominent, and the news media continues to reflect this. But since popular media does not reflect society anymore, a majority of the society comes under the impression that there is nothing wrong in what they are doing. This can cause the dowry system to be persistent in the everyday lives of Indian families.

The dowry system is a cultural system in India in which the parents of the bride pay a large sum of money, and give expensive jewelry and other gifts such as cars, to the parents of the groom during marriage. Traditionally, there were many reasons for the establishment of this system. It was a form of inheritance for the bride, since all the family property was inherited by men. It was supposed to be the security for the bride in case any misfortune befell her husband’s house. It was also a system of honoring the groom for his willingness to accept the bride as his wife in marriage, and the gifts given could range from anything significant to even a small token of good wishes. However, the greed of dowry has affected almost all ordinary families in India. Nowadays, in marriages between or amongst all hierarchal levels of society, dowry is generally an unspoken requirement. And due to the exposure to mass media, the gifts given in dowry have transformed into a large transfer of wealth, making it an important factor in marriage.

The social and cultural effects of the dowry system are devastating to the society as a whole. The system reduced women to a commodity and a source of wealth. Even if the dowry is paid, in most cases, the bride is tortured by her in-laws mentally and physically as they demand for more dowry even after marriage. This torture generally leads to suicide or murder of the bride.

The reason why dowry is still persistent in India is not only because it is difficult to enforce the law against it or because the groom’s family is very demanding, but also because the bride’s family continues to bear with it. Despite the widespread awareness of the negative consequences of dowry and the problems cause by it, it is still seen as a way of buying happiness for the bride. Many families believe that giving a large dowry would result in better treatment of the daughter by the groom’s family. This has only aggravated the problem as the standard for dowry became high and so marriage was dependent on whether the bride’s family could reach that standard of dowry or not.

A study was done in 1980 which examined students’ expectations of dowry for people with various education backgrounds. Even though majority of the students viewed the dowry system as an ‘evil’ in society and considered it unimportant for marriage, most of the brothers of the respondents gave or received dowry for their sisters’ marriages. Also, depending on the social status and affluence of the family, and the education qualifications of the bride and the groom, the amount of dowry needed to be given varies significantly. There is a positive correlation between a man’s education and status to the dowry his family demands. As a groom’s educational experience increases, the dowry demanded for the marriage also increases.

In 1961, the payment of dowry was prohibited under the Indian Civil Law, and also under sections 304B and 498A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Despite this, this system of dowry has been a continuous and never ending menace in our society. These laws were made in order to make it easier for women to seek redress from the harassment she is under by the man’s family. But these laws have been of little help to brides, who are harassed even today by their in-laws. Instances of such situations have constantly been shown to the public by the media.

The power of media in today’s world is surprising. The media has the freedom to form opinions, and through this they can change the opinions of people. But, people forget that in the end, all media is doing is reflecting society. The stories the media covers, and the plots of the movies that are made (except fantasy fiction of course), all are based on situations which may occur in day to day life, or real life situations. Same was the case with the dowry system. The media clearly depicted the agonies and pain of Indian women as they were suffering from the cruelties of the dowry system. This can be seen from very far back in popular as well as news media.

Dowry-inspired murder cases received immense coverage by news media in the late 1970s and 1980s due to the active role played by women’s organizations. The women’s organizations played a very important role in increasing awareness and coverage of dowry related cases. A study done on the coverage of dowry related cases from 1979-1984 concludes that there was a noticeable improvement in the coverage of dowry in the national papers due to the women’s organizations, although the coverage in regional papers remained the same. By 1979, one dowry related death received serious press coverage. A 24 year old bride from New Delhi, Tarvinder Kaur, was set on fire by her mother-in-law and sister-in-law due to the less dowry paid by her. Another significant dowry-related murder case was that of Tripti Sharma, who worked at the Ministry of Defense. She was burned to death by her husband and his family in 1986. A more optimistic and recent case is that of Nisha Sharma. In May 2003, she handed over her future husband to the police on the day of the wedding itself as he was demanding more dowry from her. This example shows what women need to do in cases of dowry abuse. Nisha refused to come under the pressures of the groom’s family, and decided that she is not going to sustain it. These examples from news media are clearly reflective of the state of affairs in India at that time, and case with popular media was similar.

In 1992, the movie ‘City of Joy’ depicted a family which had really high dowry demands. In the movie, the groom’s father clearly states, “I am firm in requiring for my exceptional son the bicycle, 1000 rupees, and one ounce of gold.” The bride’s father responds by saying, “The child of a king might be worth that, and I’m not even sure of that!” Another 2001 movie, ‘Lajja’, clearly displayed the consequences of the dowry system, it’s working, and how it may be a big burden on the bride’s family. In the movie, Maithili (Mahima Chaudhary) is about to be married to a wealthy man of a family with a high social status. Maithili’s parents give away everything they have in the dowry, including their land and saved money. Upon still falling short, they take loans from their friends, but they are still not able to gather the full amount. Maithili requests her future husband to convince his dad to let the rest of the money be, but he is too scared to do so. Seeing this, and seeing her dad beg in front of the groom’s father to accept the money he has, she rebels, and calls of the wedding. She was not able to bear to see her father being humiliated in such a manner by the groom’s father. Both these movies showed depicted that the bride’s family has to struggle a lot in order to gather the dowry for the groom’s family, and thus is a big burden on them.

This depiction of the dowry system by popular media was in concurrence with its reflection in the news media, but as we move ahead on the timeline, this concurrence slowly fades away. The movie ‘Lajja’ was the last movie to clearly depict the pain inflicted due to the dowry system. The 2006 movie ‘Lage Raho Munna Bhai’ also had the concept of dowry, but it did not demonstrate the consequences of the dowry system, and only showed that the concept of dowry existed. Since then, popular media has not depicted anything related to cases of dowry related abuse or murder. And this would have been perfectly fine if the society had transformed to this effect and there were no more dowry related crimes taking place. But this was not true, as news media still continued to report about such crimes taking place.

‘Number of dowry cases goes up’ (The Hindu, January 2008); ‘Dowry death after love marriage’ (The Times of India, April 2008); ‘Harassed for dowry, teacher ends life’ (The Indian Express, November 2007). These are just three headlines from three of India’s popular newspapers that show the persistence of the dowry system and its consequences in modern India. Dowry is still prevalent in modern India, in not only the illiterate section of the population, but also the educated elites in India’s major metropolitan cities. Surprisingly in the past decade, the number of dowry related crime cases has actually gone up, despite dowry being banned since 1961 by Indian law. According to the statistics released by the National Crime Records Bereau, a total of 8391 dowry deaths were reported in 2010 itself, which means that a bride was killed every 90 minutes due to dowry related reasons. In 1988, this number was 2209; in 1990 it rose to 4835; in 2000 (a decade earlier), this number was 6995, and in 2007 it climbed up to an astounding 8093.

According to other government records, Delhi itself records a few hundred dowry deaths every year, while women’s rights groups estimate this number to be at 900 per year. This is a phenomenal increase compared to the number for the 1990s, which is about 300 per year. It is important to note that these are just official records, and are thus immensely under-reported. 90% of the cases in which women are burnt are recorded as accident, 5% as suicides, and only the remaining 5% of the cases are shown as murder. These shockingly high numbers clearly reflect the continuous increase in dowry related crimes and deaths in India.

This is due to the continued commercialization of marriages in the modern Indian society. India’s economic liberalization has seen a proportionate rise in the levels of greed as compared to 1990, and a bride is now perceived by her future in-laws as a source of potential cash flow. A famous quote from former Justice Markandey Katju reads, “On one hand, people regard women as goddesses, and on the other hand they burn them alive. This is against the norms of civilized society. It’s barbaric.” This is in response to an appeal filed by a husband who had just been sentenced to imprisonment for life by a Sessions court for burning his wife due to dowry related reasons.

The effects of the dowry system are so far and wide ranging, that they can even be traced back to the womb. This system is the primary cause for female feticide and infanticide as poorer parents get to avoid the lifelong burden of saving up for the dowry for their daughter’s marriage. The commercialization of marriage and female infanticide is clearly reflected in the movie ‘Matrubhoomi’, in which a reverse dowry system is depicted. The movie shows a society in which there are no women left due to excessive female infanticide, and the men have grown to be so sexually frustrated, that they are ready to pay large amounts of money to get a wife for themselves or their sons. So as soon as the head of the family finds Kalki, they literally buy her from her father, by giving him five lakh rupees and five cows, and marry her to all five of his sons. Kalki simply becomes a source of money for her father, and a sex object for her husbands.

Nowadays, there are famous advertisements which have been put up in many of the rural villages, which read, “Spend 500 rupees today, save 5000 rupees later.” This is a reference to the cost of abortion compared to the cost of the dowry which they might have to give. It basically encourages the families to come and get an abortion if their child is a girl, so that they don’t have the burden of paying the dowry while getting her married in the future. This is the primary reason why India has a distorted sex ratio of 933 girls for every 1,000 boys.

As is evident, the problems due to the dowry system have only been rising over the past decade. Despite this, popular media has failed to reflect these problems. News media has continued to keep up with these updates, and report about them, but popular media has deviated into its own path. Since popular media has a much larger audience compared to news media, this results in the society getting a totally different viewpoint of what is happening in their world: a wrong viewpoint in which what they are doing is not wrong. Also, since popular media has a much larger international audience as compared to news media, people from other countries get a totally different view of India: a world in which the dowry system does not exist and is not causing any problems at all. Thus, an untrue version of the society is shown to the world outside, which is not good, as when these people actually come to India and read about the truth, it is a shocking revelation for them.

A shift is India’s attitude towards the dowry systems is urgently due. In simple words, dowry is equal to a family paying a man to accept their daughter as his wife, while the man along with his family, tries to get the maximum price out of the woman’s family. This association of economic gain with women in marriage is something which has long been persistent in India, and needs to stop. Simply making anti-dowry laws has proved to be inefficient. We need to make the society see their mistakes and realize what they are doing wrong, and this can only be done if popular media continues to reflect society as it did before.

India must come together to end this practice. This could see couples channel their funds to provide education to their daughters, instead of saving money for years and years for dowry. The days of the persistence of the dowry system in India must be numbered, or Indian society’s claim to be progressive is disingenuous.

It is known and accepted in professional journals and works that Marxism influenced Vygotsky – but why did this not show up in the earlier translations by Western psychologists?

Marxism and Vygotsky

L.S. Vygotsky was a witness of the Russian Revolution, which was the hot bed of Marxist theory and the forced development of a communist state (Elhammoumi, 2002). This was a period of tremendous stress and change for the Russian people, in which a significant ideological struggle took place (Elhammoumi, 2002). The basic premise to this struggle was between a focus on the private individual and a socially collective existence (Elhammoumi, 2002). At this level of philosophical transformation mixed with the great turmoil of the time, is the perfect environment for innovative scientist to produce new ideas (Elhammoumi, 2002). The same effect is what compelled Vygotsky’s ambition to be a part of what was called the “new socialist experiment” (Elhammoumi, 2002). Vygotsky could not have avoided the effect this philosophy had on his life and invariably, his methods – based on this, we can deduce that the Russian Revolution is major evidence of the influence Marxism had his life’s work.

Another Marxist influences which show in Vygotsky’s work are the following definitions, directly from Vygotsky work such as the term Adherence, which means the rejection of all non-materialist and non-Marxist theories (Elhammoumi, 2002). Other Marxist associations to Vygotsky’s work include his belief that society is not made up of the individual or groups of individuals but is the “totality of their interrelationships as construed in the Marxist approach” (Elhammoumi, 2002). Or the use of statements in his work such as “counsciousness is shaped by social relations”, which is also an important idea of Marx (Elhammoumi, 2002). Or Vygotsky’s work in which he advocates that change in human behavior has several elementary origins, such as, “the destruction of capitalist forms of organization and production; the withering away of capitalist order and all forces which oppress manaˆ¦” (Elhammoumi, 2002). Or that Vygotsky believed that the destruction of capitalism would be instrumental in freeing mankind from oppressive powers and allow man to liberate his growth (Elhammoumi, 2002). These ideas were commonly held by Marxist ideology and wrapped in Vygotsky’s historical-social theories (Elhammoumi, 2002). While researching journals for this paper, I came across an abundance of examples which clearly state that the Marxist influence is now widely accepted within the professional psychological arena. With these examples alone, we can easily agree that Vygotsky was not only influenced by Marx, but we could say that his works were integral in developing, at least, the basis of Marxist psychology (Roth, 2007). Why then, was this notion rejected and even suppressed by earlier Western psychologists until a few decades after World War II?

The West and Vygotsky

There has been much speculation in the psychological community in the past that Vygotsky was not a Marxist per se, regardless of his use of the doctrine in his work (Sheehy, 2004). This idea was due to Vygotsky’s work being shunned in the Soviet Union grounded by areas in which Vygotsky questioned and disagreed with Marx (Elhammoumi, 2002). This disagreement led some earlier Western psychologists to argue that Vygotsky rejected Marxism altogether, and was not involved in the development of Marxist psychology (Kosulin, 1986). Other Western psychologist had not only separated Vygotsky from Marxism but had included a rejection of what was termed as bourgeoisie humanism (Elhammoumi, 2002).

Nonetheless, Marxist and Soviet psychologists knew that Vygotsky’s work was crucial in linking their “proletariat” brand of psychology with natural science in order to keep up with the developments being made in Germany and the United States (Sheehy, 2004). In order to solidify this link, Vygotsky would have to officially be a communist, which the Soviets implied (Sheehy, 2004). Accordingly, Vygotsky’s Marxist influence in many cases failed to be mentioned in earlier Western translations at all – importantly, by overlooking the Marxist influence Vygotsky’s work is significantly weakended (Kosulin, 1986). The possibility of such suppression could lead to a crisis in the advancement in the entire study of psycholgogy (Kosulin, 1986). But, as will be explained later, Vygotsky link to the development of Soviet Psychology was questionable (Elhammoumi, 2002).

We have established that the reasoning behind the suppression of Vygotsky’s Marxist influence, especially for the American psychologists, is the implication that Vygotsky work was directly involved in what eventually became the Soviet totalitarian government, which is now considered a false accusation (Roth, 2007). Do not forget that Vygotsky perviously shared restrictive ideas with Marxism but did not agree on all stances in regards to psychology (Elhammoumi, 2002). And today we understand that much of Vygotsky’s connection with Soviet Psychology comes from a Soviet Psychologist names Leontiev (Kosulin, 1986).

Leontiev rose to prominence after a period in which Soviet officials had rejected Vygotsky due to his work influenced by the Gestalt psychology and the “cross-cultural analysis of consciousness” which was considered “bourgeois” and anti-communist (Kosulin, 1986). This prominence was gained by winning then prestigious Lenin Prize for scientific research, which gave Leontiev access to power within the Soviet governing body (Kosulin, 1986). This enabled him to reintroduce Vygotsky into the Soviet scientific world, an in order to avoid questions regarding Vygotsky’s original shunning, Leontiev named himself the “interpreter of Vygotsky” (Kosulin, 1986). Because of this, Vygotsky came to be known as a “mere predecessor” of Leontiev, which enabled Leontiev the freedom to “correct” the flaws in Vygotsky’s work thereby creating a solid link to the development of Soviet psychology (Kosulin, 1986). Evidence is now known that this link is a myth. Regardless, at the time, Western psychologists were rightfully under the impression that Vygotsky and Soviet Psychology were inexplicably linked (Kosulin, 1986). This is, of course, the main reasoning behind creating “sanitized” translations of Vygotsky’s work suppressing the Marxist influence, not to mention more personal reasons like the lack of book sales (Elhammoumi, 2002). At the time, due to the Cold War, Western psychologist were uninterested in promoting anyone associated with communism, socialism, or Marxism (Kosulin, 1986). This went on until the late 1970’s and early 1980’s when Vygotsky’s involvement in Soviet science began to be questioned (Kosulin, 1986).

MY VIEW

I can see this point of view (was V a Marxist?), especially by Westerners, after Soviet Psychologists in later years, integrated Vygotsky into their philosophies which were heavily influenced by political doctrine and the Soviet state itself.

In my view, it would be difficult to believe it did not, based on the fact he was alive and living in Russia during the Revolution – how could anyone, especially an intellectual like Vygotsky, could not be influenced by the break-down of a political system which had been integral in the make-up of Russia for generations.

Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934),

But, I can see why some psychologist believe there was a connection between Vygotsky and the formulation of Marxist philosophy in the late 1920’s, since Vygotsky did not die until 1934. The fundamentals of Marxist

Instead of viewing these changes through the eyes of politics. Whether or not you agree or disagree or land somewhere in between in regards to Marxism – it remains a ground-breaking shift in intellectualism. In order to see this from another view, Russian, in some cases, was still practicing feudalism which was the social and political structure of the Middle Ages! In the 19th century, as the West experienced a new age of industry and innovation. Although, in my view, true Marxism never came to be in its pure form, and instead, we witnessed the dilapidation and eventual fall of a distortion of this philosophy. I, personally, if these statements are accurate, do not want to see any philosophical or scientific works be deluded by political influences. I believe it is important to maintain historical accuracy, or we are no different than the oppressiveness of the former Soviet Union.

What is meant by this, per the author, is that “Society does not consist of individuals, but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand” and “real intellectual wealth of the individual depends entirely on the wealth of his real connections – This make sense. (Elhammoui, 2002)

It is understood, in my view, that Westerners, Americans in particular, have a deep-seated distrust in anything related to communism based on the Cold War – which is the case with Marxism.

The main point Elhammoumi is trying to convey is that it is important to maintain Vogotsky’s Marxist influence in order to maintain a period of major “intellectual creativity” which occurred during and after the Russian Revolution (Elhammoumi, 2002).

First of all, if Marxism was truly so impactful to vigotsky, then the omission of that would not be an accurate translation, which could have possibly left integral pieces out for Western psychologists while working to perfect the science as a whole (Kosulin, 1986).

Example of myself or someone I know who experienced this (see directions)
Conclusion Paragraph for entire paper

SHOULD BE PART OF CONCLUSION??? Vygotsky, by using the framework of a “post-revolutionary Soviet society”, was determined to develop a new form of psychology (Elhammoumi, 2002). Just by what we have seen in the previous examples it becomes apparent that within “Vygotsky’s theory, it seems as though he attempted to develop a type of theoretical psychology for Marxism (Elhammoumi, 2002). This brings us to the the issue of the West and Vygostky.

TOPIC PAPER 1 – 7117 – Due 3/5 @ Midnight – submit to turnitin.com 24 hrs earlier
3 to 5 pages without cover and ref page. Each paper will contain a discussion of, or reflection upon, the topic presented in the course. MUST CITE AT LEAST 2 ADDITIONAL ARTICLES FROM PEER-REVIEWED JOURNALS – not including those already utilized as part of the course materials. ABSTRACTS are not necessary. Each paper should contain:
A summary of ONE major theory/concept (or portion of a theory/concept).
At least one example from your own experience or someone you know that is relevant to or illustrates the topic/concept. Your persepective about (a critique of) the theory/concept. You must provide substantive arguments to justify your point of view.

Vrouwen in topfuncties

1. Inleiding

2. Wat is een topfunctie?

3. Vrouwen op de arbeidsmarkt en in topfuncties

3.1 Hoe is de situatie nu met vrouwen op de totale arbeidsmarkt?

3.2 Hoe is de situatie nu met het aantal vrouwen in topfuncties?

4. Oorzaken

4.1 Wat zijn de oorzaken van het grote verschil in aantal mannen en vrouwen in topfuncties?

5. Quotum

5.1 Waarom zou de overheid een quotum voor het aantal vrouwen in topfuncties in willen stellen?

5.2 Waarom zouden bedrijven een quotum voor het aantal vrouwen in topfuncties in willen stellen?

5.3 Hoe kijkt de bevolking aan tegen een quotum?

5.4 Waarom zou er geen quotum ingesteld moeten worden?

6. Mogelijkheden om arbeidsparticipatie van vrouwen te verhogen

6.1 Welke mogelijkheden zijn er om de arbeidsparticipatie van vrouwen te verhogen op de totale arbeidsmarkt?

6.2 Welke mogelijkheden zijn er om de arbeidsparticipatie van vrouwen de verhogen in topfuncties?

7. Conclusie

Bijlagen
1. Inleiding

Het onderwerp van ons profielwerkstuk is ‘vrouwen in topfuncties’. Al jaren is er veel aandacht voor het lage aantal vrouwen in topfuncties. Uit onderzoeken van het Europese statistiekbureau Eurostat en headhuntersbedrijf Woman Capital blijkt dat Nederland internationaal gezien bijzonder laag scoort als het gaat om het aantal vrouwen in de top. Voorzitter van de FNV, Agnes Jongerius, zegt ook in een artikel van de volkskrant van 2 april 2008 dat Nederland samen met Botswana ergens onderaan bungelt qua vrouwen in topfuncties en dat wanneer het niet wettelijk verplicht wordt er weinig zal veranderen. Sinds 2007/2008 wordt in Nederland gedebatteerd over een quotum om het aantal vrouwen in topfuncties te verhogen.

We hebben ‘vrouwen in topfuncties’ als onderwerp voor ons profielwerkstuk gekozen, omdat het een erg actueel onderwerp is. We vinden het interessant om te kijken waarom er zoveel aandacht is in de politiek en media voor de kleine doorstroom vrouwen naar topfuncties en waardoor dit komt. Ook zijn we benieuwd of een instelling van een quotum een verandering in de mannencultuur in topfuncties kan brengen.

Onze hoofdvraag luidt als volgt: ‘Is het een verbetering als er een quotum komt voor vrouwen in topfuncties?’. Wij denken dat we niet op een duidelijk ‘ja’ of ‘nee’ zullen uitkomen, omdat ‘verbetering’ een groot begrip is. Er is geen duidelijke maatstaaf waarmee wij kunnen meten of het quotum een verbetering is. Bovendien zal het quotum, als het wordt ingevoerd, pas in 2012 ingevoerd worden en is de werkelijke verbetering dus nu nog niet te meten en kunnen we alleen nog spreken vanuit verwachtingen. Het doel van ons profielwerkstuk is dat we in onze conclusie kunnen motiveren wat de positieve veranderingen zullen zijn van de instelling van het quotum en wat de negatieve veranderingen zullen zijn, maar dus nog geen duidelijke uitspraak of het quotum zal leiden tot een verbetering.

Om onze hoofdvraag te kunnen beantwoorden, hebben we de volgende deelvragen opgesteld:

1. Wat is een topfunctie?

2.1 Hoe staan vrouwen op de gehele arbeidsmarkt?

2.2 Hoe staan vrouwen op de arbeidsmarkt van topfuncties?

3.1 Waarom moet er een quotum voor het aantal vrouwen in topfuncties worden ingesteld?

3.2 Waarom zou een quotum voor het aantal vrouwen in topfuncties niet ingesteld moeten worden?

4.1 Welke manieren zijn er om de arbeidsparticipatie van vrouwen te verhogen?

4.2 Welke manieren zijn er om de arbeidsparticipatie van vrouwen in topfuncties te verhogen, naast een quotum?

5.1 Kunnen vrouwen topfuncties bekleden?

5.2 Willen vrouwen topfuncties bekleden?

5.3 Is de instelling van een quotum juridisch haalbaar?

De antwoorden op deze vragen willen we op twee manieren verzamelen. De eerste manier is informatie verzamelen via internet. Hierbij is de website van het Centraal Bureau van Statistiek (CBS) een grote informatiebron voor ons, onder andere voor deelvraag 2. Ook gebruiken we veel op internet gepubliceerde onderzoeken, onder andere om argumenten te kunnen vormen voor en tegen de instelling van een quotum voor deelvraag 3. De tweede manier waarop we aan onze informatie komen is onze enquete. Met de enquete willen we te weten komen hoe de bevolking tegen het aantal vrouwen in topfuncties kijkt en hoe de bevolking kijkt tegen de instelling van een quotum. De uitkomsten van deze enquete verwerken we in paragraaf 5.

Tenslotte de vraag: wat heeft het profielwerkstuk voor ons voor nut gehad? Het belangrijkste wat we van het profielwerkstuk hebben geleerd, is tijdsplanning Het profielwerkstuk is een groot project waar 80 uur per persoon in moet zitten. We zijn rond september 2009 begonnen en de enige echte deadline die we hadden was 1 maart 2010. Om op 1 maart een goed profielwerkstuk te kunnen inleveren is tijdsplanning een van de belangrijkste dingen die je nodig hebt. Zonder tijdsplanning kom je op het laatst namelijk ontzettend in tijdsnood en dat komt je werk nooit ten goede. Natuurlijk hebben we de afgelopen jaren op school al heel veel geleerd over tijdsplanning, maar het profielwerkstuk is het laatste, grootste project waarin dit tot uiting komt.

2. Wat is een topfunctie?

In deze paragraaf gaat het om het definieren van een topfunctie. Ondanks dat er een bepaald beeld hangt rondom het woord topfunctie, workaholics met een hoog salaris en ze zijn erg belangrijk voor het bedrijf, is het moeilijk uit te leggen wat een topfunctie nou precies is.

Dat het lastig is om een topfunctie te definieren, komt doordat er geen duidelijke maatstaaf is die voor elke sector gelijk is voor wanneer een functie een topfunctie is en wanneer de functie behoort tot een middenfunctie. Dit verschilt namelijk per sector en bedrijf. Het ligt aan de omvang en gelaagdheid van het bedrijf, dus kan een functie in het ene bedrijf wel tot een topfunctie gerekend worden, maar in een ander bedrijf niet. Een oplossing hiervoor zou kunnen zijn om te definieren aan de hand van afgeleide indicatoren, bijvoorbeeld salarisniveau. Maar ook dit is lastig, omdat afgeleide indicatoren vaak geen betrouwbare maatstaaf zijn. Salarissen kunnen namelijk per sector of bedrijf verschillen: mensen met dezelfde functie verdienen niet per definitie hetzelfde salaris. Een voorbeeld hiervan is het verschil tussen het salaris van mannen en vrouwen en het gemeten aantal vrouwen in topfuncties kan hierdoor dus te laag uitvallen. Een ander criterium voor een topfunctie zou de functie-inhoud kunnen zijn, bijvoorbeeld in welke mate de werknemer beslissingsbevoegd is of over hoeveel mensen hij/zij leiding geeft. Hier zit men echter met hetzelfde probleem. Het is onmogelijk om een beschrijving van de functie-inhoud te maken die voor elke sector en elk soort bedrijf te hanteren is.

Het is nu dus duidelijk dat topfuncties in verschillende sectoren niet over een kam te scheren zijn. Daarom worden topfuncties vaak gecategoriseerd in de volgende categorieen: het bedrijfsleven, het maatschappelijk middenveld, politiek en openbare functies.

In het bedrijfsleven wordt vaak het hoogste orgaan van het bedrijf, dus degene die de dagelijkse leiding in handen heeft, als de ‘echte top’ top gezien. Dit hoogste orgaan wordt de ‘raad van bestuur’ of ‘raad van directie’ genoemd. Ook hoort het orgaan dat toezicht houdt op het functioneren van het bedrijf tot topfuncties. Dit orgaan wordt aangeduid met verschillende namen, het vaakst met de naam ‘raad van commissarissen’, maar ook wel met ‘de raad van toezicht’, of ‘de raad van advies’.

Het maatschappelijk middenveld houdt de non-profitsector in, dus de instellingen die winst maken niet als doelstelling hebben. De non-profitsector hebben we in dit geval opgesplitst in de delen: onderwijs, sociaaleconomische instellingen en zorg en welzijn. In het onderwijs behoren de managementfuncties in het basis- middelbaar- en hoger beroepsonderwijs en hoogleraren tot topfuncties. In de sociaaleconomische sector en zorg en welzijn worden dezelfde namen als in het bedrijfsleven gehanteerd, dus ‘ raad van bestuur’ en ‘raad van commissarissen’.

In de politiek worden de leden van de Eerste en Tweede Kamer tot topfuncties gerekend, evenals de gedeputeerden in de provinciebesturen en Commissarissen van de Koningin. In de lokale politiek bekleed men een topfunctie als burgemeesters of lid van het bestuur van de waterschappen. Het openbaar bestuur bestaat uit de rechterlijke macht, Raad van State, Algemene Rekenkamer, het politiekorps en de Sociaaleconomische Raad (SER). In de rechterlijke macht bekleden rechters en officieren van justitie topfuncties en de politietop bestaat uit iedereen met schaal 14 of hoger. Tenslotte is er de ambtelijke top. In de overheid behoren de functies van secretarissen-generaal, directeuren-generaal, topambtenaren, statengriffiers, gemeentesecretarissen en secretarissen waterschappen tot topfuncties.

3. Huidige situatie van vrouwen op de arbeidsmarkt en in topfuncties

In deze deelvraag wordt beschreven hoe het de afgelopen jaren ervoor staat met vrouwen in topfuncties. Om dit helder te krijgen gaat het eerst over hoe vrouwen staan op de totale arbeidsmarkt, dus: wat is de arbeidsdeelname van vrouwen, hoeveel werken er voltijd en hoeveel deeltijd, hoe zijn vrouwen verdeeld over de verschillende opleidingsniveaus, hoe gaat het met de combinatie van zorgen voor kinderen en werk en ten slotte hoe is het inkomen van vrouwen ten opzichte van mannen.

Daarna wordt het verkleind van de gehele arbeidsmarkt naar topfuncties, dus: hoeveel topfuncties worden er bekleed door vrouwen en wat zijn de redenen voor dit aantal vrouwen in topfuncties.

In deze deelvraag wordt gebruik gemaakt van gegevens uit 2007 en 2008, omdat recenter nog niet beschikbaar is. Sommige gegevens uit 2008 zijn ook niet te verkrijgen, daarom wordt er in die gevallen over 2007 gesproken. Het grootste deel van de gegevens komt uit de ’emancipatiemonitor 2008? van het Centraal Bureau voor Statistiek (CBS).

3.1 Hoe is de situatie nu met vrouwen op de totale arbeidsmarkt?
Arbeidsparticipatie

In 2008 telt Nederland 5.454.000 vrouwen tussen 15 en 65. De netto arbeidsparticipatie van deze vrouwen is in 2008 59%, dat betekent een stijging van 1,8% ten opzichte van 2007. Absoluut gezien houdt dit in dat er 3.217.860 werkende vrouwen zijn in 2008. Als de netto arbeidsdeelname van vrouwen op deze manier door blijft groeien, wordt het streefcijfer van de overheid van 65% in 2010 niet gehaald. De netto arbeidsparticipatie is het laagst onder vrouwen tussen 55 tot en met 65 jaar, vrouwen met alleen basisonderwijs en Turkse en Marokkaanse vrouwen.

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

Streefwaarde 52,3 53,5 54,8 56,0 57,3 58,5 59,6 61,0 62,3 63,5 65,0

Realisatie 52,0 53,0 53,0 53,0 53,0 53,0 55,0 57,0

[1]

Naast netto arbeidsparticipatie is er ook de bruto arbeidsparticipatie, bij de bruto arbeidsparticipatie worden niet alleen de werkende bevolking meegerekend maar ook de werkzoekenden. In 2008 is er een bruto arbeidsparticipatie van 62% en dit is een stijging van 1,3% ten opzichte van 2007. Met een gelijkblijvende ontwikkeling kan het streefcijfer van 74% in 2016 wel worden gerealiseerd.

Van de vrouwen van 15 tot 65 jaar met een baan van 12 uur of meer per week werkt 69% in deeltijd en dit is zo goed als gelijk gebleven aan 2007. Wel is er een verschuiving van kleine naar (middel)grote deeltijdbanen. Het gemiddelde aantal werkuren per week is in 2007 24,8 uur. 69% Van de werkende vrouwen heeft dus een deeltijdbaan, dit is ontzettend hoog vergeleken met het buitenland. Duitsland komt nog het dichts bij Nederland in de buurt met 49%.

Het werkloosheidpercentage ligt bij vrouwen iets lager dan bij mannen, namelijk 6% tegenover 4% in 2007. En arbeidsongeschiktheid komt even veel voor bij mannen als bij vrouwen.

Opleidingsniveau

In het schooljaar 2007/2008 volgden ruim 900.000 leerlingen een opleiding in het voortgezet onderwijs, de verhouding tussen man en vrouw is hier ongeveer gelijk. Meisjes volgen minder vaak dan jongens het VMBO: van de meisjes volgden 27% een basis- of kaderberoepsgerichte leerweg tegenover 32% van de jongens. Meisjes gaan ook vaker naar de havo dan jongens, 24% van de meisjes kiest voor de havo versus 23% van de jongens. De percentages binnen het vwo liggen verder uit elkaar, 23% van de meisjes koos namelijk voor het vwo en dit staat tegenover 19% van de jongens.

In schooljaar 2006/2007 slaagden vrouwen gemiddeld op hogere mbo-niveaus dan mannen. Van alle vrouwen die slaagden op het MBO had 70% een diploma op niveau 3 of 4, dit was bij mannen 55%. In schooljaar 2007/2008 was zowel op het HBO als op het WO 51% van de studenten vrouw.

Vrouwen studeren over het algemeen sneller af dan mannen. Op het HBO was 65% van de vrouwen die in 2007 afstudeerden 5 jaar geleden begonnen aan de studie en bij de mannen was dit 51%. Op het WO was dit ongeveer 75% van de vrouwen die hun studie in 6 jaar hadden afgerond tegenover 60% van de mannen.

Combinatie zorg en werk

De komst van kinderen zorgt in veel gezinnen voor een verandering in de verdeling van de arbeid. In 2007 ging circa 33% van de vrouwen minder werken door de komst van hun eerste kind en 10% van de vrouwen stopte helemaal met werken. Laag opgeleide vrouwen doen dit vaker (17%) dan middelbaar (9%) en hoogopgeleide vrouwen (8%). 40% Van de moeders in 2007 bleef evenveel werken of ging zelfs meer werken. Hierbij moet wel worden gezegd dat het hier vooral gaat om kleine of middelgrote deeltijdbanen, dus deeltijdbanen tussen de 12 en 27 uur per week. Vooral vrouwen met een voltijdbaan of een grote deeltijdbaan gingen minder werken. In tegenstelling tot vrouwen blijft 90% van de mannen evenveel werken als voor de komst van het eerste kind.

Naast helemaal niet (meer) werken, komt dus het werken in deeltijd voor. Deeltijdbanen worden het meest uitgevoerd door vrouwen met kinderen. Bij 7% van de paren tussen de 25 en 49 jaar werken beide ouders in voltijd, terwijl 53% voor een combinatie van voltijd en deeltijd kiest. Vooral de middelgrote deeltijdbaan is relatief populair bij vrouwen na de geboorte van het eerste kind. Ruim 25% van de moeders werkte na de geboorte in een middelgrote deeltijdbaan. De meerderheid van de bevolking vindt dat voor moeders een deeltijdbaan van hoogstens 3 dagen het meeste ideaal is. Voor vaders wordt een werkweek van vier of vijf dagen het meest ideaal gevonden.

Ouderschapsverlof wordt vooral door moeders opgenomen, namelijk 40% van de moeders tegenover 16% van de vaders. Ook is er een verschil tussen opleidingsniveau: 56% van de hoogopgeleide vrouwen neemt ouderschapsverlof en 17% van de laagopgeleide en 33% van de middelbaar opgeleide vrouwen.

Om zorg en werk te combineren zijn er verschillende voorzieningen. De formele opvang zoals het kinderdagverblijf, gastouder opvang en buitenschoolse opvang. Daarnaast is er de informele opvang zoals het oppassen door familie of vrienden. Hoogopgeleide ouders maken vooral gebruik van de formele opvang en laag- en middelbaar opgeleide ouders maken iets vaker gebruik van de informele opvang.

Inkomen

Het eigen inkomen van vrouwen is een stuk lager dan dat van mannen. Dit verschil heeft twee oorzaken: de arbeidsparticipatie van vrouwen, zowel in personen als in uren, is lager dan die van mannen, en vrouwen krijgen vaak een lager loon dan mannen voor hetzelfde werk. In 2007 ontvingen vrouwen 56% voor betaald werk van wat mannen verdienden. Dit is hetzelfde als in 2003 en de inkomensverschillen zijn de afgelopen jaren dus niet afgenomen.

In de grafiek staat het inkomen van vrouwen als percentage van dat van mannen in 2007. Er is te zien dat het inkomen van vrouwen altijd lager is dan dat van mannen, behalve in de bijstand. Dit omdat deze uitkering niet gebaseerd is op een eerder verdiend loon, maar op het type huishouding. Onder de bijstandsontvangers zijn veel alleenstaande moeders en die verdienen meer dan alleenstaanden zonder kinderen, daardoor is het inkomen van vrouwen met bijstand gemiddeld iets hoger dan van mannen met bijstand.

Ook zijn er grote verschillen in de inkomensverdeling van mannen en vrouwen. Vrouwen hebben vaker een lager inkomen dan mannen, zoals in de grafiek hierboven (uit 2007) te zien is. Er is een piek bij de a‚¬9.000, dit zijn vooral gehuwde vrouwen met alleen een AOW-uitkering. Ook piekt de grafiek van vrouwen bij de a‚¬17.000, dit zijn voornamelijk bijstandsmoeders. Bij mannen zijn mindere pieken bij bepaalde inkomens en komen meer hogere inkomens voor dan bij vrouwen.

3.2 Hoe is de situatie nu met vrouwen in topfuncties?

Er komt steeds meer aandacht voor het aantal vrouwen in topfuncties. Verschillende organisaties en het kabinet vinden dat er meer vrouwen moeten komen in de top van het bedrijfsleven. Om het aantal vrouwen in topfuncties te vergroten worden verschillende maatregelen overwogen en sommige worden al uitgevoerd. Een voorbeeld hiervan is het ‘Charter Talent naar de top’, hiermee legden 47 organisaties zich in 2008 vast om concrete doelstellingen en een plan van aanpak te bedenken om meer vrouwen in topfuncties te laten werken. Ook wordt er gesproken over een quotum voor vrouwen in topfuncties. Het quotum zal inhouden dat in 2012 40% van de topfuncties bekleed moet worden door vrouwen. In het artikel ‘FNV: Quotum vrouwen in topfuncties’ van de Volkskrant op 2 April 2008 zegt FNV-voorzitter (Federatie Nederlandse Vakbeweging, belangenbehartiger van werknemers) Agnes Jongerius dat Nederland qua aantal vrouwen in topfuncties samen met Botswana ergens onderaan bungelt en dat zonder wettelijke verplichtingen het percentage niet zal stijgen. Jongerius vindt dat Nederland een voorbeeld aan Noorwegen moet nemen. In Noorwegen is namelijk een quotum ingesteld zodat het wettelijk verplicht wordt voor bedrijven 40% van de functies in raden van commissarissen door vrouwen bezet te hebben. Jongerius vindt dat Nederland een soortgelijk quotum in zou moeten stellen. In Noorwegen is de instelling van het quotum vrij soepel verlopen en tot nu toe zijn de van te voren besproken nadelen nog erg meegevallen.

Maar ondanks het gestegen opleidingsniveau van vrouwen en de aandacht van het kabinet en verschillende maatschappelijke organisaties voor het aantal vrouwen in topfuncties neemt het aantal vrouwen in deze functies maar heel langzaam toe. De eerste oorzaak hiervan is te halen uit deelvraag 2.1, namelijk dat de arbeidsparticipatie van vrouwen erg laag is en dat bovendien ook nog eens 69% van deze vrouwen parttime werkt. Deze 69% van de werkende vrouwen valt per definitie al af, omdat een topfunctie de werkuren van een fulltime baan eist en bovendien is er in praktijk geregeld sprake van overwerken. Uit onderzoek van de RUG blijkt dat dit de grootste belemmering is voor vrouwen om door te stromen naar de top. Bovendien wordt een carriereonderbreking vanwege moederschap op je CV gezien als minpunt. Een tweede oorzaak is dat het in veel bedrijven en organisaties standaard is om mannen aan te nemen voor de hogere functies. Er heerst een zogenoemde ‘blanke mannencultuur’ waarin vrouwen de uitzondering vormen. Tenslotte zijn er nog oorzaken te noemen die vaak op gevoelskwesties gebaseerd zijn, zoals het gebrek aan vertrouwen in vrouwen en onderwaardering van vrouwelijke kwaliteiten.

In 2007 werd 7% van de topfuncties van de 100 grootste bedrijven door vrouwen bekleed. Het streefcijfer van het emancipatiebeleid is 20% in 2010 en met een quotum dus 40% in 2012. Als de groei op deze manier door zal gaan, zal dit streefcijfer uiteraard niet gehaald worden, ook al zijn er de laatste tijd wel steeds meer plannen gemaakt zoals het ‘Charter Talent naar de Top’ die wellicht invloed zullen hebben op een sterkere stijging van vrouwen in topfuncties.

Het aantal vrouwen in managementfuncties in hogere en wetenschappelijke beroepen is hoger, in 2004 was het 21% en in 2007 27%. Van alle leidinggevende is 27% een vrouw, absoluut gezien zijn er 280.000 leidinggevende vrouwen en 768.000 mannen. Het aantal hoogleraren in 2007 is 11% en er wordt gestreefd naar 15% in 2010. In de overheid is het aandeel vrouwen onder hogere en topambtenaren gegroeid van 17% in 2006 tot 20% in 2008. Het streefcijfer voor vrouwelijke topambtenaren is 25% in 2011.

Uit een onderzoek van het Centraal Bureau van Statistiek, onderdeel van de emancipatiemonitor 2008, blijkt dat het grootste deel van de bevolking vindt dat er te weinig vrouwen in topfuncties werken en dat dit zou moeten veranderen. Een meerderheid van de vrouwen en een grote minderheid van de mannen vindt dat het aantal vrouwen in topfuncties zou moeten verdubbelen.

4. Oorzaken van sekseverschil in topfuncties

4.1 Wat zijn de oorzaken van het verschil in aantal mannen en vrouwen in topfuncties?

Dat er een groot verschil is in het aantal mannen en vrouwen in topfuncties, was te zien in paragraaf 3.2. In deze paragraaf worden een aantal oorzaken van dit verschil behandelt. Het is belangrijk om de oorzaken van de kleine doorstroom vrouwen naar topfuncties te kennen, omdat er dan ook meer gerichte mogelijkheden bedacht kunnen worden om het aantal vrouwen in de top te verhogen. In de literatuur worden de oorzaken van het verschil in mannen en vrouwen in topfuncties verdeeld in vijf soorten en in deze paragraaf zullen we deze vijf soorten ook hanteren. Per soort oorzaak zullen we de belangrijkste oorzaken noemen en uitleggen. De soorten oorzaken zijn als volgt ingedeeld[2]:

4.1.1. Macro-economisch en sociaal-cultureel

4.1.2. Organisatiecultuur

4.1.3. Organisatiebeleid

4.1.4. Persoonlijkheid

4.1.5. Loopbaan- en levensloopkeuzes.

4.1.1 Macro-economisch en sociaal-cultureel

De eerste oorzaak is dat het voor de niet of minst verdienende partner vaak niet loont om (meer) te gaan werken, omdat het extra verdiende loon maar weinig bijdraagt aan het gezinsinkomen. Dit komt door de marginale lastendruk[3]. In Nederland is sprake van een progressieve inkomstenbelasting, dus wanneer men meer verdient, moet men ook meer belasting betalen. Ook zijn bijvoorbeeld de kosten van kinderopvang en de hoogte van een huurtoeslag afhankelijk van het inkomen, dus bij een hoger loon worden dit soort voordelen kleiner. Door deze marginale lastendruk wegen in veel gezinnen de lasten (het werken) niet op tegen de baten (de inkomsten), omdat de baten niet evenredig groeien met de lasten en dus zal de niet of minst verdienende partner niet (meer) gaan werken. De niet of minst verdienende partner is vaak de vrouw, want zij heeft gemiddeld een lager uurloon dan de man en het aantal vrouwen dat (tijdelijk) stopt of minder gaat werken is vele malen hoger dan het aantal mannen die dit doen. Doordat er in veel gezinnen hierom wordt gekozen om de vrouw niet of minder te laten werken dan de man, stromen er ook minder vrouwen door naar de top, omdat hiervoor een fulltime baan nodig is en ‘het aanbod’ vrouwen voor topfuncties kleiner is.

Een tweede oorzaak is dat het voor veel gezinnen lastig is om zorg en werk te combineren. Een voorbeeld waaruit blijkt dat zorg en werk lastig te combineren kan zijn is het niet gelijk lopen van school- en werktijden. Bovendien is er een gebrek aan goede en betaalbare kinderopvang, volgens SEO Economisch Onderzoek[4]. Ook is het in de Nederlandse cultuur gewoon dat Nederlandse vrouwen een deel van de zorg zelf willen doen[5]. Door deze punten blijven veel vrouwen (gedeeltelijk) thuis om voor de kinderen te zorgen, waardoor minder vrouwen een fulltime baan bekleden en ‘het aanbod’ vrouwen voor topfuncties dus weer kleiner is.

4.1.2. Organisatiecultuur

Met organisatiecultuur wordt de cultuur in het bedrijf of in de organisatie bedoelt. Hier spelen barrieres die vrouwen tegenkomen tijdens hun doorstroom naar de top en vooroordelen om vrouwen een rol.

Voorbeelden van barrieres die vrouwen tegenkomen tijdens hun doorstroom naar de top zijn het glazen plafond en de heersende mannencultuur in topfuncties. Het glazen plafond betekent dat mannen vaker mannen aannemen dan vrouwen en daardoor is het lastig voor vrouwen dit glazen plafond te doorbreken. Het glazen plafond wordt in stand gehouden doordat er vooral mannen op de hogere managementfuncties zitten en dus zijn het vooral de mannen die in de positie zijn om mensen aan te nemen. De heersende mannencultuur in de top heeft ook op een andere manier invloed op de kleine doorstroom vrouwen naar topfuncties. Naar mate vrouwen hoger op de carriereladder komen, komen ze in een steeds sterker wordende mannencultuur. Om zich te kunnen blijven handhaven, passen ze zich aan, aan deze mannencultuur[6]. Dit wordt vervolgens niet gewaardeerd, omdat hun vrouwelijk kwaliteiten hierdoor verloren gaan en ze nooit een beter man zullen zijn dan de echte mannen die al in deze functies aanwezig zijn. Ook wordt een mannelijke manier van leidinggeven, dus een directe stijl van leidinggeven, door een vrouw als negatiever ervaren dan wanneer een man op deze manier leiding geeft[7].

Ook heersen er in de cultuur van bedrijven en organisaties vooroordelen om vrouwen. Er wordt vaak uitgegaan van stereotypen mannen en vrouwen. In het bestand ‘Oorzaken van beperkte in- en doorstroom van vrouwen’[8] wordt door Karin Jettinghoff, Guurtje van Sloten en Cristel van de Ven (2005) het volgende over deze vooroordelen gezegd:

Stereotype denkbeelden over mannen en vrouwen (bijvoorbeeld: vrouwen zijn zorgzaam, emotioneel en afhankelijk van anderen terwijl mannen onafhankelijk, besluitvaardig en charismatisch zijn) zorgen er voor dat mannen vaker uitdagende taken krijgen toegewezen dan vrouwen. Het uitvoeren van uitdagende taken is een belangrijke voorspellende factor voor doorstroom;
In Europa wordt het algemene beeld van de ideale manager vooral gekarakteriseerd aan de hand van ‘mannelijke’ eigenschappen, als charismatisch, ambitieus en ondernemend. Deze percepties maken dat men mannen vaak eerder ziet als geschikte kandidaat voor een leidinggevende functie dan vrouwen. (blz. 1)

Hieruit blijkt dus dat de stereotype denkbeelden en vooroordelen leiden tot een kleinere doorstroom vrouwen naar topfuncties. Vrouwen worden door deze denkbeelden en vooroordelen minder in de mogelijkheid gesteld door te stromen.

4.1.3. Organisatiebeleid

Met organisatiebeleid wordt het gevoerde beleid door bedrijven of organisaties bedoelt. Het gevoerde organisatiebeleid kan leiden tot een kleinere doorstroom vrouwen naar topfuncties wanneer er geen emancipatiebeleid wordt gevoerd, beloningsverschillen tussen mannen en vrouwen worden gehanteerd[9] en wanneer er een gebrek is aan voldoende en kwalitatieve stimulatie van vrouwen door leidinggevenden[10].

Dat het ontbreken van de uitvoering van een emancipatiebeleid en beloningsverschillen tussen mannen en vrouwen leidt tot een kleinere doorstroom vrouwen naar topfuncties, spreekt voor zich. Met het gebrek aan onvoldoende, kwalitatieve stimulatie wordt bedoelt dat wanneer ambities van vrouwen niet voldoende worden gestimuleerd, de ambitie van vrouwen daalt. Uit het onderzoek ‘Ambitie kent geen tijd’ door Research voor Beleid in opdracht van TaskForce DeeltijdPlus blijkt dat wanneer je steun krijgt van je leidinggevende en bevestigd wordt in je eigen ambities, je sterkere ambities hebt.[11] Dus het gebrek aan stimulatie van ambities door leidinggevenden, kan leiden tot een kleinere doorstroom vrouwen naar de top, omdat ambities van vrouwen dan worden weggenomen.

4.1.4. Persoonlijkheid

Op dit gebied komen de verschillen tussen mannen en vrouwen in persoonlijkheid naar boven. Lastig is om aan te geven wat op vooroordelen berust en welke persoonlijkheidsverschillen echt waar zijn, omdat dit ook weer van persoon tot persoon verschilt. Toch blijken sommige verschillen in karaktereigenschappen uit verschillende tests te komen en dus zal dit voor een groot deel van de mannen en vrouwen wel kloppen. Hieronder zullen een aantal verschillen in karaktereigenschappen behandelt worden om te laten zien dat ook dit invloed heeft op de doorstroom van vrouwen naar topfuncties.

Vrouwen zijn minder onderhandelingvaardig. Dit wordt geconstateerd door verschillende onderzoeken. Zo ook in het artikel ‘Wat houdt vrouwen tegen?’ op de website van intermediair[12] (2004):

Ze hadden misschien iets andere functies, maar het ging wel om banen op hetzelfde niveau. Het bleek dus dat de mannen hun salaris gewoon beter hadden uitonderhandeld. Vrouwen zijn bang dat flink onderhandelen ten koste gaat van hun relatie met de leidinggevende. Mannen hebben daar geen last van, die willen betaald worden voor hun positie’, zegt Buhrs. Sterker nog: mannen hebben waardering voor iemand die pittig kan onderhandelen. ‘Ze zien het als een onderdeel van het spel.’ En daarmee raken we aan de kern van de vraag waarom zoveel vrouwen afhaken: de moeite die ze hebben met het politieke spel op kantoor.

Dat vrouwen minder onderhandelingsvaardig zijn dan mannen, kan leiden tot minder vrouwen die doorstromen naar de top. Vrouwen zijn beter in minder zichtbare punten, zoals samenwerken en een goede relatie opbouwen met de tegenpartij. Mannen zijn meer gericht op het eindresultaat, vrouwen meer op de manier waarop dit eindresultaat wordt behaalt.[13]

Ook blijkt uit een onderzoek van psycholoog De Pater[14], dat vrouwen wel ambitieus genoeg zijn, maar zich hier niet altijd naar gedragen. Vrouwen nemen liever niet te veel risico, waardoor ze uitdagingen vaak mijden, terwijl mannen ze juist opzoeken. Om hoger op te komen is het echter nodig om zo af en toe risico’s te nemen en uitdagingen dus aan te nemen.

4.1.5. Loopbaan- en levensloopkeuzes.

Het laatste soort oorzaak dat invloed heeft op het aantal vrouwen in topfuncties is de loopbaan- en levensloopkeuzes. De grootste twee oorzaken binnen dit hokje zijn dat er meer vrouwen dan mannen parttime werken en dat vooral vrouwen arbeid en zorg willen combineren.[15]

De keuze om in deeltijd te gaan werken, heeft een grote invloed op het wel of niet doorstromen naar de top. Een topfuncties eist minimaal de uren van een fulltime baan en dus vallen deeltijdwerkende vrouwen af om door te groeien naar de top, tenzij zij hun arbeidspatroon zouden willen veranderen. Ditzelfde geldt voor vrouwen die werk en zorg willen combineren.

5. Quotum

5.1 Waarom zou de overheid een quotum voor het aantal vrouwen in topfuncties in willen stellen?

Bij de

School violence is considered as a youth violence that occurs within schools, from the way to and from schools and also even during events that are sponsored by the schools. Violence is of many forms and it affects people in a multitude of perspectives. Some form of violence such as slapping, hitting, bullying can lead to more emotional trauma than physical one. The severity of the form of the harm may be arguable however we can lay a general consensus that both forms are equally harmful. There are many other forms of violence which are more drastic involving weapons, gangs which lead to severe physical damages to the point that it can even lead to death. This paper deals with various types of such violence and their effects.

Keywords: school violence, violent students, violent acts in school, stop school violence.

Introduction

Violence, as defined by the WHO is the use of physical power against another person or group or community resulting in harmful effects such as psychological harm, injury, deprivation or even death. One of the most prominent instances of violence is seen in the form of bullying in schools. Even our elementary school textbooks highlight specific stories regarding bullying and the same is seen in the form of strict rules imposed in our school handbooks. Thus it doesn’t come as a surprise that parents, administrators, and students are all familiar with this harmful act of bullying.

Children try to avoid the fear of being successively punished by the abuser by not reporting to the people who are concerned the most for their health and well-being. Sometimes the participants do not find any faults in being subjected to violence and view it as a justified act or a necessary punishment. Often, bullying causes a child victim to feel ashamed and guilty and this ultimately ends up as the reason for their silence. The global study recently conducted by the UN secretary general revealed the increase in violence and documenting these acts against children to be the primary reason for cruelty and violence shown against children.

Studies reveal that violence exists in every country of the world and it cuts across culture, class, education, income and ethnic origin (Felitti, Anda, Nordenberg, Williamson, Spitz, Edwards, Koss, Marks 1998; Krug,Dahlberg, Mercy, Zwi and Lozano 2002; Reza, Mercy and Krug 2002;Curie, Molcho, Boyce, Holstein, Torsheim and Richter 2004; WHO 2006). As study in Unicef 2007, has shown that, violence among the learners are low, which ranges from 4 percent from violence sexually to 40 percent in the case of physical violence. Most learners will report cases of physical violence to school teachers (45.1%) and also the head teacher (34.5%). Some of the major reasons why learners will not report cases of violence especially for physical and gender based violence were because they felt nothing will be done. Civilizing the quality of education is most important and intricate not addressing towards the violence in schools, because even though how much better the subject or the teachers are, it would always be difficult for students due to violence occurring in schools. The effects of school violence can lead to a range of effects including stress, depression, PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) also including severe effects like suicidal tendencies, inclination to spread chaos, and also a tendency to become aggressive or violent.

Different acts of violence are considered to be being bullied, being bullied by teachers, cyber bullying, violence, shooting in schools.

How School Violence Affects Health

Deaths resulting from school violence are only part of the problem. Many young people experience nonfatal injuries. Some of these injuries are relatively minor and include cuts, bruises, and broken bones. Other injuries, like gunshot wounds and head trauma, are more serious and can lead to permanent disability Not all injuries are visible. Exposure to youth violence and school violence can lead to a varied collection of negative health behaviors and outcomes, including alcohol and drug use and suicide. Depression, anxiety, and many other psychological problems, including fear, can result from school violence.

What leads to Violent Acts?

A lot of factors can add to the risk of a youth engaging in aggressiveness or violence at school level. However, the existence of these factors within a child does not always mean that a he or she will become an offender.

Risk factors for youth and school violence includes:

aˆ? Violence history in the past in child’s life

aˆ? Using of drugs, tobacco or alcohols

aˆ? Association with delinquent peers

aˆ? Poor family functioning within homes

aˆ? Poor scores in school or poor performance

aˆ? Poverty within the community

Data analyzed revealed that many things do cause violent behavior in children among which are poor supervision by school authorities (82%), peer influence (82.8%), exposure to violent films(85.2%) and emotional instability (79.8%) just to mention a few.

It is said that education begins at home. The same is applicable to the tendency of violence. Studies show us two very disturbing realities. One that children who are subjected to regular violence, physical or verbal at home have a tendency to become introverts and thus are more likely to be bullied in the school which again makes them victims of violence. The second one is even worse. It is shown that children who are subjected to violence at home often start to think of violence as a solution to problems and thus they too become advocators of violence giving rise to a vicious chain or a circle as they again become parents who are abusive to their children and the chain continues.

The extended family of the forties (40s) and fifties (50s) are no longer existential in our society today. To satisfy the needs of the nuclear group, generally both the parents work out of the necessity to meet their costs. The consequence of this act results in the negligence of supervision of their children. The parent child relationship is hampered and there is a breakdown in the governance which allows children to make their own decision without the discretion of their parents. The child becomes the dominating factor. Also, sibling violence would later set the path to later violence in school environment. It starts with bullying the siblings and eventually ends at bullying their peers at school.

Children at very early age learn violence from television by watching cartoons. These humorous undamaging half-hour scenes, that make us laugh or enjoy, are the first presentation of violence that our children see. These shows tell our children that violence is not a problem. It makes them frozen to the horror of the real violence experiencing around them. Through statistical studies, 86% of the violent acts don’t have any unconstructive repercussions, no signs of death, no one goes to jail, 47% of the violent acts on television do not hurt the sufferer, and no one’s life is bankrupt. While 73% of all the time the “bad guy” or the criminal goes without punishment. Media glamorizes violence, thus teaching our children that being violent is not a problem to the society.

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(Source: Psychology in School (2004))

Some facts about child abuse:

Approx. Five children die daily because of child abuse and violence. aˆ?

One-fifth (1 /5) boys and one-third (1 / 3) girls is sexually violated before they reach age 18.aˆ?

Ninety percent (90%) of child sexual abuse or violence, victims knows the perpetrator in some way. aˆ?

Most of the children happen to be victims of child abuse.

In 2010, 1,537 children died of violence or overlook.

aˆ? 79.4 % were under the age of 4.

3.6 million Cases of child violence has been reported in each year only in U.S. and it is also found that out of them over 6 million children are involved.

About 80 % of 21-yr-olds who were violated as a child were found that they suffered from at least one kind of disorder that is psychologically related.

Children who were violated sexually were found that they put themselves towards practice of safe sex which puts them at a more risk of being affected with sexually transmitted diseases (STD’s). And it is even found that 25% of them are experience teen pregnancy.

Risk Factors
1. The individual child externalizing and internalizing behaviors
Between the externalizing behavior and internalizing behavior, a proper distinction is made. The kinds of internalizing behavior are anxiety, inhibition, withdrawal or depression. In youth violence, this kind of internalizing behavior is found but in youth substance or drug abuse causes depression. Students with these internalizing problems rarely express their feeling and thus are often neglected or overlooked by school personals. While externalizing behavior is considered to be people who bully or harass others, and enjoy doing so. These people pose as risk to such violence that occurs in school level.
2. Other individual factors
A lot of individuals are also related with aggressiveness or violence of higher levels. Children whose antisocial behavior or actions begins late, early starts have even worse effect than these children. Even people with lower intelligence are considered to have higher level of aggressiveness. Other facts indicate that boy’s early attention difficulties, reading problems and motor skills predict that it persists to antisocial conduct.
3. Home environment
Home environment is also considered to be an important part in school violence. Latest study has shown that if a child is exposed too much towards domestic violence, any kind of physical molestation, parents involved in alcoholism, children being bullied or ragged or any kind of gun violence or abuse done sexually on children makes them feel that these kind violence or molestation or criminal activities are proper to them. If parental discipline are harsh, then it also leads to higher level of violence in youth. Even scientific studies have stated that children exposed to television violence like cartoons where violence are shown and is considered to be okay, and also games which are violent also leads to more fierceness among children.
4. Other Reasons

Other reasons range from violent shootings and other acts of violence where mental illness, psychological disorders contributes. In some instances, a drug deal gone badly, an issue between a girlfriend and boyfriend, a disagreement among friends or a gang-related argument may also lead to violence in schools.

Efforts to stop violent acts committed in school

(1) When parents and teachers are more involved in student’s life, then it might result to less school violence in his life. Teachers can see problems before they occur and they are in the suitable situation to see the problems occurring and help students when they are in potentially volatile situations. So teachers can take steps to prevent these violent acts of these potentially volatile aggressors. Parents are close to their children and so they are more capable of providing a moral structure and also help to solve the problem when their children face more challenging or difficult situations. Both teachers and parents could work as a team to prevent such kind of violent acts that occur in schools.

Drawback: But the drawback that occurs in normal life situation is that teachers and parents don’t have enough time to manage or monitor their children as needed to stop this violence. Due to urbanization parents tend to move away from their children and with high rate of divorce and schools being overcrowded, it is a real tough job to manage each and every children’s life discreetly. The television acts as the babysitter for the children which in this case with latchkey children. Parents, who work hard, bring their work with them to their homes while they are trying to cook or clean or in any household activities so that they can keep their job as well as monitor their children closely.

(2) Another kind of solution that would prevent this kind of violence would be to educate their children about the effect of being bullied and harassed and how it affects their physiological behavior. We all know that these bullies or harassed students who feel that they have no other recourse results to gun violence. If we educate these bullies about the effect of harassment on physiological level, then they might stop bullying smaller children and thus reduce such violence. Majority of public school principals (about 78%) have reported that they have conducted a formal school violence reduction and (School Violence) prevention programs. With this bully prevention and reduction program, the violence against these children could reduce a lot though much difference in results has not been seen, but violence has been drastically reduced.

Drawback: But this solution might not be achievable if children enjoy bullying or harassing others. If they enjoy what they are doing then education or reduction program will have no effect on these children. It might be possible that their parent have suffered though bullies and harassment and possibly transferring their legacy to their children themselves and feeling that they have no other outlet. With education and reduction program, there is very less chance of change in their act of violence and so the solution would be to treat them properly by psychiatrists who are trained to solve such physiological behaviors thus reducing violence to a certain level. Even with these sensitive classes, it won’t affect the minds of potential aggressors to stop bullying.

(3) And so the best of all solution to prevent school violence is considered to be having more and more adults involving the child’s life. This would also include in promotion of child’s pride and also having more involvement in life of teachers and parents. There should also be more school programs to prevent such activities of violence and also a peer group therapy would effect in serious reduction of such activities. Schools like Stephens consider bullying to be serious offence and takes serious steps to prevent such acts. This kind of programs and rules would considerably reduce school violence significantly.

Violence against women and children has always been a concern for women movements. Violence within the family set-up was seen as a social problem and this was recognized by women rights movements who acted as catalysts in the 1870s for human rights (Costin et al., 1996; Gordon, 2002). In the early 1900s, feminism was an original expression of women advocates who were campaigners of right to life and right for women to vote in the United States and the United Kingdom. Later on in the 1970s, the meaning of feminism was changed by liberals in order to have a representation of people who were in favour of abortion and similar roles for women in the society. My purpose in this essay will be to define and problematise key concepts used such as ‘violence’, ‘feminism’ and ‘patriarchy’ using various definitions given by key authors. My main focus in this paper will be to discuss violence against women and demonstrate that violence is a feminist issue by examining radical feminist arguments around patriarchal violence against women. I will also argue that violence is not only a feminist issue basing on the violent experiences men go through in a human rights perspective then critically analyze the findings.

Violence to start with has been defined in various ways by a number of authors. According to Martin Luther King’s (1964), “Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys a community and makes brotherhood impossible”. World Health Organization (WHO) defines violence as “the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person or against a group or community that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation”. This kind of violence as described by WHO, could be self-directed, interpersonal or collective kind of violence. Stanko (2003) states that “what violence means is and will always be fluid, not fixed; it is mutable” (2003: 3). For the purposes of this essay, I will use Salmi’s (1993) definition which states that violence is “any avoidable action that constitutes a violation of a human right, in its widest meaning, or which prevents the fulfillment of a basic human need” (Salmi 1993, Chap 3). Feminism on the other hand according to historian and activist Cheris Kramarae (1991), is the fundamental idea that women are human beings and as a movement, it advocates for women’s rights where they live on equal terms with men and no discrimination is put upon them by the law or their culture. In general terms, feminism can be described as a movement for social, cultural, political and economic equality of men and women. It strives for equal rights for women by promoting campaigns against gender inequalities.

Feminism has had several historical “waves” which have stated various rights of women over time. The first-wave feminism which came between the 18th Century and the World War II aimed at ensuring that women had basic civil rights such as voting and owning property. The second-wave feminism started at the end of the World War II until the 1980s when the amendment of the equal rights was defeated. Its main agenda was to campaign for equality between both women and male sexes (Rosen, 2000) by trying to pass the Equal Rights Amendment and also protect the women’s reproductive choice. The last wave was the third -wave feminism which wanted to seek equality for all women form racial justice, class oppression to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender rights. Liberal, radical and cultural feminism are different kinds of feminism which seek for various rights for women, these will be discussed at a later state of this essay. For the purposes of this essay, I will also discuss patriarchy. Patriarchy in general is described as a system in which men have power over women. According to Renzetti & Curran(1999), patriarchy is “a system of social stratification, which means that it uses a wide array of social control policies and practices to ratify male power and to keep girls and women subordinate to men” (1999: 3) .

Violence is a feminist issue

Feminism has played a major role in effecting the social changes in the Western society and this has resulted to giving it more attention. Some people see feminism as an acceptable form of fighting for women rights while others look at it as a destroying factor of traditional gender roles in the society in which some feminists say that these roles are used to oppress and silence women. The feminity and masculinity of human beings has been challenged by radical feminists as mutually exclusive and biologically determined categories. Radical feminists seek to eradicate feminity and masculinity characteristics restricting women’s competences and reinforcing male dominance. “While sex differences are linked to biological differences between male and female, gender differences are imposed socially or even politically by constructed contrasting stereotypes of masculinity and femininity” (de Beauvoir, 1970: 258).

Radical feminists consider patriarchy as the root cause of social problems such as inequalities, oppressions, and injustices indicating that oppression of women came from the underlying bias of a patriarchal society. These feminists argue that patriarchal violence against women keeps women subordinate, oppressed and unequal to their male counterparts. The term ‘violence against women’ according to the declaration of the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 means “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or private life.” In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, patriarchy was mainly used to describe the power of fathers (patriarchs) within families and according to Fredriech Engels (1884) and Max Weber (1922) family-centered patriarchy was imitated in the economic and political dominance of men in society. The broader system of family centered patriarchy was called patrimonialism by Weber.

Radical feminists such as Brownmiller (1975); Griffin (1971); Millett (1971) and Mitchell (1971), argue that the greatest capacity for male violence against women is linked to the origin and nature of patriarchy and that violence is a something that men use to control and maintain their dominance. Brownmiller (1975) and Mitchell (1971) believe that for men to act violently there is an existence of dissimilar level of physical strength between sexes. On the other hand, Millett (1971) and Griffin (1971) denote that there is a difference on how the two opposite sexes use violence which is influenced by culture and current technological developments. It has been assumed that all men are capable of being violent and that all women are submissive. The aim of Radical feminists has been to determine individual identity; free language and culture from the masculinity seize, and re-organize the power of politics, determine the significance of human behaviour and challenge what is valuable to individuals.

Mandell (1995) argues that radical feminists believe that unless the notion of sexuality is reformed and rebuilt, women’s image and representation will always be subordinate to men. According to Heywood (2003) “Women are subordinated as a sex that is subject to pervasive oppression and not as individuals who happen to be denied rights or opportunities” (2003:254). Radical feminists have raised the shortcomings of individualism as the basis of gender politics and this has resulted to ignoring the structural role that patriarchy plays. They have received criticisms from Marxist feminists for completely ignoring the basis of patriarchy which happens to be historical, materialistic and economic. At the same time, Alison Jaggar in “Feminist Politics and Human Nature” (1971) states that social organizations determine gender differences in the society and so women should be in control of their lives. Jaggar (1971) critiques radical feminists for not recognizing reasons that brought about patriarchy and its structures.

Violence is not only a feminist issue

Men continue to experience domestic violence within the society and even though many of them do not come out to report about the abuse, the issue is still a human rights matter that has to be addressed. In this essay, I will be interested in exploring the human rights perspectives and compare them with the feminists’ ones in order to come up with an argument that covers both sides of gender violence. Stanko (2006) argues that gender is more that just being male or female. Many people only view gender as a psychological and social system of reference. According to Stanko (2006) the work of feminists on domestic and sexual violence clearly explains the criminal harm against humanity as a justification to freedom of behavior in close relationships. Feminists insist on dealing with violence as ordinary and everyday activities in women’s lives whereas human rights activists follow legal dimensions that address the needs of each and every individual in order to enjoy the conditions that call for a decent life. Stanko (2006) continues to state that in domestic settings, men’s experiences of sexual and physical violence should be treated as similar to that of women. For a very long time, criminology as a discipline has portrayed women’s use of violence against men as normal (Klein, 1973).

Human rights, according to Merry (2006) promote equality, individual choices, individual autonomy and secularism. Gender violence which includes violence against women is a violation against human rights and as Merry argues, it is deeply established from the cultural and religious beliefs. Very often, the communities that commit acts of aggression resist change. Women’s human rights are violated in a number of ways and many a times, the violation of women’s rights is mainly by the fact that they are female and are abused on the basis of their gender. Many people have argued that feminism has been re-shaped by the fact that the last decade has seen major changes in terms of labelling women’s rights as human rights (Walby, 2002). Historically, women as both victims and offenders have had many disadvantages in the eyes of the law and men have dominated in each aspect from politics to domestic settings. Theorists such as Copelon, (1994) and Roth (1994) have argued that in order to disclose the usefulness of human rights for women, public and private divide relating to violence against women has to be challenged.

Comparing feminist with human rights perspective, it is clear that in reference to the terms of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment; and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, women enjoy the same rights, freedoms and autonomy as men. Feminism has been known for contending for gender equality and bringing to an end the gender based discriminations against women. Most feminists do not agree to the fact that men are equally oppressed as women and they insist that equality between sexes would make the society a better place. While feminism’s agenda is to campaign against gender inequalities and strive for equal rights for women, human rights’ motives provide the general basic fundamental rights which each human being is entitled to. Feminists agree with the fact that human rights provides rights for all human beings and addresses their needs but they claim that human rights does not include cultural diversity and gender perspectives thus limiting its interests. Various feminists argue that some of the women’s rights have been neglected and have proposed that all women rights be included in the human rights protection system considering that the main difference between men and women is the biological otherwise they all have equal rights.

Analysis

It has been argued that feminists of the second wave especially those in the USA between 1970 and 1985 focused mainly on violence against women because this violence resulted in to a patriarchal system which gave explanations to the biological difference between men and women. According to an article by Martinez (2011), the social and sexual control of women by men in patriarchal societies was linked to the use of violence against women and the second wave feminists contend that domestic violence is associated with the fact that men are more powerful than women , there are biological differences between men and women and that it is men who commit acts of violence against women. Due to the cultural and religious norms that people belief in, many women’s rights are violated in family set-ups and this has made human rights activists change their way of thinking in order to make an impact to the society.

In reference to the Working Conference on Women’s Rights as Human Rights held in Dublin (1997) and the discussions in this essay, it is clear that feminism and human rights have several differing components but they both have a common “world view”. In the Western society, feminism has become popular because of the social changes it has brought about although this has not passed without critisms. It has been noted that some feminist movements have invaded on the traditional gender roles which has harmonized the society in the sense that women have been silenced and oppressed. At the same time, there has been a massive negative impact on men due to the fact that a number of advocates for men’s rights claim that they have been oppressed by the social changes and legal reforms taking place for example, the law favouring mothers in divorce cases involving custody hearings. It is true some of the men go through domestic violence and other oppressions but statistics show that 11% of men had experienced domestic violence compared to 32% of women who actually experienced domestic violence four or five (or more) times more (Walby and Allen, 2004). This means that men’s experience of violence is much less that that of women. According to (Walby and Allen, 2004) 89% of women represented all those who had experienced incidents of domestic violence 4 or more times.

Male dominance has promoted the idea in the society amongst women that they are more superior thus creating a power gap between men and women. Patriarchal society has been identified by the existence of men whose thinking and ideas are influenced by their cultural norms. The patriarchal social structures according to Johnson (1997) are male dominated, male centered, societal and personal attributes are associated with men and they are valued for their ability to put things in control unlike women who have no control over anything. It is evident that these factors have contributed in a big way to domestic violence and other kinds of women oppression and has driven most feminists to fight for equity and demonstrate the importance of women in the society.

Evidence has also shown that violence is also a human rights issue with the arguments that the human rights activists protect the rights of all human beings against violence and any sort of abuse. Despite the fact that human rights activists are doing a good job, there has been a big conflict between human rights activists and feminists in addressing violence issues especially those affecting women. In a paper presented by Krishna Mallick (1998) at the World Congress of Philosophy in Boston on the common ground of feminism and cultural Relativism in Human Rights Discourse, feminists have argued that gender and culture must be included in the human rights systems because “human rights” in itself should incorporate all human beings’ rights irrespective of gender and culture. According to Mallick (1998), feminists recommend that human rights framework be revised in order to consider the differences like the reproductive and sexual anatomy rights that exist in a woman.

It could be argued that both feminists and human rights activists play a major role in ensuring that violence against women is addressed despite the fact that both sides criticize each other. Much of this essay clearly indicates how feminism has effected changes in the society in fighting for women equal rights although men were not left behind in the human rights discussion. I will conclude this essay by indicating that that violence is both a feminist and a human rights issue and that both can work together to effect positive change on to the society.

Conclusion

Feminism has received a lot of criticism but that this criticism has failed to account for the extent to which it has played a major role in protecting the rights of a common woman. According to Winston (2012) feminism has been a core movement in protecting women from the storm of patriarchy and historically, these feminists have been able to bring to attention issues that affecting women especially accessing education and also getting jobs in areas where men have been in occupancy for a long time. Morgan (1989) states that it is undeniable that history record of most women acting peaceably and most men acting belligerently to a point where the capacity for belligerence is regarded as an ingredient of manhood and the proclivity for conciliation is thought largely a quality of women (1989:27). It is evident that feminists have helped many women to be self determined and to have legal representation on various issues ranging from domestic to international level.

This essay has considered the definitions of ‘violence’, ‘feminism’ and ‘patriarchy’, discussion of violence against women and has demonstrated that violence is a feminist issue by examining radical feminist arguments around patriarchal violence against women. I have also stated that violence is not only a feminist issue basing on the violent experiences men go through in a human rights perspective. I tend to think that feminism has helped both men and women on gender issues and its principles. Patriarchy has been challenged and violence against women is becoming a thing of the past through the campaigns that are being undertaken by feminists. It would be important to see human rights activists and all feminists work together in fighting gender and violence issues because violence is not only a feminist issue but also a human rights concern.

Violence is the expression of physical or verbal force against self or other, compelling action against ones will on pain of being hurt. The word violence covers a broad spectrum. It can vary from a physical altercation between two beings, where a slight injury may be the outcome, to war and genocide, where millions may die as a result.[1] [2]

In terms of our everyday lives, violence has become an important aspect of the way the events around us take place

The global violence of war and militarism is intimately linked with the violence people experience in their personal daily lives. Violence becomes normalised when we constantly receive information from the media about crimes and atrocities which happen around the world.[3]

The violence against women at the domestic front and in other forms is another worrying influence of violence on the society. Mostly in the poor strata of the society this aspect of domestic violence has been very prevalent.

Violence among the youth has been another major concern in the recent past. Official crime statistics reveal high rates of offense among young people. These offenses include rape, assault, and theft. About 34 percent of all offenders arrested for criminal offenses in 2006 were under the age of twenty-one (Federal Bureau of Investigations 2007b). People exposed to violence from a young age become highly sensitive to violence and might even resort to such ways later in life.

Religious and political conflicts have also often resulted in violence leading to the biggest riots causing large scale harm to the society and taking many lives in the process. There have been various such incidents like the partition riots, the Godhra riots and the likes in India and the likes of anti-Semitic riots of Frankfurt, ancient blood libel against Jews etc on the international stage.

Hence violence is something that breeds throughout the society in various garbs acting as a serious threat to a peaceful existence of mankind, be it on a personal level or on a larger international level. Throughout history, most religions and individuals like Mahatma Gandhi have preached that humans are capable of eliminating individual violence and organizing societies through purely nonviolent means. Gandhi himself once wrote: “A society organized and run on the basis of complete non-violence would be the purest anarchy”. This clearly shows that violence has always been a major concern since historic times and continues to be one in today’s world.

Conceptual Framework

Violence is a broad term that can be defined in different ways depending on the perception of the individual and the context. Some widely accepted definitions of violence can be summarized.

The problem of violence as defined in the World report on violence and health (WRVH)[4] is:

“the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation.”

It[4] further divides the general definition of violence into three sub-types according to the victim-perpetrator relationship.

Self-directed violence refers to violence in which the perpetrator and the victim are the same individual and is subdivided into self-abuse and suicide.

Interpersonal violence refers to violence between individuals, and is subdivided into family and intimate partner violence and community violence. The former category includes child maltreatment; intimate partner violence; and elder abuse, while the latter is broken down into acquaintance and stranger violence and includes youth violence; assault by strangers; violence related to property crimes; and violence in workplaces and other institutions.

Collective violence refers to violence committed by larger groups of individuals and can be subdivided into social, political and economic violence.

Hence the above definition of the concept of violence and its implications on the individual/group or the whole society encircles all the various effects that violence may have on the society in any form of it.

Review of Literature

There have been works of literature discussing the behaviour of violence and its implications. These works are mostly in the forms of articles and books on violence. The major works that need a mention in this regard would be:

1. A History of Violence[5] by Steven Pinker

This is an essay/article in which the author Steven Pinker, Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University, talks about how the current era is probably the “most peaceful moment of our species’ time on earth”. Although this seems to be a hard-to-accept fact, but Pinker talks about violence in man’s history and compares it to today and systematically shows how violence was prevalent to the extent of being even a source of entertainment in those times.

2. Two Concepts of Violence by Vittorio Bufacchi

[6]The aim of this review article is to explore some theoretical issues regarding the nature and scope of violence. There are two ways of thinking about violence: in terms of an act of force, or in terms of a violation. Those who define violence as an intentional act of excessive or destructive force endorse a narrow conception of violence (the Minimalist Conception of Violence or MCV), while those who see violence in terms of a violation of rights champion a broader conception of violence (the Comprehensive Conception of Violence or CCV). The strengths and weaknesses of both approaches will be assessed.

3. Critique of Violence by Walter Benjamin’

This is a critique written by Walter Benjamin in which he criticizes the behaviour of violence and talks about how violence is not acceptable in any form and cannot be justified with any possible explanation.

Empirical Study And Generalization
Case 1:

Case Description:

A minor road accident takes place between an autorikshaw and a maruti 800 car. The driver of the autorikshaw (subject 1) is a 45 year old man. The driver of the Maruti car (subject 2) is a 20 year old college student.

The autorikshaw driver is forced to apply brakes because of stray cattle ahead and the maruti 800 behind is unable to react soon enough and hits the autorikshaw which causes a minor damage to both the autorickshaw and the car. Because of it being a minor accident, subject 1 keeps driving considering the moving traffic on the road but subject 2 keeps following him and eventually makes him stop. Subject 2 starts arguing with subject 1 rudely. Subject 1 tries to explain the unavoidability of the accident calmly but the youth i.e. subject 2 pushes him. Subject 1 still tries to reason out but subject 2 slaps subject 1 and uses physical force. At this stage subject 1 has to defend himself and hence hits subject 2 back which results in subject 2 getting overpowered and falling down.

This brawl catches attention of the people in the vicinity. After sometime a group of labourers working on the construction of a flyover nearby come and inquire the matter from subject 1. Soon they start threatening subject 2 to either compensate subject 1 or leave the scene peacefully. When subject 2 refuses to fulfil any of their demands and asks for compensation for himself instead, the labourers attack him physically. After many attempts from subject 1’s side to peace out the situation and pleading from subject 2 the labourers finally stop.

Subject 1 then calmly lends subject 2 a hand and advises him to control his rage and violent instincts and then makes a compromise on the sharing of expenses of damage.

Role of Violence in the Case:

As is apparent, subject 2 was more violent and cannot control his rage initially and resorts to violence to solve a problem or a situation. The use of violence led to worsening of the situation and resulted in the older and wiser subject 1 also using violence to tackle the means used by subject 2. Not only did it cause harm to subject 1 but also to subject 2.

The situation worsened when the spectators also got involved in the fight even though the method they used to resolve everything was contemptible and uncivic.

Hence violence led to a chain of events leading to more violence and harm or damage to people/society. Also violence originally used as a means to solve the problem further worsened the situation instead of improving it.

Case 2:

4 high school students meet at one of the student’s place to play a video game which they are addicted to and on which they spend plenty of time daily. They divide themselves into two teams and start playing. The game basically resembles a war scene where the players are supposed to gun down their opponents to proceed further.

Team A(consisting of subject 1 and subject 2) is leading Team 2(consisting of subject 3 and subject 4). After sometime subject 3 starts getting frustrated and blames subject 4 for their poor performance. Subject 4 gets offended and shouts back on subject 3 denying his blame. Meanwhile subject 1 and 2 already quite ahead in the game mock their opponents and take pleasure in their argument. Verbal abusing converts to a physical fight when subject 4 hits subject 3’s head with the video game remote. Subject 3, physically and egotistically hurt, picks up a cricket bat in his sight and begins bashing subject 4 uncontrollably. Subject 1 and 2 try to stop him but subject 3 pushes them away.

After a few minutes, subject 1’s father arrives and gains control of the whole situation. Subject 4 is rushed to the nearby hospital. Doctors sadly announce that he has lost his left ear’s hearing power due to repeated blows near the ear.

Role of Violence-

As it is clearly seen this is an example of teenage violence. Prevalent in urban India today, such incidents are said to arise because of highly aggressive nature of today’s adolescents who lose control over their tolerance and sensibility once someone hurts their ego.

Also it is noteworthy to mention the role of video games containing any sort of violent actions in deteriorating the psychology of teenagers who have started taking pride and pleasure in using violence to resolve any matter rather than discussing or ignoring it.

Violence proved to be nearly fatal here, though the victim was saved his life would never be the same. Also, subject 3 would live a life of shame and guilt owing to his one juvenile action.

Findings of the Study and Generalization

As it can be deduced from the above mentioned examples, violence can be circumstantial, politically driven or can arise from the way a person’s mind has been moulded.

Usually road rage and petty issues that are blown out of proportion are examples of circumstantial violence incidents. A person’s loss of control over his anger or frustration has severe consequences. This can also be associated with the increasing stress levels of the working class especially in big cities who tend to lose their patience and tolerance easily owing to mental stress and hypertension.

On the domestic front it is often observed that actions performed by adults are replicated by their children. If a boy has seen his father hitting his mother, his siblings or has experienced it himself he is likely to have a similar demeanour in his future. As children’s minds are tender and sensitive, they tend to get influenced easily.

Intolerance and violence occurring due religious and caste divide is mostly politically driven to fill a candidate’s vote banks. People who supposedly fight to protect their religion often forget that no religion teaches violence.

Teenage violence is evidently linked to teenagers’ lifestyles, the type of T.V. programs and online games they are subject to, the kind of places they visit and the people they meet during their re-creation time and the type of living their parents exemplify for them.

Afghanistan has an unfortunately long history of human rights violation. During the Soviet Invasion from 1979 to 1989, the country suffered from cruel mass killings, refugee outflow, tortures, and landmines. When the Soviet fell in 1992, the country was taken over by warring factions who caused almost a total destruction of the Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital. In 1994, a group called Taliban emerged above the others. Taliban literally means ‘students of Muslim religious studies’. The group asserts that they will be putting peace and order by enforcing a strict Islamic edict. Due to the absence of an efficient judicial system, Afghan authorities adopted Taliban’s interpretation of the Islamic law, Shari’a.

The moment Taliban took control over Afghanistan, it already engaged in war with Afghan women. The Taliban’s extreme fundamentalist interpretation of the Shari’a prevented women from studying, being involved in activist movements, and even from appearing in society altogether. In short, the Taliban’s fundamentalist interpretation of the Shari’a nearly denied Afghan women their existence. If these rules are violated, women would suffer serious beatings and can even be killed. Under a system where detestation of women is almost legal, incidence of rape and domestic violence became rampant.

Afghanistan is mainly known because of war so many had probably assumed than Afghan women has never experienced freedom and autonomy. However, as early as the 1920’s, there have already been movements initiated by Afghan women. In the 1970’s, Afghan had access to high degrees of education and some even held positions. Before Taliban took over Afghanistan, the women were nurtured by the law and their rights in the society are significantly improving. Under the Communist regime, women enjoyed the right to vote and gender quality was a provision under the constitution. As Afghanistan slowly became democratic, there was also an increasing room for acceptance for women. Women played an importantly role in the development of the country. In the 1970s, women comprised a significant part of the legislative body, the teachers, doctors, and government workers. They were also active in various relief efforts until the Taliban banned them from working. The Afghan women represented an enormous talent resource which played a significant role in the revival of Afghanistan after the Taliban period.

There is a great disconnect between what Islam stands for and what the Taliban has interpreted it to be. Islam had always placed the rights of women and children in high regard. In the Shari’a there are specific stipulations on the rights of woman. Provisions for marriage, divorce and owning a properly are carefully detailed. The Taliban’s version of Islam is something that is not recognized by the rest of the Muslims. Despite their claim that what they were doing benefitted women, the reality was that the Taliban have degraded women to the very bottom of the society, overlooked their health, and took away from them their right to learn and even practice their religion. What Taliban claimed has nothing to do with what most Muslims believe and with what Islam teaches.

The time when Afghanistan was under the Taliban is considered to be one of the worst violations of human rights. The Taliban had overpowered almost all sectors of the Afghan society and stripped them of their basic rights. However, what the Taliban had done to the Afghan women is still the most upsetting. Women were prisoners in their own homes and they did not have access to education and health care. Children did not even have the basic liberty of playing.

The takeover of Taliban marked two decades of political instability and way in Afghanistan. Many have hoped that they will bring peace to the country. This faith flew the moment they imposed an oppressive execution of the Shari’a. The war against Afghan women began by closing down universities and by banning all women from working. Many were forced to abandon their jobs. A very strict dress code was imposed and women were forbidden from going around the city. The Taliban also committed unforgivable acts of rape, forced marriage, and kidnappings. Many families were forced to send their daughters away to keep them from the Taliban.

During those times, there were almost no opportunities for the Afghan women. They could work on very limited and discrete situations. This is despite the fact that the women have significantly contributed to the development of the Afghan society. Because of the civil war, many women lost their husbands and relatives. Because they were not allowed to work, they have no means of livelihood. Most women were forced to sell their belongings, resorted to begging or even sold their bodies just to keep their families alive.

Restrictions in Health and Education

The right to education is acknowledged in international laws and instruments. Denying a woman to study could also mean denying her of a good future. This right did not hold during the Taliban regime. All women were denied of education. Home schooling was allowed to a minimal extent but it was very limited. Women were forbidden from entering the Kabul University. In essence, the Taliban’s policy on women’s education contained all forms of knowledge and instead propagated ignorance. By imposing such actions, the Taliban ensured that women will go down deeper into poverty and will not have the ability to contribute to society.

Women had also very limited access to medical services. Hence, many Afghan women were in danger of getting sick. Women’s access to medical services was met with difficulty. If a woman got sick and needed to taken to a hospital, she has to be checked fully clothed. Because of this, many were wrongly diagnosed and treated. The limited access to health care and services caused an increase in the mortality rates. Under the Taliban regime, Afghanistan had the second highest cases of death during childbirth. The lack of access to medical care also translated into a high mortality rater for the children. To this day, Afghanistan remains to have one of highest incidence of infant death.

Further degrading the health situation, the Taliban destroyed educational materials and anything that contributed to the awareness of the people. The end product is a society that suffered from illiteracy and with no access even to the most basic health needs. As a way of keeping women in their homes, the Taliban had ordered that windows of houses should be painted. In this manner, people outside the house will not see who is inside. These caused severe depression amongst the women and some even committed suicide.

Restriction in Movement

The Taliban have strictly enforced a dress code particularly in urban area. Women were required to cover themselves with burqa, a garment that hides a woman’s body from head to toe. Some burqa can be so thick that its wearer can encounter difficulty in breath. In the code imposed, women were only allowed to see through a very small mesh. The limited vision restricted their movement and brought dangers to them in many forms.

Afghan women have already worn burqa even before the Taliban took control. However, just the like the rest of the Muslims of the world, it was worn as matter of personal choice. The Taliban have enforced it strictly so that anyone who violated the code had to pay fines or even suffer beatings. An accidental exposure of the feet can prove to be very dangerous. There were also no exceptions to the code. Even women who were severely sick and those who were too young have to wear the burqa. What could have been piece of clothing that represents the pride of Muslims turned into something that imprisons them.

The burqa did only cause physical burden to the Afghan women but also money problems. Burqa can be costly and the economic situation prevented most women from affording one. There have been instances when a whole neighborhood had to share a single burqa. Women had to wait for their turn to wear the burqa before they can get out of their house. Women with disability were forced to stay home if they don’t have the ability to wear their burqa properly.

The dress code does not touch the aspect of clothing but also other forms of adornment. Women were forbidden from using make-up and other colorful accessories. White socks were banned and women were not allowed to wear shoes that would make in any noise. Despite following the dress code, there were still more rules that prevented women from moving around freely. They were only allowed to roam around if they were escorted by male relatives. If not, they could be beaten. Women were also forbidden from taking taxis with escorts. Both taxi driver and passenger would suffer punishment. There were special buses for women but these buses had their windows covered by thick curtains so the people on the street will not be also to see the passengers. If a woman is caught with a man, she can suffer lashes in front of many people. If a woman is married, she can be stoned to death. This is Taliban’s version of executing justice.

Abuse of Human Rights

The Taliban have claimed that what they were doing was a means of sustaining a society where women were safe and have dignity. However, in reality this was not the case. Dignity has been the very first thing that has been taken away from them. Women were forced by the circumstances to be rendered almost useless. Young girls did not have access to any form of schooling and health care. In some way, the Taliban have also taken way their childhood because they banned from playing with dolls and other toys.

The Shari’a promoted equal opportunities for both men and women to learn. It also stipulated their rights to work and perform their duties in the society. The Taliban’s impositions violated many of the standards of human rights. Among these rights violates are the right to work, freedom of expression, right to health care, right to assembly, and many others. The amount of violation experienced by the Afghan women had been so extensive it almost become threatening for most of them. Different Muslim societies have varying regards on the role of women in the society but nonetheless Islam recognizes that women should be respected and treated properly. The Taliban saw nothing of that.

The turmoil in Afghanistan has not only affected the country but also its neighbors as well. Millions of Afghanis have been displaced to neighboring countries such as Iran and Pakistan. Majority of the refugees are children and women.

Post-Taliban Afghanistan

The Taliban regime brought about an Afghanistan that is shaped by extreme practices, some which even violate the very laws of Islam. Taliban has claimed their impositions as mere interpretations of the Shar’ia but when carefully examined, they have used Shari’a as a means to repress women, restrict their freedom and abuse their rights. The long years of conflict and abuse have destroyed both Afghan men and women. The fear that developed among the people has significantly prevented efforts in advocating for respect for human rights.

After the fall of Taliban in 2001, hope rose among the Afghans and other sectors that the plight of the women in the country would gradually improve. In December 2001, the Bonn Agreement was established with the goal of restoring Afghanistan. Then secretary of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, said that true restoration of Afghanistan cannot be achieved without addressing the situation of the Afghan women. The interim government of Afghanistan also pledged to alleviate the violations that Afghan women had suffered under the hands of Taliban.

The Bom Agreement sparked international efforts to help Afghanistan to rise from the slums that Taliban has brought it into. Focus was especially given to women and children. A lot of efforts that would enable them to live again freely and securely have been initiated.

One of the most important realizations in this case is that the issue of women rights has been ignored for very long time. One of the most important focuses of the post-Taliban period is that women are an integral part of society and they are important in the policy-making process. Since then, there have been many pledges that promise to improve the situation of Afghan women. Several years after the agreement was passed, the question is whether there have any changes in the lives of the Afghan women.

There have been improvements in the treatment of Afghan women and the advancement of their rights. Several laws that promote gender equality have been passed. There have also been groups that actively advocates respect for women rights. The improvements made were considerable and if coupled with the proper support, it can mobilize greater movements for the advancement of women’s rights.

However, there are several factors that prevent Afghanistan from completely moving forward. Despite the fact the substantial amount of help has been extended to Afghanistan, it is still among the poorest nations in the world. Its socio-economic indicators are also disturbing. Society still remains to be unstable and there are still cases of women discrimination. Crimes are rampant and there are resistances to community development. These factors among others have hindered proper implementation of health care and other services.

Another problem is the inherent resistance of the Afghan women to empower themselves. This can be issue of lack of support or because the discrimination they have suffered from the Taliban have already been deeply engraved in their minds that they have already treated it as the norm. Under the Taliban, violence has already made up majority of their lives.

Conflicts that constantly plagued Afghanistan had also made indirect and directs effects on Afghan women. Apart from death and injury, women had become very afraid because of warfare, constant displacements, destruction of belongings, and limited access to basic human needs. These have prevented from easily reaching out to humanitarian efforts.

For most members of the Afghan society, the chance to enjoy their rights has been very limited. Because women have been deprived of education, they are not even aware of their rights. There are many things to learn from the case of Afghan women. Today, many women still remain powerless. They are constantly at the mercy of the society they belong to and they are treated as a commodity rather than as a human being. This is the very challenge that women are facing. Until violence against women has not been eliminated, peace in Afghanistan cannot be totally achieved.

Conclusion

It is necessary to break way from the formal definition of human rights and to look at the Taliban’s declaration of divine injunction itself. To not question such a contention is a violation itself of the rights of the Afghanistan women. The naive tolerance of Taliban’s assertion of Islam led them to believe that their version of Islam is authentic to a certain extent that even some of their allies abandoned them. By failing to question Taliban’s claim, the protection of women has been placed totally outside a reference, Islam, which should have been actually theirs to claim.

Taliban’s way of describing its rules as a mere interpretation of Islam is indicative of the more complex reality about the translation and execution of religious teachings, their inclusion in local practices, and the exploitation that results in trying to aver power. Despite repetitive references to Shari’a, the various prohibitions set by the Taliban do not in any way pertain to the absolute word of God but only to their political interests in their effort to assert themselves in Afghan society.

In tackling Taliban’s way of silencing its detractors by elevating respect for culture and religion, it is necessary to acknowledge that there are many ways of interpreting Islam. There is no definite body that claims to have the authority to disseminate laws that are applicable to all Muslims. Instead, different parts of the world have developed their laws based on their own interpretations of the Shari’a. In history, there have been disputes among the Muslims. The most notable is the separation of the Shi’a and Sunni after the death of Mohammed. But apart from the broad division, there still exists smaller unit of sects, traditions, and schools of thought.

Therefore, the Shari’a is not a rigid and unchallenged set of laws. Just like other body of regulations, it includes an array of standards and beliefs that will enable its followers to bend these principles into the needs of a situation. And though there are views that the Shari’a contains the ‘complete code of life’, in reality the lives of Muslims are not only shaped by these laws but also by culture and also personal choices. This is not only true for the Afghan society but also for the rest of the Muslims in the world.

The strict rules imposed by the Taliban are not the proper interpretation of the divine words contained in the Qur’an. It can be also deemed unfair to the Afghan people, both men and women, to raise the issue of Islam law versus human rights. It should not be the law of Islam but rather the worldly resolutions of the Taliban which favor military and personal power over the welfare of the women that should be criticized against the principles of universal human rights.

Every country is facing the environmental problems these days. It includes ozone depletion, global warming and loss of natural resources such as water, air, and other materials, and it also include the wildlife. Wildlife and forests are the very important part of every country, because it provides clean and fresh air. Everyone has same rights regardless human or non-human. I am raising the environmental issue which is on animal abuse, the violation of animal rights. It includes the abuse of drug testing, experiments, killing animals for food, and clothing. I am totally against the animal abuse, because it avoids the environmental ethics. We should have to be solving this problem in a unity. I want to write in the favour of animal rights.

Drug testing and experiments on animals

Every field of technology is growing very fast and for the sake of advancement they do hundreds of tests every month; it includes the field of architecture, engineering, manufacturing industry, and medical science. Ninety- four percent of animal testing is done to determine the safety of cosmetics and household products leaving only 6% for medical research. When scientists try to make advancements in the medical field, first of all they try on the animals which kill or harm different types of animals. For example, when doctors make new type of eye lens they try these lenses on the eyes of rabbit, because the eye retina of rabbit and human are same. If those lenses doesn’t effect on the eyes of rabbit then they launch in the market, but imagine when that experiment fails on the rabbit’s eyes it make him blind which ruins the life of that rabbit and also violates the animal rights. The blinding of rabbits to have a new kind of mascara is yet to be justified. In most of the medicines scientists include the bones powder of animals. Death during the experiments and testing considered unnecessary and are morally not different from murder. Animal dissection is regarded as misleading.

Killing of animals for food and religion celebration

People abuse the animals by eating and hunting them. I am totally against the non-vegetarians, and prefer to be a vegetarian. Thousands of animals killed every day to eat and for fun; it includes cow, chicken, goat, fish, deer etc. It’s like too selfish to kill someone and serve as a food for others. Animals have also emotions such as love, affection toward their families. Some studies prove that they also have same feelings like humans. Animals also suffer through pain, feelings, like physically or mentally. I saw many situations when people don’t show any mercy towards animals. For example, I watched a video clip where people cut the chicken legs and beak for their selfishness because they can`t walk and fed by siting on one place. Chicken grows faster as compare to normal situation. People kills different kinds of animals for special occasion such as parties, marriage ceremony that shows the cruelty of human and also speciesism Peter Singer argues on speciesism that animals do not deserve for rights or moral consideration simply because they are non-human, it is like similar as racism and sexism. I also want to say that every religion oppose the animal killing, but I saw on many religious occasions people killed animals and eat them and enjoy that day. To instance in Muslim culture, they kill animals for religious purpose which is against the animal rights. It is ridiculous for people when they killed someone and enjoy the day. All people who eat meat are murderers, because they pay money someone to kill them.

Usage of animals for wearable products and entertainment

People kill animals and use their skin for clothing or other wearable accessories. It is important to know which species are raised and killed on fur farms. Of the 31 million animals killed on fur ranches each year, about twenty-six million are mink and 4.5 million are fox. In addition, 250,000 chinchillas, 150,000 sable, 100,000 Fitch, 100,000 raccoon dogs (a separate species from the American raccoon), and a small number of lynx, bobcat, and nutria are fur farmed. Mink are very solitary creatures that spend a substantial portion of their day swimming in the water. This is an active species and does not adapt well to life in a cage. Hundreds of millions animal are skinning worldwide, and tortured to make the different type of products, like clothing, boots, etc. In every part of the world millions of cows killed to use as resources to produce leather products such as clothes, shoes or sofas. There are not only cows are used as to make clothing products, there are also some other species who skinned alive. For example, ducks and geese are also used to produce down and feathers, which are pulled off from their bodies. Many other animals are also used as a raw material for humans. They killed in the slaughter house. Crocodiles and snakes are also killed to make boots, handbags and jackets. If we think about the value of someone’s life it cannot be just a pair of boot or coat.

Finally, animals are also abused for entertainment. Hundreds of people say that Circuses are the good way to entertain them. But that people don’t know the truth that how animals are tortured during their training session. Animals are not well trained to entertain people by their birth; they are tortured by many nasty ways to learn the tricks which are used to entertain people. When they torture to the animals they use electric rods which give them electric shocks, they also use fire torches to burn the hairs from their skin. Actually when people are laughing on animals or on their tricks that they do in the circus show, animals are not enjoying at that time they just scared from people and their operators. Could you imagine this horrible position when someone trap to you and then he torture to you to do the tricks, and other people laugh on you. How ashamed animal feel when we laugh on them. It abuses the animals and violates the human rights.

A possible objection on my point of view is that to get advancements in the medical field, doctors have to do experiments on animals. Doctors are able to cure many diseases these days only because of those experiments they did on animals. If they stopped doing research on animals then we would not be able to find the medicines for new diseases, which can kill thousands of people too. When military people go on their operations, they have to kill animals to alive due to the shortage of food. Animals are a good source of energy. If anyone requires energy quickly then doctors suggest them to eat meat. Some people live high in the mountains, where they cannot plant crops. So, they have no option to live without meat. Clothing is also very important for those who lived in cold areas; they wear the fur of animals and prevent themselves from the winter season. So, they kill animals and make their suitable clothes. They mostly use the skins of animals. Circuses should be fine if trainer trained the animals without any torture. They should use or have to find the other ways to train them.

These are the responses on my objections; There should be some acts in every country to protect animal rights, for example according to United Kingdom animal act 1986 requires experiments to be regulated by three licences: a project licence for the scientist in charge of the project, which details the numbers and types of animals to be used, the experiments to be performed, and the purpose of them; a certificate for the institution to ensure it has adequate facilities and staff; and a personal licence for each scientist or technician who carries out any procedure. if doctors want to do the drug test on animals; they should keep in mind that these tests don’t affect animals. These tests should not kill or ruin the life of animal, if they affect it should be on minor stage which can cure after the test. Doctors should have to find the other minerals which can be used in medicines regarding the bones of animals. People should have to change their taste from non-vegetarian to become vegetarian. People who eat meat just for taste or for fun, they should have to stop eat meat. I can understand the condition of military people and they eat meat because of their situation, but not for fun or for taste. Clothing is also the same situation; people who live at high places and need fur to wear it should be fine for them, but people who can live without wearing furry clothes, they should oppose these clothes.

Conclusion

God has created this earth and gives the equal rights to everyone to live with freedom and it does not matter that he is human or non-human. But these days conditions to live on earth are becoming worse as compare to older time. As the population is increasing, forests are falling down to get the more space for humans so wildlife and animals are in danger. For example India’s agricultural land and forest are about to finish because of the population, so vegetables price is rising day by day and people are becoming non vegetarian. Animal killing for food is also against the animal rights, people should have to be vegetarian and they have to show mercy for animals. The use of animals for drug testing should be limited or should be in the favour of animals, means drug test should not harm animals in any way. People also have to oppose the leather material and reject to wear it. The training session of animals to do the tricks for circuses is very abusive and tortured. It should be banned in every country. Finally, I would like to say that all are born with equal rights on this earth, so show mercy and oppose the abuse of animals.

A religious group had brought an action to challenge new law which legalizes prostitution and brothels. The group views this development as fundamentally immoral and exploitative of women. Comparative views of the law within feminism.

Activist Chris Kramarae once remarked that “feminism is the radical notion that women are human beings.”Feminism, as a movement, is about women living on equal terms with men and not pushed down into a subservient role.

Feminism is broken down into three historical “waves”: First-wave feminism, which lasted from the 18th century until World War II, centred on securing basic civil rights, such as the right to vote; Second-wave feminism, from the end of World War II until the Equal Rights Amendment failed in the 1980s (a piece of legislation in America that was supposed to protect women’s rights in the workplace); and Third-wave feminism, which incorporates racial justice, and class oppression and seeks practical equality for all women. There are also different kinds of feminism, the most common being: Liberal feminism, which seeks equal rights through policy change but does not focus on cultural issues; Radical feminism, which seeks the abolition of gender as we know it; and Socialist feminism which suggests that capitalism along with patriarchy is responsible for the oppression of women and therefore seek to abolish these to prevent female oppression.

Feminist approaches to prostitution have shifted over the last ten or so years due to changing views on sexuality. Initially it was seen in a reductionist way but has now become a more understandable response to economic need within our consumer culture.

In liberal feminism, prostitution is seen as a private business transaction which the woman has entered into of her own free will. The transaction is just like any other in that when a professional is sought, such as a doctor or mechanic, you are not concerned in the person doing the professional work only their services.This is a view shared by Carol Pateman: ‘the prostitute is not really a wage labourer but rather an independent contractor who can start or stop a transaction.’

Radical Feminists feel prostitutes do not act out of free choice but they are victims of coercion. The radical view is far more emotional than Liberals and they see the woman as becoming a piece of ‘merchandise’and therefore there is no freedom within their contracts. They usually see prostitution as an exploitative relationship in which the customer is interested in the prostitute’s services.

Socialist feminism sees oppression of the women as having psychological and social roots. A prostitute is a victim of the corruption of a society which accompanies class distinctions. The oppression of class in a materialistic society degrades people by categorising them in a particular class. In both the socialist feminist and Marxist feminist perspectives prostitution is discouraged, but neither school seeks a remedy for its elimination. They believe the cause of prostitution is the structuring of society and this is how the problem will be solved.

Several leading feminists are opposed to prostitution as they argue it is not a conscious choice. Most women who become prostitutes do so because they were forced, or, when it is an independent decision, out of poverty, lack of opportunity, or due to serious underlying problems. Catherine MacKinnon points out women from the lowest socioeconomic classes are overrepresented in prostitution:”If prostitution is a free choice, why are the women with the fewest choices the ones most often found doing it?”She also argues”In prostitution, women have sex with men they would never otherwise have sex with. The money thus acts as a form of force…It acts like physical force does in rape.”Other experts also assert consent within prostitution is almost impossible: ‘For radical feminists this is because prostitution is always a coercive sexual practice. Others simply suggest that economic coercion makes the sexual consent of sex workers highly problematic if not impossible….’Furthermore, anti-prostitution groups feel that the long-term effects can be horrific as prostitution routinely exposes the women to psychological, physical and sexual violence. Such effects can be as severe as self harm and suicide.Andrea Dworkin, an ex-prostitute, stated: “Prostitution…is an abuse of a woman’s body. In prostitution, no woman stays whole. It is impossible to use a human body in the way women’s bodies are used in prostitution and to have a whole human being at the end of it…And no woman gets whole again later, after.”

Prostitution is also seen as a form of male-dominance over women. It is not a mutual and equal sex act; it puts the woman in a subordinate position, reducing her to an instrument of sexual pleasure. These feminists believe that many clients use the services of the prostitutes because they enjoy the “power trip” and the control they have. Catharine MacKinnon argues that prostitution “isn’t sex only, it’s you do what I say, sex.”These feminists believe that prostitution is harmful to society as it reinforces the idea that women are sex objects which exist for men’s enjoyment. Anti-prostitution feminists argue that when society accepts prostitution, it sends the message that it is acceptable for a man to engage in sexual activity with a woman who does not enjoy it and who is mentally and emotionally forcing herself in order to be able to cope; the normalisation of this may negatively affect the way men relate to women and might increase sexual violence against women.

However, there are groups of feminists that do not agree; these pro-sex feminists see it as being a positive experience in using independence to make a decision to engage in prostitution. Many of these feminists argue that the act of selling sex need not be exploitative; but that attempts to abolish prostitution lead to an abusive climate for sex workers that must be changed. This perspective has led to the rise since the 1970s of an international sex workers’ rights movement, comprising organizations such as COYOTEand the International Prostitutes Collective to name only two.

An important argument advanced by pro-sex work feminists such as Carol Queen highlights that feminists who are critical of prostitution have failed to consider the viewpoints of women who are themselves engaged in sex work, choosing instead to base their arguments in theory and outdated experiences.Pro-sex worker perspectives are also suspicious of the logic behind the arguments of anti-prostitution feminists, often believing such feminists to be basing their arguments on outdated notions of sexuality that existed to constrain sexual practice and regulate the behaviour and sexual expression of women.Jill Nagle considers this to be part of a binary construction of women’s’ identity as being a ‘good girl’ or ‘bad girl’, a notion she believes we must undermine.

There are many feminists whose views on prostitution do not fit in either the anti-prostitution feminist or the sex-positive feminist viewpoints. They feel both view points as unproductive and bitter debate. Such authors highlight that allowing arguments to be reduced to stale analysis and theoretical debate, feminists are contributing to marginalisation of prostitutes, simplifying the nature of the work they carry out and personal circumstances that involve each individual.Feminist scholar Laurie Shrage has also criticised the haphazard nature of feminist views on prostitution. She claims that ‘pro-sex feminists have advocated a reckless deregulation of laws surrounding prostitution, without considering the implications that this may have, particularly given the nature of the sex trade, which is more likely to be plagued by exploitation and poor working conditions.’

As a matter of legal rule if someone has committed an offence, such as prostitution, they will be offered the same protection that someone whom has not committed an offence would be. However, developments in rape lawhave not been extended to protect sex workers. It has been suggested that women within the industry do feel they cannot make a police complaint as they will not be taken seriously due to their job and only feel that with specialist organisations they can successfully make a complaint without fear of prejudice. This also lead to suggestion that criminal prosecution should be removed from sex workersThere has also been an assertion of unionisation within the industry to ensure the workers were adequately protected.However, what of those workers who do not sign up to a union, or those who cannot afford to comply with union regulation requirements? Furthermore, what of the workers who ‘go alone’? They may not want to or afford to to sign up to a union and as such would put themselves in danger. This suggestion is somewhat flawed as there will still be some that would not comply with the regulations; as there are those who do not comply with the laws we have.

Current legislation seeks to punish the provider rather than the buyer and there is a lack of clarity within the law. For example a girl over 13, but under 16, can be charged with soliciting even though she cannot give lawful consent. However, there is a shift beginning to occur clients can now be prosecuted for the offence of kerb crawling.It should be noted by feminists and other groups when stating that the whole prostitution system needs to be outlawed that they are subjecting women to stigmas should they need to undertake this kind of work during their lives, as after two cautions a woman can be defined in law as a common prostitute.This kind of stigma has long-term effects on equal opportunities when seeking employment out of this sector of work, and despite three attempts to remove the term it still remains.This suggests that there needs to be some intervention within the legal system in order to protect women on leaving the industry.

Since reviews by the Home Office in 2004 and 2006, there has been a lenient stance taken on sex-workers in that there are some permissible activities allowed within an indoor environment. This has encouraged more ‘safe’ environments for sex work and has allowed effective policing of street based work; whereby the courts can now compel a woman caught soliciting to undertake a rehabilitation course to quit the street based work.This suggests that gone are the 19th century views that prostitution should be wholly illegal, to a more open view that prostitution is part of society and, rather than punishing those who work within the industry, the government should seek to protect those who do by tighter rules and regulations.

There was suggestion of licensing brothels; however this notion did not pass on the grounds that those who were not willing to comply would be pushed into an illegal section. The second reason was that the changes may lead to expansion of the industry;which the government does not want as England is not a country that is seen as a sexual capital, unlike the likes of Amsterdam which promotes its industry on a shop front level.

There have been several debates in the UK surrounding the laws that centre around whether we should follow the Netherlands, Germany or New Zealand and tolerate prostitution, or whether the country should make it illegal to pay for sex, like Sweden, Norway and Iceland. In 2006, the government raised the possibility of loosening the laws and allowing small brothels in England and Wales, but in the end this was abandoned, after fears that such establishments would bring pimps and drug dealers into residential areas. After this, government ministers suggested that rather than permitting mini-brothels, they would like to tackle the “demand side” and make it illegal to pay for sex.In Scotland, there was A Prostitution Tolerance Zones Bill introduced, however it failed to become law. Instead, the Parliament passed the Prostitution (Public Places) (Scotland) Act 2007 which leaves the law relating to prostitutes unchanged but introduces a new offence committed by their clients.Prior to the end of 2001, Edinburgh operated a tolerance zone system for prostitutes which seemed to produce positive affects in that crimes against the workers were in fact reported to the police. Since the zero-tolerance came in after December 2001, this figure fell and fewer crimes are being reported; thus having a negative impact on the safety and well-being of the women.

In Germany women can seek clients within specific zones and even have to charge VAT and pay tax to the government on their earnings; thus making it much like any other business, however it has been claimed that any unemployment benefits maybe reduced should a woman not take a job as a prostitute.In the Netherlands prostitution is common place and with Amsterdam’s red light district; it is expected. However, the government do feel their liberal attitudes are causing a problem and the industry is too large and, despite introducing licenses, they are now having to crack down on prostitution as it is leading to other more serious crimes such as drug trafficking.New Zealand sex-work laws are some of the most liberal, prior to 2003, prostitution was governed by the Massage Parlours Act 1978, which allowed some indoor prostitution under a facade; indoor sex workers were required to be registered with the police. Advertising the sale of sex (‘soliciting’), running a brothel, and living from the earnings of prostitution were illegal. These laws were changed by the Prostitution Reform Act, which was passed in June 2003. Again however, there has been serious knock of affects from this liberalist attitude and it has caused high numbers of related crimes against the prostitutes.

In contrast, from 1999 in Sweden it is illegal for the client to buy the services but not for the prostitute to offer them. The Swedish Government has adopted an official position that prostitution is a form of violence against women and should be eliminated by reducing demand; a view that socialist feminists would agree with.The same laws have also been adopted by Norway and Iceland in 2009.

If we were to legalise prostitution and give it employment status, it would be tough to apply employment laws that we have nowto sex workers. The laws we have are triggered by the ’employee’ status and are separate from an ‘independent contractor.’ The difference between the two is a fine line,often workers are categorised as being independent contractorsto avoid the laws surrounding employee status. This is something that, should new legalisation law be passed, would need to be addressed to protect prostitutes from abuse by their employers. This is currently being sought by the English Collective of Prostitutes and WHIP in England to ensure all labour laws apply to the sex workers as well as the average worker.

Sex work has been around for hundreds of years in some shape or form. Whilst I do not believe that full legalisation is the way to go, I also cannot see that total criminalisation is the way forward either. I believe, from comparative laws that have been trialled or are in force, some kind of regulation would be the best way forward so as to protect not only the common man, but also the sex worker. Feminism does indeed support a broad spectrum of views within the sex industry; from one of total defiance(radical) to one of support(liberal). I feel that the socialist feminist approach provides the best insight into law reforms in that to aid the problems and crimes that prostitution and brothels may cause, we need to address the class background within society and a good way to do this would be to regulate brothels and prostitutes to provide better working conditions for those who choose to undertake the work; so as to raise their status within society to prevent the current ‘dirty’ image the places and the people involved are set out to be. However, there must be caution taken when providing such laws, as has been shown within Amsterdam, as it may lead to an over-subscribed employment area and lead to expansion. Government needs to work with pro-sex work groups and see what they feel the best way is to protect the women within the work as they can get to those whose views are vital. Feminism has helped pass several laws in the past so I feel that working with the ‘middle of the road’ opinion individuals will seek to provide a fair solution to the law relating to this area that ensures that women are not exploited and they are protected.

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